Page 13 of Alpha Varsity (Wolf Ridge High #5)

Chapter Thirteen

A sher

I toss and turn all night. I can’t stop thinking about Lotta’s empty refrigerator. It doesn’t fit the image I have of her–of the spoiled pack princess who gets everything she wants or needs handed to her on a silver platter.

Why would her pantry be bare? Why would she say she can’t afford meat? She has a job. She has rich parents. She just graduated from an expensive private college.

But she’s been denying her wolf for years. That came as a total shock. That level of self-denial… it says something about her. Who she is. The amount of self-control she must have. But also, of her inner conflict. There’s a literal war going on inside her. Her wolf refused to stay sublimated when she got in the proximity of her mate. But she doesn’t want a mate. She especially doesn’t want me.

Not that I want her, either.

This new information adds to my misgiving about the tears she cried while I was fucking her. Maybe they weren’t just about finding out her mate is one of her students. Or about getting nailed by a guy who hates her. Maybe they were a release from letting her wolf out.

Or –a prickle travels across my skin–maybe they were spawned from grief that she lost the battle with her wolf.

“That’s fucked up,” I mutter, throwing my legs out of bed long before dawn again.

I slip out of the townhouse and climb onto my Ducati. When I turned sixteen, I couldn’t afford to buy a car, but Greg Lane, the owner of Wolf Ridge Body Shop, cut me a smoking deal on this baby. I bought it with money from working weekends for Mrs. Angelson at Sweet Treats.

I ride to the Circle K where Cole and Casey Muchmore’s dad works. It’s a twenty-four hour gas station and convenience store at the edge of town. The only place open in the middle of the night. I buy bread, milk, eggs, bacon and sandwich meat with the money I have from the last packet of cash my dad mailed me.

My mate needs protein. She needs sustenance. That primitive impulse to protect and provide for her won’t be ignored until I’m sure she’s been fed. I drive back home and jog up the wash to her place, respecting her rules about no one seeing me coming or going.

Hell, I don’t want anyone to see us, either. The last thing I need is for her uppity parents to find out that the pack pariah has been touching their precious daughter. Fate knows her mom would falsify evidence of some new, heinous crime to get me permanently kicked out of Wolf Ridge.

I don’t know why I try the door handle.

I’m disturbed to find it unlocked. Even more disturbed when my beautiful mate doesn’t stir. I only hear the deep, even breath of heavy slumber from her. Either her wolf instincts for danger are dead, or she hasn’t recovered her energy and stamina yet from the shift.

All the more reason for me to be here. I walk softly to her refrigerator and open the door. The light doesn’t make her stir, either. I put the groceries inside and close it.

I should get back home and see if I can sleep another hour before school. Or head to the bakery to help my mom and Mrs. Angelson. Instead, I find myself standing over Lotta’s bed, looking down at the lovely curve of her cheek. The curl of her dark lashes against her cheek.

I’m unnerved by a desire to crawl into bed with her. Hold her.

Fuck that. Boning her hard from behind is one thing. Cuddling is something I will never let happen. She doesn’t deserve that from me. She’s not someone I can trust.

Still, my fingers reach to caress her cheek the way I did yesterday in the school bathroom when she slapped my hand away. I stop myself before I actually touch her.

Why doesn’t she wake up? She should know that someone’s broken into her house and is standing over her.

But then I realize–her wolf knows I’m safe.

Lotta the teacher may hate my guts. Lotta the artist. Lotta my neighbor. But her wolf isn’t ever going to stop me. Her wolf knows I belong here.

That she belongs to me.

Our futures are woven together so tightly neither of us will ever be free.

Lotta

I sleep like the dead. Like I did the night of the full moon .

I guess that’s what sex with my mate does to me. I have to sleep off the intensity. The extreme pleasure.

Fortunately, I don’t sleep through my alarm, but I wake up with drool on my pillow and lines on my face from the pillowcase. I stumble to the bathroom and flick on the light.

The white shower curtain is standing up, disheveled from last night. I stoop to pick up a crumb from the grilled cheese sandwiches and remember how it felt to be cared for. Asher may act like a dick, but he’s my mate. Taking care of me is what he’s wired to do.

It’s just biology, I tell myself fiercely when a warm flush spreads through my chest. He hates you. There will be no claiming.

I’d be foolish to believe he did anything last night out of caring for me.

No one cares for me–not truly. Not even my parents. I learned that the hard way when I didn’t do what they wanted me to do. I made it just fine on my own at college. I had my art. Art is something that has never betrayed me. It’s the friend I will always have.

Besides, even if Asher wasn’t my student and the relationship completely forbidden, I don’t want to be claimed. I don’t want a relationship with Asher. I need to earn enough money to get back to Chicago, or if I can swing it–New York or Los Angeles. I need to be around other artists. Get my work out there and try to make it.

Nothing would be more sad than me getting claimed by some wolf from my high school and staying here the rest of my life. Giving up on all my dreams. Satisfying my parents’ idea of a future for me.

“Ugh, no,” I mutter as I turn on the water and step into the shower. I hold my head under the spray and try to forget how magnificent Asher looked naked. That glorious broad chest and shoulders. The light dusting of tawny curls over his tanned skin. He’s incredible.

Sex with him is so different than it was with Andy–my college roommate–or even with the guys I hooked up with during the full moon runs in high school. He’s crazy dominant, which turns me on. A little mean. Also, a turn-on. I might need to examine that. But even with the meanness, the growls and spanks, underneath it all, Asher is a considerate lover. He’s completely in tune with me. Paced to my pleasure. He knows what I need and how to give it. If he denies me pleasure, that’s purposeful, too.

It’s night and day different from Andy’s self-absorption or the intense but awkward and fumbled efforts of my teenage lovers.

