Becoming Alpha

by Aileen Erin

  She’d just made my brain explode and had no clue that she’d done it. This was a lot to take in. I glanced down at my overflowing tray and wondered if I would even be able to carry it. “So what, I’m going to look seventeen for the next five years.”

  “Kind of. We age normally for a while, but then it slows way down once you hit your first shift.” I must’ve made a face, because she answered my question before I asked it. “Puberty.”

  “Awesome.” Because puberty wasn’t hard enough already.

  “Seriously,” she said. “I’m not kidding. You need to eat all of that. If you’re hungry, you get pissy. A pissy werewolf is a dangerous werewolf.”

  When she decided we had enough, she looked for a table. Ignoring everyone had been easy while I got food, but once I turned, the entire cafeteria stopped eating to stare at me. Low whispers spread through the room.

  Fantastic. Now if I could make it to the table without tripping, that would be good.

  I followed Meredith as she wove through the tables. Most people stopped talking when I walked by them, except for one table.

  “Don’t worry, Dastien. She won’t dare approach you here.”

  I spun—nearly toppling my soda. La Bitch was back.

  Then I saw them. A pair of golden eyes. La Bitch’s hand covered Dastien’s as she leaned toward him.

  Motherfucker. Did that asshat have a girlfriend?

  The two of them together stung way more than it should’ve. We had kissed once. It wasn’t like it meant anything besides irrevocably destroying my life. Still, the urge to throw the contents of my tray in his face for turning me and then sitting there all chummy with that bitch of a girl was almost too great to ignore.

  He got up without saying a word to me and walked out of the cafeteria.

  Meredith looked from me to La Bitch. She cleared her throat, and stared at the ground. “Come on, Tessa. Table’s over here.”

  I didn’t want to look away from the girl, but Meredith pulled on my arm, nearly upending my tray. It was either make a scene or follow Meredith.

  I stared at the doors Dastien had disappeared through. I didn’t need any more problems. I took a deep breath and followed Meredith.

  We sat down where three people were already eating. “This is Chris.” Meredith pointed to a boy with wavy dirty blond hair, and sky blue eyes. “He’s our resident brooding artist.”

  I set my tray down with a thunk. It was the guy from earlier who tackled me. “I think we’ve met. Kind of,” I said.

  “I could never forget someone who made me fall so hard.” He gave me a wink. “Recovering okay?” His voice had a deep rasp that I hadn’t noticed before.

  “This is Adrian,” she said, motioning toward the other guy.

  He had brown skin and eyes so dark I couldn’t tell where the iris started. He smiled, his white teeth gleaming against the dark skin. “Hola,” he said with a thick Texas accent.

  “And this is Shannon.” Shannon had flame-red hair and bright green eyes. Her cold glare made me shiver. This one didn’t think so highly of me. Maybe she should go join La Bitch’s table.

  “Listen, the cliques here can be pretty rough. I mean some of them are from families with long lines of ruling alphas,” Meredith said. “You don’t want to piss anyone off until you know what’s what. Just try not to let anyone get to you. Like Imogene—”

  “The girl with Dastien?”

  She nodded.

  “Right.” I shrugged. “Well, I’ll be nice to her if and when she’s nice to me.”

  Meredith made a face, but I wasn’t backing down on this. I’m not going to go out of my way to be nice to someone who insulted me.

  A change of subject was in order. “I guess everyone’s not just staring at me because I’m new?”

  “Sorry, love.” Shannon’s lilting Irish voice surprised me. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s been bitten. It’s simply not done.”

  Not done. Right. Because if that were really true, then how did I end up at St. Ailbe’s?

  I poked around at my mountain of food, and they started talking about some chemistry test coming up. I nodded when appropriate to the conversation that flowed around me, but couldn’t stop wondering about the whole biting thing. That was the second time that someone mentioned that werewolves didn’t bite humans. So why had Dastien done it?

  “You should really finish that,” Meredith said.

  I’d eaten some of it, but hadn’t even made a dent in the mound. Thinking about Dastien had killed my appetite. The thought of taking another bite made me want to gag. “You know, I think I’m good. I’m going to head back to my room.”

  “Are you sure you—” Meredith said.

  “I’m fine. Really.” I’d reached my limit. I was never great at being around people, and couldn’t remember the last time I’d been alone. This was all too much, and trying to pretend that it was normal and have a nice little dinner chat wasn’t working for me. “It was nice to meet all of you.”

  As I stood up, the room went quiet again. I left my tray where it was, and strode across the room. Everyone stared, especially a group of girls from the table where Dastien had been sitting. Their gazes could have started a fire, mostly around me. I held my chin high as I walked past them. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  When I got back to my room, I found my cell phone on the bed with a note tucked underneath it.

  Call your parents. They want to hear from you.

  —Michael Dawson.

  I stared at my phone. What would I say? What did they have to tell me? Nothing and nothing.

  I grabbed my laptop off the desk and started doing searches on werewolves and their bites. I found a lot of stuff that I didn’t think was right. One site said werewolves were started by a gypsy’s curse. Another site said you could go back to being human if you killed the werewolf that bit you. That was a pretty thought, but I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t be trying it out. I wasn’t that desperate. Yet.

