Page 23 of Bane of Hate and Silver (Primordial Inheritance #1)

Beta at Aboit High

J ules responded to Luca. That’s probably a bad idea.

Then set her phone down on the desk. It’d been half an hour and Ricky still hadn’t moved.

His head stayed bent over his phone while he did whatever he was doing to pass the time.

Jules had tried to start a conversation once, but his hearing was either obscured by his music or he was just very selective with what he chose to hear.

A group of students came into the library on assignment. Jules kept one eye on Ricky as she helped them. She saw an older werewolf boy named Landon Reynolds approach Ricky. She eavesdropped on their conversation, it remained fairly neutral.

Jules’s attention was pulled away momentarily by her vibrating phone. Probably so, but I’m outside.

Wait there , she sent back.

Jules typed out a quick message to Belinda.

After the next bell rang, pulling the current group of students into their next class, she told Luca to go to the office. A few minutes later, Belinda returned with Luca two steps behind her. “This is very odd Jules,” she commented as she showed him into the library.

“Is it?” Luca asked.

“We don’t usually allow attractive uncles such as yourself into our school, but Jules has vouched for you,” Belinda told him.

“Did she?” Luca chuckled.

Jules tried to suppress the utter joy she felt upon seeing him, but one smile slipped through the facade. “Thank you, Bee,” she said while pointing Luca in the direction of Ricky’s turned back.

As Belinda left, Luca raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips together.

Jules assumed this was his own version of being discrete.

Ricky didn’t look up from his phone until Luca sat down across from him and tapped his hand on the table to get his attention.

Ricky slowly pulled his headphones out of his ears. “What are you doing here?”

“A friend called,” Luca replied.

Jules’s phone vibrated again but she ignored it. Whatever it was it could wait.

Ricky looked from Luca to Jules and then back again. “This vampire is your friend?” Ricky asked skeptically.

Luca nodded. “She is.”

Jules wasn’t sure she would have gone with that approach, but Ricky was Luca’s pack member. How he handled this was his call.

“Okay, but what are you really doing here?” Ricky asked, clearly not buying the ‘you can trust her because she’s my friend’ angle.

Luca sighed. “I need to know if you are going to tell Carson or anyone else that she works here. Doing that would put her in danger, and I don’t want that.”

“So, order me not to,” suggested Ricky sarcastically. “Only Carson could demand the information from me then.”

Luca leaned forward across the table. “I don’t want to do that.

Forced control is not my style. I would rather just decide that I can trust you.

” Jules watched him closer. She’d never heard a man that she loved utter such a thing in her life.

Yes, it was not directed at her but… Jules realized in that moment that it was true. I could fall for him.

“Jules?”

Luca’s voice pulled her back to the present. She’d been, not so discreetly, staring at him.

“I’m fine,” she said and then looked anywhere but at the werewolves.

Luca rolled his eyes playfully. “Perfectly fine in every way, huh?” He kind of loved that he’d caught her staring at him.

“She’s Juliet.” Ricky’s comment took Luca by surprise.

“No, she isn’t,” Luca said, but doubted that he’d recovered enough to sound convincing.

“My name is Juliana,” Jules said.

“I know,” Luca replied, continuing to look at Ricky.

“Yes, she is.” Ricky stood, knocking into the table as he did. “You’ve been making goo-goo eyes at each other since you walked in here. You have this crazy forbidden love thing going on and you don’t want me to tell the pack your secret.”

“I don’t make goo-goo eyes,” Luca said, trying to remain calm and stretching his feet out in front of him.

“Have you seen your face?” Ricky asked rhetorically.

“Not recently,” Luca admitted a bit sarcastically. “Sit.” Luca used a little more of his Beta power than he would have liked to get Ricky to do so. However, he couldn’t take the chance that Ricky would run.

“Well, it’s not hiding what you want it to,” Ricky said while he slumped back in his chair.

“I’m going to go talk to my…” Luca pointed toward Jules, “friend. Stay,” he ordered.

“Woof Woof,” Ricky snapped back angrily.

Luca walked over to Jules’s desk and leaned across it. With his elbows resting in the middle of the desk his shoulders were of equal height to Jules’s.

“What do we do now?” Jules asked, her voice below a whisper.

Luca shrugged a little. He didn’t have an answer. Not a good one anyway. “He is right. I could order him to keep quiet, but I don’t want to do it. I really hate taking away someone’s free will. It’s not right.”

A look that Luca hadn’t seen before crept across Jules’s face.

