Their Shifter Academy 2: Unclaimed

by May Dawson

  “I was a loner,” Maddox added, as if he knew what we were wondering. “Came too close to pack territory, but it all worked out. Decided to stay.”

  Lex nodded. “It’s always great to grow the pack.”

  “Sounds like you’re doing your part,” Maddox said. “Going to be moving home then, when you graduate?”

  “Of course,” Lex said.

  Maddox leaned back, regarding Lex skeptically through the smoke.

  “Dad,” Lex said quietly. “I’d like to bring Rosemary home. Spend some time with my sister.”

  “You’ve got time here. She just finished her shift,” Rand said.

  I wondered what he expected to get from marrying his daughter to the pack alpha—the same man who’d taken his eye. Rand Alexander was a forgiving man, or at least, he wanted everyone to think he was.

  “So tell me, Lex,” Leon said. “How’s the academy treating you?”

  “It’s all right,” Lex said, without missing a beat, but I was sure he’d noticed the same thing I had.

  Maddox had called him Lex, even though he hadn’t introduced himself that way. Maybe he’d heard about Lex.

  Or maybe he’d met him before, back before he was Maddox Leon, when he was in Eliza’s patrol.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Lex

  “What?” my sister asked, her voice irritated. She’d been all smiles for the alpha, no matter how tense her posture, but now the alpha had left with Maddox Leon, her anger leaked through.

  “Nothing.” I ran my hand through my hair, wishing we wouldn’t have this conversation in front of Maddie. But I didn’t want Maddie to leave my sight. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “I barely ever see you.” Her voice was still tart. “It’s a nice surprise.”

  “Speaking of surprises. Since when do you work here? You’re not even old enough to drink.”

  She shrugged. “Since when do human laws matter to us? I just started.”

  Any father worth anything wouldn’t want his underage daughter hanging out in a bar full of low-lifes. “How’s homeschool for you?”

  “Fine.” She offered me a tight smile.

  I was pretty sure that there was no homeschool, despite what my father had said when he’d pulled Rosemary out of school. He claimed the humans ruined their daughters, and he didn’t want Rosemary to be like them.

  “Are you thinking about college at all? Going to take the SATs?”

  “Lex, come on,” she said, a disbelieving smile parting her lips. “I’ll get you another beer. Have a good time, enjoy your holiday.”

  “I can enjoy my holiday and nag you about the SATs at the same time.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “He’s pretty good at nagging.” Maddie smiled at Rosemary, who looked at her a second time, really focusing on her for the first time.

  Maddie had been quiet while I talked to my father and Leon, even though she was normally loud and vivacious. I was impressed by her ability to figure out what my pack expected, and conform to what those assholes wanted to see. She was going to be incredible when she graduated and joined the teams.

  “Hey,” I asked, leaning closer and dropping my voice low. “Do you know that guy? Maddox Leon?”

  Rosemary had seemed to be flirting with him too.

  She nodded. “The alpha’s new right-hand man.”

  “From loner to beta? That’s quite the leap.”

  “Yeah, Dad is pissed.”

  “Are you friends with Maddox?”

  Friends. What a loaded term, especially when it came to the relationship between men and women in most of the packs. Rosemary hesitated over it.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I won’t tell Dad.”

  I’d seen how Maddox looked at her.

  She shrugged. “We talk. He’s a nice guy.”

  Yeah, he was a really nice guy. As nice as his father.

  Our father seemed intent on rising in the pack by marrying Rosemary off to a man as old as he was, a man with wandering hands and a dark reputation. And Rosemary, for her part, was flirting with that man’s son. I had to figure out how to get her out of here.

  But for now, I had to stay focused on finding Eliza’s murderer. Rosemary wasn’t in any immediate danger.

  If I kept telling myself that, maybe eventually I’d start to believe it.

  “Let’s go home,” I said.

  Maddie and I needed to plan our next move. Unmasking Maddox Leon did nothing for us unless the Council knew.

