Page 49 of Clawless

To add to my frustration, Reed had me right in front of him, and was still treating me like I was behind a screen. The kisses didn’t change if we were in a packed hallway, or alone together in bed. I knew he was being careful, and taking things slowly, and I appreciated that. But how could I really put the memories of Jasper behind me, unless I burned them up in the heat of something new?

On the morning of the Cup, I woke before Reed, and studied his profile in the weak light. Even asleep, he was the picture of power. With his wide forehead, strong jaw, and firm lips framed by morning stubble, I had to remind myself he was still a teenager and not a full-grown man. My gaze drifted from his face to his torso. His skin was darker than mine and flushed with a healthy glow against the pale sheets. He was wearing a tank that hugged the wide planes of his body, but it did a poor job of containing the muscles beneath it. I knew that alpha power didn’t automatically translate to size, but in Reed it seemed to be built into his DNA. I remembered the stories he’d shared of pranking bully wolves when he first came into his power, and smirked. It was a playful side to him I didn’t see often, and I feathered my thumb over his lips, trying to picture the way they’d turned up as he’d laughed.

The touch made him open his eyes, and for a moment they weren’t their usual blank brown. I froze at the heat I saw swirling there and knew I’d woken his wolf as much as the man. When he nipped my thumb, there were definitely teeth, and then his hand was pulling my head down to his.

This kiss was either all wolf, or a plea from a starving man. He bit at my lips, forcing them open, then plundered my mouth with his tongue. He rolled his huge body over me, his weight pressing me so deep into the mattress, I grabbed his arms to keep myself afloat. As my fingers dug in, he made a ragged sound in the back of his throat and began shoving my pajama top up over my ribs. His morning stubble grazed my breast and there was nothing gentle about the way he dragged my nipple into his mouth. I groaned as his hips lined up with mine, and I felt the full roll and thrust of his erection against my thigh. We were both panting, our hands everywhere, and I began pulling at his sweatpants as his lips began to ravage my other breast. When my hand wrapped around his shaft, claws pierced the pillow beside my head, making my heart thud in my ears. A skin-tingling growl rumbled out of Reed’s chest, and as the vibrations played over my body, the clutching pain in my belly eased for a moment. I waited for the answering rumble from my own wolf, but instead I got the sense of her crouched down and watching. Dark green eyes in a ruff of black fur…

“Shit.” Reed suddenly pulled back, blinking hard. “Sorry, Vail. I didn’t… I wasn’t really awake.”

“It’s okay.” I tried to reach for him, but he was already throwing back the sheets and heading to the bathroom. I collapsed back on our rumpled bed and stared at the ceiling as I tried to will away the pain that now throbbed in both my belly and my core. When the shower started, and I heard his fist bang against the wall, I turned into the pillow and let my tears fall.

But there was no time for healing the rift I felt opening between us. Reed burst out of the bathroom, and grabbing a shirt, buzzed my cheek and was gone, mumbling something about a last-minute strategy session before the pep rally. I took my time following him, nibbling at a muffin from the bakery basket Penny had dropped off, and working some of the Marshall red ribbons into my matching braids. The last thing I felt like wearing was my cheer outfit, so I pulled one of Reed’s sweatshirts over the top. It was too big, but it smelled like him, and let me cradle my belly when I shoved my hands in the oversized pockets. A quick glance in the mirror told me it was as good as I was going to get, and I headed off to see if Penny needed any help before the rally.

The gym was decked out in more of the festive colors, and I felt a little guilty when I saw all the effort the other omegas had put into the posters and bunting. Nadia and Jasmine came straight over, and I let a few more tears fall when they enveloped me in their arms. They fussed and coddled me until I was laughing at my own weepiness, and then got to work on painting my face in red glitter. When the gym began to fill up with students, Ms. Costa came to herd us into a side room and I left my friends and joined the other Marshall omegas in a huddle.

Penny fixed us with an almost aggressive stare, her hands on her hips. “Tonight, is for the Red Rage, sisters. Hunter Green is going down. And our pep is going to help grind them into the ground.”

I wanted to laugh at her blood-thirsty grin, except my belly hurt too bad and my throat was still clogged with tears. Through the door I could hear the principal talking on the microphone, and then the choir was belting out a fight song to the pounding of feet on metal bleachers. The room was drenched in adrenaline, Penny high-fiving everyone in the squad, and Nadia doing the same to her girls in green. Our eyes met for a moment and she gave me an almost sad smile before we were snatching up our poms and running onto the gymnasium floor.

The noise of three hundred shifters was deafening.

I felt my wolf rear back at the sound, and I might have tripped if Penny wasn’t there to drag me along. The lights flashed across our faces in green and red stripes, and with the fight song lingering in the air, every student and teacher in the school threw back their heads and howled.

It was a wild, beautiful sound, both mournful and rousing. As it echoed around the gym, I felt tears on my cheeks again. The pull of the combined shifter voices was so powerful, a few of the freshman slipped their skins. The howl morphed into laughter as they sheepishly shifted back, but none of it was mean-spirited. Some of the senior wolves even tossed them their jerseys, and all across the bleachers the students were hugging and high-fiving. This, I thought, was pack. The strong and the weak together. All bloodlines and ranks, caught up in the thrill of the coming game.

