Page 14 of Brutal Reign (Shadowed Heirs #5)

14

W hat. The actual. Fuck.

My heart is pounding, my mind struggling to process what the hell just happened as Ace storms out of the barracks, leaving me blinking after him in a daze.

He kissed me.

It was confusing enough for Seb to lay one on me after the race to Pine Mountain, but now Ace, too?

What the hell are these boys playing at?!

Even after the initial shock starts to wear off, I’m still left reeling, barely able to form a single coherent thought. Is everyone staring? It sure feels like they are.

My movements are jerky as I stumble over to my cubby, reaching inside for my toiletry bag. I was about to head to the locker room to change into my glasses before Ace came over here and interrupted me. My left eye has been bugging me since my motorcycle ride; it feels like there’s a tiny fleck of dirt trapped underneath my contact lens.

Hayden pops up from our bunk, rushing over to me in concern. “Hey, what…?” she starts to ask, but I shake my head as I dodge past her, tucking my toiletry bag underneath my arm.

“I’ll be right back,” I mumble, slipping away in the direction of the locker room.

I feel the weight of my fellow recruits’ stares on me as I make my way down the aisle of bunks, moving like a robot with my brain stuck in a foggy, trancelike state. I’ve become a master at appearing unbothered while internally spiraling. It’s a mask I wear too often these days.

Very few people know the real River Jacobsen. As my parents’ only child, there’s always been this immense pressure to present myself a certain way; to fit the mold of what people expect me to be. Smart like my mom. Tough like my dad. Kind and conscientious and well-behaved. It doesn’t matter how much of that is actually true so long as I keep up appearances for the sake of my pack.

Perception is reality, right?

That’s why I remain eerily calm, despite the way I want to scream and spit and freak the fuck out right now. I hold my head high as I push through the door into the locker room, hooking a right to go around to the side with the toilet stalls and sinks. Dropping my bag on the counter of the closest sink, I go through the motions of swapping my contacts for my glasses, hardly recognizing myself when I finally look up to meet my eyes in the mirror from behind the lenses.

I just stare at my own reflection for a solid minute, my brain scrambling to piece together exactly what it is that I’m feeling beneath my mask of indifference. My lips are still puffy from Ace’s kiss. I gently press my fingers against my lower one, finding that it’s a little sore from the way he nipped it with his teeth. Or maybe Seb bruised it first. There’s no telling, since they both unexpectedly kissed me in such quick succession.

The kisses themselves couldn’t have been more different. One was wild and frenzied, almost desperate, while the other was deep and passionate, tinged with longing. Come to think of it, they were a pretty accurate reflection of how I once felt about each of them, but those feelings died out for me a long time ago. There’s nothing like three years of bad blood to stamp out a teenage crush.

The locker room door bangs open as Hayden rushes inside, violet hair swishing around her face and eyes wide and wild. I told her I’d be back, but patience has never been her strong suit. Honestly, I’m surprised she even waited this long to come chasing after me for the tea.

“Okay, what just happened?” she demands, our eyes meeting in the mirror as she comes up behind me.

“I got something in my eye on the ride,” I murmur, adjusting my glasses on the bridge of my nose. “Had to take out my contacts.”

She huffs an annoyed breath, whacking me on the arm with the back of a hand. “No, that kiss !” she hisses, pushing at my shoulder until I pivot to face her.

I give her a hard look, darting my eyes back and forth to remind her we have an audience. I mean, it’s only a few other recruits and squad fighters in here with us, but still. “Not here,” I whisper.

Hayden rolls her eyes with a sigh, wrapping a hand around my bicep and tugging me toward the door. I snatch my toiletry bag up before stumbling after her, allowing her to lead me out of the locker room and up the stairs to the lounge above the barracks. Thankfully, there aren’t many people hanging out up here right now, and those that are seem absorbed in their own conversations. I point out the cushy sofas in the back corner where we’ll have some semblance of privacy and the two of us head over to claim them.

Hayden doesn’t even give me a second to relax and get comfortable. As soon as my ass hits the couch, she starts right in on her questioning, folding her arms over her chest and leveling me with a stern stare. “Okay, spill,” she demands. “What the hell was that all about? One minute you’re unloading about how much you hate Seb Walker, and the next you’re making out with his best friend?! What am I missing here, I thought you hated those guys?!”

“I do,” I insist, frowning as I lean back against the cushions and tuck a knee up into my chest.

She blinks at me in confusion. “So then why’d Ace just kiss you?”

“Probably because Seb did first,” I mutter, shrugging.

