Twenty Mark

Inearly jumped out of my skin when Dustin burst through the door. The equation I'd been writing was smeared across the page in the process, rendering the entire page useless. I sighed, crumpling it up and tossing it into the wastepaper bin. It was a good thing my parents had put some money aside for me for school because I was burning through high-quality parchment at an alarming rate.

Turning around in my chair, I saw a furious, red-faced Dustin throw his backpack onto his bed. A flash of red caught my attention, and I saw a splash of blood across his knuckles. Immediately, my heart sank.

"Are you okay?!" I pushed myself up from my desk and grabbed his hand, looking it over. "Did someone attack you?"

"Not exactly," he growled, trying to pull his hand away. But I held fast.

"Then what happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Dustin," I said, putting on my best commanding tone. Telling an alpha werewolf what to do wasn't something people usually did, but since I was his mate, I figured if anyone was going to do it, it would be me. "Please. Tell me what happened."

He let out a long sigh. I could see the hesitation on his face. He didn't want to tell me, and that didn't bode well. Dustin wasn't the kind of person to lash out and be aggressive. It just wasn't in his nature. And, although anger was his main emotion at the moment, I could sense the undercurrent of fear that fed it. Something had spooked him.

"Let me take care of this first," I said, holding his hand between my own.

"Don't worry about it. It won't take long to–"

Deep blue magic swirled around his hand. With a burst of cold air and a small pop, the magic disappeared, leaving behind fresh pink skin.

"There," I said, patting him gently. I pulled him over to the bed, the pair of us sitting down side by side. I arranged myself so that my arms were around his neck, my head resting on his shoulder. "Now tell me what happened."

That big, tough facade of his cracked, and I felt his shoulders quake.

"Leroy and Travis showed up," he said, his voice small and quiet. "And they… well, they know."

"They know?" I asked, doing my best to keep myself calm. "About us? How could they?"

"They've been trailing us and tracking our scent after we leave campus." He glanced over at him, his eyes full of fear. "They… they could smell what we did. And then, the other night on the carpet, Leroy actually saw us."

"First of all," I said. "Creepy."

"And they called you a lot of terrible names and said you put a spell on me." He turned away. "He said he was going to tell everyone. And then… well, I'm pretty sure I broke his jaw."

There it was. The one thing that Dustin feared above all else had finally come to light. I held him tight, knowing there wasn't a whole lot I could do but support him. We'd both known the truth would have to come out eventually, but Dustin wanted to do it after the football season had ended. He didn't know if he was going to get drafted, and the last thing he wanted to do was tell anyone prematurely and hurt his chances of a professional sports career.

Personally, I didn't see why sexuality had anything to do with your ability to play football. Being gay or bi or pan or whatever didn't make you bad at tackling and throwing balls. However, what it did do was challenge the traditional ideas of masculinity. You'd think, being an entire society of paranormal creatures, that we would have avoided being so closed-minded. But the truth was, paranormals were worse than most. Sure, some creatures like Fae hardly even thought about gender and sexuality. They just had sex when they wanted to with whoever. But some races, werewolves especially, were hard-coded for the one man, one woman sort of life. And because of that, there was still a lot of hate towards people who didn't follow that binary.

And now, because of that internalized hate, Dustin was going to be outed by the people he'd once considered friends. In an instant, they could destroy everything he'd worked so hard for. I didn't want to see him hurt like that… but my options to help him were slim.

"Well," I said at last. "I have three options. I can transform the pair of them into cabbages until the end of the school year, which is highly illegal. Wiping their minds is possible, but weirdly more illegal than the cabbage option."

"I don't want you to get in trouble for my problems," Dustin replied. "I can't let you get hurt because of my bullshit."

"The second option is that we could tell everyone before them and do it on our own terms."

Dustin's eyes widened in fear. "What's the third option?"

I paused for a long moment. "You… You could break up with me."

The look of surprise on his face was quickly replaced with a level of fury I'd never seen before. "I don't ever want to hear you say that again," he growled, both of his hands on my shoulders. "Do you understand me? I love you more than anything, and you're my mate. You're mine, and I'm not gonna throw you away just because things are tough."

"I just… I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'd rather get hurt than spend a day without you." The intensity in his eyes told me he meant what he said. "You're everything to me."

I leaned forward, wrapping my arms around his waist as my face pressed to his chest. If any other guy had told me that I was his, I would've pitched a fit. But when Dustin said it, I felt like everything in the world was suddenly right. Belonging to him was a pleasure and an honor.

"Alright," I said at last, pulling away from him. "Then what do we do?"

"I clocked Leroy pretty good," he said. "Even with werewolf healing, it'll take him a couple of days to get that jaw back in place. And he's too proud to go to the school nurse to get it fixed. If he knows what's good for him, he'll keep his mouth shut. Travis just about pissed his pants, so I'm not too worried about him." He let out a deep sigh. "But I know they won't stay quiet forever. My hope is we can just get through this semester. I'll find out about the scouts, and then if shit hits the fan, so be it."

"Are you sure?"

His green eyes focused on mine, a look of sadness crossing his features. "What other choice do I have?"

I wished I could tell him there was an alternative, that everything would be alright. But I wasn't that naive. Just because I'd grown up in a mansion in Chicago didn't mean I was ignorant. Human, witch, or werewolf, the world wasn't always kind to those of us who walked a different path. People, regardless of species, liked everyone to be the same, to fit them into neat little boxes. But that just wasn't the reality of the world.

"How about we get out of here when you're done with practice?" I said, trying to lighten the mood. "Let's get off campus and go out to dinner or something."

Dustin shook his head. "I don't have any money."

"I do," I scoffed. "You know that. I have more than I know what to do with."

"I can't let you buy me dinner."

I sat up at that comment, giving him a good dose of side-eye. "Why the hell not?"

"You know…" he started, gesturing vaguely toward me and then back to him. "I should pay."

"And why should you be the one to pay?"

He didn't answer.

"No," I said, poking him in the chest. "Say it. I want you to hear how stupid it sounds on your own lips."

Dustin let out a large sigh. "Because… I'm the one that… puts my dick in you."

"Are you insinuating that I'm the woman?" I asked. "Because not only is that incorrect, but it's also sexist and the same kind of thinking that has you in the mess you're in."

He nodded. "No, you're right. I… I wasn't thinking."

I took him by the face, forcing him to look at me. "I know there's a lot of things you'll need to work through, and I'm not going to judge you for them. But I am going to call you on it, okay? You can't help where you grew up or what you were taught, but you can change it if you want to."

A sort of sad smile pulled at his lips. "I'm sorry," he sniffled. "I'll do better."

"Come here, you big dummy," I sighed, pulling him into a hug. I kissed the side of the neck as I patted his back. "You werewolves are so emotional."

"I don't deserve you–"

"Shut your trap before I actually get mad."

He sniffled a couple more times, holding me tight.

"I love you, Mark."

"I love you too, pup."