Chapter 5

5

S ilence greeted me when I woke up, which was kind of surprising considering all the extra bodies in the house.

Katy had taken ‘my’ room, even though I had never actually used it. Larkin was down the hall in Rhodes’ room, Ainsley and the younger girls were in the room with a couple sets of bunk beds, and several guys had camped out downstairs in the living room.

I glanced at the clock on the bedside table near my head. We still had a few hours before classes started.

GPA had decided that classes would commence as usual, but Remy went over instructions that the Blackwater pack was on lockdown, even going as far as to assign escorts to all of the females.

I turned over and looked at my assigned guard, sleeping soundly beside me. All the lines of tension that had tightened his face last night and even as he gathered me in his arms to go to sleep, were finally relaxed as he rested.

I felt like a total creeper watching Remy as he slept. I was fascinated by the tiny movements he made. The unconscious twitch of a finger against my hip, the tiny frown lines that appeared and then smoothed between his eyes, the steady rise and fall of his wide chest.

Lifting my head slightly from his shoulder, my eyes slid down to where my hand rested absently on his stomach. Even relaxed in sleep, the ridges of his muscles were pronounced. One of my fingers slid into the groove between the muscles, lightly tracing the outline of his abs.

I followed the contour of muscle, outlining each ab, counting as I went. I frowned when I got to the last one and did a quick recount.

In all of the romance novels I tended to binge, the heroine always talked about the guy’s six pack. But I was definitely counting eight on Remy’s firm stomach, not counting the grooved indents that curved down into an enticing v that disappeared into the low band of the gym shorts he slept in.

The finger I had been using to trace his body now skirted the elastic band. I bit my lip, curious and wanting to go farther, but also feeling a little awkward.

This was new territory for me. Then again, almost everything was new territory for me. But in the quiet of the morning, with weak tendrils of dawn creeping into the room, it felt more intense. Intimate.

I glanced up at Remy’s face and nearly jumped when I saw him awake and looking at me.

With huge eyes, I swallowed hard, guilt swamping me. “I’m sorry—”

I started to jerk my hand away but his long fingers caught my wrist, keeping me still.

Then I noticed the heat in his gaze as it burned off the last traces of sleep that lingered. A muscle ticked in his jaw, all eight of those abdominal muscles flexing and rippling.

“You can touch me,” he whispered, his voice rough and thick.

That oh-so-familiar tug between my legs had me pressing my thighs together.

My teeth caught my lower lip again, and, watching his face the whole time, I slipped my hand under the band of his shorts.

“Is this okay?” I asked softly, keeping my eyes on his.

He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine as I explored.

I slid my hand lower, lower, lower. Each centimeter I gained, his eyelids drooped a bit more. When my hand brushed against the hard, hot length of him, he hissed and squeezed his eyes shut like he was in pain.

I almost pulled away, worried I had done something wrong. But then I saw him swallow again, his Adam’s apple bobbing desperately in his throat, teeth clenched, muscles shaking as he forced himself to be still.

It wasn’t pain he felt. It was a pleasure so intense it bordered on the edge of pain. A sensation Remy had wrung out of me before.

And I really, really wanted to do the same thing to him.

“Still okay?” I needed to hear for myself he wanted this.

His eyes flew open, pure heat and lust pooling there.

“ Very okay,” he rasped out. His hand fisted in the sheets at his side as I tentatively traced the outline of his cock, testing the weight of it in my hand, circling it in my fist.

My fingers couldn’t circle around the base of him.

That made me swallow.

A groan fell from his lips as I moved my hand up to the soft tip, my finger gently touching the bead of moisture I found there before smoothing my hand back down.

“Jesus,” he hissed, his head thrown back against the pillows. The muscles in his neck and shoulders corded with taut tension as he tried to stay as calm as possible.

“Am I doing this right?” I asked, hesitating with uncertainty. The weight of my inexperience was making me nervous.

His eyes found mine again, practically devouring me with their hunger. “You’re perfect. Anything you do is perfect, babe.”

I licked my lips, daring to look him in the eyes. “But I want this to be... good for you.”

I mentally high-fived myself for saying that without blushing.

He gave me a long look and then nodded. “Okay.” He let go of the sheet slowly with one hand, and threw his arm across the bed, pulling out the drawer at his bedside table. I heard his hand moving, searching for something. After a second, he raised his hand.

My brows flew to my hairline.

“Lube?” I asked. Something dark twisted in my stomach. “What do you have that for?”

Shit. I flinched at how accusatory that sounded.

But I knew what lubricant had been used for in my former house. There was almost always a supply of it in drawers all around the house we lived in.

The memory felt wrong in this space, dredging up dark and haunted thoughts from a life I wanted to forget.

Remy only smirked at me, the warm teasing look he was giving me eased some of the unease currently swirling in my head. “I have an insanely hot mate. What do you think it’s for?”

My brain short circuited as I connected the dots.

“You mean,” I sputtered, struggling to find actual words to say what was happening in my brain. “You... When you...”