Hayden jolts back in surprise, her eyes practically bugging out of her head. “What?!” she screeches, throwing up her hands. “Hold on, girl. Back up all the way up, start at the beginning.”

“And don’t leave anything out!” Gus chimes in, grinning as he crosses the lounge toward us with Kendrick in tow.

“You okay with us crashing your girl talk?” Kendrick asks, eyeing me tentatively. He doesn’t seem nearly as excited to be butting into this conversation as Gus does.

“Yeah, whatever,” I sigh, rolling my eyes and chuckling to myself as I beckon them closer with a wave.

I’ve only known Gus and Kendrick for a little over a week, but we’ve quickly become more than just bunk neighbors. I already consider them friends. They’ve had my back since day one of training camp, and I’ll need people in my corner if I’m going to survive here, especially with what just happened tonight.

Once Gus and Kendrick have settled onto the sofas with us, I start in on telling the story of the race up to Pine Mountain that ended with Seb kissing me. While the na?ve fifteen-year-old girl inside me rejoices, my eighteen-year-old self recoils, knowing that this wasn’t some latent romantic gesture. It was a game. A powerplay. A goddamn dick-measuring contest between two boys that kicked me to the curb a long time ago.

I’m not a fucking toy for them to play tug-of-war with, and if they think they can run me out of training camp by toying with my emotions, they’ve got another thing coming. I’m not the same girl that used to follow them around with hearts in her eyes. If they knew the truth about how lethal I’ve become, they’d be the ones running scared.

The more I unload on my friends, the more pissed off I become about this whole situation, my anger and resentment festering inside me like a living, breathing thing.

“Okay, so Ace kissed you because Seb did, but why did Seb kiss you in the first place?” Hayden asks, a little crease forming between her brows as she tries to piece it all together in her mind.

“They’re obviously trying to mess with me,” I grumble, picking at a loose thread on the hem of my t-shirt.

“Why, though?” she presses. “I still don’t get it, what’s the point?”

I roll my eyes, making a scoffing sound in my throat. “So I’ll leave camp? Because another Alpha being here threatens Seb’s power dynamic? Who the fuck knows. Whatever it is, I’m not gonna just sit back and take their bullshit. If they weren’t dead to me before, they sure as shit are now.”

“Well, if they’re trying to get people to talk, it’s working,” Gus admits with a wince. “Jake was talking all kinds of shit down in the barracks before we came up here.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Jake,” I mutter, lips twisting in a scowl. “He’s just salty because he tried to hit on me and I shut him down.”

“Wait, what?!” Hayden gasps, whipping her head around to gape at me. “When?”

Shit, kinda forgot I’d decided to keep that one to myself.

I suck in a deep breath, blowing it out through my nose as I scrub a hand over my face. “Last weekend, when I brought you home from the bar,” I admit.

“Girl, you’ve seriously been holding out on me,” Hayden admonishes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it wasn’t worth mentioning,” I say, waving her off like the entire incident was inconsequential. I purposefully leave out the part about the threats Jake made that night and how they’ve been eating away at me ever since. “I already put him in his place.”

“Yeah, but it’s not cool for him to be talking shit about you just because you turned him down,” Kendrick grumbles.

“Oh, I agree. But the male ego is a fragile thing,” I point out with a teasing wink.

The sound of footsteps ascending the stairs gives me pause, my pulse unwittingly kicking up a notch in nervous anticipation of who might be coming up them. I’m not ready to face Seb and Ace again. Not now; not when all of this is still so fresh.

The truth is, when each of them kissed me, I forgot I hated them for a second. I kissed them back. And when I did, I felt things I never have before; things I didn’t even know were possible from something as simple as a kiss. They weren’t just good kisses. They were fucking great ; the kind that made my toes curl and had fireworks exploding behind my eyes. The kind that instantly seared themselves into my memory for life.

I’ve never been kissed like that before, and in one night, it happened twice . And the fact that I liked it makes me hate myself almost as much as I hate the boys.

Honestly, the weekend can’t come soon enough. All this emotional turmoil is agitating my inner wolf, and I badly need to run off some of that wild energy under the full moon with my pack.

A high-pitched laugh sets my teeth on edge, Chandler entering the lounge with Bailey and Bella. I guess I should be relieved it isn’t the boys, but I’m not any happier to see her .

“Wow, I didn’t know the freakshow was in town,” she remarks, locking eyes with me as she struts from the staircase in my direction.

Hayden whips her head around to cut Chandler a glare. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” she snarls, always quick to have my back. I shoot her a look that says to just leave it alone, but even as I do, I know she won’t listen. Hayden’s feisty as fuck and twice as loyal. Guess I can’t really complain when those qualities are among the reasons I love her so much.

