by J. L. Wilder
“We know about it,” Jonah said. “Thanks.”
“Planning on attending?” Gabe sauntered up to the river, plucked a cattail, and spun it back and forth between his fingers.
“Yeah, figured we would,” Jonah said.
Gabe nodded. “I guess it would be pretty important for you,” he said. “Since it’s your senior year and you haven’t imprinted yet.”
“You haven’t imprinted yet either,” Alex pointed out.
A flash of rage showed through Gabe’s calm veneer, but he brought it under control. “Quiet,” he said. “Alphas are talking.”
“Alex is my second,” Jonah said. “The only one who gives him orders is me. And I say he’s at liberty to talk if he wants to. If you have a problem with that, you and I can discuss it.” He stepped forward.
“No problem,” Gabe said, showing his teeth again. “What you do with betas is entirely your business.”
“Maybe it’s time you thought about finding a second yourself,” Alex said. “These bodyguards of yours aren’t going to join your pack after we graduate, you know. They’re going to go off and form packs of their own.”
Gabe made a dismissive noise. “Finding a second is easy,” he said. “They’ll all be looking for an alpha to latch onto after graduation.”
“Finding a good one isn’t easy,” Jonah said.
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Sure it is,” he said. “They’re all the same. No, it’s omegas I’m concerned with. And I know that you are too, even if you don’t want to admit it. That’s why I’m here.”
“I know why you’re here,” Jonah said. “We have this same conversation before every social.”
“And you haven’t listened to me yet,” Gabe said. “Every time there’s a social, I see you talking to her.”
“I’ll talk to whomever I like,” Jonah said. “What are you going to do about it?”
Gabe looked over his shoulder at Josh and Dan. “Go ahead,” he said.
Jonah fell into a defensive posture immediately, but he wasn’t prepared for what happened. He anticipated that the attack would come in his direction, but instead, Josh and Dan went for Alex.
If they had decided to shift, it would have descended into an all-out brawl in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, they retained their human form. But they were bigger than Alex was, and there were two of them, and they quickly had him pinned to the ground.
They dragged him to the river. Lifting him by his upper arms, they dunked him backward so that his head was fully submerged. When they pulled him out of the water, he was sputtering and coughing.
Jonah grabbed the front of Gabe’s shirt and pulled him close, his free hand curling into a fist. “Call them off,” he snarled.
Gabe had the audacity to laugh. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “You’re not going to hurt me. You know what my father would do if anything happened to me.”
That was true. Gabe’s father was the alpha of one of the wealthiest shifter packs in North America. It was infuriating the way the little weasel seemed to avoid taking responsibility for anything just by virtue of who his family was. “Maybe I don’t care,” he suggested, tightening his grip on Gabe’s shirt.
“Go ahead and try it,” Gabe said. “I wish you would try it. My father would have you pulled out of school in a heartbeat, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about you trying to put the moves on Aubrey.”
“I can’t control who imprints on Aubrey, you know,” Jonah said.
Gabe glanced over his shoulder. “Dunk him again.”
Jonah turned to see Josh and Dan holding Alex under the water. They kept him down longer this time, and Jonah could see his beta struggling. “For fuck’s sake,” he cried. “Do you always do what he tells you? Are you his betas?”
Josh and Dan frowned at each other, clearly uncertain.
Jonah tightened his grip on Gabe’s shirt and brought the smaller alpha inches from his own face. “Let—him—go.”
“Bring him up,” Gabe said.
Josh and Dan let go of Alex. He surged up out of the water and ran away from them, putting several yards between himself and the alphas. Then he fell to his hands and knees, gagging, spitting up water.
“You’re a bastard,” Jonah said to Gabe.
“Stay away from Aubrey,” Gabe said. “That’s all I’m saying. You can’t imprint on her if you’re not around her. And there are plenty of other girls at Omega U. But Aubrey’s mine. Understand?”
“Aubrey could do a million times better than you,” Jonah said.
“We’ll see,” Gabe said, smirking. “You might want to let me go now.”
Josh and Dan had appeared on either side of Jonah, scowling at him, their hands clenched in fists.
Jonah dropped Gabe to the ground with more force than was necessary. Gabe managed to keep his feet, but he stumbled backward a few steps and caught himself against an oak tree. He smirked at Jonah, but his smirk looked a bit weak.
“Come on, boys,” he said and turned back toward the school. Josh and Dan glared at Jonah for a moment, then followed.
Jonah watched their receding backs for a moment. Then he hurried to Alex’s side and helped his beta sit up. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine.” Alex coughed and shook the water from his hair. “Jesus. They’re really intimidated by you, aren’t they?”
“You think?”
“They didn’t even attack you directly,” Alex said. “They had to come for me.”
“An attack on you is an attack on me,” Jonah said.
“Yeah, I appreciate that,” Alex said. “But it’s not a very noble one, is it? If you had a problem with another alpha, you wouldn’t beat up on his second.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Jonah agreed.
“Are you going to do what they want?” Alex asked. “Stay away from Aubrey?”
Jonah hesitated. “If I don’t, they might come after you again.”