  One blogger wrote that werewolves could only shift when there was a full moon, but I already knew that wasn’t true. Chris had gone back and forth between the two forms in a fraction of a second this afternoon. A quick search confirmed that we were a little more than three weeks away from the next full moon.

  I was about to close my computer in frustration when I found a local news story. A girl was found dead about 100 miles north of San Antonio with her throat ripped out. All her blood was drained.

  Meredith would probably tell me vampires or goblins did it. Hell, maybe a unicorn with rabies.

  I rolled my eyes and closed my laptop, placing it on my desk to charge.

  Mr. Dawson’s note was still on my bed. I read it again and dialed home. I snapped it closed before it started to ring.

  I couldn’t call my parents, but there was one person I could call. I grinned as a plan formed in my mind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Meredith knocked on the door connecting my room to the bathroom when she got back from dinner. “Tessa?” she whispered as she opened the door.

  I hoped the lights being off would be hint enough, but I was prepared. Under the covers, I was fully dressed—black skinny jeans and a black t-shirt, but she wouldn’t be able to tell. I kept my breathing even and steady. The door quietly clicked closed.

  I stayed still until I heard the noises from her room quiet. I waited another two hours after that. Then one more just to make sure.

  Everyone had to be asleep by then. It was after two in the morning. I threw off the covers and picked up my cell.

  Axel picked up after one ring. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” I kept my voice as quiet as possible. “This place is totally messed up. Come get me.”

  The silence on the other end nearly did me in. I closed my eyes and prayed he’d do this for me. He had to. There was no one else.

  “I dunno,” he said finally. “Mom and Dad would flip. They’re saying that you’re…that you…”

  “Axel. Please
. I’m asking for help. You know I wouldn’t ask if I had any other option.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do it. I hear they have you under lockdown.”

  “That’s not true. I’m in a dorm, not jail. Plus, campus has been quiet for hours now. Everyone is asleep.” I tiptoed to the window to double check, but nothing was moving. The courtyard was empty. Not one light was on in the buildings. The night was totally still. “I’m going to sneak out and go to the front gate of the school. Pick me up in fifteen.”

  “I have to get dressed and it’ll take me longer than that just to get there. Give me twenty-five.”

  “Done.” I paused. I didn’t know what I was doing and this was probably going to get both of us in world of hurt with our parents. “Axel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure thing. I got your back, lil sis.”

  I hung up and double-checked that my cell was on silent. Even having it on vibrate could get me caught if I was actually on lockdown. Whatever the hell that meant.

  Since Axel was going to take a few, I grabbed my backpack and looked around my room to see if there was something here I couldn’t live without, but there really wasn’t much that I couldn’t replace. I grabbed a few of my favorite T-shirts I’d screen-printed, my laptop, and my signed Nora Roberts book. With my cell shoved into my back pocket, I sat down, knees bouncing as the seconds ticked away.

  Waiting that last ten minutes was torture. I studied the map of campus to kill time. Judging from the scale, it shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to get to the front gate. The problem would be getting out of the dorm without waking anyone. My hearing had been a bit sensitive at the hospital, so I was assuming that was a Were thing. It would suck if one of these girls was a light sleeper.

  Leaving through the door was a no go. No matter how softly I tried to close it, there was too much potential risk of waking up Meredith or one of the other girls. So I did the only thing I could think of. I opened the window gingerly.

  The good thing was that I’d already survived a three-story drop. After that, two-stories was no big. Or it should be no big. That said, convincing myself to let go once I was hanging from my windowsill was harder than I’d imagined.

  I made the mistake of looking down past my dangling feet. Two-stories was still one too many stories. But I had to let go. I counted down silently. When I hit three, I let go.

  Next thing I knew, I was on my feet looking up at my window from the ground. I watched the windows above for any lights turning on, but nothing happened. I guessed Axel was wrong about the whole me being on lockdown thing.

  The path to the right should lead to a parking lot. And beyond that, the main gate. I’d never seen it, but I hoped it wouldn’t be hard to open. Or climb.

  I heard someone whispering, and it was getting louder. A three-foot hedge in front of the dorm seemed decent coverage. I moved around the end of it to hide between it and the brick wall.

  When the group approached, I tried to breathe as quietly as possible.

  “—reports that they’re organizing and heading south.” I recognized Mr. Dawson’s voice. “It seems pretty convenient that they pick now to search for us.”

  “You can’t think it’s because of what I did,” Dastien said.

  Shit. I couldn’t have been in a worse hiding spot. If either of them caught me I was going to die of humiliation.

  “We’ve spilled human blood. They could sense that or maybe a weakening alpha because of the broken law?”

  “That’s bullshit. You’re not weakening.”

  Their voices were getting softer, but I could still hear them.

  “I’d rather think that than the alternative,” Mr. Dawson said.

  “Which is what?”

  “That we have a rogue in the pack.”

  Dastien said something else, but I couldn’t make it out. Only the tone. He was pissed.

  A rogue? What did that mean?

