Page 3 of Scapegoat

“Where?” I asked, watching him, watching his hand.

“Over at Granville. The dads said we can take one of the cars.”

That was the next town over, the one where the humans lived.

“I…” My throat was closing up. It often did in these stolen moments, like my ability to feel and breathe couldn’t happen at the same time. “I… don’t know if I can get away.”

Because with his suggestion, reality came crashing back in. I’d slipped out with the boys to escape my mother, her expectations, her long list of things to be done. Things to be done for Anna—always for Anna. But if the boys were to come to my door, talk to my mum and my dad about where we were going, I knew what Mum would say…

“Take your sister with you.” Even though I was eighteen and Anna was fourteen. “She needs to be close to her fated mates. Those boys will need an omega one day and you know Anna’s going to reveal as one. Just look at her.”

I did. Everyone always did and I couldn’t blame them. I wasn’t jealous of my sister’s golden perfection. Everyone talked about what beautiful children she would make, when she was grown, with the Campbell boys as the fathers. Each guy was a different shade of gold himself, from Xavier at the lightest, the sun turning the tips of his hair platinum in the summer, to Atlas who was only a few shades lighter than my dark hair. My sister would be beautiful. I wanted that for her, because she seemed to soak up attention like a flower did the sun and I… I turned to an awkward mess. Better to hide in the shadows, where no one else could see. Calm, competent…

“There’s my clever girl,” Dad always said, when he got my reports in the mail, though never when Mum or Anna was around. He’d ruffle my hair, tell me he was proud of me and then shove those same reports under his plate when Mum joined us at the dinner table.

“If you want to go, we’ll come up with something. It’s no big deal,” Atlas told me, rolling towards me.

When he did that, I couldn’t see the forest, the trees or anything else. Just him. His chest was bare, his skin golden brown and every muscle was lean and tight, like a healthy young animal’s. He was wrong, though. Everything about this felt like a big deal. His brows creased slightly in concentration and his eyes dropped, lingering on my mouth for far too long.

A mouth he’d kissed.

Stolen kisses, sweet ones, kisses that made me pant against his chest, fighting to take a breath. Then he’d hold me close and tell me…

“You’ve got to come.” At the sound of Jayden’s voice, I yanked my hand back and… was that pain in Atlas’ eyes? If it was, it was cleared away as soon as Jay popped his head up over his brother’s shoulder. “Summer’s nearly over.”

And so was our childhood; we all knew that. We’d finished school. Now we were waiting on our final grades, the ones that, if we were out in the human world, would determine what we would do. But here in Stanthorpe, it was the pack that decided your fate, and they would deliver ours once summer was done. We’d be assigned jobs, tasks, roles, depending on where we fitted in the pecking order, and that in itself was decided by the alphas of the pack.

Those decisions could mean the boys were elevated to heirs-apparent or removed from the pack altogether, left to find their own way beyond the town limits.

“It’ll be one of the last parties,” Xavier said, getting to his feet and gazing down at me. “No one will mess with you, not if you’re with us.”

“And anyone who does will have his face rearranged,” Jay promised, a dangerous glimmer in his eyes.

Good or bad, that was true. My friends were nothing but protective. I’d never been on a date, never had a guy tell me he liked me, because, if any of the others at school got close, the Campbell boys started growling.

Like my stomach did right now.

The boys’ eyes dropped down and Xavier frowned slightly at the sound of it.

“You didn’t eat again.” His voice was full of censure.

“I didn’t have time,” I said, slapping a hand over my stomach as I scrambled to my feet. “I had to make breakfast for everyone else and Mum, Dad and Anna all wanted something different.”

“You know other families don’t use their fucking eldest daughter as a domestic servant,” Jay snarled. “They get their own fucking breakfast.”

“Yeah, well, they’ll be doing that once…” I stopped, and stared at each one of them. “Once I’ve been given a job. I can move out then, live somewhere else, away from Mum…”

“With us,” Atlas said, with a definitive nod.

I smiled at his intent gaze that brooked no argument, and at their concern, but there was something hopeless about it all. The boys acted like nothing else would change, now that school was done.

But I knew differently.

They’d fight the alphas, strive with everything they had to show they had the requisite level of dominance, of power, to claim a place at the top of the pack hierarchy. And when they did? One of the girls in town would reveal as an omega.

And my mother was sure that would be my sister.

“I should get back,” I said, scrambling to my feet.

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