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It’s what I keep trying to tell myself, too, but the length of time I’ve been at the academy is making me paranoid. “Then beyond that, Nathan, don’t you think we should talk about it…for reasons? For us?”
The look he sears into me tells me he completely disagrees. “The more we discuss it, the greater the chance someone will overhear.” He drops his gaze to my lips. “And that’s what we don’t want.”
My breath catches, pulse fluttering as if I were sitting in front of a boy I like. But that’s impossible. If not impossible, then wrong. There’s nothing worse in the shifter world than having relations with someone other than your mate.
But what if I liked it?
The thought sends a terror-filled tremor through me. Pre-first shift, we could date whoever we wanted. Prior to being paired, it’s even encouraged, but to do it now, when we’re supposed to be with our fated mates? It’s not right.
“I guess,” I relent. “If you don’t want to talk about it….” Nathan’s my closest friend. The last thing I want to do is upset him.
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He’s sitting right next to me, but it’s as if he’s already slipped away. My heartbeat fills the room. I don’t know what to say to him, and it’s evident the feeling is mutual by the lengthy silence that follows.
I wait a minute before I attempt to retract the leg that’s lying on his thigh. When I start to pull it back, though, he places his hand on it. “Don’t be weird, okay?”
“Me? Weird?” I tease. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” I’m hoping humor will relieve some of the tension in the room. Thankfully, it does.
“Yeah,” Nathan says, patting my leg. “You’re never weird.”
“Never.”
He leans his head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “I just got off the phone with my mom. She keeps talking about Daybreak’s turn to host the Winter Solstice party.”
“Yeah, my mother’s social media pages are filled with planning ideas.”
His jaw thrums. “Biggest party of the year. Bet we don’t get asked back.”
I feel his pain as much as my own. To have a kid end up at the academy is a curse. They try to brush it under the rug or hide it with fancy life updates, distracting everyone from what’s really going on: Their shifter offspring was unwanted by their own mate.
“To be fair, if we were to go, we’d probably get gawked at.”
“Oh God. The stares.”
“The whispers,” I add.
“The weary looks. Like they can catch getting rejected.” Laughter follows, but we’re hedging the line between humor and anger.
“We’d get to see them, though.”
He makes a bitter sound in the back of his throat. “Maybe catch them fucking.”
My wolf, who’s quiet when I’m self-loathing, starts growling. My stomach somersaults, like it can’t even fathom the thought of Sean doing that with Gayle. It goes against our basic instincts.
I wonder if that’s why Nathan kissed me. Or why I kissed Nathan. Honestly, I don’t know how it started. Maybe we were trying to give our mates a taste of their own medicine. It couldn’t hurt for them to be a little jealous, could it?
“Actually,” Nathan grinds out, “I wish I could catch them fucking. I’m sick of being here because of her.”
“Nathan….” I let the warning in my voice float heavy in the air.
“No, I mean it,” he says, his grip on my leg tightening. “They have no consideration for us, Mia. I think I’m finally starting to get it. Sean will only come to your mandatory meetings. We’re a step away from Feral, and they know it.”
“He said he wants to spare me,” I grind out, reiterating the same words my mate used when I asked why he wouldn’t just fill out the final form and be done with it.
“By leaving you here?” Nathan pushes my leg off him, and I bring both knees to my chest as he stands. The area next to his eyes crinkles. “If he wanted to spare you, he’d accept you as his mate no matter what. He’d fake it if he had to. These dumbass excuses he keeps giving Greystone are bullshit.” Nathan starts pacing now, his wolf rippling up and down his arms, threatening to make itself known. “But we’re the ones who have no recourse. There are no checks or balances on this side of the coin.”
I get to my feet, sidestep into the path he’s wearing in the middle of my room, and wait until his gaze lifts to meet mine. “Hey,” I say, a small smile playing across my lips. I love that he gets protective over me, and I have the same feelings about Gayle’s treatment of him, but we don’t need to go down the rabbit hole right now. “It’s okay.”