The Campus Alpha’s Broken Mate

~Nora~ Eight hundred and forty-seven notifications. That was the number on my screen when I finally looked at my phone. I hadn't even sat up yet. Still half-tangled in my covers, still tasting whatever I'd apparently drowned myself in last night. My head was pounding, my mouth was dry, and my phone was lit up like something had gone catastrophically wrong. I clicked the first link. The video loaded. Me. In the hallway of Callum's frat house. His hand on my arm. My body leaning into him like I had zero control over it. Then the kiss, short, maybe ten seconds but it was perfectly angled like someone had planned the shot. Academy Chat was already on fire. Three hundred comments in the first thread alone. Jace's name was everywhere. “She cheated on Jace with Callum?” “Not her acting all innocent when she’s truly shameless.” “If Jace was mine, I would never cheat on him.” “Girls like her belong in the trash.” My stomach dropped so hard I felt it in my teeth. “What the hell is this?!” I scrolled up to Jace's messages. He hadn't called. He'd done something worse. JACE (11:47 PM): I saw the video. Everyone saw it. You nasty little cheat! JACE (11:48 PM): With Callum. Of all people. You kissed my rival at your own birthday party. How long have you been wanting to f**k him?! JACE (11:52 PM): Don’t even bother explaining. I'm not interested in whatever excuse you're already writing in your head. I hope he was worth acting like a cheap w***e in public! JACE (12:04 AM): We're done. And for the record, everyone already knows what kind of girl does something like this. You proved it pretty clearly tonight. I read it three times. My hands were shaking before I called him. It rang twice. Then nothing. Declined. I called again. Straight to voicemail. "Are you serious?" I said it out loud to no one. He got to say all of that, slut-shame me in four texts, blow up two years, call me exactly what he knew would hurt the most and then just not answer. I pulled up Sienna's contact. She was there last night. She'd been with me most of the night. She had to know something. The party was already loud when we got there. Sienna had handed me a drink almost immediately, red cup, sweet, something fruity. "You need to loosen up," she'd said, pressing it into my hand with that wild smile. "It's your birthday party, not a study session." I'd taken it because I trusted her. Later, she pushed a brownie into my hand too. "Made them myself," she assured me. "You have to try it." I'd been watching Jace across the room. He was laughing with the others but his eyes kept tracking back to me without any warmth in them. I'd thought it was nothing or he was just being territorial because Callum was there. I hadn't been wrong, exactly. I'd just been wrong about who he was being territorial about. Sienna picked up on the second ring. "Hey." Her voice was flat. That was the first wrong thing. "Don't 'hey' me," I said. "Have you seen the video? Jace literally broke up with me. He didn’t even let me explain." A pause. Too long. "I've seen some of the chat stuff, yeah. You can’t blame him. Anyone else would think you cheated." "Sienna, I need you to tell me what happened after the drinks. What did you give me?" "I gave you a brownie and a drink." Her voice didn't change. "Same as everyone else." "Then why can't I remember half the night?" "Maybe you drank more than you thought." "I had two drinks. You handed me both of them." There was a silence on her end that made my skin prickle. "Sienna." "You were fine when I saw you last." "If something happened with Callum, that's not really my fault." "Stop." "Where are you? Have you seen Jace? Please, you'll have to explain this to him." "Not anywhere close. Look, I gotta go. I’ll meet you up later and I think you should leave him alone for now till he cools off.” The line went dead immediately and I was sitting there staring at my phone like it had just handed me the answer to a question I hadn't fully formed yet. The hallway. That part I remembered in pieces. I'd been looking for the bathroom and the ground had felt strange under me. I had my hand on the wall when Callum found me. "You shouldn't be wandering around alone, birthday girl." "I know exactly where I am going. Mind your own business." "Sure." He'd caught my arm when I stumbled and something had happened the moment his hand closed around me. Like a current in my chest snapping open. “Shouldn’t your boyfriend be taking care of you? Where is he?” “Probably, somewhere else being admired.” “On your birthday? Sounds like a shitty boyfriend to me.” “Don’t talk about him like that. He’s far better than you.” “I’m just judging what I see. I’d never treat my mate like this.” I'd pulled away immediately but I'd still felt it, this pull I had no explanation for, radiating from the point of contact up through my whole body. “Mate.” My wolf whispered. The word hit me, mate bond. No bloody way! I gasped, “Callum, it can’t be.” His expression changed at the exact same time like he felt it too. My fingers curled into his shirt without permission. Heat rushed through me, hot and impossible to escape. And then I'd kissed him, or he'd kissed me, or we'd both made the worst decision of either of our lives in a dim hallway while someone's camera had been perfectly positioned to catch the whole thing. Academy Chat had fifty new messages by the time I got out of the shower. Most of them weren't even about the video anymore. They were about me. Nora Whitfield, who couldn't keep her hands off her boyfriend's rival. One was apparently exactly what everyone had always suspected. Jace's friends and his brothers had already posted. Jace was getting sympathy. I was getting something else entirely. The golden Beta son, publicly betrayed. Of course that was the narrative. He'd written it himself in four texts and left me no room to breathe. I wasn't going to beg for a phone call or write an explanation that he'd read three months from now out of spite. I was going to walk to his frat house. By the time I got there, my pulse was beating in my throat. One of his friends spotted me first. “Nora, Jace doesn’t want to see you right now.” “Noel, please move. I need to speak to him.” I shouldered past him while I heard him yell. “Wait! Don’t go up there!” Too late. The closer I got to Jace’s room, I heard a muffled moan from a familiar voice. Opening the door, I stopped so hard in shock. My morning had found a new way to spit in my face. Looking down, Jace’s jacket was on the floor. A dress too. They were both under the duvet and the moment they jerked apart, I saw Sienna.