FIFTY-FIVE

Xander

SHE SET THE forest on fire, burrowed under my sweatshirt, humming her claim on me, then melted into my chest until she fell asleep standing. I wanted to stand there forever, with her nestled firmly in my embrace. I had debated asking Alessandro if we could stay the night, but I knew Ethan and Jaxson would want to see us, especially if they saw the result of her first royal shifter power lesson.

I was able to half wake her up, meaning she could move her legs while latched on to me. When we climbed into my truck, her head immediately sought out my lap, and she fell asleep before we made it home. A two-minute drive.

Alessandro had texted Ethan before we left, so when I got to the house, he and Jax were on their way out to meet us. They both opened the back doors and loaded up our bags and the tea Alessandro sent home with us. I carried our mate to her room and removed our boots, then we scrambled into bed, both of us fully clothed, her burrowing, again, under my sweatshirt. By the time Ethan and Jax joined us, I was mostly asleep and barely able to talk.

"So we'll talk about the lesson, the fire across the field, and the new hoodie-burrowing behavior tomorrow?" Jax yawned rubbing a hand down her back. She made a little purring sound and nuzzled her lips along my flesh. So soft. The brush of her lips is like warm silk against my skin.

"Yeah," I yawned in response, spreading my legs for her to sink deeper.

It was silent for a while, then Jax asked with hope in his voice, "Do you think she'll hoodie burrow me?"

Ethan drily chuckled. "Maybe buy some bigger sweatshirts, make it really tempting."

Just as I was about to drift off, I heard her hum long and low. "My Alexander, mine." I felt it throughout my entire body. Buzzing pulsated in my ears and penetrated its way into my mind, while my wolf rolled over onto his back, giving her his belly, gladly submitting to her claim.

* * *

I'm waiting in the hallway outside my microeconomics classroom, wearing the same hoodie I wore yesterday and slept in last night. Whatever my mate did with her burrowing and humming intensified her scent, and it's woven itself into the fabric. Lifting the collar to my nose, I take a deep inhale of her, and it's like her essence attaches to the air in my lungs and rides its way through my bloodstream, lightening my mood as if she were with me. At that moment, I hear Billie's teasing voice. "Hey, you, um, smelling something good?"

Spinning around, I find her and Ethan strolling toward me with their arms hung around each other and small smiles on their faces. Tossing them a half grin, I reply, "Yeah, it smells like the girl I slept with last night. She burrowed her way"—I slap a hand over my chest— "right into my heart."

Both of them groan in feigned pain at the horrible joke while they come to stand in front of me. A tension that's been twisting tighter and tighter loosens with the carefree exchange between myself and my pack-mates. That part of our relationship has been lacking over the last week. Weeks. Placing my bag down on the floor against a wall, I inquire, "Is everything okay?" Their showing up here is more than out of the norm, not to mention our track record for things not being okay.

The corners of my lips tug up when I see a glint of mischief gleam in Wilhelmina's eyes before she steps closer and grips the front of my sweatshirt, tugging me down to her. "Just wanted to see you before your class," she casually says with a lick of her lips.

The unexpected gesture stuns my heart and my mind, leaving me stumbling for words and landing on, "Oh, yeah."

"Yeah," she teases. My eager hands splay around her waist, tugging her closer, while her fingers walk their way up my chest and neck, sweeping through my hair, urging my mouth to meet hers. She lays several soft kisses on my lips. With each one, her mouth opens a fraction more, and with each one, I want another. Her tongue joins her lips, and I shudder, my fingers squeezing tighter around her. Her hand in my hair goes from caressing to gripping, demanding more from me. I'm all too happy to oblige slipping my tongue into her mouth, tasting her. Soft sounds of arousal float past her lips. Feeling our mutual heat rise, my arms sweep around her back banding her to me.

I know our current situation is hard for her. I understand her reasons for her pulling away. But I'd rather have her yell or cry and get it all out with me, or at me, than keep silent and close herself off. Because it's hard for me too. It's hard for all of us, and fuck, I've just missed her. I've missed her so damn much.

