I sat in class, watching the clock slowly tick the minutes away. Lunch couldn’t come soon enough. I needed a break, not that I had been doing much in class. I couldn’t focus on anything other than the burn of Dominic’s eyes and the sneer on Erika’s face.
When the bell finally rang, I forced myself to stay in my seat until they left. For about half a second, Dominic looked as if he was going to approach me, but before he could, Aidan slung a loose arm over his shoulder and led him out the door.
The cafeteria was already packed by the time I got there. I glanced at the overly long line of students waiting to be served and spotted Marcy at the front. She waved what I thought was a boxed salad at me, and then she pointed to a table and mouthed, ‘I got it.’
Ben and Ann were chowing down on French fries and gravy when I plopped down at my usual table. The fraternal twins were dressed the same, as always, in blue jeans and black hoodies. I’ve always thought that they secretly wished they were identical. They sure tried hard enough to look the same. Ben had even dyed his blond hair brown to match Ann’s, and Ann always wore blue contacts, the same shade as Ben’s natural eye color.
“Hey, Jade,” Ann said, and smiled. “I’m surprised you’re sitting with us.” She didn’t mean it to be unkind; I could see that from the soft smile she was giving me, but the statement got my back up anyway.
“What? Why?” I asked. My voice sounded harsher than I had intended.
Ben cut Ann a narrowed eye glare, and said, “We heard that you and Dom made up.” He smirked at me, and then dropped another fry in his mouth.
I snorted. “Hardly.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands. Rumors. How did kicking Dom out of my house translate into us making up? It took everything in me not to turn around and look at him. I could hear his laughter, and it made my heart twitch. It wasn’t quite a squeeze or a twist, but it was enough of a twitch that I noticed it.
Thankfully, Marcy slid into the chair beside me and pushed a salad (or what was considered a salad by high school cafeteria standards: a bowl of lettuce and a single cherry tomato) in front of me. I was about to ask her when she was leaving for the police station, desperately wanting to change the subject, when she said, “And another one gets taken.”
“Another what?” Ben asked, looking at Marcy with an utterly blank face, and Ann let out a loud groan.
Marcy rolled her eyes, and then nodded in Aidan’s direction. “The new guy seems pretty close with Dominic.”
There goes trying to change the subject. “He doesn’t look like he was taken,” I said dryly. “He looks willing.” And that made my head spin. I could have sworn they hated each other, or at least that Dominic really didn’t like Aidan. Why else would he tell me to stay away?
Ben sighed, and he dropped the fry he had been about to shove in his mouth back into the container. “I didn’t think it was possible, but Dominic is getting hotter.”
“I know, right?” Ann said with a grin, and elbowed her brother playfully. She didn’t even try to hide the long and very appraising look she gave Dominic, and as she stared, the grin melted away. “Jade,” she said, still watching him closely, critically, “have you noticed the way the pack is hovering around Dom?” Frown lines began to litter her forehead and she scrunched her nose. “It’s like he’s … more important somehow.”
My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped. I swiveled in my chair, not bothering to try and hide it. Dominic sat at the head of the lunchroom table, which was ridiculous, because really, it was just a plastic fold up table, but he made it look … regal. Aidan sat on his right, Erika on his left, and along the edges, six other pack members watched him, engrossed in whatever he was saying.
Dominic was smiling. His eyes were bright. He looked … happy … content … proud. My heart started to pound again and my stomach rolled. Dominic never looked happy. Not anymore. He always had the same mask. Hard and cold and cruel. Not happy. Never. And the way the others were watching him, listening to him …
I locked eyes with Marcy and whispered, “No.” I didn’t mean it as a whisper, but the rock hard lump that had suddenly formed in my throat wouldn’t let my voice rise any louder.
Her eyes were wide and the color rushed from her face. “He …” she started, but she must not have believed what she was about to say, because she promptly snapped her mouth shut.
I pushed my chair out, the legs scrapping across the linoleum floor with a screech, and I stared at Dominic for a long minute. Clippings of the last few days flitted through my mind as if I was looking at newspaper articles. The pack is stressed. He’s no good for you. I’m trying to help you. All his subtle little hints and warnings rang out through my head and heat burned in my cheeks. Suddenly, I felt sick and utterly stupid. I wasn’t part of the pack. He wouldn’t have been able to warn me of anything without seeking permission unless … The thoughts were swarming so loudly in my brain that I couldn’t understand any of them.
