by J. L. Wilder
Jonah looked surprised. “You’re not from a family with money?”
“Why did you assume I was?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess I’m used to thinking of omegas as being privileged. Maybe because of Aubrey.”
“Well, I don’t have money,” she said. “My dad is a drunk, and he hates me anyway.”
“I’m sure your dad doesn’t hate you,” Jonah protested.
“You’ve never met him,” Grace said. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“I guess not,” Jonah agreed. “Anyway, I’m here now.”
“So am I.”
“So?”
“So...what?”
He spread his hands. “This is your show. You said you wanted me to teach you. What do you want to learn?”
“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to Grace that it would be a good idea to have something in mind for him to teach her, but now that they were here, she saw how thoughtless she had been. She couldn’t expect Jonah to know what she needed to learn. He hardly knew her. How could he possibly spot the gaps in her education?
But she didn’t know where to start. She was weak in every subject. How could she choose one to improve upon?
“The resource gathering test,” she said at last. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow, and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.”
“Resource gathering,” he said. “We have that class across the road.”
“You do?”
“Well, it’s an elective,” he said.
“Makes sense. I guess alphas don’t really have to depend on resource gathering to stay alive. You've got the rest of the pack to do it for you.”
“Right.”
“Well, did you take the class?” she asked him.
“No,” he said.
“So you can’t help me.”
“Maybe I can help you.” He looked nettled. “I do know some things. What do you have to do for your exam? Is it a written test?”
“No, it’s practical,” she said. “We have to go out into a designated part of the woods and bring back as many resources as we can. Then we have to give a presentation explaining how we would survive for a week in the wild using only the things we’ve found.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound so hard,” he said. “You just need to make sure to gather a lot of firewood and a few things you can eat and drink.”
“Right,” she said. “But the problem is that I’m slower than any of the other girls in my class. They usually strip the woods pretty bare by the time I get in deep enough to find anything. Last time we had an exam like this, I got automatically disqualified for trying to pull branches down from the trees, which you’re not allowed to do.”
“Why were you doing that?” he asked. “They’d already gotten everything off the ground?”
She nodded.
“Well, I can’t really teach you to be faster,” he said. “You’ll have to work that out on your own.”
She took a deep breath. “I can’t work it out,” she said. “The problem I’m having is that...promise not to laugh?”
“Okay,” Jonah said.
“I can’t control my shifting,” she said. “I can’t do it at will. So when the exam starts, all the other girls shift, and some of them even threaten me to keep me away from the resources. And I have to try to compete with them in human form.”
“Holy hell,” Jonah said. “No wonder you’re at the bottom of your class. You can’t shift?”
Grace felt a rush of anger and shame. “I can shift,” she said. “I just can’t control when it happens.”
“Which effectively means you can’t shift,” he said. “When does it happen?”
“When I’m sleeping, usually,” she said. “I’ll wake up and find I’ve gone off running into the woods.”
“Wild.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I can help it,” she said.
“Well, that’s what you’re going to need to learn if you want to improve your class rank,” Jonah said. “Unfortunately, you really don’t have a hope of mastering it by tomorrow, so you’re probably going to fail that exam.”
“There must be something I can do,” she said.
He thought about it. “The only thing you really need to survive for a week is water,” he said. “Everything else, you can live without. You’d get pretty malnourished, but you wouldn’t die.”
“They don’t let me get near the river,” she said. “If I try, they show their teeth and run me off.”
“You don’t need to go to the river.” He reached over and grabbed a couple of reeds. Working quickly, and far more nimbly than Grace would have believed his giant hands were capable of, he wove them into a bowl and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked, examining it.
“You could catch rainwater in it,” he said. “You could even collect morning dew if it came to that. You wouldn’t die of dehydration. If you can do something like this in your exam, you should at least be able to demonstrate that you could keep yourself alive. That ought to be enough for a passing grade, if not a very good one.”
Grace had to hand it to him. “That’ll probably work,” she admitted.
He nodded. “And you can also eat the nuts in that tree,” he said, pointing. “I don’t know if there are others like it on your campus—”
“There are tons of them,” Grace said.
“Perfect,” he said. “Their nuts are all over the ground at this time of year. Pick up a few handfuls and tell your professor that you’d ration them throughout the week. That ought to be good enough.”
“Yeah, I think it will.” Grace was impressed. “I wasted so much time trying to get to the river and gather firewood in the past that I never even thought of those things.”
“You can live without firewood in the fall,” he said. “You’ll just get a little cold. It won’t kill you.”
Grace nodded. “Thanks, Jonah.”
“No problem,” he said. “Now, as far as your other problem...that’s what we should really be working on. The shifting. Because if you can sort that out, you might actually be competitive with the other girls. But if you can’t, you might as well drop out of school and go live a human life.”
