Rebels and Runaways: Eden Academy Book One

by Grace McGinty

  She looked over her shoulder, her eyes travelling over my body before biting her lip. My dick got hard just watching her ass sway away.

  “Brother, you are fucked. You should see your face right now.”

  I dragged my eyes away from her departing back, and turned to Bohdie. “Oh, you can talk? Omegaaaaa,” I mocked, and Bohdie snorted.

  “I did not do that.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t get time to say anything further when he was surrounded by a group of women. Well, more accurately I guess, we were surrounded by a group of women. While Bohdie soaked it up like a lion soaked up the sun, it made me uncomfortable as hell. Especially when Teesha from my combat class stood way too close. I took a step backwards, but she mirrored the move.

  She pasted a smile on her Barbie pink lips and I grimaced back. “So, Mr. Richards, how are you settling in? Has anyone shown you all that Eden has to offer?” she purred.

  Woah, that was about as subtle as a two-by-four to the temple. “Yes, thank you. The orientation was very comprehensive.”

  I wondered if she was a shark shifter, because the smile she gave me next was a hundred percent predatory. “What about the extracurricular… activities?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Teesha. Have some self-respect, or at least a little less cheesiness,” Carmen said from behind her, and I almost audibly sighed with relief.

  Teesha whirled on her heels, her hair slapping me in the face. Well, that was embarrassing. “What self respect could you have, Trash? Your own Pack didn’t even want you. They sold you to fucking skin dealers for drug money or something. Why don’t you, and your prick of a brother, go back to Deadsville where you belong. Even better, go back to the gutter, slut.”

  Woah. I wasn’t quick enough to catch Carmen before the first hit connected—okay that was a lie, but the little bitch deserved it—but I did manage to catch her before she landed a second strike.

  Bohdie caught the other girl around the waist as I dragged Carmen away, and I faintly heard Bohdie using his Alpha voice to get the girl to stop coming after Carmen.

  I did not sign up for girl fights.

  It didn’t help that everyone within a ten yard radius had heard Teesha’s comments and was watching Carmen like she was a bomb waiting to explode. I took her into the shadows beyond the glow of the bonfire and set her on her feet.

  Her big blue eyes were all fire and fury, but beneath that, they were slightly shinier than they normally were. She paced back and forward, her hands clenching and releasing, as she wrangled her anger.

  She stopped and looked up at me. Her eyes were huge and my mouth bypassed my brain. “Come here,” I whispered.

  When she stepped into my arms, it felt so fucking right. I barely knew this girl, but when she buried her face in my chest and screamed, I knew that this moment, right here? This was what I wanted. I wanted to be this girl’s rock. Her anchor. I stroked her back as she got all the frustrated anger out.

  Finally, she dragged herself away and took a shaky breath. Then she launched herself into my arms.

  I let out a little oomph as I caught her, and then her lips were on mine. Her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms around my neck, and I didn’t stop to think. I kissed her back with as much possessive desire as she was throwing at me. She tasted like Jack Daniels and cherry lip gloss. I wanted to feast on her mouth forever.

  I dragged my lips away from hers, and wrapped the smooth waterfall of her hair around my fist. I pulled her head back, and she mewled, which made my dick achingly hard. I kissed her jaw, the column of her throat and she moaned.

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  She froze against my body, her eyes going wide again. I looked around her shoulder at Bobby. The pain on his face was raw, but by the time I’d slid Carmen to her feet, he’d hidden it behind a mask of fury.

  As she looked up at me, I watched her drop her own feelings behind a nonchalant mask, and she spun on her high heel to look at Bobby. “I don’t know, Bobby, looks like two consenting adults making out, but I’m willing to try it again, you know, for science.”

  “Cute, Mouse. Get the fuck back out with the crowd.”

  She stepped up into his space, and I leaned back against the tree behind me. My hard-on was raging, and the unfulfilled lust between these two wasn’t helping. “Or what, Bobby? You aren’t my boyfriend or my father. You get no fucking say on what, or who, I do.”

