Awakening (Covenant College #1) (21 page)

Aric
smirked. “It wasn’t the first time we’ve met. In fact, I’ve run into her a couple of times.”

I mentally cursed
Aric
and his killer dimples. I thought I’d
swore
under my breath, but when I looked back up every set of eyes in the room was turned in the direction of my hiding place. Well, shit.

One of the fraternity brothers – I think his name was Craig – strode over and threw the door open, revealing me in my all my nighttime wonder.
Bedhead and all.

I tried to muster any courage I had – but given the situation I was in I didn’t exactly think I could muster much righteous indignation.

Craig grabbed my arm roughly and dragged me into the room – right in the center of the circle. I fought him angrily as the circle closed back around me. This wasn’t good.

“Let me go!”

“What are you doing?” Will
seemed
concerned.

I tried to smooth my flyaway hair down. I noticed
Aric’s
smirk as he saw my actions. “I woke up and you weren’t there. I got concerned.”

“Go back to bed,” Will
whispered
. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I’m not someone that follows orders, but I figured that was the most prudent move at this point. I was woefully outnumbered. I started to move back towards the crowd – but Will’s fraternity brothers weren’t moving.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Brett answered.

I swung around angrily. “And why is that?”

“You were listening at the door.”

“I wasn’t listening,” I lied.

“Then why were you hiding behind the door?”

“When I realized you guys were having a meeting I wanted to hide because I didn’t want anyone to see my bedhead.” That’s not entirely a lie. I drool on my hair in my sleep. It’s not pretty. I figured I’d rather embarrass myself than tell the truth.

“Is that how you always look when you wake up?”
Aric
was looking me up and down.

I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “You have a problem with that?”

“No. I love that you’re not wearing a bra.”

Will stepped forward and grabbed my arm, drawing me to his side and away from
Aric
. It was a territorial move and it momentarily made me forget that all of the fraternity brothers were now staring at my nipples through my thin tank top.

“What are you doing?” I seethed at Will.

“Protecting you.”

Yep. That was my breaking point.

I dragged my arm away from Will angrily. “I don’t need protection.”

“
Honey, that
is exactly what you need at this point.” Brett was looking smug.

“Listen, Captain Obnoxious, I’m not afraid of you.” Sometimes my mouth works faster than my brain. I strode towards Brett and poked my index finger into the center of his chest. “I don’t care how important you think being in this frat makes you. And, quite frankly, all it makes you is so desperate you have to buy friends.” Nothing could stop me now. “You need to grow up and realize the world doesn’t revolve around you. You’re not special. You’re just a guy that gets his
self worth
because he’s in the hot frat.” I made air quotes around hot. I gesture a lot when I’m worked up. “You’re not special. You’re just pathetic.”

This time I wasn’t mistaken, they were growling. What the hell?

I turned back and looked at Will. I wasn’t feeling anything but disdain for him at the present moment. “I expected better from you.”

Brett grabbed my arm roughly. “Maybe no one ever told you this – but women are to be seen and not heard in my house,” he threatened.

“Then I’ll just leave.”

I tried to pull my arm away from Brett but he wasn’t letting go. If anything, he was tightening his grip.

“Let me go!”

“No.”

“Is this how you get your kicks? You threaten women into submission? And, when that doesn’t work, you drug them and
gang bang
them?” I’d definitely gone too far. Brett was practically cutting off circulation at this point.

“We don’t drug people,” he seethed.

“You’re so full of shit you smell like a dirty diaper.”

Will gasped. I saw him take a step back and try to meld with his other fraternity brothers. I was way beyond my limit at this point. “You’re a pussy. You know that? You used to be a rebel. You used to be fun. You used to be your own person. Now you’re like a Borg with these morons.”

I shoved hard against Brett’s chest. He still didn’t let go. “If you don’t let me go, you’re going to be sorry.”

Brett smiled down at me disdainfully. “What are you going to do? Pull my hair?”

I smiled sweetly back. I was going to pull something. It just wasn’t his hair. Without even realizing what I was doing I used my free right hand and rammed it hard into Brett’s groin, grabbing a handful (and I’m being generous) of his most treasured possession and twisted.

For his part, Brett let go of my arm. He screamed in agony and fell to the floor grabbing his crotch as he twisted into the fetal position.

I rubbed my wrist. It was going to bruise later. I could tell.

I looked up at the room full of angry fraternity brothers. They looked like they wanted to rip me apart, but they didn’t encroach on the circle.

Aric
seemed to sense the hostility in the room. He grabbed my arm and started maneuvering me towards the front door. “You need to go,” he warned.

“Yeah, I figured that out twenty minutes ago.”

“Where’s your stuff?
In Will’s room?”

“Yeah.”

“Go get it,”
Aric
shot a look around at his angry frat brothers. “And make it quick.”

I nodded. I didn’t feel like getting bossed around – but I desperately needed to get out of this house.

I threw my stuff together quickly, tossing on my jeans and hoodie. I dropped my bag at
Aric’s
feet at the top of the stairs and zipped up the hoodie. “Thanks.”