Things are happening that I didn't expect: changes inside of me caused by taking on the mantle of alpha, the responsibility. I fear what will happen should she keep pulling away. She's my heart and my grounding force, the one who loves me for me. The one who will keep me humble, reminding me I'm enough with or without the title. And I need that. I need her. The thoughts alone send another round of shakes through my body, like the foundation of my character is being tested and she's the one that will hold me together. A whimpering growl scrambles up my throat, and my mouth moves to her neck, suckling her flesh, tasting her skin.

My whole auditory experience becomes us in this moment. The tempo of our panting breath, the drumming of our heartbeats matching the bass of blood pumping through our veins—they merge to become the rhythm of our mutual want. Wilhelmina makes small desirous sounds, and her body squirms against mine while she tilts her head back, gifting more of herself to me. She guides me where she wants me, and my mouth drools with hunger to claim the flesh she's offering. Ethan's hand grips her hair, easing her head back further so his mouth can lay claim to her now-vacant lips. We continue to slowly devour one another, get lost in each other. Then Ethan abruptly hisses. Wilhelmina giggles, the vibration of which I feel on my lips. She tugs my head away from her flesh. I snarl my disapproval, and my arms flex around her, not willing to separate.

Pressing a hand against my chest, creating space between us, she nips my nose and giggles. "Have a good class, mate."

Her words jolt me out of my keyed-up state. I stand up with my eyes on hers, which are equal parts play and desire, while the sounds around us begin to stream through my ears: the rustling of bags and clothes, the click-clacking of heels, the pounding of boots, the hushed whispers of passersby, and observers alike.

Ethan pats my shoulder and holds my bag up for me. Giving me a smug-ass smile, he says, "Class starts in approximately thirty seconds, Xander. Might want to get in there."

I puff out an irritated breath and release my hold on Wilhelmina for the much less desirable hold on my bag. "Right, thanks." Turning to my mate, I bite my lower lip. "I do love your games, Wilhelmina. It's my turn now." I toss her a wink before forcing my feet to walk away from my pack-mates and into the classroom.

With a hurried pace, I weave through the chair-desks to my usual spot. Cognizant of the raging hard-on my mate gifted me with, I carefully lower myself to seated. I manage to get my body under control during Professor Folger's standard ten-minute monologue. His nasally voice would make any dick soft.

He has us working on our end-of-semester project this period so he can review and offer guidance before we actually need to hand them in. With Rachael already sitting next to me, we both begin going through our notes, individually. Knowing that we have to work together and that my grades do matter to me, I break the silence and gruffly ask, "Okay, what approach do you think we should take with this, coming from one point of view or discussing opposing points of view?"

Rachael is silent—so silent that I lift my head up to confirm she is still in fact here. She's leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed under her chest, pushing her breasts up while her top leg vigorously swings over the other, the motion hiking her short skirt higher. There are definite signs of tension and frustration in her body language, and the tight press of her lips supports that. I raise my brows in question. She rolls her blue eyes and huffs, "What if we took the approach from a personal point of view since you're clearly a prime example of the Mathew effect."

I sit back and twirl my pen between the tips of my fingers and thumb and affirm, "That's pretty accurate, but then I guess you would be too since your father is the CEO of a global biopharmaceutical company."

Leaning forward and placing an elbow on the desk, she rests her head on her hand and arches a shapely brow. "Yes, I would say that you and I come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and have a lot in common—at the very least with how the Mathew effect, concerns us." She pauses and drums her black-painted fingernails on her desk. Fluttering her lashes, she queries, "What are your plans for social investment then, Xander? How are you planning on helping out those that aren't like us, those that are less fortunate?" She pauses and scoffs, "Let me guess, you're helping them out one foster kid at a time?"

With that one comment, fierce power surges under my skin with a need to protect my mate, my pack. The new role of alpha and the power associated with taking on that mantle changed something within my wolf. Within me. After the fight, after Little Fox cleaned up all the blood and licked our wounds until they were mostly healed, my wolf had us stay in wolf form and meet with all the wolves that wished to meet him. Meet us.

We connected to the wolves in the pack in a way I've only ever studied. Like most things, nothing compares to experience. The wolves who wished for us to be their alpha lined up around The Circle and approached us one at a time. When we connected with each one of them, we found their mental landscapes where their shifters resided were all suffering from varying degrees of instability. Their wolves were more or less healthy, but the environment they were living in was not.

