Rebels and Runaways: Eden Academy Book One

by Grace McGinty

  “This changes things, Mouse.”

  She slid her eyes to me. “How so?”

  “It means we are together now.”

  She snorted. “It was a kiss, Bobby. Not a mating ceremony.” She turned and looked at me. “I like you, Bobby. Liked you since I was a kid. We both know it, so let’s not pretend any different. But you’re gonna be Alpha one day, and the pressure will be on you to marry a nice shapeshifter girl, not some trash heap wolf shifter.”

  I gave her a furious look. She was not a trash heap anything. But before I could open my mouth, she was continuing. “I’m selfish, or a masochist or something, because I want you despite knowing that it can’t go anywhere. But I also want to keep my options open. Sammie makes my heart race. And Flint… I don’t know. There's something about his darkness that speaks to mine.” She fell silent, her eyes unfocused as she thought deeply. She shook her head and looked back at me. “I can’t give you my whole heart, Bobby, because I know eventually you’ll break it.”

  We pulled into the Academy parking lot, and I yanked on the brake. “You’re wrong.” She gave me a sad expression and I knew that no matter what I said, she wasn’t going to believe me. “I’ll prove it to you.” I got out of the truck, racing around to open her door for her. I lifted her out of the cab of my pickup and pressed her against the side. “Exhibit A? I have no problem with you pursuing Flint and Sammie. You’re it for me, Mouse. Whether you believe me or not.” I kissed her softly, until she was curling into my body. “But if they hurt you, I will grind them down into so much dust, that not even their ancestors will be able to find them in the afterlife.”

  I grabbed her backpack and slung it over my shoulder. I saw Christopher watching us with heated eyes. Ah yeah. I was definitely getting my ass kicked again today. “Let’s go, beautiful. My beating awaits.”

  13

  Carmen

  Fortunately for both Bobby and Christopher, I’d dragged my brother away before he’d thrown himself at Bobby like some rabid pitbull. Then he went back to glaring at me and giving me the silent treatment, which was only slightly better than Enit’s forlorn looks, like she didn’t know what she’d done wrong to make me keep a secret like this.

  I was doing what I did best, and ignoring the whole thing. While I was ignoring shit, I was also purposefully not listening to the whispered gossip that seemed to follow me through the hallways. A little bit about the fight ring, a little bit about Bobby kissing me like he wanted to eat me whole. But a lot of it was about the guy behind the door in front of me.

  Room 167. Flint’s room.

  I knocked on the door, and the man in question swung it open. Shirtless.

  Holy shit. I mean, he’d fought shirtless, so I’d seen the washboard abs, and the criss-crossing scars, and that deep V…

  A throat cleared, and I dragged my eyes back up to his face. Busted. Instead of being embarrassed, I marched into his room.

  “Why aren’t you dressed? We’ve got class in like, ten minutes.”

  He scrunched up his face, which somehow made him look somewhere between James Dean and one of those rolly dogs that were so incredibly ugly they were cute.

  “I don’t think I want to go,” he said in a quiet voice, and it was my turn to frown. I looked at his face, trying to read his frown like a fortune teller reads a palm, but let’s face it, guys were a mystery. He could be solving cold fusion or needing to take a dump, and it would all look the same to me.

  So I shrugged. “Okay.”

  I threw my bag on the ground near his bed, and flopped down. Grabbing the remote from the nightstand, I switched on the TV. “Gotta tell you though, my parents expect me to ace all these damn courses, and when they ask why I didn’t, I’m going to say that I was keeping you company in your bedroom. You haven’t met my dad Lucius yet. He’s fucking crazy. I heard he once skinned and then julienned another vampire for daring to lay a finger on Raine.”

  Flint paled, and I grinned. It was all teeth.

  “Fine.” He turned toward the drawers and pulled out a pair of gym shorts. He shucked out of his sweats, and I realized he didn't have any underwear on. Also, he had an ass sculpted by the gods. I couldn’t look away, even when he bent over and gave me a full view of his sack. Great balls of fire. Well, at least I knew he wasn’t dying his hair to match his ring persona.