  Ah, I didn’t imagine the pain in that statement, and I doubted Bobby missed it either. “I’m your Alpha.”

  Eesh, wrong thing to say. Her whole body tensed. “Not yet, you aren’t. Run along, Alpha. I can take care of myself.”

  “Dammit, Mouse,” he growled, and she threw a punch at his face. He dodged. The dude had good reflexes.

  He cut her off with a kiss. I went to step in, to pull him off her if she didn’t want it, but when her body curved into his the way it had into mine a moment ago, I stopped. They kissed like it was an extension of their argument, all rough hands and clashing teeth.

  I was going to blow my load in my pants. When his hand slid down over the curve of her back, only to slide up under her skirt and grip her ass, I grabbed my crotch and squeezed, trying to maneuver my dick somewhere comfortable or give myself some kind of relief; I didn't know which lie I was going with.

  When I saw she was wearing a lace thong, I groaned, and it seemed to break them from their trance. Bobby looked straight at me, his gaze defiant like he expected me to be some kind of jealous mess. Honestly, that was the hottest thing I’d ever seen and one day, I wanted to see us all naked and doing this exact same thing together.

  So I held his gaze, held up my hands, and grinned. “Four hands, brother. Four hands.”

  His eyes bounced between me and Carmen, and then back again. Then he stepped around us both, shifting into a large black wolf between one blink and the next, before taking off into the woods. Carmen stared after him, and the look on her face broke my heart a little.

  “You love him?”

  She bit her lip and shrugged. “Since the year I turned fourteen and found out he beat up Josh Stanmore for touching my boob in the seventh grade.” She shook her head. “But he’s not for me.” She pasted a smile on her face, and grabbed my hand. “Come on, let's go back to the fire and you can tell me all about who Sammie Richards is and how he came to be one of the only humans in a school for the inhuman.”

  I shook my head at them both. She might want the Alpha, but that kiss we shared? It was something. It wasn’t just hot, it was perfection, and I wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

  And if it meant I had to share her with a hot Alpha with an angst problem?

  Perfection.

  9

  Carmen

  The following Saturday rolled around, and I’d successfully avoided both Bobby and Sammie all week. I needed a medal or a gold star or something. The Ostrich Award. Still, I was kind of surprised that when I stood in our meeting place before the fight on Saturday, Bobby didn’t show.

  I swore under my breath and trudged back into town. The closer to home I got though, the madder I became. What, did he think I needed him? He was wrong. I could take care of myself, with my fists if I could, but with my teeth if I had to.

  I crept back through the house, grabbing the keys to Christopher’s car. Technically it belonged to the three of us, but Christopher was a typical Alpha control freak, so he always drove whenever we went anywhere. And we always did everything together. We were three parts to a whole, even more than normal littermates. What happened when we were five…

  I slammed the wall down on that thought.

  I breathed a sigh of relief that he’d only parked in the driveway and hadn’t garaged it for the night. It started nearly silently—hooray for Teslas—and I rolled out of the driveway. I took the quickest way out of town, knowing that if Christopher woke up and realized both me and the car were gone, he’d flip.

  I turned on the radio, listening to the w
eird old emo music Christopher liked. It suited my mood anyway. I was fuming, but the drive was over quickly. I might have been speeding a little.

  It was a bumper night at the warehouse, and whoever Flint belonged to had brought in the crowds. That usually meant one thing. They were ready to fight to the death.

  My chest constricted at the idea that Flint wasn’t fighting with me tonight. Would he be fighting with one of the others, maybe one that was willing to snap his neck for the bonus? Rat only ever paired me with people he knew would hold back from killing me, probably because he didn’t want to end up with his heart crushed in Lucius’ fist. Or maybe they made that decision themselves, if they were smart enough.

  I parked Christopher’s car under a light, close to the back doors of the building. I tucked the keys in a spot under the dash and hoped everyone would be too drunk to try and steal the car. I grabbed my gear, getting changed in the car because I didn't want to be vulnerable inside without Bobby watching my back.

