Page 22 of Mortal Blood
“Does this mean you don’t completely hate me?” I ventured, arching a brow. Jax shrugged.
“Like you said, the vamps hate you. Figure that makes you one of us.” Then he grinned. “Besides, you still hang out with that fit girl, Ling, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. And she still has too much taste to hook up with you.”
“No-one can resist this,” he gestured himself up and down, “forever, don’t try to kid yourself.”
“I think we have bigger problems than whether Cali’s friend has questionable taste,” Cole said, his eyes roving between the gathered students.
Shit. He wasn’t wrong. Most of them were still staring our way, gathered in small clusters and talking in harsh whispers as they tried to work each other up to do something about me being here. And since every single one of them could shift, and I couldn’t, plus the whole being wildly outnumbered thing, I wasn’t a fan of our chances if a fight broke out.
“Bloodshed on the first day?” Jax said, clicking his neck. “At least life with you two is never dull.”
“What are you worthless bunch of curs whimpering about?” Ryker snapped as he stalked into the clearing from the treeline, moving with an effortless strength that demanded deference.
The sullen muttering of the other shifters died down. Ryker was their alpha for as long as they were inside the academy walls, and they knew better than to show disrespect. Also, he was constantly in a bad mood, and had a penchant for taking it out on the nearest student.
Which was not, apparently, enough to convince Wes to keep his thoughts to himself.
“Cali shouldn’t be here. She’s not a shifter.”
Ryker looked around with a deliberately confused expression until his eyes landed on me.
“That Cali? Cole’s mate?”
“Yeah,” Wes replied. “She’s half vampire. You should kick her out.”
Ryker whirled on his heel and was in Wes’s face before I could blink. He grabbed the student’s wrist with one hand and twisted it up behind him, forcing him onto his knees without exerting any effort.
Wes grunted in pain but Ryker didn’t let up his grip.
“First,pup, I am your alpha inside these walls, and you will address me as such. Understand?”
“Yes, alpha,” Wes gasped, looking like he was regretting every life choice he’d made up to this point, which I couldn’t help but feel the teeniest bit smug about, since a good number of those choices had involved making life hard for me.
“Second, you pitiful little mutt, last I checked, this wasmylesson, not yours. And if I say Cali is in this lesson, then she’s in this lesson. Is that clear?”
“Ah! Yes, alpha!”
Ryker scowled at him for a long moment, then glanced at Wes’s twisted limb like he was contemplating breaking it—and no-one in their right mind would test his resolve. I’d seen him do far worse to students who crossed him last year.
Wes kept his head down and his chest heaved as he breathed though the pain of the restraint and having his arm held at near-breaking. Then with a grunt, Ryker shoved him away.
Wes rolled and came up in a crouch, holding his arm against his chest.
“Question me again, and I won’t be so lenient.”
“Yes, alpha.”
“And that goes for the rest of you, too.” He turned his eyes on the rest of the students, who abruptly all took an interest in their own footwear. “Now, why the fuck are you all still in human form? Stop wasting my time and shift.”
There was no alpha compulsion in the command, but even so, the seventy or so students shed their clothing in a matter of seconds, and started shifting.
Good to know that whatever most of the student body and the instructors here thought of me, I still had one or two allies. Cole would be relieved to know Jax intended to stand by his side. The guy might be an idiot—and ‘might’ was being generous—but he was Cole’s second for a reason: he was strong, he was loyal, and he was exactly the kind of shifter you wanted watching your back when the shit hit the fan—which pretty much described our current situation. The whole academy against me, but Cole andJax on my side…Well, those still weren’t great odds, I had to admit. And Ryker, apparently. Couldn’t forget him. And if I was going to have any instructor in my corner, I sure as shit wanted it to be Ryker. He was badass, and stronger than anyone I knew.
“Don’t just stand there gawping like a mute banshee, Ellis,” he snapped at me. “Get your mongrel ass in your usual spot under the tree and figure out how the fuck to make your arm shift again.”
Of course, he was also a total dick, so there was that. Ah well, I’d still rather him on my side, even in his own cranky way. I had enough enemies around here, and I’d take whatever allies I could get. I was going to need them.
