Page 9 of The First Year Continued
“He is my boss, and he is looking for you and your friends to help us find the vampire among you. Any other details are of no consequence to you.”
“You want us to just blindly work for some guy because he showed up and claimed he was looking for a vampire?”
“Mr. Tyrol is not to be played with, Sol. I suggest you go back to class and begin what you were tasked with.”
I was so tired of everyone telling us what to do. So many rules. Overbearing leaders. Oppression all around us. And now this? Just shut up and do what you were asked to do. “Why?”
“Because.” He stalked over to me. He wasn’t as intimidating as Tyrol, but he had an air of power. His scent was shifter, but there was more. No, not more—less. Like he wasn’t all shifter. He was part. “Mr. Tyrol is a very, very dangerous man. You don’twant to find out what happens to those who cross him. Trust me.”
A few seconds later, Tyrol came out. He didn’t spare me a glance. The assistant or goon of Tyrol opened the back door for him, and soon they tore out of the driveway and onto the road.
My heart thrummed in my chest.
I could simply run away.
Take off right now and run. I would be rogue, sure, but being alone, making my own rules didn’t sound so bad. If it weren’t for the shifter council hunting me down, or worse, the other paranormals out there who hated shifters, I would’ve done it.
No. No, that wasn’t true. I turned around to face the school.
No. My friends were in there.
Roxy was in there.
My wolf would never let me leave any of them, but especially her. Not that I wanted to. She needed us.
And as much as I’d tried to deny it, I needed her. My wolf claimed she was mine. Mine.
Not some girl I wanted to fuck or date or have something casual with, which I didn’t do, but we wanted Roxy to be ours.
Damn it. Life was hard enough with being a shifter and young and now having a potential mate without adding fucking vampires to the mix.
Plus, there was Roxy and Odin and the fact that she had almost drunk him dry.
The scene replayed in my head, no matter how I tried to shake it off.
I put my hand on the door handle and sighed.
What was inside this school was infinitely more important than some short-lived freedom. I made a resolve right then and there to ensure, one way or another, that we made it out of here, and hopefully in one piece.
Chapter Six
Roxy
I made it through the afternoon classes, barely, but by dinnertime, I just wanted to go back to bed. Odin had to be even worse, but you’d never know it to see him laughing with a couple of classmates as he came out of his last session of the day. In fact, his openness and relaxed demeanor were not what anyone who knew him would expect.
Overcompensating much?
I lifted my feet a little higher, using energy I didn’t have to try to catch up with him as he left the people he’d been talking to behind and moved down the hall.
“Roxy?” Desi’s voice caught me and slowed me down again. Not hard, since I had run down on about the fourth step after Odin. “Wait. I need to talk to you.”
“Hi, Desi. Thanks so much for last night.”
She linked her arm with mine. “You’re welcome, but my cooperation comes with a price. I take it you didn’t want me to make myself scarce for a romantic evening with your mates.”
“Mates? I am not mated to them. They’re helping me out with whatever is going on and oh…Desi, it’s so much worse than that.”
“What?” She dragged me toward an outside door. “We need to have this talk in private, I assume.”
