Chapter 3

Denny

I was asked to lead a group of incomers on a campus tour. Most of them had probably already been on a tour, so I planned to show them some of the cooler things around campus and not give them the every day tour.

This was going to be fun. It was a small group and with any luck I wouldn't have a ton of parents in the mix. Though, it was okay. I was good with parents; I just wasn't dumb enough to be quite so forthright with them.

We were told to just pick a group, so of course I went right for the six gorgeous girls closest to me.

“Hello, ladies,” I said, giving them a swoon-worthy smile.

Before I even got to introductions, Professor Chicco pulled me aside.

“Shannahan asked me to assign you to a group.”

“Huh? We've never done that before. Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all. We have a deaf student arriving and your transcript shows you studied American Sign Language.”

I chuckled. “I did. Three years running.”

“Think you can actually put that skill to use?”

“Of course.”

“Great, then right this way.”

I turned to what would have been a super fun group and shrugged. “Sorry ladies. Looks like you'll have to settle for a sub-par tour guide.”

“You wish,” Remy said, stepping in to take over my group. “Hello ladies, I'm Remy.”

The asshole winked at me as I walked away.

Chicco led me to another group where I saw Oscar Westin.

Great. The tiger from a wolf pack who wants nothing to do with my fraternity or his father's legacy.

Trying not to feel too put off by it, I introduced myself.

“Hi guys. I'm Denny, and I'm apparently going to be your guide for the day. Who do we have here? Name, animal spirit, and where you're from.”

“Oscar, tiger, Westin Pack.”

One of the girls looked confused and I still didn't know which one I was supposed to be signing to. Feeling like an ass, I realized I should have started signing from the beginning. Too late now.

“Jett, wolf, also Westin Pack.”

“Autumn, opossum, also Westin Pack.”

The other girl in the group looked even more confused now, but she didn't speak up.

“Mark, wolf, Alaskan Pack.”

“Ah, Mark. Your Alpha gave us a heads-up to keep an eye out for you. I'm president of Delta Omega Gamma. Let me know if you'd like to chat about our fraternity later. You may not know it but Damon Rossi was a brother during his time here.”

“Yeah, I know. I plan to rush this year after talking to him about it.”

“Awesome. Welcome to the ARC.”

“Thanks.”

“Next?”

“Troy, wolf, Collier Pack.”

“Great, and you?”

“Oh, I'm Will, his brother. I'm not going here though.”

I shrugged. “Your loss. Next.”

The girl hesitated as her eyes started to dart around nervously like she was looking for someone or something.

“This is Kylie,” Oscar intervened.

When her hand came up to her mouth, I knew this was my girl. She signed, “ Thank you, ” to him.

I grinned. “ K-Y-L-I-E? ” I spelled out.

Her eyes lit up in surprise.

“ D-E-N-N-Y, ” I told her, one letter at a time.

At one point I fancied myself a language interpreter. I studied Spanish, French, and Mandarin, too, but thought ASL would be an easy class that wouldn't require much work. Boy had I been wrong. Regardless, it had been fun and rewarding enough that I'd actually stuck with it instead of fizzling out after one semester like the other languages.

“ What animal? And where are you from? ” I asked her with my hands.

She was practically giddy to have someone talking to her in her own language. I could already tell she was good at lip reading, but that wasn't the same as feeling included.

I was suddenly very happy to have taken the time to learn this stuff.

“ Wolf. New York, ” she told me.

“Great. Well, I am also a wolf, so this will make it easy. As you all know, Archibald Reynolds was founded as a higher education sanctuary for wolves and eventually the doors were open to all kinds of shifters. So, you'll learn to work and live with shifters of all sorts here. It can get pretty interesting.” I said aloud while also signing as I spoke for Kylie to understand.

“Interesting how?” Autumn asked.

Since Kylie was watching me now, instead of the group, I quickly let her know what Autumn had said.

“Well, as you three know, each species has their own quirks. Wolves can be quite territorial. Contrary to what you might think, skunks only stink when you piss them off. So don't piss off a skunk shifter.”

“ Seriously? Skunks? ” Kylie signed to me.

I nodded but couldn't hide the humor from my face.

“What did she say?” Oscar asked.

“She asked if I was being serious about skunks. Yes. There are skunks here, or occasionally at least. We used to have a good friend of the doghouse here at the ARC named Violet. She’s a skunk shifter and let's just say, I learned that warning the hard way. Fortunately, it takes a lot to piss off a skunk. Unfortunately for me, I managed it anyway.”

They all laughed, including Kylie.

“That sounds like bullshit to me,” Jett challenged. “We were warned about you, Denny. Heard you love to embellish stories.”

“Think what you want, but it's the truth.”

