My eyes widened and I nodded, trying not to smile. He walked into the front office and I followed and tried my best to look solemn.
“Alright. I need to head out. Alpha, said to hurry up.”
The lady at the front desk, Mrs. Wilson, nodded. “Yes, of course. We’ve already signed her out. See you tomorrow, dear.”
I nodded silently and Justin put his hand on my back, leading me out of the office. He didn’t remove it until we stepped outside into the guest and teacher parking lot. His Raven Black 1969 Mustang was parked and I ran my hand over the hood.
“Does she need a tune up? I’d be happy to get my paws on her engine sometime.”
He laughed, opening the door for me. “Only you can make working on a car sound sexual.”
I flashed him a grin. “Cars are sexy, what can I say? Sit on one long enough and sometimes the purr will make you scream.”
“Goddess, Sky, what the
Justin stared me down before a smile crept on his face and he chuckled. “Very funny. I’m serious! You haven’t been stealing from Alpha, right?”My eyebrow quirked up. “Justin, we sold drugs at the High School. The end of freshman year and then all of sophomore and junior year.”There was a long silence that stretched out. “You’re joking.”“I’m not. We didn’t do it this year ‘cause Emmett barely squeaked by on classes. So I figured I’d help remove distractions and he could focus on passing his senior year with more than a C average.”Justin stood up, pacing part of the pond. His feet crunched against the grass and a few rocks he kicked up plopped into the pond. It made satisfying ripples across the top of surface.“Why didn’t you tell me before?”“You would have stopped us.”He growled. “Damn right I would have!
Tears continued to roll down my face. “Please. I can’t lose you. I have to know you’re safe when we leave.”“You won’t lose me, okay? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, we focus on the things we can do. I’ll try to figure out what the hell is happening with Caleb. You continue to be smart and train.”I chuckled, it sounded terrible as it caught in my throat a couple times because of the tears.“What?” Justin leaned back a bit to look at my face.“I’m not allowed to train at school anymore.”His brow furrowed. “Why not?”“I may have almost killed a kid?”“Your aura?”I shook my head. “No, just normally.”His laugh started out small before he threw his head back and filled the air with the sound of it. “That’s my girl. I guess I’ll need to help you with some
I was sitting in my block of English class on Thursday when I felt my phone vibrate. Everyone who would text me was literally in this class next to me and while they had their phones out, no one was texting. Grabbing my phone out of my pocket, I looked down at the message. J: I’m picking you up from school and we are going to the training grounds. Rereading the text twice, there seemed to be an edge. Not to mention, in all the years we’d messaged each other, he rarely put a period after his texts. Usually it was some stupid emoji. But this didn’t even have an emoji. Sky: Sure. Everything okay? I watched the read notification pop up but there was no reply. Slipping my
I shivered. He was so angry. Closing the door, I headed to the center of the room. Justin was facing away from me. He had his shirt off and I could probably have taken a sharpie and drawn every single muscle group on his back. It was impressive. He was wearing some basketball shorts, but the thing I noticed as well was that he had put on armored gloves and socks. He spun around and his eyes roamed over me. There was a flicker in his eyes that you could see him battling for control with Dante, his wolf, but ultimately settled back on Justin. “Good, you armored up. Let’s begin then.” Nodding, I stepped up to the mat. As I reached the side, I ran my feet over it gently, feeling the texture and temperature. Breathing in and out slowly, I dropped into a defensive stance and looked at Justin. He still wasn’t looking at me, but through me. I realized it pissed me off. That he wasn’t even bothering to look at me and wasn’t taking this seriously. As though he could ju
Shaking my head, I leaned down and touched my toes. “Catherine shows up there almost every day. Maybe Subway?”“I’m not going to Subway. Kirk’s?”“Yeah, alright. I haven’t been in there for a minute.”Opening up the double doors, a couple of the guys stepped back, including the manager. He was wringing his hands.“Everything in one piece?”“Nothing’s broken, Mac. Relax. Thanks for letting us use the main floor. We’re heading out now.”He nodded, looking behind us as if he didn’t quite believe it.“I’ll meet you at the car, Sky.”I nodded and headed to the locker room. Using the shower, I scrubbed down real quick before towel drying. My wet hair waved down my back as I got dressed in my skirt and shirt. I regretted working out in my sports bra but I just swapped it out for the one that was in the locker, so it was dr
Justin inhaled for a moment and perched his elbow on the arm rest, rubbing his lips with his hand. He did this when there was a problem he couldn’t solve. Something he was stumped about. Caleb used to joke that he would never be able to grow a beard because of it. He obviously hadn’t found a lot of things that he couldn’t solve for the three years he was gone, considering the amount of scruff that was growing.“I could…”“You can’t. At least we will be elsewhere and unable to hurt the people we hold dear here. We would hate for that to happen. It would definitely be more likely we would kill everyone that has hurt us. We…I…am too strong and too bloodthirsty. Sky reins me in, but lately…she feels less and less, not stopping me when I take over to snap.”His hand fell from his mouth, his fingers ghosting over ours which Raine kept balled up in a fist. “If you mated someone and they w
