Page 7 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

RAWLING

“Where is she?” I said to the four walls.

It was after nine. Jack would normally be either sitting cross-legged on her bed wearing earbuds while finishing her homework or she’d be sound asleep, especially if she’d had a late soccer practice. That’d be after she babbled about someone who’d fouled her and she had the bruises to prove it.

I’d pretend to listen because she was passionate about soccer, and my godfather had once told me a good friend is one who listens while you tell them the good and bad things about your life, even if they’re not interested. They’re there for you. And you did the same for them.

That was what I did for Jack, though I did get a pillow in the face when I asked if the fowl was a duck or chicken. I wasn’t remotely interested in soccer and understood there were two teams and a ball. That was the sum total of my knowledge.

Right now, I’d prefer Jack was here telling me about volleys and headers and other soccer terms that I’d never come to grips with.

She wasn’t answering my texts which was worrying, but she might’ve been in the library where the tech-averse librarian confiscated any devices that weren’t left in the lockers outside.

Our room was usually a safe haven for both of us, a place where we could be ourselves, even though Jack had a weird obsession with wild animals and often referred to our housemates as a wolf or bear.

But going back to what my godfather had instructed me about friendship, I usually made the appropriate listening noises until she lost interest in the subject.

But right now, my instinct told me to get out and search for her.

Wrong. I opened the door as the one opposite flung open. With clenched fists at my sides, I waited for the barrage of insults from Atticus. Fate was fucking with me having him so close to my dorm room

“Rawling.”

Shit. It should be illegal to say my name in a voice layered with sexual undertones.

“Phelan.” I was supposed to be searching for Jack, but his dark eyes rooted me to the spot, and I imagined the guy naked on all fours crawling over a mattress toward me. I shivered.

“Cold?”

He was so close his overpowering cologne clogged my nostrils, and my dick swelled. That was another oddity about Sombertooth. Everyone had a potent scent, not bad, just distinct. That and most of them had tattoos of animals, though I’d never detected one on Phelan. Maybe it was hidden.

I should leave. Jack might be in trouble. She needed me, and yet Phelan’s intoxicating presence had me wanting to trail my fingers over his strong jaw. That and yank his pants down so I could feast my eyes on his cock. Yeah, that. Sweat trickled down my spine into my briefs.

“Not really.” What the fuck sort of answer was that? Either I was or I wasn’t.

“I could warm you up.” He indicated his room, his empty room.

Another quirk about the college was they were so strict about wearing blazers and ties, and yet no one cared Phelan was suggesting we have sex.

He had to be kidding, and yet he was blatant.

But no matter how much I wanted to see him naked, doing it in a room he shared with Atticus was similar to venturing into a lion’s den.

Besides, maybe his offer was nothing to do with sex and he was thinking of lending me a sweater or an extra blanket. That was what I told myself because I’d regret turning down an invitation to be alone with Phelan.

“Thanks, but I’m looking for someone.”

“Your roommate, perhaps?” he asked with a raised brow. “I have a pretty good idea where she is.” He folded his arms, and I was tempted to wipe off his smug smile. Not with a slap but with a kiss.

A pounding of feet on the ancient staircase had both Phelan and me swivel our gaze in that direction.

Jack!

She skidded over the old wooden floorboards, her face flushed and her long hair she usually tied up, loose and disheveled.

“What?”

“I thought you were in the library. Did you have soccer practice?”

Phelan snorted. “Is that what they’re calling a quickie these days?” he said, earning him a death glare from Jack who brushed past me and slammed our door in my face.

Phelan shrugged, and before he retreated into his and Atticus’s room, he said, “Shame you didn’t accept my invitation.”

But my mind was on my friend who apparently had been having sex, if Phelan was to be believed. Barging into our room, our empty room, I threw myself onto my bed and waited for Jack to get out of the shower.

There was only one candidate that I was aware of who she was attracted to, who she’d gaze at, her eyes smoldering, and that person was so ewww. How could she?

Jack stalked out of the bathroom, toweling her hair, and climbed into bed, turning away from me. I guessed she didn’t want to talk because she hated going to bed with her hair wet.

I simmered, my stomach tied in knots as I imagined her and him together.

“Stop!” she yelled.

“I’m not doing anything,” I spat out.

“You’re fuming.” She sat up, tying her wet hair in a ponytail.

“You slept with a guy who hates me, who goes out of his way to make my life miserable.”

“What the fuck has my sex life to do with you?” she bellowed. “And besides, you being… well… you, it’s like you have a bullseye on your back.”

I put my face in my hands, because until now, I wasn’t sure what had happened, but she confirmed it. “Friends are loyal to one another, or they’re supposed to be. That was a dick move.”

“Speaking of dicks!”

“No, no, no.” I covered my ears, doing my best to rid my head of images of him and my friend together, naked. “He doesn’t care about you. He’s using you to get to me.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Jack flung the bedclothes off and stood at the end of my bed, her face almost as red as when she’d raced up the stairs. “Not everything is about you. Today was me and Atticus. Now butt out of my sex life.”

Damn. First she said the D word and now the B word. Butt. I shook my head, cramming it full of cotton candy and rainbow pics in an effort not to think of her and him naked.

“Atticus isn’t just a dick to you. Other than Phelan, he treats everyone that way.”

“Nah. I mean, he’s horrible, but for some reason he has it in for me.” I paused. “And can you please stop saying dick?”

“Would you prefer I say cock?”

“Nah nah nah nah nah. Can’t hear you,” I burbled.

“You’re being childish and self-centered. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

I inhaled while trying to get my thoughts in order. “What do you see in him?”

Jack smirked. “Really? You have to ask me that.”

“That’s why you slept with him? Because of his big—” I couldn’t say it.

“Mmmm.”

“Ewww. Atticus is only after sex. He’s not interested in how you’re doing in class or soccer. He doesn’t give a damn about your plans after college.”

Jack opened and closed her hands, mimicking blinking lights. “Newsflash. I’m only in it for the sex too. Is that wrong? Neither of us have partners, we’re not cheating, and he is very good in bed. Not that we were in a bed,” she added almost as an afterthought.

Gross!

I blinked away tears. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are.”

“Friends don’t do that to one another.”

“I give up.” She flounced into bed. “Turn off the damned light.”

I lay in the darkness, wishing I was anywhere but here. Perhaps I should have accepted whatever Phelan was offering. Being in someone’s arms might have eased the pain of Jack sleeping with my enemy.

But as the minutes became hours and I was still wide awake, I rewound what Jack had said.

She was right, her sex life was none of my business.

Maybe I should just get over it. But what if they became a thing, and instead of hanging out with me, she sat on his lap during meals or they walked down the hallways, arm in arm?

Perhaps I was jealous and scared of losing my friend.

And now I couldn’t tell her about Phelan and what happened this evening. On any other day if I’d spilled that I liked him, we would have talked long into the night, discussing the pros and cons of him shoving his cock in me.

Him being Atticus’s bestie was a check in the con column. Like his roommate, he was a bad boy. Not an asshat like Atticus, but I suspected there was a trail of omegas in Phelan’s history. Ones he’s fucked and discarded.

That should have been a turn-off. But it was the opposite.