Becoming Alpha (13 page)

They must have given me a few shots of super vitamins or antibiotics or something. Maybe a super vitamin E? Dr. Needle-happy might not be so bad after all.

I rummaged through my makeup bag that sat on the counter. Half of it wasn’t necessary with my complexion being so clear. A quick swipe of gloss would be enough. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. It only had a hint of chemically smell, so I put it on.

Meredith was still digging through my clothes when I walked back into my room. “You’ve got some cute stuff.” She pulled out a black mini. “Love this.”

I laughed. “With your body, it’ll probably look better on you than me.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re such a cow.” She rolled her eyes. “I threw some jeans and a tank on the bed. Change. I’ll wait.” She moved over to look through my books.

I moved to the bed and picked up the tank top. It was one of my staples, black ribbed with black lace edging. But something was different with it. Something about it made me want to spend the night rubbing my face in it. I took a wiff of it, and smelled wood and something manly.

Totally weird. “My clothes smell—”

“Like Dastien!” She jumped in place. “Doesn’t he smell like soooo yummy?”

Damn it. I didn’t want to like her, but I couldn’t help smiling with her. “I hadn’t noticed before. I guess he does. So uuh, dare I ask why they smell like him?”

She waved me off and went back to the books. “He helped move your stuff in. I think it was part of his ongoing punishment.”

“Punishment?”

She looked back at me. “For biting you.”

“Is that his only punishment?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. Not even close.”

I sat hard on the bed. This didn’t sound good. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.” She sat next to me. “I wouldn’t worry about him. There might be a trial or something, but he’ll probably be okay.”

I took a deep breath with my face in the tank. I couldn’t believe I was torn between being repulsed and happy that it smelled like him. That guy had seriously messed with my head. And I really shouldn’t care what might happen to him, but the “he’ll probably be okay” thing was bothering me. “What kind of punishment could he get?”

“No one really knows, although everyone is talking about it. It’s a huge deal that he bit you. I mean, it’s against our Law. We’re not like humans. The consequences are…” She got up and started looking through the stuff on my desk. “We just don’t break our Law. So, Dastien’s been keeping to himself and spending a lot of time as a wolf. And I’m sure we’ll have a visit from the Seven before too long.”

Was she purposely trying to not give me all the info? “The Seven?” It sounded a little sharp, even to me.

“Oh, sorry. We’ve never had a bitten wolf here.”

I made a mental note to ask about that later.

“They’re like our president, but more like a governing council made up of seven really old Alpha werewolves.”

“So what’s the worst case scenario?”

She made a face, scrunching up her nose. “I don’t want to freak you out. It probably won’t even happen.”

“Okay, then don’t say things like ‘I don’t want to freak you out.’ Because first thing I do is start to freak out!”

She replaced the book she was holding back where she found it, and let out a breath. “He could get sentenced to death.”

What! “Death?”

“Hey, it’s not like I didn’t warn you. You said you wanted worst case scenario.”

“Yeah, but killing him is a little extreme, don’t you think! I’m still alive. I’m fine…ish.” Even if I wasn’t fine, I didn’t want him to die.

I looked from her to the clothes. She wasn’t going to give me any privacy. I grabbed them off the bed and turned my back to her.

As I pulled on my jeans, I noticed they were a little baggy. Guess being “sick” burned some calories, but I was looking a little too thin. My ribs were even protruding a little—which was nowhere near sexy.

I jerked my top down when Meredith started talking again. “We have all of our regular classes together—math, chem, English, history. And yikes, you have Were history with the freshman. And metaphysics with them too. Well, at least you have yoga and martial arts with me. That’s not so bad.”

Yoga? Martial arts?
Were
? What the hell kind of classes was I going to be taking?

She grabbed my hand. “Come on. We’re gonna be late.” My skin froze as she pulled me out the door.

No visions. Not even a twinge.

I slid my hand from hers and rubbed it on my jeans. “Wait. What about shoes?”

“Oh. Just grab some flip-flops. That’s what most of us wear. Makes shifting easier if you don’t have to untie your shoes all the time. And once you change, you’ll get used to being without clothes too. Gotta get used to being in front of everyone in your birthday suit.” She winked.