  He pulled on a t-shirt with the Eden logo on the chest, and I eyed him up. “You look like the poster boy for healthy living and a good education here at Eden Academy,” I said in my best telesales voice. “When you get those things off, I’ll take you into Dark River and hook you up.”

  I rolled off his bed and grabbed my backpack. “Fair warning though, you’re the talk of the Academy. Also, I’m kind of dating Bobby now, so I’m going to walk along holding your hand so they really have something to talk about, you know?”

  This got a laugh out of him, finally. “You’re trouble.”

  I winked at him and dragged him into the hall. A couple of the junior kids saw us and scuttled away. “Normally, we could hit up the cafeteria and get coffee, but as it is, someone decided to sleep in. So you’re going to have to wait until lunch.”

  He groaned and as I jogged along, he was forced to keep up. But I did pull out a protein bar from my blazer pocket and handed him the thermos of iced coffee that Enit made for me every day. She really was amazing. Cooking was her thing and holy shit she did it well.

  He slid to a stop, holding the food and coffee in front of him. A quick look at my watch told me we were going to be late for Mrs. Ferrentes’ Ethics and Morality class, and lets just say, Mrs. Ferrentes was a bitch. That would definitely land me back in Alistair’s office and I didn’t want to push my luck.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  He was looking between his thermos and the protein bar, frowning. “Nothing.” He twisted the cap off the thermos and took a deep gulp. His eyes lit up like he’d ingested unicorn jizz and not Enit’s iced coffee. “This is amazing!”

  I couldn’t keep the grin from my face. Yeah, it was. I didn’t know what she put in there, but there was an argument that it was probably crack. “Yep. Now feel that caffeination in your veins because we have to book it if we aren’t going to end up in detention on your first day.”

  I took off at a jog and tried not to think too hard about the wounded look in his eyes when I casually gave him food. Like he’d never had enough. Never been given food for free.

  That shit hurt my heart.

  Despite my best efforts, we were still late for Ethics class. Mrs. Ferrentes looked like she wanted to tear me a new one, so I did something completely uncharacteristic of me and threw Flint under the bus. Pushing him into the room in front of me, I smiled my most winning smile at the telekinetic human.

  “Sorry I’m late, ma’am, just showing our new class member where to go.” I mentally apologized to Flint for the fact that every person in that class turned to stare.

  Mrs. Ferrentes gave me a look that said she’d like to skin me without ever lifting a finger, but my butter-wouldn’t-melt expression remained stoically on my face.

  “This is your only chance, Miss Baxter. I will not have a repeat of last year, or you are out. Good luck passing the Academy if you fail first year Ethics.”

  Fucking old cow. I was briefly happy she was telekinetic and not telepathic because there's no way I’d have been able to keep that shit to myself. “I understand, ma’am.”

  She gave me the stink eye and tipped her chin toward the back of the class where Enit already sat. I gripped Flint’s hand and dragged him along behind me. “That goes for you too. I don’t care if you’re new,” Mrs. Ferrentes said to a slightly stunned Flint. I stuffed him down at a free desk Enit had been keeping for us, and then flopped in beside him.

  Enit leaned over. She gave him a gentle smile, like she could see the trauma of his past painted across his skin. Maybe she could. I’d trusted her judgement and empathy for a long time. “Hello. You must be Flint. I’m Mouse’s sister
, Enit.” Her voice was soft like she was speaking to an injured horse and not a six and a half foot fiery ball of muscle.

  I watched his face. While he softened when she spoke, he didn’t look at her with anything that I construed as desire, and trust me, I was well-versed in seeing that. Enit was beautiful, her pale white hair and blue eyes, creamy skin and pink lips, it all made her look somewhere between a doll and Marilyn Monroe. Add to that the fact she was an Omega, and she was like catnip for assholes. I’d nailed more guys in the nuts defending her than I’d had Christmas dinners. While she was sweet and trusting, she was also a crazy pacifist. Christopher’s and my own trauma had made me turn to violence and pain, but hers had manifested itself in avoiding confrontation at all costs. I’d once caught a guy feeling her up in the bathrooms in the ninth grade, and she had been absolutely paralyzed with fear.

  I’d nearly put that kid in a coma.

  Christopher had finished the job. He’d never returned.

