1.3

"FREAK!" CUTS ACROSS the crowded hallway as heads swivel around to look for the recipient of the insult. And if I didn’t know any better I’d swear these people could smell fear with the way they zoned in on me the moment I stepped through the crowd.

Laughs ring out so loud you would’ve sworn the asshole was Chris Rock on Comedy Central. I ignore Ben, the self-imposed class clown and my bully for four years, and head to my locker. My head is downcast so as to not draw attention to myself. But the moment Ben set his sights on you, he made everyone know it. Every-goddamn-one!

I feel him at my back as I yank open my locker. “Leave me alone, Ben.” I switch my books as fast as my shaking hands would let me.

“Oh come on, Massie. It’s your birthday. It won’t be a special day if I don’t remind you how much of a broken, psychotic bitch, you are.” A book tumbles out of my grip and hits the ground like a thunderclap. I cringe, not at the sound but at his words. I spin on my heels to face him, making sure he could feel the weight of my hatred for him and this bloody pack... for the hell he made the last two years for me.

“I said leave me alone, Ben or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” The amusement slips off his face in the blink of an eye and the real Ben shows face. “You’ll run to the Alpha? Is that what you were going to say?“He laughs but it’s like a slap across the face. A bitter, hard slap. “You think because you kiss Becca’s ass, that you mean anything to the Alpha. You’re nothing but a murderous cunt who needs to be put down. You don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as the Alpha. You’re nothing.”

I feel tears well up behind my eyes and before I could say anything Becca is at my side, shoving him away from me. “That’s enough, Ben.” She plants herself between us two, eyes narrowed into heated slits. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk the fuck away right now.”

Ben scoffs. “You’re seriously going to keep protecting this bitch, Becca? After everything she’s done.”

I didn’t want to but at his words, I feel myself shrink away from the attention. I just want to disappear.

Why can’t I have just one day without the taunts and the jabs? It’s my birthday for Goddess’s sake. Wasn’t this morning enough?

Unlike me, Becca doesn’t cower, her shoulders squares as she takes a threatening step toward him. “Leave, Ben. If I have to say it again we’ll have a problem.”

The crowd shuffles back at the command.

Not Ben though.

Ben’s a fool, maybe a brave fool. But a fool nonetheless.

His first reaction isn’t to tuck tail and run at the power of the Alpha Blood coursing through Becca’s veins. The same blood that has her growing two feet larger than her five feet seven inches. That has her nails elongating into curved claws that could cut an ant’s ass in two with one swipe, nor at her eyes shifting to a glowing, unnatural blue, the colour of the Denali Wolves. No, it was the earth-shattering growl ripping from Becca’s semi-shifted form that has Ben shrinking into himself as she stood toe to toe with him.

“I said, go. Now.”

“What is the meaning of this?”

Mister Sirius comes marching down the hall, his belly throwing kids to the side as he burrowed his way to the middle of the crowd. One look at Becca and he rears back. “Mi-Miss Denali,” he sputters.

Becca turns the weight of her gaze over to him and he nearly pisses himself. I intervene before she—I don’t know— growls at him or something and gets herself into deeper shit protecting me. I am done with people taking the fall for me today... and it’s barely lunchtime. I put a hand on her arm. “Becca, it’s alright. Calm down.”

It takes a moment but once her anger settles and her wolf’s back in the shell of a seventeen-year-old teenager, tensions in the hallway de-escalate.

With a flustered clearing of his throat, he turns to Ben. “Mister Hayes. Care to explain what is going on here?”

Becca cocks an eyebrow at Ben, daring him to say anything. Maybe Ben isn’t as dumb as I thought he was, “I-umm... N-no, Sir. There’s nothing going on here. Becca and I, were... um... j-just talking.”

“Is that so?”

“It is so— I mean yeah, that’s all it is, Sir.”

Mister Sirius does not look convinced but he is just as inclined to question the semi-shifted Alpha Blood that seemed two seconds away from kicking heads than he was walking into the jaws of a starving Lion. So he clapped his hands and shouted. “Then what are you all still milling around here for? Get to class!”

Ben is gone before Mister Sirius could get the sentence out, and the crowd scatters with him.

“You didn’t need to intervene, you know,” I murmur. “I could’ve handled that myself.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, the fact that you were two seconds from crying told me that much.” The bell rings pulling the last few students loitering in the hall away to class till finally, it was only the two of us. “Ben is an asshole. Don’t let him get to you.”

“It’s not just that, Becca. It’s—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat and start again. “These people hate me, and as long as people remember what happened all those years ago, they’ll keep hating me. That means this will continue and I don’t need the Alpha’s daughter making it worst.”

“Mase—”

“I’m grateful for your help. I am. But you’re not gonna be there all the time to protect me. I have to start doing it on my own. Promise me from now on, you’ll let me handle it.”

Becca clamps her jaw shut and refuses to meet my eyes.

“Please, Becca.”

“Fine,” she whispers finally. “You have my word.”