Chapter 28 #2
"Just curious how long you think that lasts." She tilts her head and her blonde ponytail swings. "Once he realizes you're not worth the trouble?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Her smile turns vicious and something ugly flashes in her eyes.
"I meant you're a manipulative little bitch who spreads her legs for anyone with power.
" The girls beside her laugh but there's something brittle underneath.
Desperation. Fear. "Did you really think sleeping your way into protection would work? That we wouldn't see through it?"
The accusation stings but I don't let it show. My hands want to curl into fists but I force them to stay loose at my sides. "If you have a problem with Caspian's decision, take it up with him. Not me."
I start to walk past her and she grabs my arm. Her nails dig in through my sleeve hard enough to leave a mark. Her wolf is right there beneath her skin, bristling with rage and territorial fury. I can smell it on her, the sharp scent of barely leashed violence.
"He was supposed to be mine," she hisses, voice low enough the other students won't hear. "We've been promised since we were children. And you think you can just show up and take him?"
I look at her hand on my arm, then at her face. "Let go."
"Or what? You'll run to your Alpha for protection?" She's shaking now, control fracturing. "He's not your Alpha. He's mine. He'll always be mine."
"Sera." One of the other girls touches her shoulder. "People are watching."
She releases me and steps back, chest heaving like she's been running. Her nails press into her palms. The scent coming off her sharpens to something acrid, something that makes the back of my neck prickle. Wanting to rip into me for touching what she considers hers.
I could say something cruel, could twist the knife. Instead I just walk past her into the dining hall and leave her standing there with her carefully constructed world crumbling around her.
Inside, the noise doesn't quite stop when I enter but it shifts. Conversations pause mid-word. Heads turn. Everyone knows.
I grab food I don't want and find an empty table near the windows. For the first time since arriving at this Academy, no one bothers me while I eat. No one even approaches.
It's not respect. It's fear of consequences. I'm untouchable now because touching me means answering to Caspian.
I should feel triumphant. Instead I just feel tired.
Knox appears and drops into the seat across from me without asking permission. He's wearing his usual dark clothes, hair slightly damp like he just showered. There's a fresh bruise on his jaw that wasn't there yesterday.
"How's it feel? Being claimed."
"I'm not claimed." I stab at my eggs without looking at him. "I'm under protection."
"Tell yourself that." His pale eyes hold amusement. "But they all see it. You're his now. Officially."
"It's political."
"Is it?" He leans back in his chair and I can feel him studying me. "Caspian doesn't do anything halfway. Once he decides he wants something, he takes it. And he's decided he wants you."
I finally look up at him. "How do you know?"
"Because I've known him since we were kids. And I've never seen him claim protection over anyone before." Knox glances around the dining hall. Students still watching. Still whispering. "Everyone knows you're under Jett Pack protection now. That changes things."
"How?"
"You have status. Power by association. No one's going to fuck with you because fucking with you means challenging him.
" Knox's voice drops and there's something darker in it now.
"But it also means you're his in their eyes.
His responsibility. His future mate. Whether you've claimed each other or not doesn't matter to them. "
I want to argue but he's right. Caspian made a public statement and everyone interpreted it the same way. This is a claiming in everything but the final act.
The bond I feel toward Knox pulses between us and I see his jaw tighten. He feels it too. The pull. The recognition. His wolf wanting what Caspian is taking publicly.
Julian enters through the faculty entrance and my bond with him pulls tight. Our eyes meet across the dining hall for just a second but it's enough. I feel his emotions flood through the connection before he locks them down.
Jealousy. Sharp and cutting like broken glass. Seeing me publicly acknowledged as Caspian's while our relationship stays hidden in shadows.
Acceptance. Because he knows this was necessary for my survival, knows Chase was closing in and I needed armor.
Possessiveness. Because I'm his mate first, his bond complete, his claim already etched into my soul even if no one else knows it.
The conflicting emotions make my chest ache. I want to go to him, touch him, remind him that Caspian's public claim doesn't erase what we have. But I can't. Not here. Not in front of hundreds of watching students.
He looks away first and moves toward the faculty table. Professional. Distant. Like I'm just another student and not the female whose body he knows intimately, whose pleasure he's wrung from her in secret darkness.
The inequality burns. Julian has to hide while Caspian can claim me openly. It's not fair.
But life isn't fair.
Knox watches the exchange with too-knowing eyes. "Complicated," he observes.
"You have no idea."
"I have some idea." He stands and I notice again the fresh bruise on his jaw. Someone hit him recently and it wasn't me. "Word of advice? Don't fight what's coming. You'll just make it harder on yourself."
"What's coming?"
But he's already walking away, disappearing into the crowd like he does. Leaving me with the cryptic warning and no answers.
I sit alone at my table, surrounded by students who won't approach, protected by an Alpha who wants to own me, bonded to a professor who has to pretend I don't matter.
Everything changed overnight. I have status now, borrowed from Caspian's claim.
I have armor against Chase and the shield against the Council I desperately needed.
But the armor comes with chains.
I can feel them already. The weight of expectations. The assumption that I'm Caspian's in more than just protection. The way Julian has to hide while Caspian can claim me openly, the inequality burning between us through our bond.
I needed this protection. The shield against Chase, against the Council hunting me. But I also just handed Caspian leverage over me that he's going to use. Soon. I can feel it building between us like pressure before a storm.
The bond wants completion. My wolf recognizes him as mate, wants him to claim me as Julian already has. And now that I'm under his protection, now that everyone sees me as his, the final step feels inevitable.
I want him. That's the truth I can't deny anymore.
I want his hands on me, his mark on my throat, his body claiming mine.
The way he looked at me in the Dominion meeting, hand wrapped around my throat possessively, that moment is burned into my memory.
The heat in his eyes. The promise in his touch.
But wanting and being ready aren't the same thing. Am I ready for what claiming means? For everyone knowing? For the permanence of it?
I don't know.
But ready or not, it's coming.