  Fuck him. I didn’t need him.

  I strapped my hands myself, tearing at the stiff tape with my teeth. Then I did the other hand. It wasn’t perfect but it would do. I pulled off my hoodie, but left on my boots. I looked like GI Jane with my workout shorts and crop top. I kind of missed the armor of Bobby’s hoodie, but I didn’t need any reminders of that fucking fiasco right now. I needed my head in the fight.

  I stepped through the back doors and kept to the edges of the crowd. There was already fighting, and I could hear the dull thuds of fists hitting flesh. I moved toward my spot at the back, avoiding eye contact but keeping my head high. If they sensed weakness, they’d pounce. But they were used to me being with Bobby, and so far the predators hadn’t realized I was alone. Let’s hope it stayed that way.

  I was almost to my spot when a hand reached out and grabbed me. I whirled around on a snarl, ready to throw a punch, but stopped myself inches away from Sammie’s face.

  He looked furious. “What the hell are you doing here, Mouse?”

  His eyes ran down my body, and his fury doubled down as he made the logical connections. Lust tinged his gaze too, but he squashed it quickly. Mad it was, then.

  “I think the more interesting question is, what are you doing here, Sammie?”

  His face shuttered, and his shoulders tensed. “I like to watch the fights.”

  I frowned, because what did I really know about Sammie? “Illegal underground fights? With supernaturals?”

  He shook his head. “No, normally I just watch normal, run of the mill humans beat the shit out of each other.”

  “You know they fight to the death here, right?”

  “And… you… no!” His face grew even stormier, and he reached to grab me.

  I danced away. “You even so much as think about manhandling me in here, I will chop your balls off, shift, and then let my wolf eat them, you hear me? I don’t care who you are, but right here, right now, you are in my domain, so keep that he-man shit to yourself,” I whisper-shouted furiously. If he carried me out of here like an errant child? I would lose all the credibility I’d gained over the last few years.

  I strode off toward my corner, but I felt his presence behind me. To my left, some guy was getting his face turned to mush, as if to prove my point. The deaths, although they were truly few and far between considering most of us healed like supernaturals, no longer made that big of an impact on me.

  I was broken, and I accepted that.

  The guy in the ring would live if the guy on top of him stopped now. But given the manic set to his jaw, that wasn’t going to happen. Sammie watched on, and when he realized no one was going to call a stop to the fight, went to step in.

  I grabbed his arm this time, tugging him into the corner with me. “Are you trying to die?” I hissed. “You step in that ring and interfere, and they’ll tear you apart like the cinnamon roll you are.”

  He lifted up his jacket and flashed a gun. And a knife. I mean, I wasn’t surprised considering he was our weapons tutor.

  I pointed at the gun. “That won’t save you here. You need to leave, before I fight.” Because I could just tell he was the kind of asshole who’d flip out about it and do something stupid. He already had that look on his face.

  They dragged the limp body of the last guy out of the ring, and Rat stepped in. He looked a little less high today, which boded badly for us all. He deserved his name. He was a conniving motherfucker.

  “Next up we have the new kid, Flint, and a hometown favorite, Monster. This is sure to be a good fight. Get your bets in now.”

  Oh no.

  No.

  I swayed on my feet, and Sammie grabbed my arms. “Carmen, are you okay?” he whispered, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away. Monster deserved his name. Even in a world of animals, he was a savage. Brutal. He liked to torture his opponents before he snapped their necks. It was barbaric, and usually I liked to fight before he came on so I could go home before I had to watch.

  He couldn’t fight Flint.

  The two fighters stepped into the ring. Monster first, huge and scarred, one side of his body burnt. Rumor had it, his Pack had been so horrified by his actions, they’d burned him at the stake. But he’d managed to get free, and murdered them all. No one could prove it, and at this stage it was probably more likely to be an urban legend.

  “A Djinn?” Sammie whispered, and I whipped my eyes to the other side of the ring to Flint. Was that what he was?

  “How can you tell?”

