Page 21 of Untamed

I sit next to her while Mia takes her place next to Nathan. “Blame me,” I tell him. “I wasn’t up when Mia knocked on my door.”

“Late night?” Nathan inquires.

Mia acts as if she’s not paying attention, so I decide to keep what happened between me and Jonah private. Well, private between me, Jonah, and Mia. I don’t feel like getting into another big discussion. Especially after seeing Mia’s reaction to the kissing part. Whatever I say is going to make them think of their own mates, and we already do enough of that.

Instead, Mia and Nathan start discussing something about an upcoming project in one of their classes, and Nadia breaks out a notebook and begins to write in it. The date is written on the first line, and she begins to freehand, scribbling down sentences on the paper. I glance away in case it’s private and not something like a list of how to get revenge against her best friend who completely abandoned her. If it’s a revenge list, I’m on board with helping her.

Mia’s gaze travels over my shoulder. “Incoming,” she singsongs under her breath.

This time, I’m shocked to find Ms. Ebon towering above our table. I almost come to attention in front of her. It’s the aura she gives, making me want to obey her right away. “Miss Walker, I need to see you directly, please.”

I stare back at my plate. I was done a while ago and just moving food around to pass the time, so I stand. “Of course, Ms. Ebon.”

I grab my bag and start to follow her out of the room when I peer over my shoulder. Mia grimaces at me, and Nathan wears a furrowed brow as he watches us walk away. I shrug. At this point, I don’t know what’s going on, and I can think of like three things that I’ve done wrong and could possibly be getting in trouble for, so there’s no sense in worrying about it yet.

Her heels click ahead of me as we march down the corridor to her office. She stops at her room, gesturing for me to go inside first. I don’t know if this is a social meeting like our first or more of a school meeting, so I refrain from sitting until she moves around her huge desk after shutting the door behind us.

She sits, placing her forearms on the wood top in front of her. Leaning closer, she stares at me straight in the eye. “I was alerted to some unfortunate news this morning.”

My heart pings painfully in my chest. My first thoughts are of my parents. I forgot to look at my cell this morning to see if anything had been said since yesterday, but her next words erase all those worries. She swivels her monitor until it faces me and presses play. The clear image of a forest appears. Not three seconds into the video, a copper wolf barrels through the frame and exits it. It happens so fast, I’m pretty damn impressed with myself, but when I glance at Ms. Ebon, I can tell she’s not about to commend me for my superior speed.

“This is the video at the perimeter line. If you move out of the frame, you are no longer within Greystone Academy’s grounds.”

I close my eyes and breathe out.

“Are you going to deny that’s you?”

“No, that was me,” I tell her.

She straightens slightly as if she wasn’t expecting me to tell the truth. “Did you read the handbook or the signs in the changing huts to know that going outside the perimeter is in violation of our policies?”

“I did read that. I can’t say that I knew where the perimeter was when I did it, but I knew that crossing it was wrong.”

Ms. Ebon spins her monitor back to face her, then leans in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of her. “When anything triggers the motion cameras, they go right to our security which reports directly to the administrator.” She raises a brow as she appraises me, and it makes me wonder if she knows the tie between Lydia Greystone and my family. “Mrs. Greystone herself brought it to my attention.”

When I don’t respond, she moves her monitor back around. Opening a separate tab, she clicks play on a new video. This time, it’s of two different wolves who triggered the cameras. One copper and one brown. I frown hard. Seeing Jonah in that form pains me. My own wolf, who’s been sulking, whines because she feels the same way I do. The wolf we can tolerate. The human, we can’t.

“Who is this wolf?” She plays the video again, pointing him out like I wouldn’t know who she was talking about.

“That’s Jonah Livestrong,” I inform her.

She recoils. “Your mate?” She watches me for a long time before asking, “And how did it happen that you went for a run with your mate?”

I sigh. “I didn’t set out to go for a run with him. My wolf wanted out, so I shifted. As soon as she smelled him, I had no control over her.” My wolf sniffs, and I can feel her contempt but it’s true. “Trust me, if I had been in control, I wouldn’t have—” I break off because my first reaction is to say I wouldn’t have gone after him, which is completely and utterly true. But that’s not the reality I should speak in front of the woman whose job it is to get me and Jonah back together. Correction:Reformme so that Jonah will be content with me as a mate. I try to cover up the break as quickly as possible. “If I’d had control, I wouldn’t have broken the rule,” I finish.

“We might be able to work with this,” Ms. Ebon states, turning her computer around and typing furiously on her keyboard. “You are a pup. You caught wind of your mate and couldn’t control yourself.” She stops typing and glances at me. “You do know those cameras are miles away from the south lawn. Upwards of ten miles in some areas. How on earth did you catch his scent from that far away?”

I shrug. “Is that weird?”

“It’s peculiar,” she answers. Returning to typing, her fingers banging against the keyboard until she right-clicks on the mouse with a final punch of power. “There,” she smiles. “You’ll still have to be punished, but let’s hope the penalty won’t be expelling you from the university and a mark on your record.

Fear slices through me. “Expelled?”

“We take our jobs very seriously here, Miss Walker. On first inspection, it was unclear what other wolf you were running with. Had it been another male, that would have been clear grounds for expulsion.”

“It was definitely Jonah,” I grind out. No matter how much I wish it was different, I can’t think of anyone but him.

Her computer pings, and Ms. Ebon returns her stare to the screen. She cocks her head before clicking several times, then her eyes scan. I almost come out of my skin waiting to hear what’s going on. I move to the edge of my seat to see if I can get a better view, but it’s no use. The computer is angled too much.

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