If he hadn’t put this pressure on the boys, if he hadn’t made them feel personally responsible for me, we wouldn’t be in this position.
Haze should be in Valerie’s or Cheryl’s or even Cyrus’ class, playing with their hair, not mine. While they would be able to start finding their true mates when their beasts revealed themselves, putting in some human legwork first helped smooth that process. Instead, they were wasting their time with me.
This was what I wanted to study when I got into medicine—the way omegas and betas and alphas actually worked, not just the half baked folk science that currently passed for our understanding of designation. I wanted to know what drew the six of us together, even though it shouldn’t be the case. Alphas frequently ditched childhood friends when they revealed, so why hadn’t they? Was it just their vow to Dad or…? I chanced a sidelong look at Haze, and he stared right back, a small smile forming then, full of all that mischief he’d brought to our gang as kids.
“So can anyone tell me what role Ophelia plays inHamlet?” Whiteley asked, jerking my attention back to the room. “Don’t tell me ‘crazy ex-girlfriend.’ I don’t need to know what she was, I need to know why she was written into the play. Shakespeare used her for a specific reason. Anyone?”
I raised my hand then, glad at least in this respect, I had an answer.
Chapter 3
Two weeks later.
I laid my pencil down, sucking in a breath, then letting it out before glancing up at the clock. I had half an hour before the exam ended, my final exam. I straightened my spine, turning my answer book back to the start, ready to review my answers, but I knew. I couldn’t tell you how or why, but I knew. There was a feeling, a burning sensation, that just told me when I’d aced something, and right now, that flared hot inside me. Every answer I cross-checked validated that.Tick, tick, tick, I could imagine the marker going as they read my submission, then my fingers shook slightly.
But what if they didn’t?
The scholarship was awarded based on the assumption I’d kill my exams, so I scoured each response, the words of my teachers ringing in my ears as I made minor corrections until finally someone said, “Pencils down, please.” I laid mine down, collected my booklets up, and put them together on my table. Then when we were given leave, I stood up and walked out in a daze…
Right into them.
“Riley…” Colt could only say my name, frowning as he searched my face. We’d sat up for hours last night, going over my notes, drilling the information into my brain.
“Fuck, tell us you killed it,” Fen said. “You did, right? You killed it?”
“It’s not the end of the world if she didn’t,” Ryan told the others. “There are other options.”
“Options here?” Blake asked with a grunt.
“Yes, I for one would like to explore local options as well,” Haze said with a nod.
“I killed it…” I barely whispered the words, but they all stilled, facing me. “I mean, I think—”
I gasped as I was swept up in a suffocating embrace, and I couldn’t tell who, not until my hand slid down his back.Ryan, my brain supplied, having managed to develop an encyclopaedic knowledge about the Vanguard brothers, along with all the hot and cold running bullshit of year twelve.
“Stop hogging her and give her here.”
The words were delivered in a terse way.Blake, I recognised instantly. For a big guy, he could hold me oh so gently, caging me in his arms but still letting me breathe. At that, I went limp in his grip, daring to rest my head on his shoulders.
“You did it, babe.”
“We still have to wait—”
“You did it.”
He didn’t say many words, which pissed the others off, as it meant people paid more attention when he did, and right now, I was as willing to surrender to that certainty as I was to his embrace. It felt like I let out the first real exhalation of breath that I’d been able to all day, muscles I hadn’t realised I was holding tight slowly uncoiling.
“C’mon, we’re going up to the point tonight,” Fen said, interrupting the moment.
“The point?” I pushed away from Blake, stepping free of him, of them. “I’m not going up there.”
MacDonald’s Point was a notorious make out place and not somewhere I was going with anyone, but they all just grinned.
“There’s a big year twelve party being held up there with a bonfire and everything. People are burning their old school books, getting on the piss…” Fen said with a challenging smile. “Last chance to carouse with your fellow classmates before you ditch this popsicle stand.”
“Ah…sure,” I replied, my hand going to my hair, then my clothing. “But I need to go home and—”
“Grab everything to be burned? We are here to help,” Colt said in a rueful tone. “I want to burn that physics textbook personally.”