He chuckled, the sound low and throaty. “Jerk off thinking about you?” He lifted up to one elbow, putting himself at eye level with me. “Every chance I get.”

His cock twitched in my hand as if agreeing with him, the length impossibly thickening in my hand.

With a shaky breath I released him, pulling my hand from the sheets and extending my palm. He squirted some of the lube into my palm, his gaze latched onto the way my hand dipped back under the covers, finding him without issue.

“Fuck,” he muttered, flopping down to his back and dropping the tube with a thunk to the floor.

I watched him for cues as I worked my hand over him, watching to see what made the pulse in his throat jump, what made his fists clench, what made his breath hiss through his teeth.

Finding a rhythm, I tried different speeds and different pressure, finally settling on the one that made his entire body shudder. I repeated the action again.

Again.

Again.

Every time I slid my hand down him, up him, his muscles went tighter and tighter, coiling with a pressure I could feel pulsing steadily—relentlessly—between my legs.

“Jesus,” he gasped, his eyes unfocused as he turned his head and looked at me. “Skye—”

I leaned over, kissing him hungrily as I felt him pulse in my hand. He barely finished his release before he was flipping us over, my back landing against the mattress with Remy’s weight pinning me to the bed. He reached down, pulling out my hand that had been smashed between our bodies.

In one fluid motion, his hips were between my thighs, and he had my wrists pinned to the bed on either side of my head as he devoured me with his mouth, licking and nipping my lower lip, my jaw, my throat.

He pressed himself against me, and whatever release he found with my hand moments earlier clearly wasn’t enough because he was still hard and ready against the inside of my thigh.

Needing to touch him, I tried to pull free, but his hands tightened around me, keeping my wrists firmly encased in his hands as his hips pinned me to the bed. He pushed up my shirt with his free hand, exposing my skin to the air as I tried to move under him.

Remy was too big, too strong. I could lift my hips as his mouth moved to the underside of my jaw, his hot breath sending the wrong kind of chills through me as my muscles remembered this moment from my former life.

And just like that...

… I was gone.

“Fight harder, Skye. I love it when you fight me.”

The grass was non-existent behind the school as Cassian pinned me to the ground, Preston and Marc laughing above us, arguing over who got their turn next. I could taste dirt in my mouth from where they had pulled me outside and thrown me down.

I could feel Cassian’s breath hot against my neck as he ground his hips into mine, using a knee to pry mine apart. I tried to jerk, to buck him off of me, but clearly he was loving that added friction. My feet scrambled for traction on the dirt.

Tears of humiliation and frustration burned my eyes and the back of my throat as I bit back a scream.

He managed to transfer both of my hands into one of his, crushing the delicate bones of my wrists in one meaty fist. With his free hand, he jerked my shirt up, clumsily grabbing my breast and squeezing so hard I did cry out then.

Preston knelt beside us with a laugh, that sick, maniacal glint in his eye. He reached into his back pocket and my blood ran cold when he pulled out a switchblade.

He flicked it open next to my cheek, the tip grazing my skin.

With a grin, he trailed the tip of the blade down my jaw, across my throat, between the valley of my breasts, and under my bra.

The sharp blade had no problem severing the threadbare lace of the too-small bra someone had cast off as used goods for the omega house.

Cassian’s eyes glowed as he looked at my exposed flesh, his nails scraping and abrading the tender flesh as he scratched and pulled at me, even going so far as to dip his head down and bite down.

I clamped my mouth shut, internally screaming again, but knowing any audible sounds from me would only spur them on.

Preston’s knife slid to my ribs, down until it reached the waistband of my jeans. He looked up at Cassian, who pulled back, my flesh slipping from his mouth with an audible pop .

“Undo her pants.”

Cassian grinned at him, his fingers already finding the safety pin that served as a button to hold my jeans closed.

“No!” I screamed, but Preston’s free hand slapped over my mouth painfully hard. My teeth cut into my upper lip, and I tasted blood.

Cassian started to jerk at my jeans, renewing my urge to fight again. His free hand stopped pulling down my pants long enough to slam a fist into my side, knocking all the wind from my body. My body went limp for a second and it was all he needed to finish pulling my jeans down. One of the other boys ripped them down my ankles, pulling them away and tossing them aside. The battered flip flops on my feet offered no resistance. My toes dug into the bare dirt as I squirmed and thrashed.

I could feel my wolf starting to stir deep inside of me, waking up, as I managed to drag in a lungful of hot air.

I would shift if I could. I didn’t care if these three could easily overpower me. Maybe I could summon my wolf enough to shift and surprise them enough so I could run.

“Marc, hold her legs!” Cassian snapped, as if reading my thoughts.

A second later, Marc’s hands locked around my ankles and held me still. He wrenched them as far apart as he could with Cassian’s weight on me.

Something sharp and painful flare hot low in my stomach. So much that I screamed against Preston’s hand. My vision blurred from the sudden pain.

“Jesus, dude,” Cassian said with a throaty chuckle. “What the actual fuck?”

