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22

Summer

I burst through the cantina doors at a near run toward Kelpie. Fear tightens my stomach, squeezing until I feel nauseous. A week. It’s only been a week of Connor and I settling into casually seeing each other. Though the only firm rule of our relationship is that we don’t fuck anyone else, I have my own set of rules, all of which I have broken.

Walls that I had spent years building crumble like clay every time he gives me that flirtatious smile or makes me laugh. I had spent years building those barriers, and I thought they were made of steel. Today, when I pulled him from whatever he was doing to fuck him in the library stacks like some horny teenager, for whatever reason, my stomach twisted into knots. The worst part is that I don’t know why. It just felt like something was missing. Maybe it’s because I wished he’d be rougher with me? A part of me wants him to dig his fingers in enough to leave bruises, to grab me, mark me, claim?—

No. I’m not going there. It’s fine. I’m enjoying being with him. It’s not complicated, and that is what I wanted. When we started this, I set some personal boundaries to help me cope with the commitment. Even the thought is laughable. It’s barely a commitment, but I want to claw off my skin whenever I think about tying myself to someone, even with something as simple as a verbal agreement to be true to one another. I’ve never been able to rely on anyone enough to promise them anything, but this is different. He’s the perfect golden boy. He’s patient, funny, smart, and loyal.

And too good for me. Fuck.

Okay, let’s go through it again. I was out for a run. Connor popped into my head, and I texted him. A booty call in the dusty old stacks of the library does not a relationship make, but sending him the message prior still feels like too much advanced planning. My original boundary was that we would not arrange hookups. Doing so leads to expectations and then disappointment if plans are canceled. To avoid all that, we would simply fuck spur of the moment. At least, that had been the plan.

My second rule was to limit dates to the evenings and no more than once a week. Today, after having sex in the library, we went for lunch. Halfway through my Caesar salad, I realized what we were doing. I’d lurched to my feet, whacking my knee on the table in my hurry and babbling an excuse about forgetting plans with Alice. Connor took it in stride as he did everything. He simply stood and cupped my chin, kissing me so softly and with so much familiarity that my chest ached. He’s too good, patient, understanding, and willing to put up with me. That pleasant ache quickly turned to a sharp stabbing pain as the panic set in.

My third and final rule is one that I have had for years. I established it when I became sexually active, and I haven’t thought twice about it since. But with Connor, it causes guilt to claw down my spine like a wolf shifter on the hunt under the full moon. This past week, I have fucked Connor four times, and every single time I managed to convince him that we should go to his house instead of my dorm. At this point, he probably thinks my room is a filthy mess or that we’re housing some kind of demonic beast. Or worse, he’s waiting for me to open up to him. No matter the lameness of the excuse, he would simply lead me back to his place.

Once back at Morningstar House, we would race to his room, both of us undressing manically and falling sloppily onto his bed before getting down and dirty. Every night, after we each had an orgasm or two, I would wait for Connor to fall asleep, and then I would sneak out, just like I did that first night. Every time I do it, the guilt eats away at me a little more. For some reason, it feels like a solid stone of betrayal inside me, but I don’t know how to let these rules go. I put them in place to protect myself and to keep from repeating past mistakes.

Three mornings Connor asked me where I was when he woke up, and three mornings, I gave him some bullshit excuse about why I had to leave his house at 5:00 AM. Sex is a carnal need. It’s passion and fire, but sleeping in someone’s bed and waking up with them in the morning is so intimate. There is an intense vulnerability in facing someone the moment you open your eyes. Your walls lowered enough for them to climb through.

Kelpie Hall has never looked more inviting. I sprint inside and upstairs to our floor, practically wrenching our door open. Anxiety is buzzing under my skin, making my chest tight. I slam the door behind me and start pacing the empty living room, trying to calm myself. My breath is shallow and frantic. There is such a conflict of emotions inside me, emotions I have such little experience with. On the one hand, I am dealing with the guilt and betrayal that persists every time I sneak out of Connor’s bed after he dozes off. On the other hand, there is the deep-seated terror at the idea of committing even more to Connor, allowing him to see more of me.

Alice comes out of her room, and her gaze turns wary when she sees me. “You okay?”

I glance at her, grateful to see her face. I had worried that things would be weird after I opened up to her, but honestly, it only made us closer.

Why couldn’t Connor just be like Alice? I know instinctively that no matter how close Alice and I get or how long we are friends, she will never ask me to open up and be vulnerable. We are too similar in that way. We were both made this way by pasts we’d rather die than revisit. The only difference between us is that Alice’s past was written in blood and mine in stone.

I just pace, my brain racing a million miles a minute, her words getting lost in the fray. Something soft and squidgy hits me on the side of the head. I stop. Shock makes everything inside my head go completely silent. I blink at Alice and then down at the half-empty blood bag on the ground at my feet.

“Oh, good. I thought I was going to have to commit you. What’s going on?” Alice says, moving around the couch.