Chandler points a finger at me, completely undeterred by Hayden’s threatening tone. “Ask your four-eyed friend there,” she sneers.

“Wow, Chan, you can’t even come up with a decent insult?” Gus scoffs, and I belatedly recall that he’s more familiar with Chandler than the rest of us, both of them hailing from the Westfield pack. “So what if River wears glasses? I think they look dope on her.”

He slides me a grin and I can’t help but crack a smile in return, warmth blooming in my chest.

“Me too,” Kendrick adds, tossing me a wink. “Chicks with glasses are hot. A lot of guys dig the whole sexy librarian vibe.”

I snort a laugh, playfully blowing Kendrick a kiss before turning back to Chandler and cocking a brow. “Well, now that’s settled, why don’t you go bother someone else? We were kinda in the middle of something here.”

“Only defective shifters wear glasses,” Chandler huffs, folding her arms over her chest as she doubles down on her insult. She flickers side-eyed glances at Bailey and Bella standing on either side of her, seeking backup by adding, “Don’t you agree, girls?”

My own gaze pings to Bella and we lock eyes, my wolf making herself known in mine. “I’d think long and hard before answering that, Bella,” I warn. “Don’t forget which pack you come from.”

I rarely, if ever, rely upon my pack rank when fighting my battles, but this specific scenario calls for an exception to that rule. An insult to me for needing glasses is an insult to my mom, and nobody messes with my family and gets away with it.

Bella’s mouth hinges open as her eyes dart between me and Chandler, the poor girl suddenly looking profoundly uncomfortable. Climbing the social ladder has always been part of who she is, but she’s also a shifter, which means pack comes first and above all else.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna go back downstairs,” Bella mumbles, hooking a thumb over her shoulder as she starts to back away. “I don’t wanna be a part of this.”

Chandler’s mouth falls open at the audacity of her friend’s failure to fall in line, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s a little bit satisfying. The corner of my own mouth lifts in a smirk as I unzip my toiletry bag to pull out a tube of chapstick, fighting back a smug grin.

“If you just came up here to start shit, then I’d suggest you go back downstairs, too,” Hayden bites out, still glaring daggers at Chandler.

She doesn’t take Hayden’s advice. Instead, Chandler ventures closer, as if she’s intent on joining our little foursome on the couches. “I’m not starting anything,” she snaps back at Hayden, then turns her gaze on me, lifting her chin. “In fact, I’m happy for you, River. I wasn’t sure before which one of them you had your eye on, but as long as it’s not Seb, we’re good.”

I roll my eyes as I swipe my chapstick over my lips, completely over her mean girl shit.

Hayden snorts a laugh. “Well, considering Ace kissed her to get back at Seb for doing it first…” she muses, trailing off with a smile.

Again, it’s a teensy bit satisfying to see the flash of surprise on Chandler’s face before she schools her expression, but Hayden really didn’t need to go there. I frown in my friend’s direction, Chandler seizing my moment of distraction to dart out a hand and pluck the tube of chapstick from my fingers.

“Hey!” I object as snap my head back toward her and reach up for it, but she’s already swiping it over her own lips with a smirk. “What? We already shared boys, what’s chapstick?” she chuckles as she smacks her lips and offers the tube back to me, waggling her brows. “Hope you like my sloppy seconds.”

This girl has no idea she’s playing with a nuclear bomb. A sudden rage flares to life inside me, so intense that it’s practically blinding. I mean, I should’ve assumed she’d hooked up with Seb, but hearing her confirmation makes my inner wolf murderous, and it takes everything in me to hold her at bay.

“Go fuck yourself,” I grit out, bringing a hand up in front of me- not to take my chapstick back, but to flip her the bird.

Chandler clucks her tongue, tossing the tainted chapstick into my lap. “Now why would I do that when I’ve got Seb to do it for me?” she scoffs, flipping her hair over a shoulder. “I’ll try to be quiet when I sneak into his bunk again tonight, but no promises.” That arrogant smirk returns to her lips as she turns on a heel to head back for the stairs, snapping her fingers in a directive for Bailey to follow.

Shit, my wolf is dangerously close to the surface. Too close. I squeeze my eyes closed, curling and uncurling my fists as I breathe deep and count backwards from ten.

“Hey, you okay?” Gus asks, leaning over to set a hand on my shoulder.

I blink my eyes open to find his face right in front of mine, forcing a smile. “Yeah,” I choke out. “I’m great .”