Chapter Twenty Two

The door opened and I jumped, literally went up in the air a couple feet, and and my lips lightly brushed Zacks as I moved. He scooted away from me his eyes wide with fear as he looked toward the doorway, his hands behind him clutching the kitchen counter.

There was Adam and Denis, staring at us.

The silence was a cold one, a very unsure uncomfortable one.

Denis was the first to break it. "This has been a quick step up the ladder of events."

My face was red. Why did I feel like I'd gotten caught by the headmaster shagging his pet.

Zack's face in turn was pale, white as a sheet. He looked almost sick with fear, nauseous.

"Zack you know I'm going to have to let our alpha know about this." Adam said. Almost no emotion in his voice, just stern command.

Zack didn't move, he just leaned back against the counter absolutely frozen still. The only movement came from his trembling bottom lip.

I wasn't sure what to say anymore. I felt like anything and everything I wanted to say would sound too submissive, too pleading. I didn't want to sound submissive.

But I needed to reassure Zack.

"Tell him what? Nothing happened."

His head snapped to me for a second then he looked away but he still said nothing. If this kid didn't play along I was going to be very pissed. I wasn't even lying! Not really, we didn't kiss on purpose, I mean we were about to... But we probably wouldn't have! Probably..

"You know what just happened, we all saw it."

"I only ended up touching him because you shocked me! I moved! That's all it was!"

"Why were you so close in the first place then?"

That I didn't have an answer for and I fought not to bite my lip like I always did under pressure.

"I had something in my eye."

Denis looked very upset right now and his look was so piercing that I momentarily forgot the situation at hand. There was no way he could care so much. I got that Castus was his alpha but it wasn't like I was bonded to Castus. I wasn't yet their lunus. So why did he look so absolutely pissed off? Did he like Zack? Because if he did he showed no sign of it while we were hanging out. But he was staring at Zack. Like he expected some kind of response from him, glaring, almost like he was hoping for Zack to look up and notice his look. He definitely liked him. Oh yeah.

Denis started walking towards us. "Zack is this true."

Zack looked down at his feet. "Yes." He mumbled. God, could he sound any less believable?

"Look at me Zack! Now!"

Zack's posture abruptly changed and he was standing stock still staring him in the eyes.

"He had an eyelash in the eye and you were what, helping him out?" His voice was wildly interrogative and it was to such an extent that Zack almost looked confused at the attention he was getting from the man.

However he didn't dwell on it for long because it wasn't big enough a circus show to side track him from the fear of retribution for his mistake. For our mistake, that he was going to get the shit ripped out of him for.

Even I knew that compared to him I really wasn't the one in the shits for this.

"No."

I stared at him with wide eyes.

"Zack!" I exclaimed.

All he needed to do was lie, these were his friends, they would pretend for him I was sure! Why was he telling Denis the truth?!

"I- I- I mean yes!" He looked on the verge of tears.

"Is that the truth?" Denis demanded.

"No- I mean yes, yes!"

Oh. Were they mates? They were mates? What sort of messed up triangle looking relationship polygon shit had I landed myself in? Jumped in, feet first.

I could see the steam coming out his nostrils. Wow, he was angry for someone who appeared to know who his mate was and pretend he had no clue.

It obviously kept Zack on his toes though, I couldn't figure out who he was more afraid of, Denis or Castus. I'd seen none of this fear whilst we were playing pool so perhaps it was Castus... Perhaps.

At this point I wasn't sure what to say, I'd been hurriedly assembling a messy lie to tell Castus, one that attempted to make it sound like he'd just been checking my eye for me and we'd bumped lips. Surely he couldn't fault me for that, nor Zack, if he kept his damn mouth shut at least.

"Sven perhaps you better make your way up to your room." Adam said as he stepped in between me and Zack and Denis.

I glared at him. "What, I'm being sent to my room for being a bad boy?"

Zack gaped at me and shook his head wildly, forgetting about Denis who was watching him with a look of slight satisfaction.

"You will go to your room. Now."

"You don't get a say in what I do or don't do."

"I think you'll find I do."

"I bet I won't!" I flashed my fangs at him. A part of me, a very small part of me, became very nervous very quick, absolutely sure that baring my fangs to the man was some sort of death sentence. But as I said, it was a very small part, I barely noticed it.

He stuck his nose up at me. "Cease this roguish behavior, return to your room!"

"No!" He might be an alpha but he wasn't fucking sending me up to my room like I was a little kid who'd knocked a plate on the floor.

He moved forwards and just as fast I moved backwards. Whatever he did now was not about the scene that had occurred earlier but rather my refusal to submit to him.

If I was being honest I could understand his irritation, he was obviously a blood-born dominant and I was submissive and without having been bonded to anyone he naturally felt like he deserved a piece of dominion over me.

If I was being honest.

But I wasn't being honest.

So he was just being a big bitch.

"I will call Castus lest you behave."

"Fucking call him! See if I care!"

"GO NOW!" His voice was barely on the edge of a shout but what really got through to me was the sheer force in his tone. The power, it sounded like alpha speak although he wasn't technically an alpha anymore.

Goosebumps rose on my skin and I tried hard not to give in but that tone of voice implied very strongly that doing anything other than what he said would carry extreme consequences.

Instead of staying and proving them wrong, proving that I wasn't submissive, proving that they didn't have power over me, I practically ran out the door and up the stairs, back into Castus's room.

Why Castus's room instead of mine? I don't know I just did, and once I was in there I didn't want to leave, a part of me was still shocked by what just happened and feared retribution.