My wolf could tell some of that instability came from my father, their former alpha, and his treatment of the pack. But it seems that having an alpha, even an abusive alpha, is generally better than not having one. Unless you're bonded to them, I amend, thinking of Bruce. My father did abuse and pull power from the wolves under him. But it was the wolves from a select group, the ones he and his betas referred to as the Inner Crew, that suffered the most.

And my mother.

My mother, who embodied the role of Luna, congratulated my wolf and officiated the victory but did not let me connect with her wolf. Her lips drew down into a frown, and she whispered, "Not yet. Not until she's better on her own, we're. . ." She shook her head, and her face hollowed. "Still recovering." I could see the pain and shame on her face, and in the rounding of her shoulders, I understood. She was still recovering and didn't want to make her wolf suffer any more than she already had. Bruce appeared fine from the outside, his beta power flowed as it always had, and yet look at the condition of his wolf. My wolf understood, and he rubbed her leg in empathy.

For many of the pack, Alpha Knight was like that twice-a-year abusive father. The one that was gone most of the time on business trips but provided for his family. Always covered the bills, making them feel secure in knowing that they'd have a roof over their head, food on their plate, and clothes on their back. Then, twice a year, they'd be reminded that there was a cost associated with what he provided.

So, their feelings of safety and security under my father had small cracks and fissures, but nothing that would threaten their livelihood. It was the lack of an alpha, his abrupt departure, which no one had expected or could have prepared for, that caused those fractures to widen and spread.

A lump of hot shame rolls down my spine like molten lava, making me flush because they looked to me. I was the one who was supposed to take over the position, and I didn't. I didn't know the ramifications that choice would have, the crumbling that would happen in such a short period of time. And I don't know if I'd have made a different choice even if I had known. That uncertainty of the pack's future was only amplified by the presence of Hogan and the discord he brewed.

With each connection to a pack member, each wolf who opened themselves up to us, and each one we took under our mantle, the strength of my alpha power and alpha tendencies increased. I didn't know it would be like this. I had thought being an alpha wolf-shifter was strictly based on the shifter abilities I was born with, not my own character. Perhaps it is, but only until that alpha takes wolves under his care. Because that's what seems to be happening. I felt the power unlock within me after we won the battle, after we firmly stood before them as their alpha. A power that will need to be tempered and controlled, because it's a power over others. A power that makes others want to be mine, that makes them want to serve me. It's frighteningly heady.

The sense of possession, of them being mine, brings on a greater need to protect. Though the mantle of an alpha is a wolf-shifter position, my mate falls under that mantle. Fox-shifter or not, she is ours, she is pack, and my wolf is very much in agreement with that.

The pen twirling between my fingers stills, and I force myself to take several deep inhales in order to come to some sort of common ground with my wolf on how to deal with this. Rachael is a human; she knows nothing of shifters, let alone packs, so I cannot handle this as an alpha. Then I think of how Rachael acts, how she spits vitriol and disdain about my mate with such ease. How dare she. How dare she casually slander my mate. Shaking my head and raking my fingers through my hair, I scoff a harsh laugh. "You know, before you approached me in the library, I had thought you were a serious student. You seemed like a relatively nice person, or at least polite." Sitting up straighter and narrowing my eyes on her, in a brusque voice I state, "I had thought I'd made myself clear, but let me repeat myself. I will not tolerate you or anyone disrespecting my... girlfriend. Are you able to complete this project with me without your commentary on my personal life or not?"

Rachael's blue eyes sparkle with cruel mirth. Pressing a hand to her chest she cackles. "Your personal life will be public. Get used to it, Xander. Your little foster care slut of a girlfriend will be commented on, looked into, and questioned by your associates, the press, and anyone in your social standing. You need to have someone at your level by your side, someone who knows how to act appropriately and interact with your new colleagues and business acquaintances." Some of my anger deflates upon hearing her words, because this, what she's saying, is what my mate is afraid of. This is part of what caused her to set the forest on fire last night. This is what she and I need to discuss because I'll need her by my side. She can handle it. I know she can. I just need to show her so.