  But Flint just looked at my sister like she was something too pure for this world, like you would a kitten in a den of wolves. Nothing like the way he looked at me.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, not just because I wouldn’t have to fight Flint if he got all weird, but also a bit of relief for myself too.

  Where every guy and his dog had fawned over Enit, I’d been on like four first dates in my life. That was it. Four first dates. They never got to second dates, and honestly, I got it.

  I wasn’t an Omega. I was just a run-of-the-mill beta.

  I wasn’t a damsel that needed saving. I could handle my own shit.

  I came from a family of psychos. One look at my dads was a deterrent for any man with two brain cells to rub together. Christopher just rounded them out nicely.

  But Flint? He seemed to like that. I saw the heat in his eyes when he fought against me. I saw the way he looked at me when I’d been lying on his bed this morning. He wanted me.

  Mrs. Ferrentes cleared her throat loudly and started her lecture, and I zoned the hell out. There was nothing wrong with my ethics or morality, although I’m sure that Mrs. Ferrentes would strongly disagree. Aside from Flint, I hadn’t stepped in to save any of the people in the ring when I fought, but I’d never taken a life. Should I have told someone so they’d shut it down? Eh, probably.

  Ferrentes liked to pretend that the world was black and white, but it wasn’t. It was all shades of grey with splashes of red.

  Still, I wrote notes so when the pop quiz came around, I could pretend that if I found my former Alpha, the one that sold us, I wouldn’t spend days and days chopping him into tiny pieces. I would pretend that if anyone laid a single hand on my sister in violence, that I wouldn’t remove that hand perfectly.

  There wasn’t a problem with my ethics or morality. I lived by a strong code. The problem was that code wasn’t particularly socially acceptable.

  I looked over at Flint’s notebook and realized he hadn’t written anything. He was looking down at his hands, his jaw tense.

  “What's wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled, but his fingers curled into a fist. Yeah, that didn’t look like nothing. I slid my hand into his and squeezed it in support. This shit was weird for him; I knew that. But I had his back. He just didn’t know it yet.

  I got through the rest of the class, but only just. Ferrentes was so monotonous, I bet she did it with Mr. Ferrentes lights off, nightgown still on, bathed in lube. I gagged a little even as I thought about it.

  Flint slammed his notebook shut, but not so fast that I missed the fact he hadn’t written a single thing. I frowned at him.

  “You didn’t write any notes. Ferrentes wasn’t joking. She will fail you.”

  Flint stepped closer. “I can’t read or write,” he said in a low voice, and I could tell that it pained him.

  However, he mustn’t have said it low enough, because Mrs. Ferrentes turned to look at us, her eyebrows arched high on her face. “You can’t read or write? I suggest you get a tutor because I am not baby stepping you through this class,” she barked incredulously. Every eye in the room turned toward us.

  I wondered if I’d get expelled for hitting a teacher. Because at that moment, I wanted to shatter her face more than any other person’s on the planet. Enit was there, grabbing my arm and putting a hand on a mortified Flint’s back and propelling us both from the room.

  I was barely in the hall when I aimed a kick at the water fountain.

  “That crusty, good for nothing, mother fuck—”

  “Carmen,” Enit chastised. She looked at Flint. “It’s no big deal. Tex, our dad, is blind, so when they made an agreement with the Pack to use this land for the Academy, our family made sure that the school would be accessible to everyone. There are ways to sit your exams and do tests without literacy.” When she said it, it really did sound like no big deal. Like it was just something that happened, which it totally was. “Carmen and I will help you study; it’ll be good for us too. And if you want to learn to read or write, we can help you with that too. Bobby as well. Totally up to you.” She gave him a smile that was full of love and purity, and I hugged her.

  She gave me a squeeze and then shoved me away. “Go. I have permaculture and you have combat with the new combat instructor,” she teased, waggling her eyebrows as she flounced off.

  Flint watched her go, frowning. “I like your sister. She’s sweet. I’m not used to people who are just so damn… nice?”

  I laughed, even though the black ball of insecurity was heavy in my stomach. “She’s the best. But if you’re interested in her, I’m going to have to castrate you first.”