  Or I could just kill him and save us all the trouble.

  Whenever I pictured Eliza again, I saw her smiling with her staff in her hand, gently encouraging Will and me even though there was nothing gentle about her swing. My hands tightened. God, I wanted to kill Maddox.

  But we needed information first, either way.

  Rosemary nodded. “Dad brought me down this afternoon. I can ride with you.”

  “You ever going to get your driver’s license?”

  “You ever going to stop nagging me?”

  I’d tried to teach her, even though Dad didn’t like it, but when I snuck her out last summer to take the test, she’d failed. She’d refused to try again.

  I didn’t know what the hell was going on in her mind; it drove me crazy that she just kept shaking her head and refusing to try the test again. I’d been willing to come home from the academy to help her, but she refused. She’d added, “Besides, Lex, you’re better off being not-here.”

  She was right, but I’d still come home for her, even if there was nothing else to bring me back.

  When we got back to the house, I texted Rafe to let him know we’d found the survivor, Maddox Leon, then deleted the sent message. I wouldn’t want anyone in my pack to see it.

  When I’d hung out with Eliza and her patrol, Tommy Smith, the son of the Kierney pack alpha, had seemed like a surprisingly nice guy. He didn’t talk about what happened back in my pack, which I appreciated.

  Like a lot of shifters, he smoked, but unusual cigarettes. Eliza had teased him, calling him a hipster; whenever they went on missions, he tried to find a specialty tobacco shop. There’d been a fancy gold label on the cigarettes he favored.

  And Maddox Leon, strangely enough, was smoking the same kind. I’d caught the glimpse of gold between his fingers as he smoked, even before he slipped and called me Lex.

  “Where’d Maddox live?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  “Don’t be all protective and weird,” Rosemary warned me.

  Maddie smiled faintly, as if she recognized that was an impossibility.

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m just curious. You can make your own life choices.”

  She made terrible ones. But that was no surprise, given our upbringing.

  “He’s still got a place outside of pack territory,” she said, and there was a hint of guilty pride in her voice. Our father would kill her if he knew. “A really nice house. I guess he lived near here for a while without realizing he was so close to the territory lines.”

  Or maybe, he’d needed a place to stay out of sight while he waited for the furor to die. Until the world was convinced there was nothing suspicious about the death of an entire patrol at the hands of the covens. Until everyone believed it was Eliza’s fault.

  “Cool.” My chest tightened with anger.

  ‘Maddox’ and I would get the chance to talk soon, I was sure.

  When we went inside the house, a familiar smell rushed into my nose like something I’d forgotten until now. It smelled musky and human.

  The house felt claustrophobic as I stood in the living room, trying to make small talk with Maddie and Rosemary.

  There was the doorframe where my mother had marked our heights in pencil.

  That was the same doorframe I’d grabbed while I tried to fight off the shifters who came for me at the alpha’s orders.

  My father had stood there, by the couch. While I fought the alpha’s four henchmen, he’d edged out of the way without
making eye contact. I’d shouted, begging him for help, just as they wrestled me out the front door. They’d thrown me down the steps and I’d hit the hard, frozen ground alone.

  For a while after that night, I’d thought I’d always be alone. The academy, the McCauley family, Rafe; they’d saved me.

  Whether human or wolf, there was nothing we feared as much as loneliness.

  “Lex, I made your favorite spaghetti Bolognese,” my mother said, leaning over the kitchen counter into the living room. That was where she’d been standing, too, wringing her hands while I was torn out of the house.

  At the time, I thought I was a man. Now I looked back at photos of myself at fifteen and realized I was still just a kid. Someone should have had my back. But my parents were never going to protect me after I disobeyed the alpha.

  To Maddie, my mother said brightly, “It’s the perfect fallback recipe! You practically always have the ingredients for a Bolognese right on hand!”

