Chapter 5
Aline of multiple heads of pink, purple, blue, green, red, and yellow greet us as me and a dozen girls walk into the training room.
Some of the males have blotchy tanned faces while others have tanned arms and necks. But each one of them looks hilarious.
Laughter sprinkles throughout the room as the girls notice them, while the males outright glare at each one of us with a promise of retribution in their eyes.
My gaze follows the males along the wall but not one of my mates are here.
Maybe they took my advice and left? The thought alone makes my heart drop.
The room is half the size of a school gym with a double-open door at the back revealing another, smaller room.
I pass dozens of blue mats that are spread out throughout the large room as I follow the girls to over to the rainbow of males. Ember keeps a good few feet between us and them, but if looks could kill, we’d all already be dead a few dozen times over.
“Jeremy,” Ember says to the blue haired male closest to us. She dips her head to him in greeting but with a glint of glee in her eyes. “Looking good.” She makes a show of inspecting him from head to toe. “But I think you missed a few spots.” She smirks. “Blue really isn’t your color.”
He gives her an evil grin. “Payback’s a bitch, Em.”
“And so are you, but here we are,” she shrugs.
Jeremy shakes his head, not too bothered by her words or the Smurf look he’s got going on.
“And who’s this?” he says glancing around Ember to me.
Ember stiffens. “New recruit.”
“Welcome, if you need anything—”
“She’s the one that came up with the new look you all have,” Ember tells him cutting off whatever he was about to say. His smile drops as he narrows his eyes on me making me laugh.
His smile quickly reappears and he opens his mouth to say something, but an older male walks into the room, gaining everyone’s attention.
The older male only makes it a few feet in when his eyes flicker up and he stops dead in his tracks. His mouth curls upward before he quickly covers it by clearing his throat and donning a serious expression.
“We only have a few weeks left until the team flag competition,” the instructor says. “It’s time to get to work.”
I lean closer to Ember. “Flag competition?”
“Mid-year exam. We’re sent out in groups in the mountains to find hidden flags. The team with the most flags wins.”
Sounds easy enough. “What happens if we don’t pass?” I ask wondering what the catch is.
Ember frowns at me. “You don’t win,” she says like it should be obvious. If it was the Shadow academy, we’d probably be thrown into the Void.
I’m starting to see just how toxic the Shadow Academy really was in comparison to this place. I hope my mates see it too… if they haven’t already left.
“Everyone, warm up. Five laps around the room before we start,” he orders and the line of males gets moving. As they make way, we follow.
The room isn’t as big as the training fields and wide-open spaces the instructor in the Shadow Academy forces us to run, so I’m able to keep up without getting tired too easily.
A few minutes pass before the instructor calls out again. “Team up in twos,” he orders, and Ember pulls me over to a mat while Remi and Maia pair up.
Ember moves in front of me and sizes me up. “I hope you can fight,” she says before lowering her voice. “Little Alita.”
I narrow my eyes on her making her smirk.
She moves fast attempting to knock me off my feet, but I quickly avoid her little move before showing her one of my own.
She takes the hit to the side and gives me a smile, a real one this time. “So you can actually fight?”
“Don’t the other Alita train?” I ask quietly while keeping my guard up. She’s a good fighter. But I can see it in her eyes—she’s holding back.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m surprised they know how to walk at this stage. The Shadows here are very protective of them to the point of being stupid.”
“How old are they? Levington said I was the youngest they found,” I ask while quickly glancing around, making sure no one is overhearing us. But they’re all too busy focusing on their sparring session.
“Not that old. A few years older than you. Sasha is probably only a year or two older than you.” She moves lightning fast and tries to catch me off-guard, but I see the move before she makes it and dodge out of her way before coming up behind her and knocking her on her ass.
She gets to her feet, and I spot the look that tells me she’s not going to hold back anymore.
A thrill of excitement rushes through me and I start to enjoy myself as we both let go and just let out whatever frustrations we’re both holding onto. She manages to get in a couple of hits, and I do too.
By the time the training class ends, we’re both staring up at the ceiling, sweaty and exhausted but with wide smiles on our faces.
Remi and Maia come over to help us up and we head for the showers.
I quickly strip out of my sweaty clothes and get in, letting the cold water run for a moment to cool down my sweaty body before turning it warmer.
All the tension from my tight muscles slowly unravels as I stand there and think about nothing other than how it feels. Quickly washing my hair and then body, I reach for more soap when frustrated groans ring out around me making me pause.
“What the—”
“Where are my clothes gone? They were right here.”
Shit. I stop the water and open the shower stall door.
Ember, Maia, Remi and a couple of other girls are barely covered in small towels or completely naked searching through all the lockers that look to be wide open.
“They took our clothes, didn’t they?” I ask while mentally kicking myself for not thinking they’d do something this soon. Considering I was going to do something similar to them, I should have thought of it.
“Yep. Looks like we’re walking to our dorm’s commando style,” Remi says not bothered by it at all. “Nice tattoos,” she says glancing down at my sides.
I freeze for a moment, completely forgetting about my mate markings when her words hit me. She thinks they’re just tattoos. And from the looks of it, the others do too.
The jolt of panic that rushed through me thinking they’d figure out all my secrets loosens its hold and the tension slowly seeps from my body.
Maia holds onto the small towel with a frown as she considers whether to cover her bottom part or top. “Fuck. They’re probably all waiting outside for us to do our walk of shame.”