"You mean someone like you, right?" someone grunts from behind me. I glance over my shoulder to see Johnny Simmons, the basketball player who was with Williams when he hit on Billie, sitting with Gabe. The base of my skull tingles with an awareness of an energy in the room. Turning farther around, I notice Colin; Gabe's bigger beta wolf-shifter brother is seated the next row over with Norm, their roommate. Colin's posture is relaxed with a look of boredom in his green eyes, but I know his attention is on us. Both brothers were at the battle that night in wolf form, and both sought me and my wolf as their alpha even before we officially fought for the position. My wolf rises in greeting, and a surge of power zaps through me and out to them through that connection. I see it hit them. I see the slight adjustment in their positions, the stiffening of their spines, the bobbing of their throats, and the subtle dip of their chins, but other than that they remain as they should around humans, unaffected. Good wolves.

Rachael reangles herself and leans back in her chair, her eyes taking Simmons in. Flipping her dark hair behind her, she shrugs a shoulder. "Perhaps."

Simmons kicks his long legs out and crosses his arms over his broad chest. His dark eyes assess Rachael, and he cants his head to the side in curiosity. "Have you even tried to get to know her, Rachael? Do you know she's here on both soccer and academic scholarships?" He scrubs a dark hand over his high and tight haircut and blows out an incredulous breath. "And you're calling her a slut, while at the same time you're trying to get with the guys she's with."

"What are you, like a fan or something, Simmons?" Rachael snips, not answering his question or denying his statement. The touch of pink tinting her cheeks is the only tell that his words hit home.

"I don't know, maybe," he replies, his fingers pulling on his thick lower lip. "I guess it's also weird how when a girl likes a guy that's taken, not only does she flirt with the guy but she also attacks the girl, whereas a guy will just flirt with the girl."

Rachael rolls her shoulders back and interlaces her fingers on her desk. With a smug tilt to her lips and a condescending tone to her voice, she says, "What you may not understand, Simmons, is that Xander will be in the public eye. He'll have an image to uphold, events he'll need to attend, and there's no way she'll fit in, regardless of how smart she is or how well she plays soccer."

"It doesn't matter," Gabe replies in a soft yet steady voice. His green eyes connect with mine, and he gives me a nod of respect. I return it. And another zap shoots through me. It's not painful or outright pleasant, but there's a tinge to it. Something I could crave after a time. Something I need to watch myself with because the desire for it could creep up on me.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" Rachael snaps, and it's like the more I get to know her, the uglier she becomes.

"I'd never expect her to fit in," I assert, the words ringing true in my ears and my heart. "That's not who she is. Images are fake. She's real. I'm not with her to please others. I'm with her to please myself because she's who I want to be with."

Rachael's mouth opens like she's about to say more, but she's interrupted by the low bass of Colin's voice. "Rachael." We all turn to Colin, who's twisted in his chair to face us. His long blond hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, highlighting his angular face and flawless warm ivory skin. He raises a dark blond brow in waiting.

Rachael rolls her eyes as if she's put out, but I see a crack in her hard demeanor in the shifting in her seat. I hear the apprehension in the quiver in her voice when she replies, "Yes, Colin."

Colin presses off the desk to stand well over six feet. His black work boots thump across the tile, projecting an imposing presence with just a few steps. Standing next to his brother, he pushes the sleeves of his white thermal up before leaning forward and splaying his large hands onto Gabe's desk. The veins in his forearms protrude from the effort of bracing his tall muscular frame. His green eyes narrow on Rachael, and his lips pull up on one side into a mocking smile. His voice is a low rumble like the first tremors before an earthquake. "If I were you, I'd refrain from using the word slut in such a derogatory manner. I mean, it was only last spring when you were between me and my buddy Jerome, taking both our cocks. Nothing wrong with women being secure in their sexuality. In fact, I'm all for it. But there is something"—he swipes his tongue over his front teeth— "uncouth, about a woman bashing another for doing something she's done herself." He dips his chin to me, and another zap of power surges, one my wolf returns to him. He knocks his knuckle on the desk before heading back to Norm.

The three of us spin our heads around to look at Rachael. Her face is beet red, and her blue eyes are pressed into thin slits, staring at Colin with absolute hatred. My mind spins, not with her fucking two guys at once, but the fact that Jerome is Cortney's cousin. Two wolf-shifters. Is it just a coincidence? Does she know?

Folger coughs, and we break our discussion, meaning I still have to work with Rachael, but at least they've shut her down for now.