Page 28 of Knot What She Seems
I work to control my strut—fuck, men don’t strut, do they?—and throw myself into the seat beside the beta. I end up putting way too much weight on my right side and nearly fall out of the seat. Dammit.
Sam stares at me as if I grew three heads, a pair of tits—if only he knew—and started doing the cha-cha in the middle of the room.
“You okay there?”
“Perfect.” I offer him a slanted grin, one that Teddie used to throw around often when he was on the dating market.
Wait…
Is that his flirty smile? Am I flirting with Sam?
Fuck. Why is this so hard?
I compress my lips in a straight line and try to adopt an expression of bored impassivity. I probably just look like I’m shitting and trying to hold in my grunt.
“Umm…” Sam bounces his fingers across his desk. It’s one of those tables that is built into the chair itself. All you have to do is open the armrest and pull it out. As Sam gets his thoughts in order, I do just that. “This probably makes me a nosey asshole, but where were you last night?”
I whip my head toward him, eyes as wide as saucers. “Huh?”
“You didn’t come to the room.” He shrugs.
“How do you know that?” I’ve been banking on the layout of the dorm being similar to that of Darling Academy—two tiny rooms connected by a bathroom with doors that can lock.
Sam continues to give me a strange look. “Because I’m your roommate.” He speaks the words slowly, as if maybe I’m hard of hearing or just plain stupid. Probably the latter. “You didn’t even unpack anything.” He shakes his head, his brown hair flopping. “Do you get, like, special treatment because you’re the prince or something? Your own room? Because if you do, let me know, and I’ll move some of my stuff over to your side of the room.”
Oh…fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Sam and I areliterallyroommates. As in, we share the same room.
How could Caran have allowed this to happen?
“Oh.” I force myself to chuckle. “Yeah. I was visiting my sister over at Darling Academy and got preoccupied with a hot piece of ass.” Inwardly, I wince and instantly hate myself. Barf. Teddie’s a lot of things—and a player was one of them before he met Caran—but he would never demean an omega like I just did.
But Sam doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes go wide, and his mouth opens. “You’re seeing an omega?”
“Harper.” I blurt out the first name I can think of that isn’t my own. The last thing I want is for rumors to spread that Teddie is sleeping with his twin sister. God, that’s a “yuck” on so many levels. I actually feel a little vomit in my throat at the thought.
Sorry, Harper.
“Damn.” Sam whistles and settles back in his chair. “Wish I was the prince. The rest of us aren’t even allowed to look at Darling Academy yet.” A note of bitterness seeps into his tone, and I wonder if it’s because he’s a beta who won’t ever have a scent match. He can still mate with an omega, of course, but only if he can find an alpha team that will take him in.
If I thought being an omega sucked, it’s nothing compared to being a beta.
“Yeah, well, I suppose there are some benefits.” I offer another chuckle, praying he lets the subject drop before I can weave myself an even bigger web to get stuck in.
Fortunately, whatever Sam wants to say is interrupted by Alpha Jameson stepping up to the podium. He looks exactly as I remember him, though his hair has a little bit more gray and there are a few more wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.
I shrink farther down in my seat as his eyes survey the class, stopping on me momentarily before continuing on.
“Good morning. I’m not going to waste your time with pleasantries or small talk. We have a lot to cover in the next hour and a half.” The class goes silent immediately. At Darling Academy, the girls usually giggle and gossip and engage in whispers even when lessons have begun. That doesn’t appear to be the case here. All conversations are snuffed out like a candle flame, until the great room is utterly silent and still.
Jameson clasps his hands behind his back and begins to pace. “I could go into the history of our war with Nóthos, but what would be the point? This is common knowledge. Most of you weren’t even born yet when the war first began.”
Everyone has heard the story of how the war started between our country and theirs. Years and years ago, Hypso and Nóthos were allies and often traded supplies. We were developed in a lot of ways, but nothing compared to them. They were years ahead of us in technological and medical advancement. Then, a dozen of their trading ships blew up near our coast, costing them millions of dollars and killing hundreds of their citizens. They blamed Hypso, despite the fact my parents claim we had nothing to do with it and it must’ve been an isolated attack. Nóthos’s president didn’t believe us and refused to allow our own traders to return home. Thus, the war began, and it doesn’t appear to be close to stopping.
My kidnapping is proof of that.
