Page 75 of Impossible

She called for ‘alpha’. Not a name. Would I do the same? Or would I call for Leon? Would I humiliate myself and call for Hollis, and Risk, and Joshua?

They don’t want me.

Leon wouldn’t kiss me last night. Hollis is too perfect, and Joshua is too sad, and Risk… the memory of his lips on mine sends another burst of spicy citrus into the air. What if I hadn’t stopped him? If I had let my hands roam over his skin, feeling his muscles, finding the waistband of his pants and venturing underneath…

A knock on the door startles me.

Am I supposed to go to class? After watching that? My head hurts. I want to go somewhere dark and warm and small.

“Indie?” It’s Cecilia’s voice.

My bottom half is drenched and my cheeks are stained with tears and my scent is a miasma around me, poisonous and cruel.

“Give me a sec,” I choke out.

“You watched the videos.” Her voice is muffled through the door. It isn’t a question. I wonder if she can scent me through the wood. “I brought the de-scenter. Do you need a change of clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“Slide your key under the door and I’ll go to your room.”

I maneuver the chair to the door and do as she asks, sliding my plastic dorm key underneath. I listen to the bustle of students outside. I take deep breaths. By the time she knocks again, I think I’m halfway back to sane.

“Here,” she holds out the clothes and de-scenter when I open the door. She turns her back to let me change. I mop up the wheelchair seat with my pants, feeling for all the world like I peed myself. Honestly, it might be preferable. Less humiliating.

When things are as clean and dry as they’re going to get, I turn the de-scenter on myself and start spraying. It is astringent and sharp and doesn’t even come close to cutting through my spiking scent. At a certain point I’m damp all over and give up.

“Still sure about the medical heat?” Cecilia asks knowingly.

I don’t answer.

21

Meritless

Hollis

“Interestingroundofheatsheets this morning, hmm?”

Marcus Phoenix leans against my desk in the crowded bullpen that makes up the Internal Affairs office of the Coalition, his grass-like tobacco scent muddled in the damp air.

I had a corner suite, when I ran Tactical Operations. Now I’m stuck between a young alpha with post-nasal drip and a leaky radiator.

“Oh, sorry, you’re not going out in the pack sheets now, are you?” Marcus simpers. “Well, maybe you can give me the inside loop anyway; you were getting cozy with the Wolfe girl last night, right? Indigo?”

I’m out of my seat and chest to chest with him before the snarl has a chance to rip its way free of my throat. He just smirks. I have six inches and thirty pounds on him, but in here, he’s untouchable.

“She’s a little bony for our taste,” he goes on. “But we’ll find a way to make it work. Give her a pillow to kneel on. Think she can take a knot in her state? Or, you know, five.”

The wet sound of blood gushing in my ears competes with the growl roiling in my chest. “She’d never touch you,” I spit.

“Well, we know she won’t be touching you, hmm?”

Post-nasal drip has very smartly made himself scarce.

Marcus slides a stack of folders on my desk. “My proposal on banning birth control is going to a vote. I was going to tell you last night but, well, things got a little tense, didn’t they? Write up an issue memo and have it to me by end of day. I look forward to seeing your impartial explanation of both sides.”

He slips out from between me and the desk, practically skipping away.

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