“I went for a run, and then…” I pause, the words not coming to me easily thanks to the adrenaline still coursing through my system. “Well, I wanted to have sex, so I texted Connor.”

Alice nods. “Against your rules, but fair.”

She is the only person I’d explained my personal boundaries to. It seemed more important she know them than Connor because they have nothing to do with him. They have nothing to do with Alice either, but honestly, in just the two weeks I’ve been here, she’s become the best friend I’ve ever had. She’d just nodded as if they all made perfect sense, making me feel slightly less crazy.

Alice waits for me to continue, and eventually, I start pacing again, but slower. “He was at the library, so we did it there. Then we went for lunch.”

Alice blinks at me, and I give her an incredulous look. “For lunch , Alice!”

Alice’s lip curls. “How very… coupley of you.”

I scoff derisively. “Fucking tell me about it!” I stop pacing and yank the tie out of my hair, running my fingers through the long strands. “I fucking hate it, and now I’m freaking out. Alice, I’ve only known him for like… two weeks. Two fucking weeks and suddenly we’re going for lunch.”

“So, I know why I hate it because… gross, but why do you hate it?” Alice asks, watching me owlishly.

“I didn’t hate it! That’s the problem! We were actually having a…” I have to hold back another panicked breath, “nice time.”

Alice shudders. “Oh, fuck. You’re in deeper than you thought.”

I start pacing again. “You know what? It’s fine. I just need to establish my boundaries again. We’re fucking. That’s it.”

Alice picks up the blood bag from the ground and opens it again, taking a loud slurp as she grabs a magazine from the coffee table and flops onto the couch. “You think it’ll be that easy?”

“Fuck, you’re right. I’m ending it.”

Alice rolls her eyes and sits up, tossing the magazine back onto the table. “Summer. Connor does it for you, right? Like he does it for you.”

I frown. “What are you talking about?”

Alice groans and looks up at the ceiling, obviously seeking some higher power to give her strength. “Do you like having sex with angel boy?”

“I mean, yeah, but you know about my past, and Connor is just… too perfect.”

Alice speaks very slowly like I’m a moron that’s not getting her point. “Why complicate it? He knows you’re not together, right?”

I sink onto the couch, slouching next to her, my exhausted body humming. “It already feels complicated.”

Alice nudges me. “Okay, answer me this. What would you do if you saw Connor kissing someone else?”

I glance at her, truly stumped. “I don’t know.”

“You’d at least be conflicted, right?”

I shrug. “I guess. I don’t know. But, Alice, he wants more. He wants a… relationship.”

“He’s obviously happy with the situation at the moment. Enjoy it for now and deal with the rest of it later.” I sigh, and Alice chuckles. “Want me to run interference with him until you figure it out?”

“Interference?”

“You know, do you want me to come up with some reasons why you can’t see him? It might take the pressure off.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

Alice holds her pinky finger up in the air between us. “Here is to Summer figuring out which is more powerful, her commitment issues or her libido!”

I roll my eyes but link my pinky with hers and laugh, finally relaxing. “Okay, whatever. Are we going out tonight?”

Alice pretends to think as she pulls out her phone. I don’t miss that the first thing on her screen is the invite to the shifter house party tonight. She quickly closes it and scrolls through her phone. “Sorcerers mixer, no. Incubus study session ? Gods, no. Huh…” She scrolls back to the shifter invite. “There’s a party at the shifter house. It’ll be lame, but it’s better than the other options.”

I give her a knowing look. “You want to go party with the shifters?”

“Ew, no. But they usually have a ton of booze, and it’ll be packed with loads of guys.” Alice tries to hide her blush with her hair. I roll my eyes.

“Shifter house it is. Can’t wait for archaic rules and female oppression.” That was one of the consistent things I’d read when studying Nhang, the realm of therianthropes. Even with its ever-changing landscape, climates, and varying factions, one ideology resonated through each shifter group, no matter how much they differed from each other. Might makes right.

“Oh, they’re not that bad anymore…” Her words trail off when she meets my gaze. “What?”

“I am once again going to remind you that vampires and shifters are natural enemies,” I tease, trying to get under her skin. It is a common thing to see vampires and shifters facing off, both in classes and outside of them. Alice is the only one who doesn’t seem to care.

“Please. I loathe them,” Alice asserts, dragging out the word. I don’t need to be an angel to know she is lying.

“I’m sure you do,” I say and stand up, heading toward my room. My smirk widens when I hear her frustrated growl. I stop short, noticing a man’s hoodie on the floor. Glancing back at her, I bend and pick it up. On the back, there are the signs for alpha, beta, and omega. Alpha and omega are white, and the beta symbol is blue. I slowly turn to face her.

“Alice?”

Alice watches me in horror, her mouth opening and closing.

“You’re fucking a shifter, aren’t you?”

Alice bristles, standing up and clenching her fists. “Okay, first of all…” She walks around the couch and snatches the hoodie from me. “Maybe. And second of all, maybe I’m fucking more than one of them.”

I burst out laughing. “Never change.”

Alice blinks and then starts to laugh, too.