Claimed By The Alpha's Enemy

Chapter 4

Sally's POV

I stared at him for a long moment, weighing every word in my head. I had no real choice, not with my scholarship hanging over my head like a blade. But there was something about the way he asked, like my answer actually mattered to him, that made the decision feel less like a trap and more like a strange kind of deal.

"Fine," I said finally. "I'll do it."

"Good." Something almost like relief crossed his face before it vanished again. "One more thing."

"Of course there is."

"From now on, I'm the only one allowed to bully you."

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Bryan's tone stayed flat, like he was stating a simple fact. "If anyone at school so much as looks at you, they will answer to me. But that also means if I need to act cold toward you in public, you let it happen. No questions."

"So you get to torment me, but nobody else does." I crossed my arms. "That's your idea of protection?"

"It's the only way this works," he held my gaze, unshaken. "I am not your friend, and neither am I a good guy. It’s the only way I can help you. At least you only get bullied by one person, not by the whole school.”

I didn't fully understand, but something about his logic made a cold kind of sense. I sighed. "Fine. Whatever keeps Tasha's claws away from my throat."

"Smart girl." A ghost of something like approval flickered in his eyes.

We worked through two chapters of chemistry. After that, Bryan surprised me with how quickly he understood once I broke things down simply. He wasn't lazy, I realized. He just hadn't had anyone patient enough to teach him properly. Bryan was cold throughout the classes. He was strictly professional, and didn’t c***k a single joke. I maintained my professional status also.

I was scared that he’d bully me, but surprisingly, he didn’t.

By the time the driver dropped me home, the sun had already sunk behind the rooftops.

That night, I couldn't sleep. My skin felt tight, prickling all over like something under the surface wanted to break free. My fingers tingled. My senses sharpened, the ticking clock in the hallway suddenly loud enough to make me wince.

“Could it be?”

I sat up in bed, heart pounding. Every wolf in my pack got their wolf between eleven and thirteen. I was seventeen. Wolfless. Broken. But this feeling, this strange restlessness crawling under my skin, felt different from anything I'd felt before.

I checked the calendar pinned above my desk.

Full moon. Tonight.

Hope bloomed in my chest so fast it hurt. I'd almost given up hoping years ago, had trained myself to accept the shame of being wolfless, the whispers, the pity in my mother's eyes every full moon when I stayed inside while the rest of the pack shifted and ran free in the woods.

“Maybe tonight is different. Maybe my wolf just took longer.”

I sat by my window as the moon rose high and full, pale light spilling across my floor. I closed my eyes and prayed, the way I used to when I was younger, begging whatever force governed wolves and moons to finally give me what everyone else had been born with.

I waited.

And waited.

Nothing came. No shift beneath my skin, no voice in my head, no burst of animal instinct clawing to get out. Just me, alone, staring at an empty ceiling with tears sliding silently down my face.

"Please," I whispered to no one. "Please, just this once."

The moon stayed silent. My wolf, if I even had one, stayed buried, wherever wolfless wolves went to hide.

By the time I cried myself to sleep, the hope I'd let myself feel for one reckless hour had shattered completely.

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed with puffy eyes and a heavy heart. I splashed cold water on my face, forced down half a piece of toast, and grabbed my bag, bracing myself for another day of being invisible everywhere except when someone wanted to hurt me.

I stepped outside and stopped dead in my tracks.

A sleek black car sat parked directly in front of my house, the engine humming low. Bryan leaned against it, arms crossed, looking entirely too comfortable for someone standing outside a home like mine, small and worn compared to the mansion he lived in.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, glancing around to see if any neighbors were watching.

"Driving you to school," Bryan pushed off the car and opened the passenger door like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"I don't need a ride. Are you for real now?”

"You do now."

I crossed my arms. "I've walked to school every day for three years. I think I'll survive."

"Not anymore." His voice stayed calm, but there was no room for argument in it. "From today, I drive you. Every morning. Every afternoon."

"Why?" I narrowed my eyes. "This isn't part of the tutoring deal."

"It's part of the new deal."

"There's a new deal now?" My eyes widened. “Will your deals ever end?”

"There is." Bryan studied me for a moment, like he was choosing his next words carefully. "We're going to fake a date. For one month."

I stared at him, certain I had misheard. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You heard me."

"No, I need you to say it again, because there's no way you just said we're going to fake a date."

"We're going to fake a date," Bryan repeated, unbothered. "For one month."

I let out a disbelieving laugh, pressing my fingers to my temple. "Have you lost your mind? Yesterday you blackmailed me into tutoring you. Now you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?"

"Essentially, yes."

"No." I shook my head firmly. "Absolutely not. I already agreed to tutor you and let you play bodyguard. I never agreed to this."

"It benefits you too." His tone didn't waver. "If everyone believes you're mine, no one will dare touch you. Not Tasha. Not Jeremy. Not anyone in any of this little pack , or our twenty-four packs as a whole."

"Or," I shot back, "everyone will hate me even more for supposedly stealing the future alpha from every girl who's ever wanted him."

"Let them hate you." He shrugged like it meant nothing. "Hate is better than harm."

"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who has to live it."

"No," Bryan agreed quietly. "But you already are living it. Every single day. I'm offering you a way to make it stop."

I opened my mouth to argue again, but the words caught in my throat. He wasn't wrong. I thought of Tasha's claws yesterday, of Jeremy's laughter echoing down the hallway, of years of being pushed, mocked, and ignored by people who thought me worthless simply because I had no wolf.

"Why does this benefit you?" I asked instead, quieter now. "What do you get out of pretending to date someone like me?"

Something unreadable passed behind his eyes again, the same look from yesterday, the one that told me there was far more to this than he was willing to say.

"I told you," he said simply. "I can't tell you that yet."

I studied him, torn between frustration and something else I refused to name. Finally, I sighed and walked toward the open car door.

"One month," I said, sliding into the passenger seat. "And you owe me answers eventually, Bryan."

"Eventually," he agreed, closing the door behind me.

As the car pulled away from my house, I stared out the window, my heart pounding with something that felt dangerously close to curiosity.