Three of the girls shrug and make a run for it. A couple of minutes later, loud whistles sound out from farther down the hall.
So they are waiting for us outside. Damn it.
“Fucking pervs,” Maia mutters shaking her head.
Ember walks over to the bench in front of one of the rows of lockers and climbs on top of it. She reaches a hand up and feels around for a minute before standing on her tippy toes and smiling to herself.
She pulls her hand back revealing a small pile of clothes. “Yes!”
“I put these here first year after the prank they pulled in the gym.” She gets down and throws on a denim skirt and white top before handing Maia and Remi the rest.
Remi throws on a short blue dress while Maia takes the long tee and shorts.
They all look to me and pause with a wince. But Maia hands her small towel to me. “It’s fine, I’ll go get you some clothes and bring them back.”
I nod and take her towel and wrap it around my waist using my hair tie to keep it together.
They head out with a wave and promise from Maia to be back as soon as possible with clothes.
A couple of minutes later, sounds of boos instead of whistles reach me, making me smile.
After a few more minutes of waiting, I start to worry that the girls have decided to pull some newbie haze on me and just left me here.
I make my way over to the door and peek outside.
All of the other girls are gone. Maybe the men are all gone too having already assumed there’s no one left?
It’s not that far from here to the female dorms either. Technically, I could make a run for it.
Stepping back inside, I fix the small towel I made into a short skirt with a wide slit and position my arm to cover my breasts.
Just as I take a step outside of the room, a large body blocks my path, and I glance up to find Knox glaring down at me.
His heated gaze trails lower to where my arm covers my breasts, and his eye darken. “If anyone had seen you like this…” He clenches his jaw. “I would have gouged their fucking eyes out,” he growls. “And that’s before I end their miserable little lives.”
His eyes don’t leave where my arm is, so I decide to see how far I can push him and drop it.
He freezes and swallows hard. “Fuck,” he whispers, his gaze scorching a path across my chest and down my stomach.
I don’t even see him move but before I know it, he has me up against the wall as his lips slam down on mine.
I guess he’s not too angry with me after all. The thought alone makes me melt into him, sliding my hands up to his face and into his hair before curling my fingers into it.
He runs his tongue over my lips, teasing me before sucking my bottom lip into his mouth.
“Sena,” he rasps.
My skin prickles as he deepens the kiss, each stroke and caress a promise of what’s to come.
I swirl my tongue around his, and a throaty groan rumbles from his chest.
His hands slip up my back and I arch into him, feeling his whole-body shiver and he pauses and slows the kiss with a throaty groan.
He presses his forehead to mine, his breaths ragged, before he slowly lets me go and drags his body away, staring at me like he’s contemplating all the dirty little things we can do.
But then he shakes his head, as if shaking the thought away, and whips off his white tee before placing it over my head and letting it fall down to my waist.
I put my hands through the arms and pull the tee down further to wear like a short dress and glance up to find him staring at it. Or rather my body.
“See something you like?” I ask, wondering just how far I can push him right now.
He stares at me like he doesn’t know whether to strangle or fuck me. I’m hoping he does the latter but instead he curses before shaking his head as if shaking away the little daze he seems to be under. “Come on, I’ll drop you off at your dorm.”
I pout thinking we were starting to get somewhere, and he has the audacity to fucking laugh at me.
We walk out of the building and start making our way across to the dorms. There isn’t another single soul out anymore even though it’s not that late.
I glance over at Knox to find him wearing an expression that says he’s hoping there’s someone around he can take his frustrations out on, and I realize his aura alone is probably scaring them away.
I open my mouth to try to talk to him, but he stops, and I realize we’re already outside my dorm building.
I swallow hard, feeling nothing but nerves now. “Knox…. Can we talk?”
“You had plenty of time to talk to us,” he says making my heart drop.
I bite my lip. “I was scared.”
He releases a harsh breath and turns to me. “We’re your mates. If you’re scared to tell us something this fucking big, we have a problem.”
He’s right… but I’d never had anyone I could trust growing up. Anyone I was stupid enough to let in always fucked me over, so I learned my lesson the hard way.
They all knew me more than anyone else did. But I guess they didn’t know that either. He doesn’t know me. None of them really do.
“So what now?” I ask him, a little afraid to hear his reply.
“We need time,” he says and my stomach twists into knots.
Time… Time to think... time to put more distance between us. I blink back the blur in my eyes and nod.
“Get some sleep,” he says effectively ending the conversation, so I turn and force my legs to move inside.
After a moment, I pause and chance a glimpse over my shoulder, hoping he’s still there, but he’s already turned around and making his way across to his own dorm.
The sliver of hope that I had shrivels up and dies there and then.
“I miss you,” I whisper into our bond, knowing he won’t hear it before mentally kicking myself for being so weak.
I head inside just as Maia and the girls come out into the main room. Maia has a small pile of clothes in her hand, making something inside me warm.
I guess they weren’t going to haze me after all.
They look up and spot me, stopping in their tracks.
“Who gave you their tee?” Remi asks.
“Who else,” Ember rolls her eyes. “It was obviously one of her companions.”
“Lucky girl,” Remi says with a smile before turning serious. “But if they get in the way of prank week, they’re going down with the rest of them.”
“Agreed,” I say. I get that I hurt them by keeping this secret. I get that it’s fucking weird and hard to understand. But to completely shut me out and show up when they decide and only on their terms is not something I’m going to go along with.
“Now let’s figure out how we’re going to get them back for this,” Ember says with an evil little grin that makes me smile.