Taming the Broken Playboy Alpha

Episode 5

Chapter 5

Camila Duarte’s point of view

The reverberations of the lunch bell thumped behind my skull, the clang distinctly sluggish. As soon as the bell had scarcely sounded, I leapt from my seat and slid my way between the crammed students. Everything that occupied my thoughts was the need to keep Thiago Acosta as distant from me as I could.

Thank goodness; for the remainder of the week, I’ll endeavour to drive as wide a wedge between us as I can. Maybe, once the chase had exhausted every last shred of his stamina, he would at last leave me alone. At least that was the dream.

Amen.

I tightened my bag against my chest and slithered into the hallway’s most remote corner. Even as a low growl rummaged up from my gut, I could not summon the impulse to brush through the cafeteria door. That corner instantly seemed a front line, with eyes darting and lingering, buzzing agitatedly in their ranks. Thiago and Valeria Solari sat side by side above the din’s din, their eyes whipping back and forth with fevered speed.

No thanks. Hunger, shmunger.

I catch sight of a vending machine jutting out from the wall and race in a full-out sprint toward it. A granola bar should do. A penny-wise infusion of serenity.

A jingling shower of coins, a muted buzz, and a flawless, reverse glide of the vending bar. I extended my hand toward the vending bar, pressing ever nearer—when a force that I could not see came at me from beside me.

The world whirled. The base of my hip smacked the floor with a jolt, and an instant punch of pain streamed straight up my spine.

Damn, that stung my—

Quietly, a guttural groan slipped from my lips as I kept my eyes squarely closed. I’m so, so awfully sorry!”

I fluttered my eyelids open. A girl crouched beside me, the alarm in her startled dark-blue eyes widened to a bewildering breadth by panic. Her hair had been cropped into a pixie that flattered her oval face. Anxiety widened her eyes to an utterly unbelievable expanse, and she lowered herself to raise me back onto my feet.

I’m fairly sure I’m going to be okay. I’d paid no attention to where I placed my feet—my mind had wandered all over today.

Not a single word slipped past my lips as she slipped her hands beneath my back and lifted me to my feet. Even with the ache pulsing from my rump, I was able to eke a subdued smile onto my face.

“It’s fine. I lifted my eyes toward the door as I dug my elbow deeper into the pulsing spot.

She bit her lower lip. I’m so, so terribly sorry.

Still more sentences poured from her.

After I regained my balance, I took her in. Pretty, in the same vein as nearly everyone at Laguna Blanca Academy. Even so, her beauty was entirely unforced—authentic to the same degree that it was unadorned. Innocent.

Out in a hushed whisper of “Back off”, a drowsy giggle unspooled from my lips. How exceptionally light you are. And short. All the fault is mine. I made no comment that your height had precipitated the fall. Yes, you’re short, but that’s not what I meant—

Possibly she outshone them all. A blush of dawn-tinted pink gently unfurled across her cheeks.

“Sorry again.” “Yes, of course.” It may be that, in fact, she had harmed me in no way at all.

I c****d my head to the side. Punctuating a brief pause, she spoke up: “I’m Martina Delgado,” and then held her hand out to me. So I took the hand she held out.

For just a few seconds, I bit my tongue—for the slightest look away might be termed impolite. “Zeta in training.”

It was this that pushed me out and steered me toward the cafeteria. While her gaze swept from one thing to the next, she offered not the slightest hint of the rumours. “Camila Duarte. Alpha.”

Considered on its own, the moment seemed like a gift. Things proceeded in a fashion I could never have foreseen.

No, the space is just far too crowded.

Really all I crave is a momentary respite from others. She gave a muted nod, and only a few moments later her mouth curved into a smile.

I think I might just know of somewhere. No one has ever before stepped into that place. I lifted a lone brow.

What of the lavatory, then? I’d already been there—and I’m not sure it went so well. In the end, matters went just as badly as they possibly could. A soft, soothing sigh of relief quietly drifted all around me.

A light laugh slipped from her. Not the lavatory. A staircase rises to the rooftop. No one has ever stepped into that room. Exactly the spot to disappear.”

Before I’d even managed to find the words, she lifted her hand and bolted straight for the cafeteria. “Seriously? Heaven—right there.

Cross the corridor and, at the water dispenser, turn left, then keep walking straight. When you spot them, the stairs are impossible to overlook.

I squinted. What is all this niceness for?

She c****d her head, and a soft glow of amusement caught in her eyes. “Why not? I’m fairly certain that you’re long overdue for a break. Before me opened an inconceivably enormous vortex, as vast as if I could reach in with my own hands, and a soft breeze tickled my cheek.

I pressed my knuckles into the granola bar and hastened down the corridor she’d pointed out.

Easily locating the stairwell, I wrenched the hefty door open in a heartbeat, and a burst of fresh air flooded toward me. Elena’s malicious laugh wended its way into my head, igniting a feral shudder that raced the length of my brain.

Finally, a space in which to breathe. Empty. Blissful.

I rested my back against the wall and, the foil still clamped in my hand, bit into the bar.

While the granola bar melted on my tongue, the serenity it bestowed seemed to grow that much sweeter. While I inhaled and exhaled that one breath, I let every shard of it slip away.

Sofía’s laughter glittered and fractured into delicate glass shards that slid past one another in a fluid ripple.

Almost.

Led by absolute timing, he appeared beside me the moment he appeared. A razor-sharp s***h of betrayal coursed over me—as fresh as the cut of a newly opened wound. That very boy—whose divine-wielding power had felled me—suddenly whirled about and handed me a flower, as though courting me in penitence.

