Page 14 of Heartless

“They better not,” I replied, more growly than usual, and she raised her brows at me. “No more glimpses of your wolf? I was sure she’s come out for the Frost Moon.”

“No,” I dropped my gaze, but didn’t have to worry about her scenting a lie. Because while Callum had forced me to shift into my other form, it wasn’t the green-eyed wolf I’d once dreamed of meeting. “No wolf.”

My hand strayed to the bracelet in my pocket, and I could feel the imprint of each little charm burned into my fingers. A wolf, a bear and a cat. Why had my grandmother given it to me? Was there some significance to the three animals? The wolf I could understand, but a bear? As the cat charm rolled across my palm, I had to fight a shiver. It wasn’t a cute little housecat, but something big and muscular, like a panther. Given my recent reveal, I couldn’t deny it was the most appropriate animal for me, but was that just a coincidence? Or did my grandmother know something, and was sending a message for me alone?

Marnie was studying me with a look of concern, and I realized I was biting hard on my lip. Any other girl would demand to know what had put that look on my face, but she just gave me a sympathetic smile. “Well, tell me more about Darkness. Is he as mysterious as his name sounds?”

I snorted, relaxing into memories of my foster brother. Mysterious? No. Both Darkness and his dad were straight-forward to the point of being blunt. But like a lot of mountain-bred people, they were also honest and loyal. For a long time they’d been my whole world, and while we had less than a lot of other people, I’d never once felt like I’d gone without. So I spent the next hour telling her about all the good times, and then just as long again telling her about the times they’d both driven me crazy. When I ran out of stories, we exchanged a hug, agreeing to meet again the next day for lunch, and headed off to our beds.

My footsteps grew heavier the closer I got to the alpha floor. Even though Marnie was now the same rank, her dorm was a floor below, in the Marshall wing. The top floor of the building housed only the most elite shifters, including the alphasons. In recognition of their oversized egos, everything was way better in this part of the school, with plush carpet and silk wallpaperthat was a lot like the fancy hotel in Huntington. I’d once taken all the luxury as a sign I didn’t belong. But now I knew I was excluded from this rich bubble for a different reason, and as I stepped out of the elevator, I squeezed the little cat charm tight between my fingers.

But well before I could reach Callum’s door, I stopped dead at the sight of Jasper and Reed. Their rooms were directly opposite one another, and they filled their doorways as they stared across the hall. Reed was sweaty, dressed in loose pants and a tank like he’d just come in from a run. Jasper had a cardboard box under his arm and I remembered him saying he was moving back to the floor. At the time I’d felt like the walls were closing in around me, but that was before Cyril Long’s warning and the plan I’d set in motion with Darkness. Now I knew my time here was drawing to an end. And since I suspected these last few days would crawl by like a herd of turtles, I had no intention of spending them chained to Callum Sawyer’s bed.

As if summoning him with black thoughts alone, his door popped open and the devil’s head poked out. He was shirtless, his hair a tousled wreck, but when his lazy gaze met mine, something sharpened in its dark depths. I immediately turned to Jasper. “Can I come in?”

If the hallway was tense before, the plush carpet now felt like it carried a static charge. But Jasper stepped back so quickly, the contents of his box almost flew out of his hands, and I edged past him into his room. No soundproofing, since I could hear a few terse words exchanged at my back, but Jasper didn’t hang around to argue. Instead, he closed the door with a firm click and led me over to the sofa. He dropped the box on the coffee table, but neither of us sat, his eyes pinned to my face as I took in his room.

When I thought of those brief, perfect days when we were together, it was always against the backdrop of the rose cottage. It had started out as a safe haven after the nightmare of the pack lab, but had grown into a place of happy memories. Of pizza nights with the girls and long mornings in the cocoon of his bed. But the last time I’d been in this room, Marnie and I had come to interview Jasper for a school project. We’d been ambushed by all three alphasons, Marnie forced to crawl from the room like a whipped dog. Jasper had held me in his arms, but only to restrain me through an interrogation about Trey Barakat. As I looked around, I realized the walls were freshly painted, and all the furniture was brand new. Even the layout of the room had changed, switched up enough that it felt like a different place altogether.

“I wanted to be near you,” he said, “but I don’t want you to think of me like that.”

“Like what?”

“The kind of male who’d invite you into an ambush.”

I nodded slowly, my foot dragging over the brand-new rug. I didn’t think of him that way, not really. We’d covered a lot of ground since then, but I wasn’t ready to tell him that. Jasper might have swung from bully to protector, but a lack of trust had always been at the root of our problems.

Did I trust him now? Taking a deep breath, I perched on the arm of the chair, and after a moment he sank onto the cushion beside me. He was close enough to touch, but I was more interested in the fact I was looking down on him, a position most dominant males would object to. But according to Jasper, his wolf was playing a different game entirely. “Is your wolf back?”

Something flashed in his eyes, but it wasn’t the metallic sheen of the alpha. “Nope. Guess I’m still in the doghouse.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “Is that dangerous for you?”

