Chapter 5 Skylar

I got three hours of sleep last night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I was back there. His hands on my face, thumbs along my jaw. The way he kissed me. Like the decision was already made and he was done waiting on himself. . My heart does this thing, every single time I get to that part, where it just stops for a second and then slams back into my chest like it's making up for lost time.

At five-thirty I give up and run the shower hot. My wolf settles slightly in the steam. She's been restless since he left. Every time the ventilation pulls air from the corridor she lifts her head and goes still, checking. His scent is in this room now, threaded into the air, cedar and cold, and she chases it every time like it'll lead somewhere.

I wash my hair. Twice. My hands keep losing track of what they're doing.

I'm in my towel at the sink when I find the perfume at the bottom of my bag. Something warm. I bought it before I left home and never opened it. I open it now and put some on my wrist before I've consciously decided to.

My wolf lights up like I did something right.

I stare at my reflection. Look down at my wrist. Look back up.

This is a problem.

I'm dressed in four minutes and out the door by six-thirty-eight, which is twenty-two minutes early. My wolf doesn't walk so much as aim. She picks up the edge of his scent in the open air and tracks it across campus without being asked and I let her because it's faster and because I want to see him. I'm not going to be dishonest about it at six-thirty-eight in the morning when no one's watching. I want to see him. That's where we are.

I get there at five to seven, early enough that most people are still finding the room.

The basement smells like rubber mats and sweat. Twenty plus freshman wolves line the walls, nobody talking. A boy near the door stares at his shoes with genuine commitment. Two girls in the corner have made themselves as small as they can, shoulders in, eyes down, waiting to see what today is. Nobody makes eye contact with me. Not rudeness exactly. More like instinct. Like something in their wolf already told them: nope stay away from that thing. Great.

Half human. I know what that smells like to a full wolf. I grew up knowing.

The door opens behind me.

My wolf knows before I turn. The scent hits first. Cedar, cold air, underneath it the warm pull of the bond. Every nerve I have switches on at once. Rhys walks past me to the front, sets a folder next to the instructor's clipboard and leans against the wall with his arms crossed.

Senior TA. Of course. Because the universe likes to make sure I'm never just dealing with one thing at a time.

He doesn't look at me. It doesn't matter. The bond hums between us anyway, low and constant, and I feel where he is in the room the way you feel heat from something without looking at it directly. When he shifts his weight I notice. When he exhales I notice. My wolf has been noting his every breath since he walked in and I've stopped pretending she won't.

The instructor walks in two minutes later. Scar from ear to chin. She reads the room one face at a time and the silence thickens with each second she doesn't speak. When she gets to me she stops, holds it half a beat longer than she held anyone else. Something moves in her expression. Then her eyes move to this amazon of a girl standing near the back, and I don't know why, but my stomach drops.

Rhys pushes off the wall immediately. Almost frantic.

"Adler." He says it like a warning.

Adler looks at him and grins. It doesn't reach her eyes. Nothing kind lives in this woman at all.

"Don't you dare," Rhys says quietly.

"Feeling sorry for the human, Kincaid, are we?" She says it to the room, loud and comfortable, like she's been waiting for exactly this moment. "The mighty Alpha going soft. Mhm. How adorable." Her eyes come back to me slowly. Stay there long enough to make a point. Then she nods to the back wall.

"Fenn."

The boy by the door exhales loud enough to hear. Two people near me go loose with relief. Someone actually closes their eyes and looks like they're personally thanking the moon Goddess herself.

The girl who pushes off the back wall is six feet at least. Shoulders broad enough that people shift sideways before they think about it. Dark braid, jaw like a door frame, and hands that have been doing this since long before she had opinions about it. She crosses the room and nobody steps into her path. Nobody even breathes in her direction.

She reaches me in ten steps. Looks me over. Chin slightly raised, like she had to lower her gaze to find me.

"Maris."

"Skylar."

She already knew. And she didn't care.

I don't look at Rhys. I feel him look at me.

That's the thing about a mate bond. It's not quiet. It's a live wire between two people and every time he moves I feel the pull. I track him the same way I track Maris. Unfortunately, only one of them is the threat right now.

She circles me first and I move with her, keeping my weight low, the way my mother taught me in a motel parking lot at thirteen. A Voss girl needs to know how to fall correctly. I remember thinking what a thing to teach a kid. It still wasn't enough.

Maris steps left. I follow. Wrong.

Her leg sweeps mine so fast I don't feel it until the floor comes up to meet me. I hit the mat hard, the sound cracking through the room, and a few people wince audibly. Someone in the back lets out a low sound. I tuck, roll, get back up. My shoulder is already telling me about it.

Maris hasn't moved but infact looks bored.

"Oooh," someone mutters near the wall.

Second round. I get her wrist, hold it a real second, actually proud of myself for half a heartbeat. Then she yanks her arm so fast it wrenches my shoulder on the way out, hooks my leg, and drops me face-first into the mat. I get a mouthful of canvas. The room makes a collective sound, something between a wince and a laugh, and I hear someone say something low that includes the word human.

I don't look up immediately. I need a second that I'm not going to admit I need.

"Is that it?" Maris says above me. Not even breathing hard. Just asking.

I get up. Of course I do. My mate is watching.

Or he was.

When I stand and finally let myself look at the gallery, Rhys has turned away. His back is to the room. His hands are still on the railing but he's facing the wall, jaw working, fists clenched tight. Even he is disgusted by me, by my weakness that he can't even spare me a glance.

I don't know why that hits harder than the mat did.

Third round she doesn't wait. She's on me before I find my balance, one hand grabbing my collar, and she takes me down so fast the room doesn't even react until I've already landed. The sound when I hit is not a good sound. Someone near the door actually says ow out loud, on my behalf, because even they felt that. Her knee finds my spine. My wrist gets cranked. The mat smells like everyone who's been put down on it before me and I'm just the latest entry.

"Done yet?" Maris says.

I say nothing.

"Good," Adler says from across the room. Not to me. "Break it up."

Maris stands like she did nothing. Adjusts her braid. Doesn't offer a hand.

I push up slow. My ribs are holding a full committee meeting about what just happened and I'm not attending. I walk to the water station, fill a cup, drink it, stare at the wall.

I don't look at the gallery again. I already know what I'll see.

People leave. I perform fine. I roll my shoulder like I'm not trying to see whether something in it is actually wrong. Maris falls in at the door.

"You've never trained," she says.

I don't confirm it.

"You should've shifted." A pause. "Although I'm not sure it would've helped."

I stop. She faces me. Same flat expression she's had all morning, except now there's something else underneath it. Contempt is too loud a word for it. It's quieter than that. The way you look at something that was never meant to be there.

"I'm half human," I say. "I don't shift."

"I know what you are." She tilts her head. "You smelled different by the end."

My hands stay loose at my sides. "Adrenaline."

"Sure," she says. And walks away like I'm already not worth thinking about.

I stand in the empty corridor and my eyes fill up before I can stop them.

I don't even try. There's nobody left to perform fine for.

My ribs are on fire. My wrist is swollen, I can feel it throbbing from the inside out. My hip took the worst of the second fall and every time I shift my weight it sends something sharp up my side. The left side of my head hit the mat on the third round and I didn't even register it until right now, standing still, when the ache finally catches up to me. I press my fingers against my temple. They come away clean at least.

I lean against the wall and slide down it until I'm sitting on the floor with my knees up and my head back and tears running into my hair and I don't bother wiping them because what is the point. Nobody's watching. Nobody who matters is watching. Rhys turned his back and then he left.