“Fuck off, Mads,” Lock said.
He was a blunt arsehole, but right now, he was my arsehole. I watched her blink, fairly sure this was one of the few times she’d ever experienced rejection and I savoured it.
Which was not very well adjusted member of the sisterhood of me.
She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again but they didn’t wait around for her to formulate a response. Seb put an arm around my shoulders and turned me towards the door, the crowds having trickled away. It was either that or miss the bus home.
Which reminded me of Finn.
“Hey, can we give Finn a ride home?” I asked, looking up at Seb, hoping to appeal to the more rational member of the pack. “It’s on the way.”
“What’s the rule?” Lock said, turning around to walk backwards as he grinned at the rest of us. “Cash or gash.” I heard Finn’s little gasp and frowned. “What’s it gonna be?”
“Finn’s not sleeping with you for a fucking ride home,” I said before she could reply, half scared of what she would say, the other half terrified at what she’d do, but when she stepped forward, I saw the frown on her face.
“Not her.” Lock’s eyes were heavily hooded as he looked down at me. “You. Dad’s been pretty shit with the presents of late, but bringing us home own little personal omega?” His smile widened. “You give it up, we’ll drive you and your girly friends wherever the fuck you want. But it’s gotta be all of us.”
“Charlie…”
Finn wasn’t celebrating my good luck, because now she was seeing the side of the Murphy’s I’d caught sight of when Mum and Adam told us the news. Lock had been volcanic with rage, but he’d held it back. Archer hadn’t taken his eyes off me the whole night and right then they glowed silver. Seb had clenched his jaw, but Coop? I looked at him now, watching him mouth the same words he’d whispered across the dining table as Mum and Adam brought the dinner in.
You’re fucked.
I jerked myself away from all of them, grabbing Finn’s arm and going to march out of school. We’d walk all the way home to her place, or call her mum to come pick us up. Anything to avoid getting in a car with them. Anything to avoid being in their house.
Because I was glad for Mum and Adam. He treated her like a queen, just like she deserved, but his boys didn’t seem to have a single drop of his good nature in them. Quite the opposite. He was ready to be a loving husband and stepfather and because of that, he thought his sons would step up and be good brothers.
“Charlie’s your sister now,” he’d said as we ate dinner. “You need to treat her like she’s one of our own.”
Trouble is they had decided to obey the letter of his law, if not the intent.
“No trying to get away, omega,” Coop said, rushing around to scoop me up into his arms and carry me out of the front doors. I smacked him on the chest, then began to thrash in earnest. “Don’t fight.”
All of the good humour had gone from Cooper’s face. His green eyes had bled silver and his dark brown hair hung in his face as he stared at me.
“Everything in me wants to sink my fucking fangs into you and rut you on the damn steps.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I snarled back.
“Everything alright here, gentlemen?” Mr Baldwin, the big beta PE teacher, appeared on the steps, looking conspicuously at the two of us, then the rest of Coop’s brothers. “Put Charlie down now.”
My heart felt like it was beating so hard it was skipping some to keep up, my head feeling light and spacey as the four of them clustered closer.
“Dad asked us to get Charlie home in one piece,” Seb said in a much more reasonable tone. “We were just doing as we were told.”
“Right.” Baldwin didn’t believe it for a second, but there wasn’t much that he could say. The school knew that I had a new step father and a set of stepbrothers. “Better be on your way then.”
Seb reached out and found my hand without looking, staring the teacher down right up until we were out of sight in the student carpark.
I’d made the mistake in thinking he was the sensible one, so when he pushed me up against the side of their gleaming black late model car, I gasped. His hand felt like it stretched over my entire chest as he pinned me there.
“We’ve just got to make it through this year,” he told me in a low growl. “We’re enlisting as soon as we’re finished Year 12 and you’re fucking off to the fancy pants university you want to go to. We just need to get through this, so stop fucking fighting us.”
Fighting them? Fighting them! I’d barely made a damn squeak, and before I could do so now, the back door was opened and I was yanked inside by Coop, Archer taking up position on the other side, so I was wedged between them. Lock tossed the keys to Seb and both brothers got it, the engine roaring to life with a throaty rumble.
“Last chance,” Lock asked me, turning around to look me up and down. “Damn long walk home for your little friend.”
“What omega would ever willingly choose you?”
I spat the words out with all of the venom I could muster, the poison that had been festering inside me since Mum announced the engagement. No, before that, when I was forced to endure the questing gazes of my father’s friends.
Turns out it was effective. All trace of humour was scrubbed from Lock’s face and right then all I saw was the wolf, peering out at me.
“They never will. That’s the fucking point.”
And before he could say anything more, Seb slammed his foot down on the accelerator, sending the car careening out of school grounds with a screech of the wheels.
The end of this year couldn’t come soon enough.