“You can’t let that be your reason,” Alex said.
“You’re my second,” Jonah said. “I can’t let anybody hurt you.”
“Yeah, but you can’t let them push you around either,” Alex said. “You want Aubrey. I know you do. That’s why you’ve never imprinted on anybody else. You’ve only had eyes for her, ever since freshman year.”
“Maybe I should give up on that,” Jonah said. “If I was going to imprint on Aubrey, wouldn’t it have happened already?”
“Not necessarily,” Alex said. “You know how Aubrey is.”
“What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t exactly make herself emotionally available to people,” Alex said. “She’s not like the other omegas. Most of them want to be imprinted on as quickly as possible so they’ll be sure to be claimed by an alpha before graduation. But Aubrey...she’s always known that she would be claimed. She’s at the top of her class. She’s the best-looking omega in her year. And then there’s the matter of who her father is.”
“I am so fucking tired of considering who everybody’s father is,” Jonah said.
“Right, but in her case, it’s important,” Alex said. “Her father’s even richer and more powerful than Gabe’s father. That’s probably why he wants her so bad. He considers them equals.”
“Equals.” Jonah snorted. “They might both have rich fathers, but there’s nothing else about them that’s remotely equal. Gabe is a cowardly little weasel. He doesn’t deserve a girl like her.”
“I agree with you, believe me.” Alex shook his head again, then tilted it to one side as if to allow water to drain from his ear. “Nothing would make me happier than to see him graduate unmated. But his father is wealthy.”
“And I don’t even know who my father is,” Jonah said. “I thought college was supposed to be this big equalizer. I thought it was supposed to level the playing field. Once I got here, it wasn’t supposed to matter anymore that I was adopted into a pack at the age of ten, that I spent the first few years of my life running wild. I thought I would be consid
ered just the same as everyone else.”
“Did you really think that?” Alex asked. “Did you think guys like Gabe would let go of the advantages they were born with that easily? His father’s money is the only thing he has to recommend him. He’s not going to let that go.”
Jonah sighed. “What a little creep.”
“That’s why you can’t let him win,” Alex said. “If you want Aubrey—and I know you do—you have to go for her. You have to try to imprint on her, no matter what Gabe says.”
“And what if he tries to attack you again?” Jonah demanded. “I’m your alpha, Alex. It’s my duty to protect you.”
“Right, and we’ll figure out a way to do that,” Alex said. “We’ll be ready for them next time. Maybe next time I’ll fight Gabe, and you fight Dan and Josh. That would be a bit more even.”
“That’s why they set it up not to go down that way,” Jonah said.
“They were ready and we weren’t,” Alex said. “That’s all there was to what happened today. The next time there’s a fight, we will be ready. We’ll figure out a strategy, and if they come for us again, we’ll know what we’re going to do.”
“I don’t know,” Jonah said. “Is she really worth the risk?”
“You tell me,” Alex said. “You’re the one who wants her. Is she?”
Jonah thought about Aubrey. He had never been able to spend significant amounts of time with her, because every time there was a social event that allowed the alphas to mingle with the girls of Omega University, she was in incredibly high demand. Between her wealthy father, her stunning good looks, and the fact that she consistently appeared at the very top of the class rank list that was posted every other week on both campuses, she was incredibly popular among the alphas who were still looking to mate.
But from the first time he’d seen her, she had appealed to him. He had been taken with her beauty. And he had always felt a sense of destiny about the two of them. Surely, he thought, they were meant to be together. They belonged together. She was at the top of the class of omegas, and he was at the top of the class of alphas. She must have noticed his name, just as he couldn’t help noticing hers. She must have thought about him as a potential mate.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Of course he wasn’t going to allow some sniveling little worm like Gabe to run him off from the girl he was supposed to be with. He wouldn’t stand down and allow Gabe to claim the best omega of the year. A guy like that thought he could use threats to get what he wanted in life, but Jonah wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Yes,” he said to Alex. “She’s worth it. Definitely.”
“All right, then,” Alex said. “You should spend as much time as possible with her at the bonfire.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. If you’re going to go against what Gabe wants, you might as well go whole hog about it, right?”
“I suppose so,” Jonah allowed.
“And besides,” Alex said, “the more time you spend with her, the more likely it is that you’ll imprint. It probably hasn’t happened yet because neither one of you has really let your guard down around the other. But if you get to know each other well enough, if you spend enough time in each other’s company, it’s more likely to happen.”
“That’s true,” Jonah said. “But it’s so hard to get her on her own. Everyone wants some of Aubrey’s time. She’s the most popular omega over there. There’s a reason I haven’t been able to spend much one-on-one time with her so far, you know.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Alex said. “But things will be different now. It’s senior year. She can’t afford to keep playing around the way she has been, waiting for the right guy to find her. She’s going to have to start taking this seriously if she wants to end the year mated.”
“I never thought of that,” Jonah admitted.
“That’s what you have me for,” Alex joked. “I’m the brains of this operation.”
