Page 22 of My Freshman Mate
My stomach turns at the thought, bile rising in my throat. "What are you talking about?"
"Freshman orientation. You were lost, weren't you?" Nash's eyes glitter with malice. "I was heading your way when Chambers swooped in. Another five minutes, and it would've been my mark on your neck."
The idea is so repulsive my omega instincts recoil on a cellular level. It's a violation just to hear it. "That's not how it works," I say, my voice stronger now, fueled by a sudden surge of protective anger for what Wes and I have. "We're fated. It wouldn't have mattered if you found me first."
Something dark and ugly flashes in Nash's eyes. "Is that what he told you? That it was fate?" He leans in, his voice a poisonous whisper. "Alphas will say anything to get what they want. And Chambers wanted to piss me off."
No.The word is a silent scream in my head. A tiny, treacherous seed of doubt tries to plant itself in my brain, but I crush it.
The static,I think, clinging to Wes's confession like a lifeline.Wes said the static stopped. That wasn't a line he fed me; it wasa confession ripped from his soul. I saw it in his eyes. This is real. He is real. You are the noise, Nash. You're just more static.
"I need to go," I say, my voice firm. "My alpha is expecting me."
Nash moves like a striking snake. One second he's in front of me, the next his hand is clamped on the back of my neck, his fingers digging into the pressure points there in a dominant alpha hold that locks my body in instinctive submission. My muscles freeze. My breath catches in my throat.
"Your alpha," Nash mocks. "Let's see about that."
With deliberate, brutal slowness, he forces my head to the side. His fingers dig into my scalp, twisting until my neck is exposed, the claiming mark Wes left there vulnerable in the harsh library lighting. The position is a profound violation, designed to display my submission and his dominance.
He lowers his head, his stubble scraping my jaw, his breath hot and coffee-sour against my neck. He inhales, a wet, snuffling sound right against my ear that makes my skin try to crawl off my bones. His breath coats my neck, a filthy layer over Wes's clean lightning-strike scent. A sense of violation washes over me. I'm contaminated. Marked by the wrong alpha.
"Smells sweet," he sneers, his voice a low vibration against my skin. "Wonder what you'd smell like withmyscent all over you instead."
Terror floods me, bone-deep and absolute, leaving a sharp, metallic taste in my mouth. This is wrong. So fundamentally, primally wrong. The place he's scenting—it's Wes's. Only Wes's. It's sacred ground. He's not just touching me; he's trying to erase Wes from my skin.
I struggle, a pathetic, jerky movement against his immovable grip. His friends laugh behind me.
"Let me go," I demand, my voice cracking. "Now."
"Or what?" Nash's mouth is so close I feel his lips move against my skin. "Your alpha isn't here to save you. And by the time he finds you, you'll be carrying my scent home to him. Wonder what he'll do when he smells another alpha all over his pretty little omega."
I try to twist away again, a sob of pure fear and rage building in my chest. I open my mouth to scream, but panic claws my throat shut.
"Don't worry," Nash murmurs, tracing the edge of my jaw with a rough thumb. "I'm not going to hurt you. Much. This is just a message for Chambers. A reminder that he can't protect you all the time."
The scream is trapped behind my teeth, a silent, desperate shriek—until the world snaps. Nash is gone, ripped away from me with a force that bends the air itself.
Wes stands there.
He's not yelling. He's not moving. He's just... vibrating. A statue of pure, cold, silent fury. His shoulders are bunched, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his whole body a loaded weapon. But his eyes—his eyes are black holes, bottomless pits of murder. He slams Nash into the bookshelves with a feral growl that isn't human, a sound ripped from the throat of a predator whose territory has been invaded, whose mate has been threatened.
Wes
Aferal growl rips from my throat as my fist connects with the shelf, an inch from Nash's head. The wood splinters, the sound sharp and violent in the quiet library. I feel a sharp pain in my knuckles, but it's a distant thing, drowned out by the white-hot rage roaring through my veins. It narrows my vision until Nash's smirking face is all I can see, all that exists. His scent is all over Braiden—coffee-sour and wrong, a filthy layer of contamination on what is sacred, what ismine.
"You're dead," I snarl, my voice a low, guttural thing I don't recognize. "You're fucking dead."
For a split second, Nash's eyes widen. It's a flash of genuine fear, a primal recognition of a predator about to strike. Then the smug mask slides back into place. "Temper, temper, Chambers. Just getting acquainted with your little—"
I don't let him finish. I don't give a shit what he has to say. My hand shoots out, wrapping around his thick throat, squeezing enough to cut off his words and his air. His pulse hammers against my palm, a frantic, panicked beat. Good. He should be afraid. He should be terrified.
"Touch him again," I snarl, leaning in so my voice is a poison just for him, "and I will end you. Not your career. Not your reputation.You."
Nash's backup—two meatheads in matching Northwood shirts—take a hesitant step forward, but Nash waves them off with a weak gesture. Smart. They can't help him now. This is between us.
"Wes."
Braiden's voice cuts through the red haze of my fury. It's small and shaky, and it's the only thing that keeps me from crushing Nash's windpipe right here among the law books.