Asher may be younger than I am, but he fucks like a man. A real man.

Oh Fate. I’m falling for him.

I do not want to fall for this guy.

I shampoo and condition my hair, shave my legs, underarms, and between my legs, and step out of the shower. My stomach growls as I dry off. Despite the three and half sandwiches I ate last night, I’m hungry again.

Crap . Asher probably used up the last of the bread and cheese for the grilled cheese sandwiches last night, which means there’s nothing for my breakfast or to pack for lunch.

Maybe if I’m lucky, someone brought donuts to the staff room. Not that donuts are what Dr. Oakley recommended to nourish my wolf.

I exit the bathroom and get dressed then open the refrigerator door to see what I can scrounge.

“Oh!” I stare in shock at the food there. Milk. Eggs. Bread. Bacon. Sandwich meat .

Tears prick my eyes. I haven’t felt this cared for since I graduated high school.

It’s just biology , my logical brain insists. He doesn’t care.

But this took thought. Asher came back in the middle of the night or while I was in the shower this morning. He had to get up early, go to the store, buy food, and bring it here. He does care.

Even angry. Even hating me for what I did, he still cares about my well-being.

My stomach growls again. I uncap the milk with shaky fingers and start guzzling it down, desperate for the calories and the protein. I start to look for scissors or a knife to open the package of bacon, and then my wolf takes over. I rip the stiff plastic open with my fingers. Easily! My shifter strength is returning.

There’s no time to fry the bacon, so I press four pieces between several folded paper towels and microwave them while I fry four eggs in a pan and make a quick meat and cheese sandwich for lunch.

The whole time there’s a warmth in my chest that won’t go away.

Some of that heaviness that’s been in my limbs for ages is gone. And it’s not just about the wolf strength. It’s emotional.

I tear up again. I haven’t had that sense of connectedness in such a long time.

Humans aren’t like pack. I had friends in college–lots. But I had to keep my guard up, I couldn’t reveal my secret to anybody, and that made me shun close relationships. I stayed in groups. I didn’t get tight with any one person.

That’s probably why I chose such a self-involved guy as Andy as my fuck-boy in the first place. I needed someone who would never look too closely at me.

Artist-me slams a wall down on the emotion.

I can’t get stuck in Wolf Ridge. Wolf life is not my future–I belong in the city for my art .

Wolf-me ignores all that. I grab the bacon from the microwave, crush it into the eggs, and eat straight from the skillet.

The whole time, there’s a wag in my tail.

And since Andy crossed my mind, I decide to follow up on that gallery meeting. I shoot him a text.

When are you coming? Any luck getting me a meeting?

He texts back,

Next week. I got a pimp suite at a resort. Can’t wait to see you in a bikini.

Oh. Ew. Ugh.

Not happening

I text back.

I’m seeing someone here.

I have to tell him I’m not available. Asher and I have an agreement. He’s not my boyfriend, but we have an undeniable biological bond. Even if I was interested in screwing Andy–which I’m absolutely not–I can’t mess with nature. Asher’s wolf believes I belong to him, which means he would fight any other male to the death over me.

Andy:

Whatevs. We were always free and easy .

Me:

I said not happening. Can you get me an intro or not?

Andy:

I don’t know, I was thinking of a favors for favors kind of trade.

Me:

Again–not an option.

Andy:

Kidding, babe. I’ll see what I can do.

Then,

You see what you can do, too

followed by a bikini emoji.

Not cool. Ugh. Did he not read the part about me seeing someone? What an asshole. Well, I was stupid to pin any hopes on help from him. I should’ve figured he was just after sex.

I text Olive instead.

Hey remember when you offered to visit galleries with me?

She responds immediately.

Absolutely !

Pack sticks together. My eyes smart a little with the relief of having someone on my side. The contrast of her friendship compared with Andy is marked.

Me:

Really? When would be a good time for you?

Olive:

Wednesday nights the galleries stay open late for Art Walk. We could grab dinner and make some visits.

Me:

Perfect! Does this coming Wednesday work for you?

Olive:

Yep. It’s in my calendar.

Awesome.

I send kiss emojis to Olive and head out the door right on time. I climb in my Mini–the one my parents bought for my sixteenth birthday that they refused to let me sell to pay for college tuition.

A motorcycle cuts me off as I try to turn into the staff parking lot and then pulls into the spot by the art room. My spot.

I know before his helmet comes off who’s driving.

I find another place to park, grab my sandwich, and walk toward him. As I walk, I slide the key to my casita off the key ring.

The same familiar dread at seeing him is still there, but in equal or larger part is excitement.

Heat.

Desire.

“You should watch where you’re going, Ms. James. You almost ran into me.” His wicked smirk brings out his two deep dimples. He leans against the Ducati, arms folded over his massive chest.

I raise my voice in case any other teacher or student is around. “That’s a staff parking spot, Asher. Move the bike.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, without moving.

“ Now .” I’m right in his personal space now, dragging in his cedar and sexy man scent.

His nostrils flare and eyes glow green as he takes a slow pull of mine.

I drop my set of keys and look down without moving.

For a moment, I think my ploy isn’t going to work. Asher’s too committed to being a dick to follow along. He gives me a long, slightly disparaging look, but he eventually leans over to pick them up.

When he hands them to me, I swap the set with the key to my casita.

I get a blast of his power, but this time, instead of anger or rage, it’s lust.

“Move the bike,” I repeat, tossing my hair. “Thank you for the food,” I murmur as I strut past him.

I feel his gaze on my back–or more likely my ass–for my entire walk into the school building. I turn to look back when I get to the door. Only then does he cast a mocking salute my way and throw a leg over the bike to move it to student parking.

I find my own version of a smirk playing on my lips as I step into the school.