Jonah knew his friend was kidding, but there was some truth to what he had said. Not for the first time, he felt truly grateful that Alex had agreed to be his beta, that the two of them had been together since the beginning of sophomore year. He might not have an omega yet, but at least he had a packmate who could be counted upon to always have his back.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll approach her first thing at the bonfire tomorrow. But I need you to run interference for me. Keep as many other alphas away from us as you can—especially Gabe.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Alex said with a grin. “He won’t be able to do anything to me when we’re in public. It would be my pleasure to mess up his life.”
Chapter Three
GRACE
“Are you coming?” Grace’s roommate and closest friend, Skye, asked. She wadded up a sweatshirt and tossed it at Grace, who was lying on her back on the bed in her dorm room.
Grace sat up and shook out the sweater. “Coming where?”
“To check the class rank list,” Skye said. “It’ll be up by now.”
Grace groaned and flopped back down. “Why would I want to go look at that list?” she asked. “We know I’ll be at the very bottom, just like I always am.”
“Maybe not,” Skye said. “It’s the first ranking of senior year. Don’t you at least want to see?”
She didn’t. Even though she had never risen higher in the class rankings than fifth from the bottom, it was painful every time she saw her name so low on the list. Most of the time, Grace managed to ignore the fact that she was the worst student at Omega University, but sometimes it was a hard thing to put from her mind.
And now it was senior year. She would be graduating, and she had no idea what would come next for her. She definitely didn’t want to try to return to her father. Now that she knew what she was, now that she understood her own potential, it would be agony to try to go back and live in his house.
If only there was a chance of someone imprinting on her or choosing her as their mate.
She had long ago abandoned the hope that any alpha would ever want her. There were too few of them, and too many more impressive omegas above her in the rankings. But for a long time—through most of last year, in fact—she had held onto the hope that perhaps some nice beta might lay claim to her.
It hadn’t been until the last social of the year that she had understood how futile that hope was.
It had been Skye who had pointed out the obvious to her. “Betas aren’t allowed to claim omegas,” she’d said, her voice warm and sympathetic. “Omegas are meant to be saved for alphas. Beta males can only date other betas.”
Which meant that there was no one who would ever want Grace. She was alone, and she would always be alone. She would graduate unmated and be forced to consider returning to her father’s house.
Looking at the class rankings was just a horrible reminder of that fact.
But Skye was her friend. Her only friend, really. And Grace knew that Skye wanted to look at the rankings. Unlike Grace, Skye still had a chance at being claimed. Her rank was nothing to be ashamed of. She was consistently in the middle of the pack.
“All right,” Grace agreed. “Let’s go look.”
She pulled on the sweatshirt Skye had thrown her and stepped into her flip flops. Then she followed Skye out the door of their dorm room and down the stairs, out onto the campus lawn.
Outside, omegas were making their way in twos and threes toward the main academic building. It seemed everyone had had the same idea Skye had had. Grace’s heart sank. If she had to confront her low class rank, she would have preferred to do so alone, not surrounded by her classmates. It would be embarrassing.
But it looked as if she wasn’t going to have that luxury.
Skye led the way inside and up to the bulletin board, where the class rank was posted. She shouldered her way to the front of the group that was clustered there. Grace lingered at the back. She had no need to push through all these people to see where she was ranked. It wasn’t
going to be good news.
She noticed the way her friend started at the very top of the list, running her finger down the names until she came to her own. If Grace had been searching for her own name, she would have started at the bottom.
She wondered if Skye had ever thought about what that would feel like.
Skye picked her way back out through the group to where Grace was standing. “Fifty-fourth,” she said. “Not amazing, but better than last semester. Maybe I can get up into the thirties by midterms.”
Grace nodded. “Maybe.”
“Did you want to look?” Skye asked her.
Grace shrugged as if it wasn’t very important to her. “Did you happen to see where I was?” she asked.
“I didn’t check,” Skye admitted, looking a little guilty. “Want me to go look for you?”
Grace was about to say that it was all right, that she didn’t need to know, when a hoot of laughter went up.
“Grace Foster?” a voice said. “Seriously?”
Grace couldn’t help it. She turned at the sound of her name.
Tall, curvy, blonde Aubrey Price pushed her way through the assembled omegas to stand before Grace. She was at least six inches taller than Grace was, and when she rested her hands on her hips and drew herself up, those six inches felt more like a foot. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Grace’s throat tightened. She was at a loss for words.
“She has every right to be here,” Skye spoke up. “She goes to school here.”
One of the girls standing behind Aubrey snickered.
“This is the class ranking,” Aubrey said as if Grace might be too stupid to have realized that.
“I know what it is,” Grace managed.
“Well, then why did you come to see it?” Aubrey asked. “Surely you must know by now where you rank in our class. Have you ever not been dead last?”
“She’s not always last,” Skye said loyally, although Grace couldn’t help hearing how feeble that defense sounded. Aubrey seemed to notice too because she laughed unkindly and rolled her eyes.
“She’s last this quarter,” one of the girls closest to the list spoke up. It seemed that everyone had stopped what they were doing so that they could give their full attention to the confrontation between Grace and Aubrey.