  Maddie stared back at her as if she was perplexed. Why was anyone was talking to her as if pasta was going to be the most important part of her life? She was a warrior.

  Then she smiled. “Are you still cooking? Would you show me how to make it?”

  She was amazing. As she passed me, I ran my hand across her shoulder. I just wanted her to know I appreciated her. She stepped into me without hesitation, turning her face up to me, and I brushed my lips across her forehead.

  I breathed in the familiar soft strawberry scent of her hair, the earthier scent of her body, and it felt as if some of my tension went with her as I let her go again. She slipped into the kitchen with my mother.

  Half an hour later, the four of us sat down around the oak table, but my mother texted my father. Maddie picked up her fork, then glanced around the table and paused.

  “Didn’t he eat dinner already?” I asked. “Come on, Mom.”

  “We don’t want to be rude, Jacob.” My mother gave me a look that was wide-eyed and horrified.

  “It’s always strange to hear you call him Jacob. I forget that’s his real name sometimes,” Maddie said.

  “You’ll have to remember when you’re an Alexander too,” my mother said, shaking her head. “Lex Alexander? It doesn’t even make sense. I gave him such a beautiful, strong name to suit my beautiful, strong little—”

  “Maybe I’ll take her name,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be a Northsea.”

  My mother laughed, then frowned as she realized I was serious.

  Why should I be attached to the name of a family that had barely taken care of me growing up?

  “So, how did Lex propose?” Rosemary asked Maddie cheerfully.

  We were back to pretending everything was normal. Nothing to see here.

  Maddie grinned and buried her face in her hands, as if the story was embarrassing. “Oh, man. I’m not sure it counts if you’re holding a pregnancy test.”

  Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Very romantic, Lex.”

  I shrugged. “You know me.”

  “Lex is definitely not romantic,” Maddie admitted. Her hand brushed mine as she glanced at me sideways, looking up at me through her eyelashes in a way that made my heart ache. I wished that look was real. “But he’s always there for me. Always. That counts for something.”

  “He’d better be now,” Rosemary muttered.

  “I could be romantic,” I said. I felt a little bit offended.

  I had been her real boyfriend, and I’d been romantic. Hadn’t I? What the hell did a guy have to do to count as romantic?

  Maddie raised her eyebrows. “Theoretically. Anything is possible.”

  “Game on, Northsea. Prepared to be wowed.”

  She grinned. For a second, it felt like a real moment between the two of us.

  Wheels rolled over gravel in the driveway. My mother smiled, tension lining her eyes. “There he is now. See? It wasn’t much of a wait at all.”

  My father reeled in the door, smiling broadly. “Hello, wife.”

  He grabbed my mother’s shoulders and kissed her, and she smiled adoringly at him the way she always did, like the two of them were still madly in love after twenty-five years. “Son! Future mother of my grandchildren!”

  Maddie grinned when he hugged her. He towered over her—Maddie was slender and average height for a human girl, which made her tiny compared to me or him—in a way that irritated me.

  Dinner was fine. Afterward, my mother enlisted Maddie to help her clean up. Maddie flashed me a look just once—help me—but then went on acting the role she was supposed to play.

  My father and I stepped out onto the back porch. There was barely any backyard; the pines and bare trees seemed to press against the house.

  When I was a kid, the branches of one of those trees used to scrape across my window at night. It reminded me of claws scratching at the house, but I hadn’t minded it. It made the outside world feel closer when I was trapped in the house. Nature had been where I felt free.

  “The alpha’s pretty happy you’re bringing a pack princess home,” he said.

  “Great.”

  If he couldn’t steal the alpha’s place at the top of the pack, my father lived to please him. I didn’t quite feel the same.

  “It’s hard to believe you’ll be home for good in June.” He clapped my shoulder. “Not long.”

  “That’s right.” Graduation loomed. Especially if I graduated early to give Maddie her space.

  “You are coming home, aren’t you?” His voice had gone quiet.

