Page 30 of Clawless

I stood and went to the icebox. Like the lights, it ran off a generator, and the guards always kept a pitcher of cold water ready for my visits. I poured myself a glass and leaned back against the counter, the omega’s throat moving painfully as he watched me drink. The only thing he’d asked for since I’d locked him up was a tea kettle, and I’d instantly ordered his guards to ration all his drinks. He looked away as I grinned at him. “You’ve a savage soul, Alpha Arras.”

I gulped the drink dry and dropped the glass in the sink. “It’s Clan Alpha now.”

When I glanced back at him, I saw the first hint of fear on his smooth features. “Then you intend to challenge him.”

I nodded at the notepad under his elbow. “I’m not the one spilling my guts. Have that finished before my next visit, Omega.”

***

I let my wolf roam the woods for a while, knowing Vail would be finished with her classes and safely back at Omega House. He tried to run off his rage, but his frustration with the plan was like a thorn under his paw. He was sick of waiting and the visits to Wentworth’s cabin just pushed him closer to the edge. Any wolf in the throes of claiming his mate was single-minded, but mine was scarred by losing his claiming mark. And the looming threat of Vail’s eighteenth birthday.

When we finally made it back to the packball pavilion, he was eager to shift, and I was tired to the bone. I dragged on my clothes, shivering at the damp material. There was a stack of paperwork waiting for me and I’d promised my lieutenants we’d get pizza and shoot the shit for a while. Then there was the security briefing with Liam, and the homework piling up on my nightstand…

“You’ve got a rat in the bunker, big dog.”

I finished lacing my boots before I gave Callum my attention. I’d sensed him lurking inside the pavilion from a mile out, but figured he was either boning his den mother or hiding from his pack. Despite the power I felt rippling under his skin, he was the worst alphason in Sawyer history, if you were judging him on his interest in pack life. Not that I could blame him given all the freaky fuckers he had to call kin. “Two legs or four?”

“Hard to tell.” He was wearing his black leather pants and an out-of-shape sweater. He stank of sex and gin and weed, but he looked more alert than I’d seen him in a long while. “His hidey-hole is inside.”

I frowned, but followed him into the pavilion. It was a couple degrees warmer inside, but that’s all it had going for it, since it was even more basic that Wentworth’s cabin. The front room was for treating packball injuries that couldn’t be fixed on the field, and the back room was for storage. Nothing looked out of place until Callum moved a crate out of the way and I saw a sleeping bag and pile of bones on the floor. “What are they?”

“Rabbit. Squirrel.” He toed a jaw bone. “That’s a dog. Domestic gone wild.”

“It doesn’t smell like a den.”

“Don’t think it is.” He rubbed his chest through the old sweater. “But I’ve smelled him before.” He gave me a small smile. “Want to know when?”

Callum Sawyer was a strange wolf. We’d been friends and rivals since we were pups, but I wasn’t sure I really knew him at all. If I had to describe him, I’d say he was bone lazy and didn’t give two fucks about anything. The females called him a bad boy, and my lieutenants thought he was a waste of a good bloodline, but something about those labels always felt wrong.

But one thing I knew for sure was that Cal had one of the best noses in the pack. If he said he’d smelled the male before, I could take that to the bank. “The pool,” he said, watching me closely. “The night of Hunter Moon. Someone had just fished your omega out and carried her off.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. The last time I’d been in this pavilion with Cal, he’d called Vail the lowest kind of bitch and I’d hit him in the mouth. He’d grinned through the blood, but I’d tasted something under his mockery. He didn’t like Vail – he’d made that plain since day one – but he didn’t like the thought of me with her, either. “Spit it out, Cal.”

“Trey Barakat.”

I went still. “You’re saying Barakat took Vail from the academy on Hunter Moon?”

He quirked his brow at me. “Yeah, you’re missing the point, big dog. He’s been here as recent as yesterday.” He toed the sleeping bag. “The fucker’s scent isn’t just in here. It’s all over the woods.”

I felt my guts shred under my wolf’s claws. Not the real thing this time, but the promise was enough. I was moving towards the door when Cal grabbed my shirt, his mouth working for a moment before he said, “You can’t collar a wild thing, Jay. It’s always going to find a way out.”

Twenty-Two – Vail

I spent the next three days suspended between fury and frustration. Fury, because the king of the alphadouches had worked me into a heated mess, then lay down the law about who I could or couldn’t invite to his precious school. And frustration because as much as I tried, I couldn’t replicate that grumbly rumble I was certain was my wolf. I’d never been much of a reader, but that image of a black wolf with her paws in a trap didn’t need to come with a set of CliffsNotes. I knew she was trapped inside me. I just didn’t know how to get her out.

The idea she could only surface if I was pressed against Jasper Arras made me sick to my stomach. And hot down to my core. Which also made me want to tear my hair out one strand at a time. As if it wasn’t bad enough I was wearing his collar, now my wolf was under his freaking spell, too.

I spent all day trying to act normal and not bad-mouth him to the other omegas. And every night plagued with hot as hell dreams. Which might have let me work through some of my neediness, if I wasn’t stuck in a hall of mirrors and he wasn’t stripping my clothes off, one torturous button at a time. We never got further than that brief touch of his lips over my bra, but I woke up scorching hot and limp as a rag. Which put me firmly back on that see-saw between fury and frustration.

It wasn’t the best mood to be in for gym class on Thursday, since Reed was waiting for me in low-hanging sweats and a tight white tank. I’d always known he was built; from the first moment I’d met him and the other alphadouches I’d had him pegged as the enforcer of the group. His buzzcut and flat brown gaze made me think prison warden, and he hadn’t helped things by tossing me over his shoulder when I tried to run. But now I was looking at those muscles in a whole new light.

What the fuck, Vail?

As I dropped my bag in the corner and unwrapped my scarf, I remembered the way I’d reacted to his alpha voodoo. Shaky legs, sweaty palms, curling toes. Like he wasn’t just swiping his big palm across my forehead, but trailing those hard fingers down my spine…

Maybe my wolf was a whorebag for more than just alpha spit.

I paused, my hands on the bottom of my sweatshirt. Last lesson, I’d been worried about the effect of the collar on Reed, and kept my thick sweats on to minimize contact. But maybe that was a layer too many for my wolf. Is she’d given up her rumbly growl for a bit of Arras skin, maybe she’d do the same for Reed. Peeling the sweatshirt over my head, I tried to act nonchalant as I tossed it aside and turned to face him in my thin black halter. I’d worn something similar during wrestling matches at my old high school, but for some reason, this felt different. It didn’t help he was watching me with a new heat burning in his brown eyes.

---