“What! No. NO! You’ve gotta be out of your mind.”

She doubled over laughing at whatever look I had on my face. I guessed it was somewhere between completely scandalized and totally horrified.

Changing clothes while keeping on my underwear was one thing. I could pretend it was like being in a bathing suit. And she was only one girl. No one saw me completely naked. Not even Mom.

“You should see the look on your face. I’m sorry. I had to. It was just so easy.” She took a breath. “We don’t roam around naked or anything. And we have special robes for when we change in groups and don’t want to rip up our clothes. Plus, plenty of bushes and trees to hide behind and hidden stashes of clothes in the woods.”

That was at least a little better, but still completely weird.

The sun set as we walked through the courtyard to the cafeteria. The two and three story red brick buildings dotted the campus, all of them simple in their style but beautiful, even if they did feel a little jail-esque right then. The smell of the trees, cedar and oak and pine, mixed all together made me feel calm.

This was going to take some getting used to. I hoped Dastien wasn’t at dinner. Would he try to talk to me? Oh shit. What if he was there but he didn’t want to talk to me? That would be completely awkward.

I held my breath as we got to the cafeteria. It was my second new school in as many weeks. That was a record, even for me. Somehow, the first time at a cafeteria in a new school never got any easier.

Screw it. It was like ripping off a band-aid. Right?

The cafeteria was filled with students grabbing food. There was a short order grill, bars for salad, baked potatoes, and desserts, and a station with hot entrees. No one looked shy about eating as people moved from one station to the next piling their trays high. Not one girl had a water and plain lettuce on her tray. Yet everyone was in amazing shape.

I’d definitely entered the Twilight Zone.

I looked down at my jeans and tank. Yeah, my clothes blended, but I didn’t fit in. Every other girl in there looked like they could be models. They were tall, all legs. And everyone moved gracefully, as if they were choreographed into some intricate dance. No one bumped into each other. Nothing spilled or slopped around on their trays.

The guys were just as impressive. They were all tall and built—muscles stretching T-shirts almost beyond their capacity. It was like I walked into a living Abercrombie ad.

What a nightmare.

It hit me suddenly, and I started roughly counting the people in the room. There were at least three times as many guys there as girls. I never considered myself much of a women’s lib person, but this was ridiculous. Sex bias much?

“Come on.” Meredith dragged me the rest of the way to the brown plastic trays.

I grabbed a slice of roast beef and some veggies and started to walk away. Meredith grasped my arm, pulling me back to the line. “That’s not enough food.” She piled on mashed potatoes with gravy and rolls and pasta and everything else within reach onto my plate until my tray was fully loaded down.

I lifted it and it was at least ten pounds heavier than it had been a minute ago.

“Oh. You need this too.” She carefully balanced a slice of pecan pie on the edge of the tray.

“So what army am I supposed to be giving this to?”

“No one told you?”

“No one’s told me anything. I just got here, remember?”

A smile broke across her face. “You’re going to love this.”

I was?

“Being a werewolf has its advantages. You don’t get sick. Ever. We heal fast. And because we heal so fast, we’re slow to age. But all of that, plus shifting, burns a ton of calories. Think mega calories. So, you have to eat a lot to keep up with your new metabolism.” She started scooping food onto her tray again. “Mr. D might look like he’s in his mid-thirties, but think like five times that.”

She’d just made my brain explode and had no clue that she’d done it. This was a lot to take in. I glanced down at my overflowing tray and wondered if I would even be able to carry it. “So what, I’m going to look seventeen for the next five years.”

“Kind of. We age normally for a while, but then it slows way down once you hit your first shift.” I must’ve made a face, because she answered my question before I asked it. “Puberty.”

“Awesome.” Because puberty wasn’t hard enough already.

“Seriously,” she said. “I’m not kidding. You need to eat all of that. If you’re hungry, you get pissy. A pissy werewolf is a dangerous werewolf.”

When she decided we had enough, she looked for a table. Ignoring everyone had been easy while I got food, but once I turned, the entire cafeteria stopped eating to stare at me. Low whispers spread through the room.