It was easy to get swept up in their energy. In an hour or so, I’d be Reed’s mate. We’d be the future leaders of every wolf in red. As I watched the cheering shifters, I tried to mentally reach inside myself to my wolf. Tried to find the shape and spirit of her, to coax her out amongst her kind. But all I felt was a deep ache. Not so much an emptiness, as a bruise. And that same watchfulness I’d felt in Reed’s arms, as he’d tried to tempt her with an alpha rumble.

By the time Penny waved us into position, I was sweating and my stomach was a ball of twisting snakes. I struggled through the first routine, my fumbling efforts earning me jeers from Pearl and her brigade. I gritted my teeth, and through sheer will alone managed to land most of my jumps. I didn’t drop any of the flyers in the stunts, but I was too distracted by my pain to find my rhythm. And when I limped to the sidelines after the routine, Ms. Costa took pity on me, and sent me to help out in the sound booth for the rest of the rally.

Jon, an omega whose coordination was even worse than mine, was manning the lights and music panel. The booth was small and dark and I collapsed into the only other seat in the room. For some reason, my collar didn’t affect the omegas like it did other males, and he shot me a sympathetic look as he fiddled with the controls. When I groaned and rubbed my stomach, he said, “You really put the pep in dyspepsia.” At my clueless look, he explained, “That’s indigestion to the lay person.”

I managed a weak laugh. Jon was an off-the-charts genius, and Reed’s dad was sending him to Cornell to study medicine after graduation. “I feel like crap. But at least I’m no longer out there inflicting my pain on everyone else.”

“Yeah, your handspring was an act of torture.”

“That’s No Chance’s specialty,” a voice said from behind us, and I whirled to find Callum Sawyer leaning in the doorway. He fixed Jon with a sneer. “Buzz off, brainiac.”

Jon shot me an apologetic glance, but scooted. When he was gone, I gestured towards the control panel. “I assume you know how to operate this, Alphason?”

“Keep the lights on the bouncing tits, and no one will care.” He spun my chair around until I was facing him. “There’s something you should see before you skip off into the sunset with Reed.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but his finger pressed down hard on my lips, and then he was pulling his phone from his pocket. While I shook off his touch, he thumbed a button and turned it my way. He was holding it at hip-height, so I couldn’t exactly avoid looking at his crotch, but the images on the screen quickly grabbed my attention.

Reed was in a circle of boys. He was in his early teens, dressed in jeans, but with longer hair. They were breathing hard, and it was clear they were about to come to blows. The biggest kid shoved Reed’s shoulder, mouthing something rude as if he was trying to bait them. This had to be the bullies he’d told me about at dinner. They were in their human form, so it was impossible to tell which ones sported shaved tails or pink dye jobs, but I looked up at Callum with a shrug. “Reed told me about this. He said he pranked some bullies when he came into his power.”

“Sure he did.” He tapped my nose with the side of the phone. “Keep watching, No Chance. Reed’s idea of a prank is a real riot.”

I leaned back against the console, curious despite myself. Callum wasn’t showing me this out of the goodness of his heart, and his peppery scent was swirling around the small room like an ash cloud. But I couldn’t look away. Not even when Reed’s hands transformed into claws, and he slit the biggest bully from neck to groin.

I hissed in a breath as the others descended on him in a flurry of teeth and fists. A couple of boys shifted; not the smooth transition of the wolves I’d seen, but something messier and more desperate. Still, their shift came with deadly weapons attached, but Reed just turned and went after them first. Even though I knew the outcome, my stomach was tight with fear, but the way he beat them down was the definition of ruthlessness. One moment he was hammering them with human fists, the next he was kicking them with his wolf’s powerful hind legs. There were so many more of them, but it didn’t matter. Reed was everywhere and nowhere. When it was over, he stood alone in a circle of broken bodies, blood dripping from his hair and mouth. He swung towards the camera, kicking through the remains of his bullies as if they were leaves scattered on the ground. He squinted in our direction, for the first time looking like a teen. “Were you filming, you asshole?”

A younger version of Callum’s voice came out of the phone’s speakers. He sounded lighter, almost happy, as he cackled, “Fuck, Ragemaster. You really meant it when you said no mercy.”

Reed froze, then turned in a slow circle, as if only now seeing the damage he’d wrought. When he glanced back at the camera, he looked smaller, his face white and his shoulders hunched. He was on the verge of saying something, but Callum pressed pause. I stared at the frozen scene, my stomach inching up my throat. “Finish it,” I whispered. “What did he say?”

“That’s all you get.” Callum dropped the phone back in his pocket, his long cold fingers tilting my face up to his. His gaze was black and bottomless, and I couldn’t make sense of the emotion I saw there. “Maybe you’ve fooled them into thinking you can do it.” He flicked a mocking finger against the collar at my throat. “Play the perfect little omega.” He dipped his mouth to my ear, and I thought he was going to bite it, but his tongue swiped over the tracker scar instead. I shivered, and he murmured in my ear, “Reed’s playing a part, too. You get that, right? Cos males like him never really leave the cave. So, you better be ready to face his beast, No Chance.”

I pulled away, getting to my feet and pushing him back an inch. It didn’t do much to separate us, but I forced my chin up. “I’ve lived with him for a week. He’s never shown any sign of that kind of rage.”

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