Kylie's head was whipping back and forth as she tried to follow the conversation but was clearly getting confused.

“ What are they talking about? ” she signed to me.

“ Bullshit, ” I signed without saying it. “ They think my warning about skunks is bullshit. ”

“What are you saying to her now?” Will ask.

“Bull,” I said as I positioned my hands and arms depicting the horns, and then used my right hand to portray the droppings, “shit. I told her you all think my warning is bullshit.”

“Nice. I'm a cowboy. I'm going to remember this one because that's exactly what I thought of when you did that.”

The others all laughed as I relayed what he said to Kylie.

I noticed the parents breaking up and Kevin jogged over to join us.

“How the hell did you manage to get stuck in Denny's group?” he teased his sister.

I gave him the sign for “fuck you" causing Kylie to nearly spit out the water she’d just sipped from her bottle.

The others cracked up.

“No need to interpret that one,” Jett said.

“Yeah, we understood that one clearly,” Troy added.

“ Sorry ,” I apologized to Kylie, but once she recovered, she seemed more humored by it than anything, though I did try to explain he was one of my fraternity brothers. I didn't know how to sign fraternity though and resorted to spelling it out instead. “ F-R-A-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y. ”

She quickly showed me the sign for that word.

“Okay. Kylie's schooling me over here on new words.”

“He's a very good student,” Kevin said slyly, alluding to something untoward.

Normally, he wouldn't be wrong. Kylie was a beautiful girl, and she was absolutely my type. But for some reason, I felt ridiculously protective of her and did not like his insinuation.

The look on my face must have told him as much, too.

Kylie waved to get my attention and asked what was wrong.

“ Asshole, ” I signed to her and then pointed to him.

She took a step away and shot him an uneasy look that made me laugh.

“ Asshole to me, not you, ” I corrected. There was certainly no need for her to fear Kevin. It felt like a good time to change the subject, so I did. “Are you all excited to be here?” I asked aloud while continuing to sign to her.

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Whatever.”

Kylie bobbed her fist back and forth telling me she was excited too.

I looked around, not seeing anyone else heading our way. It pissed me off a little that Kylie's family had just abandoned her here.

“Does anyone have any family coming?”

“Nope. My parents aren't exactly happy with me right now, so I convinced them to let me come up alone for this week and they'll move my stuff in next weekend,” Oscar informed me.

“And Autumn and I came with him. Our parents will be here next weekend, too,” Jett told me.

“Yeah, with Kevin coming along with us, they all thought it would be fine,” Autumn explained.

“It's cool,” I assured them. “How about you guys?”

“Our dad can't really travel, and our mom stayed home to take care of him,” Will said.

“But Will drove out here with me and our older brother will be here next weekend. He's riding up with Oscar’s parents,” Troy added.

“My parents didn't come, but my Alpha did,” Mark said with a huge grin on his face.

“Your Alpha? Are you serious? Damon's here? Where?” No one had told me he was in town. Hell, I'd just talked to him two days ago. There's no way he didn't know he was coming. He was probably even on his way. Asshole.

I looked around and spotted him across the way as he smiled and waved.

I shook my head then moved in to meet him in a big bro-hug.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Who the hell let you lead a group of unsuspecting freshmen?”

Laughing, I hugged him once more and then introduced him to the rest of the group.

“This is Damon Rossi, Alpha of the Alaskan wolves.”

He nodded his head towards my little crew for the day.

“Man, I can't even believe it. Why didn't you tell me? Is Karis here, too?”

“I'm here,” a female voice said behind me.

I turned in time to see her join us and then gave her a big hug lifting her off the ground to twirl her in the air.

“Put my mate down,” Damon said.

I felt a punch of Alpha authority slam into me.

“Okay, okay. I'm putting her down. You’re lucky I didn't drop her. You didn't need to command me to do it.”

“What? I . . .”

“Damon,” Karis said in a tone that I would have had fun mocking if it didn't terrify me so much.

Teasing Karis during her days at the ARC was one thing, but teasing Karis the Pack Mother of Alaska in front of her very dominant Alpha mate sounded a bit like a death sentence.

“Well, if this is everyone, why don't we get this tour started.”

Other groups were already starting to depart.

Kylie waved one hand toward me.

“ Are you ready? ” I signed to her.

“ My sister, ” she replied.

“ Sister? ” I clarified.

She nodded.

“No!” I heard someone yell.

Kylie's attention quickly turned away from me as she started signing again.

“ Are you okay? ”

It seemed like a weird question to ask.

“ I'm fine, ” I signed back.

She rolled her eyes at me but still looked concerned as she stared over my shoulder.

That's when I realized that everyone was staring past me.

I turned around to see what was happening and then froze as my jaw dropped open.

Mate .