And then I was standing over him, and I heard my voice, cold as ice, say, “Dominic, we need to talk.”
Dominic didn’t even look up. “Kind of busy,” he said dismissively.
I gritted my teeth, and I really don’t know what came over me, but I grabbed hold of his ear and pulled. “We need to talk now.”
That got his attention, as well as the attention of all the werewolves at the table. They all glared at me, even Aidan was giving me a death stare. Dominic jumped up from his chair and smacked my hand away from his ear. He took hold of my bicep firmly, and said, “I’ll be right back, guys,” before he dragged me from the cafeteria.
As soon as we were through the doors, he dropped his hold and asked, “What do you want?” His tone was sharp, and his shoulders, rigid.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” I asked. I guessed the look on my face wasn’t sweet because he backed up a step and the pink flush in his cheeks turned white. I poked him in the chest and he flinched back another step. “You took out Ray.”
Dominic trembled slightly under my stare, and he sucked in a noisy breath. His shoulders sagged a little, as if he was trying to shrink further away from me. He dropped his eyes to the floor, and then he gave his head a forceful shake, pulled in another loud, sucking breath, and hesitantly met my gaze. “You threw me out of your house. Blew me off, and now you think you can just … just …” He grunted and threw his hands up in the air, completely frustrated.
“Stop it,” I snapped, and he flinched again. “Just cut the crap, Dom. You followed me around all weekend; you can damn well answer my question!”
Dominic cocked his head slightly, and searched my face. His brow furrowed in confusion and any hostility that had marred his body softened. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Come on, Dom, I know that the black wolf that trailed me all weekend was you,” I shouted. I didn’t mean to shout. It just sort of happened, and a burning blush rushed up my neck. I took a deep breath and smiled awkwardly. “Look, it doesn’t matter. You’ve made your point, okay. I’ll stay away from Aidan, but don’t be like Ray. Don’t start the recruiting. You’re better than that.”
“Jade, I’m a brown wolf and I’m not,” he punched out the word, letting it hang in the air for a moment, as if he wanted to make sure I grasped it before he continued, “the new alpha. And it would be really smart for you to forget that you know anything about Ray.”
~ AIDAN ~
Crap! It seemed like that was the only word my brain was able to formulate as I listened to Jade and Dominic. It was also the first time in my life that I hated having enhanced hearing. It would have been nice to pretend that they were just having a friendly conversation.
Erika leaned into me. “You were following her?” she snarled in my ear and then leaned back. Her lips curled into a sneer and she laughed darkly. “Did you hear that, ladies? It looks like we have another contestant.”
Crap! Crap! Crap! All the banter stopped instantly and four sets of glowing yellow eyes landed on me, expectantly. Waiting. I slouched a little, trying to look relaxed, and shrugged my shoulders, brushing it off as no big deal. I held their eyes for a long minute before I said, “She’s nothing.”
“I don’t know about that,” Erika said and laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “She seems smitten and by the sound of your wild heartbeat, I’d say you are, too.”
CHAPTER 11
~ JADE ~
“Dom, what do you mean it wasn’t you?” I asked. My voice was barely a whisper, and the metal lined hallway suddenly seemed … small … tight … airless. I had hugged that wolf, and I had let it smother my face with wet kisses. I felt … violated. At least I knew why Dominic hadn’t tried to talk to me yet, although knowing it didn’t really make me feel any better.
“I’m not a black wolf,” he said again, a little helplessly this time. He took a step toward me, and when I took a step back, he put up his hands in surrender. “Jade, you’re not looking so hot. Are you okay?”
I focused on breathing. In and out. In and out. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so upset, but my throat was burning and I fought hard to swallow the tears that were threatening to break loose. My heart was breaking — again — just like it had two years ago. And I realized, unexpectedly, that part of me, even though I had been fighting it, had really hoped that I was going to get my Dominic back. That he’d heard my confessions. That he wanted to start over and fix things like he’d said. And I was pretty sure that the fact that he hadn’t heard me say all those things was distressing me more than knowing some other wolf was stalking me.
I shook my head. “Nope,” I said calmly, and before he had a chance to make me even more not okay, I turned from him and started down the hallway.
“Jade, wait!” Dominic called. His footsteps were extremely loud in the vacant hallway as he jogged to catch up to me.