  “The things on his wrists, they’re slave cuffs. They’re illegal, but they were once used to bind Djinn to their masters for a hundred years.”

  The actual hell? There were several things wrong with this whole thing.

  No one should be a slave, and Flint was what, like eighteen or nineteen? He had over eighty years to go being a slave. The second thing was how did Sammie, a human, know more about Djinn than I did?

  I knew deep down in my gut I couldn’t let the inevitable end of this fight happen. I’d figure out a way to get him out of this.

  The fight started, and Flint weighed up his opponent. Monster just stared at him with dead eyes.

  Flint’s hands went up in flames and I gasped. Monster flinched slightly, but his posture didn’t change at all.

  Rat knew what he was doing, the sick bastard. Put the burned monster against the kid with flames for hands.

  Monster was still loose and ready for whatever Flint threw at him. So when Flint stepped forward, his flaming fist swinging at Monster’s face, the big guy sidestepped it easy. Then his face morphed, and his teeth elongated, antlers growing from his head as he partially shifted.

  “What the fuck…” Sammie whispered behind me, and I looked at him with wide eyes.

  “Monster is a Wendigo.”

  Flint reared back, his other hand coming up to protect his face. He dodged Monster’s fist, and laid a decent hit to the other creature's stomach. But he wasn’t quick enough. Monster got inside Flint’s guard and snapped two quick punches to his face, sending him to the floor.

  “Get up, get up,” I whispered, but the force behind Monster’s punch must have rattled his brain, because as he struggled to his knees, he wasn’t fast enough to avoid a kick to the ribs. I heard them crack and my heart cracked with it.

  I looked over at Sammie, and he must have seen what I was thinking, because he nodded, his hand going to his gun. Monster was on top of Flint, his huge boulder-sized fists slamming into his face with those long, jagged teeth bared.

  He was going to tear out his throat, then put his hand in Flint’s chest and eat his heart. It was his signature move, and the crowd was almost giddy with excitement.

  I couldn’t let this happen.

  I shoved my way through the crowd, and dived into the ring. I hit Monster with my entire body weight, and it was enough to push him off balance and topple him to the side.

  The crowd howled its outrage. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Monster, aiming a punch at his face that he caug
ht easily. He was still partially shifted, his antlers sharp and pink, soaked with the blood of people he’d killed in the past.

  But he just held my fist, not trying to snap it like he could have done so easily. He just stared up at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Looking into his black depths was like looking into an abyss of despair, and I was dying inside with him.

  “Carmen!” Sammie yelled.

  It snapped us both out of the trance, and he threw me off. I skidded into Flint’s body, as he struggled to his knees once more.

  The crowd was surging closer. Fuck, we were going to be torn apart. I pulled Flint to his feet, but I couldn’t hold him steady. If I shifted I’d be vulnerable too long. Fuck, we were going to have to fight and flee.

  Sammie fired above everyone’s head. “No one fucking move.”

  But they were above logic. They were screaming like animals and the noise was terrifying. As if the mob made up its mind as one, they charged. I braced myself. I didn’t have regrets, this had been the right thing to do.

  Suddenly, there was a body in front of me. Rat’s enforcer.

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “Pack first,” he yelled, and I noticed there were other shapeshifters in the fray, fighting against the crowd. Shit, this was turning into a brawl. There was a bloodcurdling roar and I turned to see that Monster had turned full Wendigo.

  I wanted to vomit and piss myself. He was fucking terrifying. So thin he was almost skeletal, his face was elongated like the skull of a buck, huge pointed antlers sticking from his head. He was easily seven feet and his body was hunched in on itself, basically melted down one side.

  I was too scared to move. We were dead.

  Dead.

  When he turned and charged into the enraged mob rather than at us, I was momentarily shocked into stillness.

  Rat’s enforcer—fuck, I couldn’t remember his name—turned to us. “Get the fuck out of here,” he growled, his fist caving the face of a guy with a knife. He pulled his own Bowie knife, the thing big enough to gut a bear.