She glowered. “Just when I was starting to like you.”
“What?”
“I can’t go live a human life,” she said. “You know I can’t. Not if I’m shifting in the middle of the night.”
“I mean, you could,” he said. “You’d have to live by yourself and lock yourself in your room every night. But that’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”
“Yeah. Some life.” She felt her throat begin to tighten, signaling the onset of tears. She always did her best not to think about what her life might consist of after graduation. It was too depressing.
“Don’t give up so easily,” Jonah said. “You should be able to learn how to control your shifting. It’s something most people have down by the time they’re about ten years old. I’m surprised you never managed it.”
“Maybe I’m defective.”
“Okay, sure, maybe. But you said you were raised by your father, right? He’s human?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, you made it sound like he didn’t...exactly support you very much.”
She laughed wryly. “I think that’s fair to say, yeah.”
“You didn’t have anyone teaching you how to control your shifting,” he said. “Most of us learn that from our parents. And for the few people who aren’t raised as part of shifter packs, they find a way to embrace what they are. Having a supportive parent makes a big difference, even if your parent is a human.”
“Who raised you?” she asked.
“I was part of a pack,” he said. “But they adopted me when I was little. Before that, I was on my own.”
“When you were just a baby?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The first thing I remember is hunkering under a tree. I think I was liv
ing there semi-long term because I had cleared out the ground around me. I learned how to shift during that time, when I was living on my own. Technically, I knew how to shift before I could talk. Before I had a name.”
“Wow,” she said quietly. It was so different from her own upbringing, but in its own way, it was just as cruel. “That must have been really hard.”
He shrugged. “Things got better when I found a pack,” he said. “But it was never exactly a family. We banded together and helped each other, but it was a partnership of convenience, not affection. I won’t be going back to them after graduation.”
She nodded. “Hopefully, you’ll be starting a new life with Aubrey, right?”
He looked confused for a moment, as if she had reminded him of something he had forgotten. “Right.”
“Well,” she said, “it sounds like you’re the ideal person to teach me how to control my shifting. What can you show me?”
“You’ve never done it at will?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“You should get undressed,” he told her.
She stared. “Are you kidding? I told you we weren’t going to have that kind of relationship.”
“No!” he sputtered. “Not like that. But if you shift, your dress will rip, and then you won’t have anything to wear back home.”
“Well, I’m not getting naked in front of you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he snapped. “I’m not that desperate to see you naked.”
“It’s not about what you’re desperate for,” she said. “I wouldn’t get naked in front of you even if I knew for a fact you were repulsed by me. It’s about what I’m willing to share with you.” Why did men always think that women’s modesty was about what they wanted?
Jonah rolled his eyes. “Keep your underwear on, then,” he said. “I don’t care. But you have to take the dress off if you’re going to try to shift, otherwise, you might end up having to walk across campus naked.”
She knew he was right, much as she didn’t like it. “You have to be on guard,” she said, pulling the dress over her head. “If you hear anyone coming, let me know right away so I can hide. We’ll both be in trouble if we get caught like this.”
Jonah nodded. “I’ll keep a lookout.”
She hung her dress carefully over the limb of a tree and wrapped her arms around her torso.
“Okay,” Jonah said. “Now, you just need to shift.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” she asked. “If I knew how to shift, I’d have done it already.”
“You need to connect with your inner wolf,” he said.
She shook her head. Sometimes she felt as if she didn’t have an inner wolf.
“You said it happens when you’re sleeping, right?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“Well, close your eyes.”
She eyed him dubiously, not sure whether or not she could trust him.
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to do anything,” he said. “I’ll stay over here on this log. I’m just trying to get you to relax and tune in to your senses.”
Hesitantly, she closed her eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “Now, breathe in. Smell the woods. The dirt.”
She inhaled. She could recognize what he was talking about. It smelled earthy and wild out here. But it didn’t bring forth any animalistic feelings in her.
“Listen to the wind,” he said. “Do you hear the animals moving in the trees?”
She listened, straining her ears. She heard what she thought might be a squirrel, skittering along a branch far above her. But she couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was just leaves.
“Now reach inside yourself,” he said. “Reach for the deepest part of yourself. Your instincts know how to respond. Let the wildest, most animalistic part of you come out.”
She tried. She gritted her teeth, doing her best to force something forward from deep within her, some part of herself that she vaguely knew existed but had no idea how to harness.
She opened her eyes.
Nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. She was still just Grace, just regular old human Grace, standing in the middle of the woods, unable to reach the wolf within her.
Chapter Eight
JONAH
They met again two days later, in the same place on the bank of the river.