I wiped my hands on the grease rag tossed over my shoulder. Per usual, Emmett and I showed up early Saturday morning to Carl’s. He had a 2015 Hellcat that needed the works. It wasn’t running at tip top performance. So, I was doing a full diagnostic, plus a full work up of fluids, and a full body detail. I’d found some cracked tubing and a spark plug that I wanted to replace as well.I’d finished with most of the fluids and was gonna head to the detail area when Justin’s black Mustang pulled up. I smiled until Greg stepped out of the passenger seat. Grabbing a wrench, I walked over to Carl and Emmett, who noticed the two coming in as well.“I can take Justin, you two have Greg.” I whispered to them.“Let’s just see what they want first.” Carl put a hand on my shoulder.As Greg and Justin walked up, I saw Justin’s eyes go to the wrench in my hand. His face was hard though, complete business m
Turning, my eyes fell on Justin. He was on all fours, struggling to breathe under my aura. Stepping towards him, I fell to my knees and reached out. My claws turned back and my fingers brushed the side of his cheek, leaving a trail of blood.“I’m here, Half-pint. I’m here.”My aura ebbed and Raine helped me pull it back for him. He coughed out a breath as I finally was able to rein it in completely. Immediately, his hands shot out and he pulled me against him. Burying my face in his shoulder, I grabbed the back of his shirt.“I’ve got you. I’m here. Don’t worry. You’re not alone. If you need to break, you can.”I shook my head, holding him closer. He held me tight, as though he was afraid if he let go I’d be gone.‘We will not stand for this. I will kill them all. Every last one of them. I’ll kill them.’ Raine roared in my head but I just buried my head dee
I can't believe I'm actually here. We are at the end of Shift. Done. Complete. Marked and mated. ;)First off, thank you. All of you. Every single one who liked, who commented, who corrected my spelling, who didn't do anything but just read. Every single one of you have stuck with me and I can only hope that you guys enjoyed a peek into the lives of Sky, Ethan, Justin, Emmett, Kev, Sam, Kat, Caleb...and so many other characters. They are near and dear to my hearts and I honestly will say, closing this last chapter out was such a heartfelt moment for me.I could not have continued this without my regulars. You know who you are and I just want to say even when I felt down, I knew I had to keep going because I honestly didn't want to disappoint. As a lot of you know, I struggle with being sick a lot. So having my writing means so much to mean and having you guys be so patient during that time means the world to me. Especially when it feels like there is so much negativity on the internet.
My lips crashed onto Sky’s and it was an entirely different feeling with the electricity of the mate bond. Niru was growling and howling incoherently in my head but at the same time, it all made sense. I wanted her, needed her. Needed everything that she would give me. The thing that surprised me the most was that I wanted to share her as well. Pulling away, I looked at Justin who was just about foaming at the mouth.“She tastes like orange citrus as well. Would you like to taste her lips?”Justin’s irises blew out and a shiver ran through his spine. He reached for her but it was a lot more gentle than I expected. He brushed her cheek and sucked a hair behind her ear before pressing his lips to hers. She molded up against his body and I stepped up behind her, brushing the hair out of her face.“Can you taste it? Taste the orange with the salt from the sea?”Justin hummed as he pulled back slowly taking her lip between his teeth for a moment before letting it go. I smirked, feeling how
Justin chuckled. “You mean Fast Orange? Yeah, I smell it. Of course that’s what she would smell like. She uses that shit almost every day.”I smiled and I realized he was beaming too. This time we did follow our noses. She had been here but she wasn’t here anymore. We followed it back up the stairs as she wove through the art tents and through the throng of people that had amassed. I pushed through first, following just my instinct, Niru almost fully taking over.Justin was right behind me, never once straying or getting stuck behind someone else. I followed the orange scent and it started getting stronger. Like I had just stuck my nose in the bucket of the stuff she kept in the shop bathroom. The beach was relatively quiet since it was getting cooler as the sun was going down.Near the edge of the waves, just where it was lapping up onto the sand, Sky stood alone. Her large-brimmed woven sunhat was pushed back on her head and sunglasses were set around the top of it. She was wearing a