She smiled back and then picked up a pen, scribbling something down onto a pad of sticky notes.

After she was done, she peeled the one she had written on free and stuck it onto the desk right between Luca’s arms. It read, I really like that about you.

Luca chuckled.

“You two really think you can fool people?” Ricky asked. Luca had honestly momentarily forgotten he was there.

“I told you coming here was a bad idea,” she whispered.

If Luca was being honest with himself, he’d known that she was right even before he had left the Den. Even so, he had wanted to see her, and this was as good of an excuse as any. So, as a response, he simply shrugged minutely and offered her a playfully-guilty looking expression.

She lifted one eyebrow, but then a soft smile appeared on her lips and she chuckled lightly. He took this to mean that she found him somewhat silly and maybe a bit sweet. This was, of course, true.

But what to do about Ricky? It hurt Luca to even consider ordering Ricky not to speak of Jules. However, if he couldn’t get through to the boy, it was very likely the only way to protect her and keep their secret safe.

Luca let out a long breath, his head hanging low for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said.

“Luca.” Jules’s hand clasped down on his arm.

“What?” He looked back up at her. He saw worry in her eyes.

“Hide.”

Luca looked over his shoulder. Through the glass, he saw Gabriel heading in the direction of the library. Luca ran back into the stacks, crouching by one of the book-filled shelves that would obscure him from the view of the front door.

“Gabriel, hi.” Jules’s cheerfulness sounded forced. “Don’t you have class right now?” This was said a little more naturally.

A class? He works here too. Luca thought.

“You haven’t been answering my messages again,” the male vampire’s angry voice said a few seconds later. Luca thought that perhaps he could’ve asked her if everything was okay, rather than coming at her so accusatorily.

“I’ve been a little busy today.” Luca could hear some annoyance in Jules’s response.

“Too busy to respond to a text message?”

Jules didn’t speak.

Luca was distracted from the conversation by the sound of tentative footsteps walking across the library. He waited for Jules to call out to warn him. The sound grew closer. What was he supposed to do if Gabriel discovered him?

Luca’s gaze shot sideways when Ricky appeared. He’d backed across the library, evidently less comfortable in Gabriel’s presence than in Jules’s.

Gabriel’s voice raised.

“There is a werewolf in here, Jules. One I don’t recognize.” He spoke low enough that a human would have been unable to hear him.

“Yes, Gabriel, there is,” Luca heard Jules say, and wondered for a moment if she was going to tell Gabriel about him. But then she continued, “he’s a new student. And if I had to guess, you are scaring him. You do know you teach quite a few of them.”

Luca thought that this would shut the male vampire up. But instead, he said, “and the one sitting outside in his car. What about that one? Is he just a new student too?”

Luca and Ricky exchanged confused looks.

“What are you talking about? Who’s outside?” Jules asked, voicing Luca’s confusion.

“I don’t know. Some beast. Scrawny, glasses, overactive camera.”

“Jed,” Luca said under his breath.

“Why is he here if not for us?” Gabriel continued.

Luca was horror-stricken. Jed must have tracked one of them here.

How long has he been out there? Had he seen Luca enter the school building?

Had he spotted the Jeep in the parking lot?

Luca’s mind was spinning as he caught sight of Ricky watching him.

The kid was looking at him kind of strangely like he was trying to decide something.

Then, suddenly, Ricky cleared his throat, drawing all attention in his direction, stepped away from Luca’s hiding spot and said, “He’s here for me. ”

Luca’s astonishment made him sway in his crouched position.

“My mom’s dating the Alpha now. I don’t think he trusts me,” Ricky added.

Luca didn’t know how or why he was coming up with this lie, but he was eternally grateful that he was.

“See, Gabriel,” said Jules. “You may, in fact, be overreacting.”

“Don’t start with me, Jules,” Gabriel spat back. Tension filled the seconds that passed. Luca held his breath. All at once, he heard footsteps recede.

“He’s pleasant,” Ricky said flatly.

Luca looked up when Jules rounded the corner, looking down at him.

“That was close,” she said.

“Too close.” Luca took the hand that she offered to help him stand. He should let go of her hand, but he didn’t.

“Why did you do that?” Luca asked the boy who was now standing a few feet away.

Ricky contemplated his answer before speaking. “I’ve decided that you can trust me.”

Luca glanced at Jules.

“Both of you,” Ricky added. “I don’t really know why, but I think I’m like on your side or whatever.”