  “Where else would I go?” I glanced toward the house; the light shone out of the window between us, and I could see the women moving around in the kitchen.

  Now that we knew where Tommy Smith had gone, I needed to get Maddie and get out of here. Maybe having an argument with my dad was a good excuse.

  My father stared at me with a spark in his blue eyes. “You seem to have a knack for finding other places to be.”

  I shrugged.

  “Nothing to say, huh?” There was a sharp edge in his voice. The joyful-drunk part was wearing off. “You never have a lot to say.”

  “You’ve never been interested in listening.”

  “Oh, here we go again. Poor Lex.”

  “I thought you just said I never have a lot to say.”

  “I guess I should’ve said, it’s always the same old tired shit.”

  “You know what, maybe I will go work for the Council. That’s what you’re really getting at, right?”

  “No, you won’t. You won’t be a traitor to your own pack.” he said it as an order, not a statement.

  “Why would that make me a traitor?” I softened my voice. “The Council is trying to protect us all—”

  “Really?” he asked, his voice barbed.

  Well, the Council hadn’t protected Eliza. But my pack hated Council oversight for reasons that were far from admirable.

  And speaking of disgusting motivations… “What are you doing with Rosemary?” I asked.

  “It’s time she was married. She’s almost eighteen.”

  “You know, normal people don’t squeeze those two sentences together.”

  “She’s a good girl. She’s not a normal human, and I’m not going to wait around for her to decide to become one.”

  I rubbed my face, gazing at the moon high above the trees. It hung round and tranquil and shining above a planet full of chaos.

  “Clearly, you wouldn’t know anything about good girls,” he muttered.

  “You’re selling her to the alpha,” I said, ignoring the poke at Maddie. “What are you getting out of it?”

  “I’m not selling her. Get your head out of your ass, boy. She knows I’m looking out for her.”

  “Yeah, because every seventeen-year-old girl wants to be married off to a fifty-year-old asshole.”

  “He’ll give her a better life than you’ll ever give her.” He didn’t have to name Maddie, but he jerked his jaw at the house.

  “For once in your life, act like a father. Gi
ve her a chance at a real life.” I’d told Maddie once that I wouldn’t want my little sister to come someplace like the academy, but it was a better option than here. “Let Rosemary come to the academy next year.”

  He stared at me for a second, frowning, then threw his head back and laughed. “No, that’s all right. I’ll leave that for whores like your girlfriend who—”

  I slammed into him. The two of us trampled and tripped over the potted plants before his back slammed into the porch railing. We teetered on the edge for a second, then fell over it.

  He landed with a bark of pain, then scrambled to his feet. I stood across from him, my chest heaving and my hands folded into fists. I couldn’t hit him first. I should, but I couldn’t.

  He looked at me as if he’d kill me, his nostrils flared and his eyes alive with rage. I was familiar with that face. My heart hammered with panic, as it had a hundred times when I was growing up.

  But this time, I wasn’t just a kid.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Maddie

  When I heard the thud, then howling, I ran outside. Lex’s mother pretended for a beat more that nothing was happening, then ran after me, calling my name. In the yard, Lex and Rand traded ferocious blows as if they were trying to kill each other.

  Sasha grabbed my shoulders, trying to pull me back into the house. “Come on. This isn’t any of our business—”

  “The hell it isn’t,” I snapped. “Rosemary, grab your stuff. We’re getting out of here.”

  Rosemary looked at me wide-eyed before shaking her head.

  “Why the hell do you want to stay here?” I demanded. I’d only been here for an evening, and this pack seemed like a madhouse to me.

  “Get Lex and get out of here,” Rosemary said urgently. “Dad doesn’t trust him. The alpha doesn’t trust him—he’ll be coming—”

  “Rosemary!” Sasha’s eyes flashed.

  “Come with us,” I begged, afraid of what would happen if we left her.

  “I’ll be fine,” Rosemary promised. “This is my home, my family. I’m not going anywhere.”