Should he have arrived a sundered nanosecond later, he might have slipped out the door with such composed serenity that I would have been entirely left to my own devices.

That haughty, pampered Alpha. So what, then, did he assume I would do?

I exhaled slowly and tucked the wrapper into my pocket. My pulse thundered in furious frenzy.

The rooftop door burst open inward.

I vaulted out of my seat, each of my muscles transforming into a steel-hard rigidity at once.

Thiago Acosta glided soundlessly from the darkness.

At the very core of my being, the wolf within me roused—unsettled already, her figurative tail already wagging. She sensed him first. At the instant our eyes connected, their verdant energy ghosted against our hardened realm—firm with the ice of stone.

Exactly, why have you come here?

Of course.

Advancing softly and with conscious precision, he closed the space that separated us. A crack split my voice.

I hardly remember what even took place. I swept my gaze across the cafeteria, and you were nowhere to be seen.”

I exhaled, and my eyes rose toward the vault of the sky.

The smirk that curved his mouth broadened. “No kidding. Remember—I already told you no?

“Actually…” He narrowed the space between us, his scent hovering around me as though it were gently draping itself over me. That undercurrent of lilt and flirtation threading through his words sent my pulse to stutter.

I took a solitary measured step back and drove my head into the wall before me. Breathe I did, the hum of my exhaled breath beating steadily through my skull. Even as apocalyptic shudders quaked beneath my feet, phrases honed to flawless perfection coursed from my tongue in even rhythm.

Yet the pine-peppermint scent slid into my awareness quietly, rendering me light-headed. Just breathe.

I could hear my wolf nearly purring. I’ve already made it plain that I am under no circumstances willing to dine with you.

Repeat what you’ve just said to me.

I laid my palm against his chest. The touch coursed up my arm. I stepped back. Have you anything gold in your retriever?

He tipped his head back, and a muted spark of amusement glinted in his eyes.

As though he took not a single word I’d uttered to heart. Still, for all that, how on earth did you know I was here?”

He slipped his fingers into a lock of my hair and, with agile precision, twisted the strand into a tight coil.

Your scent. The timbre of his voice slid down into a deeper register. I yanked the wrench free and took a step back, no further than one lone inch.

I scowled. He offered a grin that betrayed not the slightest stir of ruffling.

I am doing this with you.

“I’ve already made that clear,” I growled. “I am in no way going to sit next to you.” Distance. Space. Oxygen.

By every conceivable deity—leave me alone.

Rather than avert his eyes, he thrust his arm out and pulled me into him.

Do tell, are you mad?

In the span of a single breath, I planted my feet, and the next instant I was lifted from the floor, draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

I screamed. “Thiago—push me down!” I’ve come this far for something far beyond a no.

Celestial fire smouldered in Valeria Solari’s stare—hot enough to turn steel to vapour—firmly cementing me in my seat as if gummed to the table with superglue. Marching toward the door, he completely ignored my fists hammering his back and my legs flailing madly. “I never knew how delicate you were,” he muttered, and beneath his grumble a delicate strand of suppressed laughter lingered in his words.

He displayed not the slightest trace of hesitation.

A searing blush flared across my skin as he, without mercy, hauled me into the cafeteria.

That will never happen.

I twisted with even greater strength. Bruno Fernández and Mateo Pereira stood with their mouths agape, their jaws slack, and were completely unable to speak. A cadre of heads twisted to follow our passage.

Finally, my dreaded nightmare had come to its dreadful fruition. Conversations hushed. Though he let me go with a light push, the steel-hard grip still clenching my arm still felt forged from iron. Whispers erupted.

I had phoned her.

Their eyes flickered back and forth between me and him, the light wisps of amusement pulling at their mouths.

If she lags behind, I shall slip quietly out of the room. A short, even monotone slipped from his mouth.

To her he granted no more than a momentary, fleeting look.

What the hell is she doing here?

The table glided into a hush so close to touchable that it lingered in the room. A twisted sneer twisted her mouth. Collecting himself, Thiago impaled a sausage with his fork and nibbled it at a purposefully leisurely speed.

Frozen in my chair, I revolved in the mute vortex of their confrontation. I leaned my spine into the cushions and let my body sink into a shadowed limbo.

Turning toward her, he set his face—eyes encased in a glacial glare more biting than the northern wind—and the curl of his smirk offered a threat that no one could ignore. The speed of her exiting footsteps elicited a unified chorus of hushed gasps and hushed murmurs. Valeria’s chest heaved and subsided, a quivering fury lingering about her.

The colour slowly ebbed from her cheeks. A flash of light blazed across her cheeks, and with a sudden burst, she stood and glided from the room.

Stay as long as you wish.

I could not tell whether laughter or tears was the response I was meant to summon. The silence dissolved the moment one of his companions leaned in her direction.

Raising their voices in tandem to a perfect crescendo, they cooed, “A pleasure to meet you, Camila,” and the razor-sharp upturn of their smiles served as a discreet punchline that no one could miss.

I fixed an obligatory smile to my face.

I could not tell if I should laugh or cry. “I’m Mateo. I could not tell which impulse would gain the upper hand—whether I would laugh or cry.

In unison, they welcomed her with a chorus—“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Camila”—and their smiles traded a clear punchline that slid straight beneath my ribcage. “Camila.”

I did not know if I should laugh or cry.

I could not be sure whether to laugh or to cry.