I suppose it was his scent that drove me here, sometimes you don't notice what trail you're following till you end up where you want to be. His scent naturally made me feel safe, protected. Fuck I was scared and it was times like these that I admit I wanted Castus by my side.

I slammed the door extra hard as I walked in and hoped they could hear it from downstairs.

God I'm such a child.

I pressed my face in my hands. It's so weird, you don't know how much you've gained until you risk the chance of losing it all.

I still hated Castus, nothing would change what he had done to me and how much I had suffered because of it, but I didn't want to lose him a second time around.

I didn't doubt that Castus would be fine with rejecting me again if he thought I wasn't what he wanted after all.

And I couldn't survive it a second time. But he won't care about that because he's Castus.

I tried to clear my mind as I stripped naked on the bed and with a leaping start shifted into my wolf skin. There was nowhere for me to go but I liked to be in this form when I wanted to do some thinking, even if I was extremely susceptible to my attraction to Castus. Even if I considerably relaxed and nuzzled my face in the sheets to bury myself in his scent. It was still better than in my human form, too many emotions, too much drama.



***

I opened my eyes an inch when I heard the doorknob rattle, my ear perked upwards and my body tensed, I'd fallen asleep.

Here was Castus, yet to walk through the door yet I was extremely hyper aware of his presence.

Sometimes my needs and wants change when I'm in wolf form but it's sometimes hard to figure out just what I want. My emotions take on a different form, my priorities rearrange themselves. It can be confusing if you try to work them out rather than just fly with it. But me being me, I never just fly with it, there must always be thinking, lots and lots of thinking, so much thinking it makes me fucking sick.

So when Castus entered the room I was ready to vomit.

"Sven."

I said nothing, played dead.

"I know you're awake."

Fuck.

"Shift now." He hissed.

I growled silently.

"You will do as I say Sven, this is not a good moment to cross me. I will drag you by your tail and make you shift if you force me to!"

I was already going to shift, he didn't need to threaten me! I shifted, albeit slowly, but can you blame me?

"Tell me what happened."

Now the worry really sank in, I'd shifted to avoid it but it only came rushing back.

It is really fucking difficult to lie to your mate, I mean that seriously, lying to your mate is like pretending to be a strawberry. They can just.. they can just tell.. Most of the time anyway.

"SVEN!"

SHIT.

"Yes!" I tried, halfheartedly, to sound mad at him in return, but it was difficult because the fucking guilt in my belly was trying to swallow me alive.

"What. Happened." He hissed.

"Nothing." I muttered miserably.

Castus closed in on me slowly and as he walked towards me it registered how pathetically I'd missed the man, how handsome he was, like a devil, in the flesh, sin all wrapped up in muscle. No good for me.

"Well why don't we start with you explaining why Adam told me you kissed Zack!"

"I didn't!"

"Really? 'Cause Zack is looking pretty flustered and Denis is fuming and you look guilty as shit right now!"

"I do not!"

"Yes you fucking do!"

I tried to hold back a sob. "Since when do I care anyway, what you think."

"If you care so little tell me the truth."

There was a drawn out silence. If he already knew what happened why did he need to hear it from me, why did I have to spell it out for him. Fuck it, why did I care what he thought? This asshole brought me here, kidnapped me and pulled me out of school for what, to play happy housewife? FUCK HIM.

"So yeah I fucking kissed him and what?!"

His face went red.

"S-so what."

"I know you kissed him. Denis mentioned you had some stupid excuse, that I wanted to hear, I also hoped I might see some remorse."

"Yeah 'cause remorse makes everything better."

"You'll wish you felt some remorse when you get off my lap with your backside burning like you been sittin' on hell's spitfire."

I stared up at him in shock. His eyes narrowed.

I looked down at the sheets, at my feet, then back up at him.

"I won't let you."

"You don't have a choice."

"I'll just run."

"I'll just catch you."

"You won't manage."

"I think I will."

"You think you're faster than me?"

"I sure as hell do."

"You'd be fucking wrong."

"I'd like to see you try."

I glared at him.

I looked at the door.

I looked at the window.

And then I jolted, ran fast as I could towards the door, about to shift. My speed was fast as light no doubt about it, I could feel that amazing feeling of the wind rushing forward to meet my face and the crazy way everything around me blurred.

But before I made it to the door he leaped, and when I say leaped, I mean leaped, and slammed the door shut, chucked me over his shoulder and threw me back on the bed.

I bounced a little then moved up towards the headboard. The strength and ease at which he had done it intimidated me because it solidified my punishment, I knew that if he wanted to punish me I wouldn't have the muscle to defend myself.

"I didn't mean to!" I yelled.

He froze in his pursuit.

"Go on."

"I was just talking to him, we were making food and we were... standing quiet and still... and then Denis and Adam came in and it shocked us and so we accidentally brushed lips but we didn't do it on purpose!" I spoke fast.

"'Standing still and quiet'?"

"I- um." Tell or don't tell. "He was helping me get an eyelash out my eye."

"I see." He sounded sarcastic. "An eyelash." Bitter sarcastic.

I stared at him, wide eyed. "It's true!"

"You're shit at lying. Over my knee."

"You're fucking kidding me, I won't do that."

He sat on the bed and his heavy body made it sink a little bit. Suddenly I was hyper aware that I was the only one naked in the room. It made me feel submissive, which made me feel both a little pleased and disgusted with myself.

"Get over my fucking knee Sven. I won't ask again."