“It’s… a complication. The alpha challenges have stopped, but if the Denners attacked again, it wouldn’t be good.” He shrugged. “If it came to that, I have to believe my wolf wouldn’t leave me hanging.”

I knew that feeling. Or at least, I’d believed for a while that my green-eyed wolf was lurking somewhere under my skin, ready to spring free if I needed her. But the only thing the Denner attack had brought out was my feline side. I shivered now, but I couldn’t stand being in Callum’s jacket a moment longer, and shrugged out of it, dropping it on the floor at my feet. I didn’t think how that would look to Jasper, until I turned and found him raking me with his eyes. The alpha gold might have been missing, but they still glowed with a fiery heat. Although I watched it dim a little as he took in Reed’s sweatshirt. “I don’t have any of my clothes,” I told him, folding my arms across my chest. “I haven’t been back to Omega House, and the rest of my things are at Reed’s.”

He was already reaching for the cardboard box he’d brought in. I watched as he carefully pulled out a pale gray lump, unwrapping the material to reveal a small picture frame. He placed it carefully on the table and I was distracted by the image of two small boys wrestling in a pile of red and gold leaves, until Jasper pressed the gray lump into my hands. The faded logo of the Ridgemont Ravens stared up at me and it only took a moment to realize it was Darkness’ old football hoodie. The same one I’d worn to bed when I first arrived at the academy. “Where did you find this?”

“You left it in my room.” When I glanced around, he grimaced. “At the rose cottage, I mean. The rest of your things are over there.” He pointed to my old duffel bag, which was sitting on the floor by his bedroom door. “Everything else from the cottage is boxed up. I asked Nadia, but she wasn’t sure if you still wanted them…”

I had a flashback to the closet in the rose cottage, stuffed full with more beautiful clothes than I’d ever seen outside of a magazine. We’d had fun trying them on before the Hunter Moon Formal, but from my blurry memories of that night, most of the dresses had ended up torn to bits under his lieutenants’ claws. “Thanks,” I had to swallow hard to get the word out. “Do you think I could… wash up here?”

“Of course.” He got smoothly to his feet, that whole higher ground thing reversed as he towered over me. He was in a black sweater and gray pants, which might have looked like an alternative school uniform if he didn’t fill them out like a Clan Alpha.

Not that he’d ever been anything short of stunning to my senses. The first time I’d met him, he’d drawn my gaze like a sunrise. He’d been the Arras Alphason then, with only a fraction of the power and status he had now, but to my dazzled eyes he’d seemed too perfect to be real. Turning into a wolf had almost made sense, because how could any normal guy look the way he did?

I dragged my gaze away, going to my duffel for clean underwear and a pair of sleep shorts. Keeping my back to Jasper, I carefully transferred my parents’ picture and Darkness’ letter to the side pocket. No matter how good it felt to be here, with Jasper only a few feet away, I needed to remember it was fleeting. Darkness would be here on Friday, and then whatever was between us would finally be put to bed.

Which was a bittersweet thought, especially since I was standing in the doorway to his bedroom. He made a sound behind me – something between a groan and a purr – but I was already moving across his room to his ensuite. He mustn’t have slept in the bed yet, because his sunshine smell was faint, and I felt a little more clear-headed when I’d closed the bathroom door. Stripping out of my well-worn clothes, I rolled them into a tight bundle and stepped into his shower. Hot water sluiced over my cold limbs and I plunged under the flow, trying not to dwell on the fact my shampoo was on his shelf. Or the way his loofah reminded me of another shower stall, and the hard ridges of his naked body moving under my soapy fingers…

A shock of cold water got me back on track, and I quickly rinsed off and hopped out. When I’d dressed and towel-dried my hair, I took a deep breath and opened the door. I was half-expecting Jasper to be sitting on his bed, but the clatter of dishes drew me back into the front room. The small dining table was set, a candle burning between two steaming bowls and a basket of hot buttered rolls. My stomach contracted painfully at the smell, but it was the sheepish look on Jasper’s face that nudged my heart. “It’s just chicken soup. I could have ordered in from the dining hall, but this was quicker.”

“Soup is perfect,” I told him, and settled into the seat, a little bemused as he draped a napkin on my lap and poured a glass of iced tea. It wasn’t like I’d never had a guy serve up a meal before. Even though manners hadn’t been high on Driftwood’s priorities, he’d always shared the kitchen duties equally between us. But as an alphason, Jasper would have had eager omegas buzzing around him since birth. And the little divot in his brow suggested he was working through some kind of mental checklist before he finally settled into his own seat. “This is delicious,” I told him as we both dug in. “I can’t remember the last time I ate without my stomach cramping.”

It was a stupid thing to say, because the pleasure he was taking in watching me eat instantly dissolved. “Because of the collar?”

I gave an awkward shrug. Sin had said that feeling sick was a side-effect of suppression, but that was when she thought it was my wolf who was trapped. Who knew what having a cat clawing at your insides did to your appetite? “I just meant, this is exactly what I needed. And thanks. I didn’t come in here so you’d feed me.”

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