  It didn’t matter. It wasn’t my problem. I was getting the hell out of here.

  I counted to ten before coming out of my hiding spot, and then took off down the path. Dense trees threatened to swallow it, but that look was cultivated on purpose. St. Ailbe’s had something to hide. The trail snaked sharply to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right again before it straightened out.

  The parking lot was filled with at least a hundred cars. The three front rows looked completely full from where I was standing, and the fourth and fifth had some empty spaces. A line of black Expeditions took up the first row. What was up with that? The popular kids needed matching cars here?

  Beyond the Expeditions were fancy cars galore. Even in the dim moonlight, they gleamed and curved in a way no ordinary Chevy could. I wanted to be annoyed by it, but the private schools in Los Angeles hadn’t been any more down to Earth.

  A tall, red brick wall bordered the back of the parking lot. The top of the black iron gate peeked over the top of the SUVs. Both the gate and the wall were pretty high. I’d be in for a climb either way I went. Maybe the gate wasn’t locked.

  I made my way through the cars, and slid to a stop as I reached the gate.

  A group of no less than ten guys stood leaning against it. Some were chatting. A few were sitting down in a circle playing cards.

  I was so dumb. I should’ve gone through the creek.

  One of them looked straight at me and winked. “What’s the time?” he said to the guy next to him.

  “2:26 AM. Damn it. That means Brandt won.”

  A series of curses rang through the group, followed by one guy celebrating. “Hand it over, bitches.”

  Axel’s car screeched to a stop beyond the tall iron gate. He jumped out of the car, leaving it idling. His headlights lit up the lot. “Shit, Tess. I told you this was a bad idea!” He stepped up to the closed gate.

  I hadn’t said a word yet. The only thing I could think of was the fact that I was stuck here. The walls were closing in on me. Even outside.

  Mr. Dawson, Dastien, and three other guys strolled up behind me. They were all dressed in black. Dastien stayed back while Mr. Dawson and the others kept walking toward me.

  He wouldn’t even look at me, but he’d wait up all night to make sure I couldn’t run away?

  Axel had been right. I was on lockdown, and they’d been waiting for me. Being predictable sucked.

  “Alright, show’s over,” Mr. Dawson said. “Tessa, it’s back to the dorm for you.”

  “This is bullshit.” I couldn’t believe that they’d been watching for me.

  Mr. Dawson raised a brow. “Is it? Because I’ve a mind to think that you being here means it’s definitely not bullshit.”

  “That’s besides the point.”

  Dastien chuckled.

  I pointed at him. “You shut it. It’s your fault that I’m—”

  “I thought we went over this.” Axel wrapped his hands around the bars of the gate. “You don’t get to go near my sister again!”

  This was so not happening.

  “You’re trespassing. You need to leave. Now,” one of the guys said to Axel.

  “I’m not leaving. Let me in.”

  “Listen norm—”

  Oh, hell no. It was one thing for these people to boss me around, but there was no way anyone was going to treat my brother badly.

  I strode to the gate, stepping in front of Axel and him. “No one orders my brother around.” I eyed each one of the guys. “No one.” Each of them dropped their gaze. Except for Dastien and Mr. Dawson.

  A hand squeezed my shoulder and I spun, growling. Axel took a big step back.

  “Tess? What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  Seeing my brother afraid of me—of something he saw in me—was like getting a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I was suddenly exhausted.

  Mr. Dawson turned to Dastien. “You should go. All of you. I’ve got it from here.”

  Dastien left without even a glance i
n my direction. Typical. The others followed quickly behind him.

  The one who won the bet paused in front of me and held up a wad of cash. “Thanks for this.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “I’ll still give you a cut.” He held out his fist and I rolled my eyes, but still bumped it.

  “Go, Mr. Thompson,” Mr. Dawson said.

  When the audience finally dispersed, Mr. Dawson opened the gate to let Axel in. “I know that you’re protective of your sister, but we’re going to take care of her here.”

  He looked at me warily. “It doesn’t seem like that when I get a phone call at nearly two AM. And I thought you said you’d keep that asshole away from her.”

  “I’m trying, but you’ve got to give her time. She’s going through a bit of an adjustment period.”

  I snorted. “Adjustment? That’s what you’re calling this?”

  “Adjusting is your only option. You won’t like what happens if you fail.”

  “That sounded pretty close to a threat,” Axel said. He moved to stand between Mr. Dawson and I.

  After what Meredith said about Dastien’s punishment, I knew what he might mean. Scared didn’t even scratch the surface of what I was feeling, but that didn’t mean I could put my brother in danger. I’d already asked too much of him. No way was I risking one of these wolves biting him. “Go home, Axel. I’ll figure it out. I’ll be fine.”

  “No way, Tess. I don’t like it,” he said.

  “Me neither.” I hugged him.

  He gripped me tighter and whispered in my ear. “I’ve been with the cousins. We’re working on getting you out of here. Just sit tight for a few weeks. I’m not forgetting about you.”

  Our cousins couldn’t do anything, but if it made him feel better, then it was good he had the distraction. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” he said in a normal voice. “Don’t let them push you around.”