“Fucking shut up, brother,” Blake said, slapping Haze up the back of the head.
But I unwrapped the sandwich, biting down and chewing, working methodically through it as they all watched, like it was the most satisfying thing in the world.
“What do you know about what your dad asked of us?” Colt asked with a sidelong look. “We had a lot of conversations with him, close to the end.”
I set the sandwich down now, three quarters eaten, but nothing they would be able to do would get me to eat more. I stared at him, his longish light brown hair falling in his eyes, and those hazel depths bore into mine, neither of us able to look away.
But I was saved by the bell, the familiarding, ding, dingcutting through their compulsion and allowing me to make my escape. I grabbed my gear, dumped my rubbish, and then hurried off to class, hoping to ditch all five of them this time.
“Running, beta?” Haze’s arch voice spoke almost directly into my ear, his arm linking with mine. “Please do. You know what it does to my instincts.”
His eyes flashed silver then, showing me how close to the surface his beast was, and when he grinned, I saw that his fangs were sharper, longer.
“Haze…”
“He likes it when you run.” His head tipped to one side as we stood in the middle of the busy hallway, students and teachers weaving their way around us, like we were rocks in a stream.
“Haze!”
I tried to jerk my arm free of his grip, but his fingers closed tighter, making me feel the prick of his claws through the light fabric of my shirt.
Oh shit.
Haze was funny, sarcastic and completely inappropriate, but his wolf? That was a whole other ball of wax.
“Haze, it’s OK,” I said in a much calmer, much more soothing tone. “I need you to come back to me now. Just take a breath and focus on my voice.” I couldn’t compel him like his brothers or his fathers could, but I could coax him. I’d done it when he was younger, not long after he revealed. “Today’s not the day, Haze. You don’t want to wolf out in front of the whole fucking school, force your dads to come marching down here and get you in order.”
He bared his fangs then, a terrible silent snarl forming. I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath and then reaching out, pushing my fingers into the silky feathers of his hair, stroking a thumb across the top of his cheekbone, just like I used to do before.
“Come back to me, Haze.”
He blinked then, the silver receding, his mouth closing, a small frown forming, as if he couldn’t work out what the hell was happening. Those blue eyes flicked around the hallway now, as if seeing it for the first time.
“What the fuck are you doing, beta?” Valerie, one of the omegas, spat, wandering closer, her hands on her hips. “Groping alphas like some pathetic little omega wannabe?”
For a second, I was worried Haze was going to relapse and that his beast would come rushing back to the surface, but it was pure male aggression, not wolf, as he snarled at her.
“Fuck off, Valerie! Honestly, if I had any interest in anything you might have to say, I’d let you know.”
“Oh you’ll be interested…” she said with a sultry smile. “I revealed first, so it’s likely my heat will come on first, and then you’ll be—”
Haze took my hand, marching us up the hall and finding my English lit class with unerring accuracy, but he didn’t leave me at the door. He followed me in, then sat the both of us down at the back of the class.
“Mr Vanguard?” Mr Whiteley, my English teacher, looked up from the class text he was reading from, peering across the room at us. “Have you joined my class this late in the year and I wasn’t notified?”
“Joined? No,” he replied, to the sound of titters from the betas in the class. “But I’ll be here for the rest of the term. A very quiet, very well-behaved visitor.”
“Well, that will make a lovely change from your usual behaviour in my communications class,” Whiteley said, turning back to the class. “If you wish to sit through preparation for the English literature exam, I won’t oppose it. Now, if everyone can get their notebooks out…”
I went to get my book out but was hampered by Haze’s hand sliding under the desk and grabbing mine, his thumb rubbing against my knuckles. I shot him a shocked look, but his gaze was firmly fixed on Whiteley and his discussion of the different character arcs of the main players inHamlet.
“Haze, I need to take notes,” I whispered.
My hand was released, that arm going across the back of my chair, his fingers now contenting themselves with playing with the no doubt split ends of my hair, so I got my book out and a pen and started scribbling down important points as Whiteley spoke.
“Congrats, Riles,” he said under his breath. “You worked fucking hard for this and you got it. You deserve every damn scholarship they can throw at you.”
And that was when I hated my father, just a little.