There was a read receipt but she wasn’t replying. Not that I blamed her. Sky probably saw right through my charade. Justin looked over my shoulder at my phone. “Yeah, because that’s not over the top.” I growled at him but continued to stare at the screen. Finally, I held my breath when the three little dots appeared. Justin was the opposite, breathing heavy as he started at my phone as well. S: Well, it’s nice to be remembered today. Both Justin and I winced. Oh yeah, she was mad. ‘Who can blame her? I sure can’t.’ Niru added his two cents. Shaking my head, I typed up another message. Mate #1: I’m sorry, baby. Really. Come on, let’s celebrate together, yeah? We can go to your favorite place in the city, have a nice dinner or whatever you want. Justin snorted. “Way to lay it on thick.” “What else do you want me to do? We fucked up. She knows it. We know it. I’m not about to lose the chance to be with her on her birthday because of it. Are you?” That shut him up as we both
*** Ethan’s POV *** My alarm went off and all I wanted to do was throw my phone at the wall. I’d gone to bed at three in the morning and I knew this alarm was for eight. My eyelids didn’t want to open and I turned over in bed, burying my face in my pillow. This had been the first time in three days I’d gotten to bed. It was a chore dragging myself up the stairs but I’d made it.Normally, I loved doing the work behind the scenes. The problem was is that the inspector with an entire tree trunk shoved up his ass decided that he was going to nitpick laws that weren’t even updated in this century. I would know because I fucking checked. Mr. Marrow had been out three times and each time we passed the first set of requirements but would find even more to throw our way.‘You need to be extra safe when it comes to our youth. You know, they are our future and the path to a better tomorrow.’ Niru copied his grating voice almost perfectly, before growling and snapping his jaw. ‘If I could just s
*** Four Months Later *** My eyes peeled open and I reached out for my phone. The screen flashed four in the morning and I groaned. My hand fall back against the sheets and I laid there for another moment. However, it was Raine who started to bounce up and down in my head.‘Raine, come on.’‘But Sky, aren’t we doing to do the thing?’Her exuberance and happiness made a smile creep onto my face.‘Come on, Sky. If we go early, we can be there early!’‘Alright, alright! Fucking hell.’Throwing the blankets off of me, I got up and padded into the bathroom. Going pee and taking a quick shower, I woke up enough to feel somewhat alive. Coffee would get me the rest of the way there. The kitchen was quiet when I walked in and I still continued to thank the Goddess for it. It had been a month since everyone moved the hell out of my place. There was still work needing to be done in the apartments but I left that to the contractors and the guys themselves.For now, I would enjoy the simple peace
I sat on the stairs of the porch, looking out over the back yard of the pack house. Everything was so quiet here. It was nice to take a break from the chaos that was now my home. At least for a few minutes. The wind blew and I tucked a stray hair behind my ear. Looking down at my phone, I stared at the messages that were there. E: Hey Sky, I feeling a little better today. Sam made some kind of soup. It was completely inedible. She had to order pizza. It reminded me of when you tried to cook that pasta dish and you somehow managed to burn the pasta. E: I went shopping online today. Got some more clothes. Bernard came by and cut my hair for me. That was nice. It was getting in my eyes. They won’t talk about you though. It’s like you don’t exist anymore and I hate it. E: Today was a bad day. I don’t know why. I just woke up and I threw up until there was nothing left in me. Sam tried to help but I felt disgusting. I’m reminded of what I did. What I had done. It’s like it comes back
We headed down the road in Ethan’s truck. I was squished between Ethan and Justin in the center seat of the bench. Still, it felt nice as I rested my head on Justin’s shoulder and my fingers laced with Ethan’s. I’d need them to handle this trip.“I gave one of the new homes to Sam. Her and Emmett have been staying together.”“So she didn’t reject him?”Ethan squeezed my hand. “She didn’t. She hasn’t marked him but when she heard what you did, I think she thought it only right for her to give him a chance as well.”My heart lightened just a little, knowing that something good may actually come from all this pain. Ethan turned down the road that was brand new and I could see the new homes that were being built. There were three blocks of them that were already finished and he pulled into the driveway of one that was a block down. I scooted out of the middle and Justin helped me down from the truck.“Whatever you do, pretend like I’m not here.”Both Ethan and Justin gave me confused look
I woke up screaming and my eyes flung open. Everything was hazy and I didn’t know where I was. All I could remember was the all consuming feeling of the darkness. How sticky my hands were from Emmett’s blood. The last sound that came from Marrok as I killed him. My heart sped up as I started to hyperventilate, as my stomach started to roll.“Hey! Sky! It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”A hand brushed my cheek but I flinched away from in.“Shit. Hold on. I’m pulling over.”I felt bile start to come up but I just coughed, forcing myself to not throw up. I hadn’t realized we were moving until the motion stopped completely. It helped a bit for my stomach but I still felt like I couldn’t breathe. Hands slipped under my arms and pulled me up from my laying down position. My head fell heavily against Ethan’s shoulder and arms held me tight.“You’re okay. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”That broke the damn. I started to cry as I grabbed onto the front of his shirt, balling it up between my