Aric
smiled down at me.
“For what?”

“For not being a sheep.”

“No one here is a sheep.”

“Well, they’re not men either.”

Aric
regarded me for a second. “No, they’re definitely not men.”

As we moved towards the front of the door I stopped and swung around. I searched the crowd for Will. When my eyes met his, all I felt was pity. “Lose my number.”

Will swallowed hard but he didn’t answer me.
“My home number, too.
You are so not who I thought you were.”

Aric
gripped my arm and walked me out. He shot a parting glance at Will, too. I could only describe it as triumph.

Twenty-Five

“What was all that about?”

Once we were outside and I could breathe again, I found my anger returning in a huge wave. It was a tsunami.

“Not here.”

Aric
directed me down the street. As we turned onto the next street, I saw him shoot a look back at the fraternity house. He watched it until it fell out of sight.

“Are you worried they are going to follow us?”

“No. They won’t do anything that Brett doesn’t order and he’s probably still rolling on the floor in agonizing pain.”

“He deserved it.”

Aric
smiled down at me. I couldn’t help but notice how – in the moonlight – his eyes looked almost black instead of brown. “He definitely deserved it.”

We fell into an amiable silence. It seemed to be a quiet agreement that he would be walking me all the way back to the dorms. I didn’t mind. I didn’t feel like being alone right now.

“So, what was that?”

Aric
seemed to be struggling for an answer. “What do you think it was?”

That was the question, wasn’t it
?.
I decided to go for broke.

“Brett said it was a pack meeting. Is that like a wolf pack?”

Aric
didn’t answer.

“Or, maybe,
a werewolf pack
?”

Aric
paused for a second and looked at me. “Why would you think that?”

“It has been a weird couple of days.”

“You believe in werewolves?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I staked a guy the other day and he turned to ash, so I believe in vampires.” I laughed at myself for a second. “Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d utter.”

Aric
wasn’t smiling. “You staked a vampire?”

“Yeah, he jumped me outside the dorms.”

“How did you know to stake him?”

“It was just instinct.” And seven seasons of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’

Aric
mulled my story over for a few minutes.
“Alright.
What do you know?”

I realized that
Aric
wasn’t going to share unless I did. I figured I owed him after he extricated me from the frat house. Plus, I was dying to tell someone. Why not an Adonis with great dimples?

I launched into the whole story – well, at least most of the story. For some reason I left out the parts about Rafael. I did tell him about Professor Blake and the training facility at the activities center, though.

Aric
didn’t seem surprised. “Yeah, we’ve known about the training facility for years.”

“We?”

“The supernatural population.”

“Which you’re a member of?”

Aric
turned and regarded me seriously. “I’m a werewolf.”

I should have been stunned, but I wasn’t. “So, were you bitten?”

“It’s not always like that – no matter what that tool Blake told you.”

“So, you weren’t bitten?”

“My parents are werewolves – so I was born a wolf.”

“So that whole biting people and turning them is a myth?”

“No. That’s true. They’re not true wolves, though. They’re more like half wolves.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Real wolves have more power. We’re strong. We can control the change.”

“You mean you don’t have to turn into a big hairy beast?”

Aric
barked out a short laugh.
“Basically.”

I was curious – and
Aric
seemed to be in an answering mood – so I pressed on. “Do you only change on the three days around the full moon?”

“Seems like Professor Blake has been imparting some wisdom on you.”

I waited for him to continue.

“Bit wolves can only turn on the three days of the full moon,” he supplied.

“And born wolves?”

“We can change whenever we want to.”

That was interesting. “What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“When you change? What’s it like?”

“It’s painful.”

“I bet. That’s not what I mean, though. I’ve seen ‘Silver Bullet,’ that can’t be good. I mean, do you have any sense of you when you change?”

“Like can I think? Or do I just want to eat you?”

“Basically.”

“We still know who we are when we change. Our emotions are stronger in wolf form – but we can control them,”
Aric
stopped and looked down at me with a lazy smile. “That doesn’t mean I still don’t want to eat you.”

I felt a thrill rush through me. That was probably a little inappropriate, though, since I’d just dumped my boyfriend of four years less than five minutes ago.

“Do you think now is the time to flirt?”

Aric
didn’t look chastised, but he did start walking again.

I decided to keep the conversation going and not dwell on the sudden urge I had to rip
Aric’s
clothes off. “Is everyone in the frat a werewolf?”

“Not necessarily at the beginning. But they only let people in that are willing to turn.”

“So Will is a werewolf?”

“Since last year, yeah.”

How could I not notice that?
Aric
must have read my mind. “Unless you were around him on the days of the full moon you probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

I tried to think back – but honestly I never paid any attention to the moon phases.

“Don’t you live in an area that is overpopulated with werewolves?”
Aric
looked curious.

“So I’ve been told. Either I’m really unobservant or I was really overprotected.”

Aric
smirked despite himself. “Well, you know now.”