  He whipped his head towards me, frowning. “She’s nice, but not my type. I like my women with fire as well as good hearts.”

  “Oh?” I squeaked out, moving along the corridors now there were more people.

  He nodded, his long legs easily keeping up with me. “Yep. I like a girl who will fight for those she considers friends. Who will risk their life for a stranger.” I didn’t say anything, because if I spoke I’d probably say something super embarrassing.

  “Carmen,” he said, reaching out and grabbing my hand. He tugged me back and slammed his mouth into mine.

  His lips were like fire. They branded as they moved across mine, and I was helpless to move. I moaned a little and he slid his tongue past my teeth, flicking it pornographically inside my mouth.

  Suddenly, he was wrenched away. Behind him were three of the future Pack Enforcers. They were all dumb as rocks and huge as houses. They scowled down at Flint. “Hands off what doesn’t belong to you, shitstain.”

  Ugh. Here we go. “And who do I belong to, numbnuts?” I snarked back.

  “The Alpha-Heir,” he said slowly, like I was the stupid one.

  I slapped a hand on my heart. “I do? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I let the fake shock drop. “You guys have no say in what I do or who I kiss, so fuck off.”

  Then Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dumb, and Tweedle-Douche crowded around me in something that might have resembled intimidation if they weren’t such a fucking joke.

  “Listen here, you little whore. You’ll be faithful to the Alpha-Heir, or I’ll fuck the slut out of you myself,” Tweedle-Douche growled.

  I looked over at Flint and he raised an eyebrow. I shrugged my shoulders, spun, and headbutted fucker number one in the face. It hurt like a bitch, but it was worth it.

  Flint jumped in, and it was on. Fists flew, blood splattered. My lips were still tingling from Flint’s kiss.

  It was a good fucking day to be alive.

  14

  Flint

  Miss Pea pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. She looked at Carmen, who just grinned back. “I’m thinking about getting you your own commemorative bench for this room. What do you think?”

  Carmen steepled her fingers and rested her chin on them. “Are we talking vinyl cushions or a throne made out of swords?”

  Miss Pea just shook her head, working hard to maintain her dou
r face. I didn’t have any such problems, openly grinning at Carmen.

  We’d been hauled to the Principal’s office, and it wasn’t the first impression I wanted to make. But Miss Pea, she insisted I call her Pea, like the vegetable not the human waste, seemed to be fond of Carmen so that was okay.

  She flicked her eyes to me. “You’ve got that right. I feel like Carmen was hauled in here every second day for fighting. Well, up until a few years ago, and now we all know why that was.” Yeah, I guess the fact we’d both been hauled in from illegal fighting had gotten around the gossip grapevine.

  Actually, I didn’t think I’d even spoken yet. I frowned, looking between Pea and Carmen. “She’s telepathic. Gird your thoughts, laddie,” Carmen said in a truly terrible Scottish accent. I mean, it was genuinely awful.

  Oh shit. She was telepathic. Dammit, had I thought about Carmen’s tits when I walked in here? I definitely thought about her ass. I mean, her legs were— No, fuck stop it, Flint. Think about those pricks standing over Carmen, intimidating her like she would be scared of those overgrown neck muscles on legs. My girl was fearless. And beautiful. So fucking beautiful. Did I mention her ass? It was—

  “Ugh. I swear. Teenage boys haven’t changed in a hundred years.” She turned from me. “Carmen, you can’t hit every person who pisses you off, no matter how overbearing they’re being. You’ve both got detention for a week.”

  Carmen screwed up her nose. “Can you even give me detention now that I’m in the Academy?”

  Miss Pea raised both brows. “It’s that or blacklist you from the coffee cart.”

  “I’ll take the detention,” Carmen said, jumping to her feet.

  Pea snorted. “I figured. I’ll talk to Mrs. Ferrentes about being a ‘bitch ass crust bucket’, and if you need a tutor, Flint, just let us know.” She turned to Carmen again. “Also, you should pick up some extra combat lessons from the new teacher, Mr. Richards. I know that with the ring now gone, you’ll be back in here every five minutes if you don’t have an outlet for all that pent up rage. Put it down as your extracurricular, and I’ll make it count toward your final grade.”