“She’s ours,” Preston replied calmly. “I’m simply marking her as our property.”

Another flash of pain ripped through my hip, and I realized he was cutting me.

Carving into my body.

Branding me.

Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, dripping down into the dirt to form a small puddle.

“What in the world is going on out here?”

A sharp voice made all four of us jump, but the tip of the knife went in deeper when I jerked. Within seconds, all the weight had lifted off of me and I rolled to my side, curling into a ball. I pressed a hand to my side, feeling it slick with blood.

“Oh, Cassian.”

I could have sobbed hearing the submission in the teacher’s voice. Because as third-in-line, Cassian was king of the school and could do whatever he wanted, even at fifteen years old.

“Did you need something, Mrs. Lewis?” Cassian was the picture of innocence despite the bloody, half-naked girl behind him.

She seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second. Long enough for me to feel the first moments of hope.

But she quickly smashed that.

“Not if you’re busy at the moment.” I could hear the tentative smile behind her words as she spoke to the alpha heir of our pack.

Preston chuckled under his breath, stepping backwards and kicking a cloud of dirt at me.

“We’re all done here,” Cassian told her nonchalantly. “How can we help?”

The three of them started for the side door they had dragged me out of a few minutes earlier. Preston’s foot connected with the hip he had been carving into as he walked over me. They all headed back into the school.

The door closed with a heavy thunk that made me flinch.

I staggered to my feet, pulling my shirt down over my chest. The safety pin was somewhere in the dust. I didn’t bother looking for it as I pulled my jeans back on.

Holding the top of my jeans closed with one hand, I half-ran, half-stumbled back to the house. Amazingly, no one was home when I tumbled in, slamming the door shut.

There was no lock on the front door or any other door in the house. Why would there be? Omegas didn’t have rights to things like privacy. Or safety.

I made it into the downstairs powder room and leaned heavily against the door. After a second, I pushed away and looked in the mirror.

My top lip was split from when Preston’s hand had slapped over my mouth. My face was dirty and dusty, with tear tracks streaking it. With shaking hands, I lifted the hem of my shirt and pulled down the edge of my jeans.

A ‘P’ had been carved into the skin beside my hip. Wetting a cloth by the sink, I gently dabbed the area clean. When the teacher surprised us, Preston had jerked, the knife slipping and cutting a thin line down the ‘P’ that turned it into a crude, misshapen ‘R’ looking mark.

Pressing the cloth against my skin, I backed up until I hit the door. My knees gave out as I sank to the floor and sobbed.

When would it ever —

“Stop!” I whimpered, twisting against the hands that held me down, the body that had me immobile.

I couldn’t breathe . Panic swelled in my chest, the pressure unbearable.

“ Stop !” I almost shouted the word, my eyes screwed tight as I fought against the person holding me captive.

Immediately I was released, the weight lifted off of me.

Rolling to the side, I tumbled off the bed and scuttled backwards until my back hit the wall. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I buried my head against my knees, my body shaking. I pulled the oversized shirt I had slept in over my knees, stretching it out as I struggled to cover my body.

I flinched, hearing movements around me and footsteps drawing closer.

“Skye? Baby, please look at me,” a warm, worried voice begged me. It cut through the fog of desperation.

I knew that voice. That voice was safe.

Safe.

I wasn’t sure if I thought that, or my wolf did, but I slowly opened my eyes and looked up.

Remy was kneeling a few feet in front of me, his eyes wide with worry. His hands shook as he fought the urge to pull me to his body and protect me from whatever my mind had conjured.

But he couldn’t.

I may have killed the monster, but the scars still ran deep.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, choking on the last word as a ragged sob tore through my chest.

His hands balled into fists against the floor, his body shaking with the need to fight whatever was haunting me.

“Tell me what to do,” he said desperately. “Did I hurt you? I want to touch you, but—”

Mate.

The word rang clearly in my head, calming me down a little more as my wolf reminded me Remy wasn’t a threat.

He was our protector, our mate, our love, our...

He was just ours.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, as shame leeched in to replace the fear. It coiled deep inside my belly, oily and insidious, as I dropped my gaze. “I’m okay.”

Remy muttered a curse, but still didn’t move. “Babe—”

Something pounded once against our door. I jumped and Remy glared at it before barking out a sharp, “What?”

“Just telling you two to wrap it up. Classes start soon, and there’s a whole pack downstairs who can hear the racket you two are making.”

I could picture Rhodes smiling on the other side of the door as he interrupted what he assumed to be some sort of sexy times between us.

It started off that way. It could have been that way.

It should have been that way.

If Remy wasn’t stuck with a mate who came with enough baggage to fill the cargo bay of an entire fleet of planes.

I shoved to my feet, my hands still uselessly pulling down the hem of the shirt. “Can I use the bathroom first?”

Remy stood slowly, still giving me a wide berth. His eyes were narrowed in thought as he watched me, but didn’t speak.

Scurrying past him with my head down, I went into the private attached bathroom and closed the door. After a second, I paused and turned the lock.