15

When Scarlett heard a knock at her door, she assumed it was Sienna. She assumed it with such confidence that she didn’t bother to engage her senses.

"Come on in, Chick," she shouted from her bed, laying on her front to scroll through her usual websites while talking to a couple of randomers in chat rooms. She liked to talk to people she wouldn’t normally meet since travelling wasn’t allowed.

"Oh," she cried, rolling over and sitting up when Riley popped his head around the door.

"Chick?" he asked with a lopsided grin.

"I thought you were Sienna," Scarlett said and giggled, feeling her cheeks turn pink. Once she got her wolf, her sense of smell would be good enough to sniff him through the door without any effort, but for now she could only get small ‘nosefulls’ as he wafted about the room.

The scent of him made her fingers tingle. It was a strange reaction but one she couldn’t control.

"Oh, your friend Sienna is otherwise engaged," Riley said, making an odd face. A face that made her wonder what Sienna and Adrian were doing. Part of her wanted to ask, but how could she do that without seeming like a nosy pervert? Pricking up her ears, all she heard was the clinking of metal, but she had no idea what it was.

As Riley dropped his bag to the floor and sat on the bed, Scarlett noticed his knuckles were scuffed. Red and swollen with little scrapes.

"Have you been fighting?" she asked. Looking at his face and other visible skin she saw no bruises.

He laughed in reply, rubbing each of his sore knuckles in turn. "Yeah."

His shirt, untucked from his trousers, was speckled with what looked like blood droplets; deep red but beginning to brown.

When he saw her looking, he stuffed his shirt into his pant line.

"Are you a strong fighter?" Scarlett asked. She assumed he was, considering the only bruises were on his knuckles.

"I guess." Riley sniffed. "You don't have to worry about that, though. It's not like I'm going to fight you."

Scarlett felt her inner feminist urges rising to the surface.

"What, because I don’t have my wolf yet or because I’m a girl?" she challenged, cocking her head.

Riley widened his eyes and laughed as he turned to her. "Oh, you wanna go?"

"I'll throw down," Scarlett joked, becoming cocky.

She squealed as he jabbed lightly at her ribs, making her flinch and double over. When he let up, she threw her best punch—the one she'd learned at the karate class she’d started recently. He caught her fist with so little effort, it was humiliating. As he felt her wrist, she tried to use the self-defence technique she had learned, taking control by pressing against the thumb—the weakest part of the hand.

The technique failed miserably. Not only could she not remove his hand, but she couldn't move an inch in any direction. It was like being trapped in a vice.

With a wicked grin, he spun her around and pinned her arm against her back, forcing her head into the bed.

He leaned in a whispered, "Now you're at my mercy."

'I don't mind it,' Scarlett thought but didn't say, enjoying the feeling of him pressing her into the mattress, his hard body rubbing up against hers.

"Argh," Riley cried as he was yanked away.

It was Adrian holding Riley's other hand in a similar grip to the one she'd just been pinned in. He pulled his Beta off with embarrassing ease.

"What did I literally just say ten minutes ago?" Adrian barked.

"I wasn't hitting on her!" Riley cried and winced in pain. "I swear."

Adrian let him up and sighed.

'Adrian told him not to flirt with me,' Scarlett thought. Her initial reaction was a flare of anger. How dare he decide who she can or can’t date. Did being the Alpha really give him such rights?

As she reflected on it, maybe it was normal for guys to be overprotective of their siblings. Never having a brother before now, she wasn’t privy to the rules. Or maybe he was being overprotective of his packmate. Perhaps it was Scarlett he deemed not good enough.

"She said she was good at fighting," Riley argued weakly.

"Hmm and play fighting never leads to anything else, right?" Adrian said.

"It wasn't play fighting," Scarlett input with a scowl, defending her crush. "He hurt my arm."

"Aww, sorry," Riley cooed with feigned sympathy and laughed. "It's not my fault you’re a weakling."

"It's not my fault you're supernaturally strong. What are you? Some kind of monster?" Scarlett shot back in jest, making him laugh harder.

Scarlett felt her lips stretching into a smile as she watched him laugh, seeing how his cheeks dimpled.

'Adorable,' she thought.

When Adrian frowned at her she adjusted her facial expression and stared out of the window, spotting a row of three fat pigeons camouflaging on the neighbour’s slate roof.

Adrian had thrown birdseed onto his rooftop for some reason. Either he didn't like the guy, or he was a neutral agent of chaos.

'Speak of the devil,' she thought, seeing the guy exit his house and walk around the front pavement. He was always finding excuses to pop in and perv on her mother. 'Poor sap.'

"Kids!" her mother shouted in an angry voice.

'What now?' she wondered.