Fantastic. Now if I could make it to the table without tripping, that would be good.

I followed Meredith as she wove through the tables. Most people stopped talking when I walked by them, except for one table.

“Don’t worry, Dastien. She won’t dare approach you here.”

I spun—nearly toppling my soda. La Bitch was back.

Then I saw them. A pair of golden eyes. La Bitch’s hand covered Dastien’s as she leaned toward him.

Motherfucker. Did that asshat have a girlfriend?

The two of them together stung way more than it should’ve. We had kissed once. It wasn’t like it meant anything besides irrevocably destroying my life. Still, the urge to throw the
contents of my tray in his face for turning me and then sitting there all chummy with that bitch of a girl was almost too great to ignore.

He got up without saying a word to me and walked out of the cafeteria.

Meredith looked from me to La Bitch. She cleared her throat, and stared at the ground. “Come on, Tessa. Table’s over here.”

I didn’t want to look away from the girl, but Meredith pulled on my arm, nearly upending my tray. It was either make a scene or follow Meredith.

I stared at the doors Dastien had disappeared through. I didn’t need any more problems. I took a deep breath and followed Meredith.

We sat down where three people were already eating. “This is Chris.” Meredith pointed to a boy with wavy dirty blond hair, and sky blue eyes. “He’s our resident brooding artist.”

I set my tray down with a thunk. It was the guy from earlier who tackled me. “I think we’ve met. Kind of,” I said.

“I could never forget someone who made me fall so hard.” He gave me a wink. “Recovering okay?” His voice had a deep rasp that I hadn’t noticed before.

“This is Adrian,” she said, motioning toward the other guy.

He had brown skin and eyes so dark I couldn’t tell where the iris started. He smiled, his white teeth gleaming against the dark skin. “Hola,” he said with a thick Texas accent.

“And this is Shannon.” Shannon had flame-red hair and bright green eyes. Her cold glare made me shiver. This one didn’t think so highly of me. Maybe she should go join La Bitch’s table.

“Listen, the cliques here can be pretty rough. I mean some of them are from families with long lines of ruling alphas,” Meredith said. “You don’t want to piss anyone off until you know what’s what. Just try not to let anyone get to you. Like Imogene—”

“The girl with Dastien?”

She nodded.

“Right.” I shrugged. “Well, I’ll be nice to her if and when she’s nice to me.”

Meredith made a face, but I wasn’t backing down on this. I’m not going to go out of my way to be nice to someone who insulted me.

A change of subject was in order. “I guess everyone’s not just staring at me because I’m new?”

“Sorry, love.” Shannon’s lilting Irish voice surprised me. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s been bitten. It’s simply not done.”

Not done. Right. Because if that were really true, then how did I end up at St. Ailbe’s?

I poked around at my mountain of food, and they started talking about some chemistry test coming up. I nodded when appropriate to the conversation that flowed around me, but couldn’t stop wondering about the whole biting thing. That was the second time that someone mentioned that werewolves didn’t bite humans. So why had Dastien done it?

“You should really finish that,” Meredith said.

I’d eaten some of it, but hadn’t even made a dent in the mound. Thinking about Dastien had killed my appetite. The thought of taking another bite made me want to gag. “You know, I think I’m good. I’m going to head back to my room.”

“Are you sure you—” Meredith said.

“I’m fine. Really.” I’d reached my limit. I was never great at being around people, and couldn’t remember the last time I’d been alone. This was all too much, and trying to pretend that it was normal and have a nice little dinner chat wasn’t working for me. “It was nice to meet all of you.”

As I stood up, the room went quiet again. I left my tray where it was, and strode across the room. Everyone stared, especially a group of girls from the table where Dastien had been sitting. Their gazes could have started a fire, mostly around me. I held my chin high as I walked past them. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

When I got back to my room, I found my cell phone on the bed with a note tucked underneath it.

Call your parents. They want to hear from you.

—
Michael Dawson.

I stared at my phone. What would I say? What did they have to tell me? Nothing and nothing.