Page 33 of Pack Nightmare

A leaf detaches from the tree above us, drifting lazily toward the ground. As if the spell is broken, the deer turns and bolts back into the forest.

Jared and I turn our gazes to each other, and then as one burst out laughing. I tighten my grip around his neck and he steps away from the tree, carefully lowering me to the ground before claiming a few more soft kisses. I run to pick up his hat where I dropped it in the heat of the moment, brushing it off with the sleeve of my hoodie before presenting it to him.

He takes the cap, then sets it on top of my head. It doesn’t quite fit over my wild hair, so I loosen the snap back and settle it over my curls with the brim tilted up.

“Approve?” I ask him playfully.

Jared pretends to consider for a moment, then a wide pearly grin splits across his mahogany complexion. “Gorgeous,” he states, drawing me into his body and kissing my cheek from behind. “Come on, gorgeous. I’m starving. Let’s go get some lunch.”

He wraps his warm hand around mine and tugs me back toward the path that leads home.

Chapter Seventeen

Layla

Jared and I spend the whole day together, and eventually we get to our homework.

Not to mention a fair bit more making out under the guise of ‘relaxing’.

My lips are tender and swollen when we head downstairs for dinner, and if Roxanne or the staff notice, they don’t say a word.

Once he heads home for the night, I take my time getting ready for bed, mooning happily around my rooms as I tidy up. Now that I have my own space, I can’t bear for it to be messy, and I know that if I don’t clean up the maids will, which needles me even more. I don’t want them to think I’ve become some kind of spoiled princess.

My phone pings, and when I check it, I’m delighted to see it’s another audio file from Landon. This one is a wistful song about unrequited love, and my heart squeezes at the plaintive note in his voice.

I reply immediately and send him back heaps of praise. Then I take a moment to send all three of my fated a different selfie, along with a quick note about the unique things I appreciate about each of them.

Jared’s words earlier got to me, and I’ve been chewing on them in the back of my mind ever since. He’s not the only one who keeps people at a distance, away from his true self. I know I’m guilty of the same, rarely letting people in.

So I plan to make a conscious effort to show more appreciation for the people around me. Starting with my fated.

A strange urge drives me to pull up a text to Derrek and send him a message as well, but I hesitate with what I should actually say. Obviously not the same things I sent to my fated, but then what?

I type out, then delete several messages, before finally settling on the simplest of all.

I’m glad you’re back in my life. I’ll see you tomorrow.

I get it sent off before a flood of messages pours in from my fated, praising my photos and thanking me for my messages, then replying with selfies and heartfelt sentiments of their own.

A warm, bubbly feeling takes up residence in my chest, and it jumps another notch when I receive a reply from Derrek.

There’s nowhere I’d rather be. Come see me at office hours tomorrow. I have something to tell you.

Even though I know my focus should be on my classes, or on my fated, my mind is wholly preoccupied with what Derrek wants to see me about today.

I imagine its something to do with Lit, of course. Or perhaps his family history.

But even though those are the most logical answers, my mind keeps dredging up the fluttery, phantom electricity I feel when I touch him, almost like he’s one of my fated but not quite. It’s an echo, a whisper of connection, no more. Nothing like the clear, primal feelings I have with Jared, Milo, and Landon.

However, it’s something more than I’ve felt with anyone else since I arrived here. Perhaps it’s just to do with our history. The connection I already had with him made more physical in this new, magical world.

It could be completely innocent.

But the small, dark corner of my brain that won’t shut up keeps suggesting there’s something more. My mind drifts back to being shut in his tiny little office, the air close with the scent of him, faint energy on the air. I was angry to find out he lied to me, but there’s no denying the air had a charge, a tension, that coiled in my belly. That piece of my brain that likes to cause me trouble has twisted the memory, imagining him pulling me onto his desk, standing between my thighs and kissing me with a force that devours me whole.

So, safe to say my teenage crush is back full force, now aided by the fact that he’s about a hundred times hotter, in his professor getup with sandy blonde curls, than he ever was as a ragged street kid with a buzz cut.

And I’m no longer a little girl in need of protection.

---