“How was your exam?” Jonah asked. He’d arrived early today, wanting to be there when she got there, though he wasn’t sure exactly why. It was the kind of power move he would have used to get the upper hand with Aubrey, but there was no need to try to get the upper hand with Grace. He had authority over her just by existing. Everything about their positions reinforced the fact that he had power, and she had none.
She had dressed a little bit more appropriately today, in athletic shorts and a t-shirt, and she wore hiking boots instead of the flip-flops she’d worn last time he had seen her. Jonah was pleased to see that she was taking his advice to heart.
“It was okay,” she said, using a hair elastic from her wrist to pull her hair up into a ponytail. “I passed. I think I surprised my professor. And Aubrey was definitely pissed about it.”
“Why would Aubrey care?” he asked.
“She looks forward to seeing me fail at things,” Grace said. “I think it’s fun for her.”
Jonah got an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “That’s kind of shitty.”
“Well, I did tell you she was a bitch,” Grace said. “It’s not enough for her that she’s at the top of our class. She needs to be reminded that other people are beneath her all the time. But she also really wants to see me get kicked out of school because she thinks I’m so bad that my graduating will make her look bad by association, so maybe she’s hoping I’ll flunk all my courses this year.”
“I guess you’ll show her,” Jonah said, hoping he sounded encouraging.
Grace narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re taking my side,” she said.
“It sounds like you’re the one who’s in the right,” he said. “Do you want me to side against you or something?”
“I just want you to be honest,” she said. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever asked of you. And I know how much you want Aubrey’s approval.”
“I don’t want her approval,” he said, annoyed that she would put it in those terms. “I want her respect. I want her to defer to me. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go around saying she’s right when she isn’t. If anything, I want to be able to point out to her when she’s wrong and to have her hear me.”
“All right,” Grace said. “Well, you should be prepared for the fact that she’s unusually pissed off with me. When the next social comes around and you and I show up there together—”
“She’ll already have her eyes on you,” Jonah finished. “So much the better. We won’t have to parade around right under her nose and be obvious about what we’re doing in order to get her attention. She’ll be watching us already.”
“You are really asking for trouble,” Grace said.
“I’m asking for the respect I deserve,” Jonah said. “No more than that. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to keep antagonizing her over the next couple of weeks?”
“I’m not going to do that deliberately,” Grace said. “If I do, she’ll probably corner me and have me beaten up or something.”
“Who’s going to beat you up?” Jonah asked. “You may not be a strong shifter, but this is still a campus full of omegas. Nobody here is a fighter.”
“Yeah, but Aubrey’s brothers are over at Shifter U,” Grace said.
“They are?” How had Jonah never realized that?
Grace looked similarly mystified. “I thought everyone knew that,” she said. “Aubrey never shuts up about it. An alpha and a bunch of betas. And if she got pissed enough at me...”
“She wouldn’t have an alpha come over to campus and attack you,” Jonah said. “That’s crossing every possible line. I know you think Aubrey’s a b
ad person, but nobody’s that awful.”
“Yeah, well,” Grace said. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to risk it.”
“Who are her brothers?” Jonah asked, wondering why he didn’t know them.
“I don’t know,” Grace said. “But they probably have the same last name, so if you’re really curious, you could try to find them that way.”
“Yeah,” Jonah said. “Maybe I will.”
“But don’t let them find out about this plan of ours,” Grace said. She looked skittish now. “I don’t know if you’re really aware of how much trouble this could get me into. You’re an alpha, so you’re protected. If things don’t go the way you want them to, you’ll have other options. But I’m already struggling with what I’m going to do when I leave school. If the whole shifter world hates me for making a joke of Aubrey Price, I’ll be really fucked.”
“That won’t happen,” Jonah assured her.
“And you’re not going to make it look like you were just screwing with me?” Grace asked. “Because I’m trying to repair my reputation this semester, not make it even worse than it already is. Nobody’s going to want anything to do with Jonah Jackson’s castoffs.”
“We’ll make sure that everyone knows we were just friends in the end,” he promised her.
It was a surprise to him that she had thought so much about this. When he’d asked her to the social, he had assumed that she’d want to go with him automatically. She wasn’t exactly flooded with better offers.
BUT HE HAD FAILED TO consider what she might be thinking. He had looked at her and seen only a girl who would be desperate for the attention of an alpha. He hadn’t realized that she might have other goals, goals that were more realistic for her and had nothing to do with what someone like Aubrey wanted.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been making this all about what I want, haven’t I?’
Grace shrugged. “I’m guessing most things in your life have been all about what you wanted.”
“Well, that’s a bit harsh,” he said.
“But true, right?” she said. “That’s why you’re having so much trouble dealing with the fact that Aubrey isn’t going belly-up for you. It’s not because you want to be all authoritative and make her submit. You’re an alpha. You could make her submit. But you want her to be willing.”
