Wild Blood

Chapter Two

Tiago

The professor was late. Fifteen minutes and counting, and still no one left.

Kelsey’s table made sure of that. Two guys, three girls, all noise and sharp laughter with town gossip. The guy closest to her kept glancing our way. At first I thought he was looking at her. Then I caught the shift. Her, me, her again. Like he was working a problem he didn’t like the answer to.

My wolf didn’t like that.

Didn’t like any of this. The fluorescents buzzed overhead, too bright, too cold for early October. Nighthollow was already half-winter, but inside it was all formaldehyde, cheap coffee, and nineteen-year-olds sweating hormones.

And her, next to me.

She’d been rigid since I sat down. Shoulders drawn up, chin tucked, like if she folded small enough I’d vanish. It didn’t work.

Eira. I’d heard Kelsey spit the name like it tasted bad. Like she could smell her the way I could smell her. It was faint now, buried, but I knew it. Burn.

Bitter chemical. Wet iron. Rotten green.

Wolfsbane.

My wolf threw every hackle up the first time we caught it. Not here. At the field.

She ran like something was hunting her. Form perfect but desperation in every step. With her hair tied back, legs pumping, like stopping would kill her. Maybe it had once.

The wind shifted and I got her from fifty meters out.

Her scent was lightning over wet earth and orange blossoms and mine. It punched through every wall I’d built since I was fifteen.

Mate, my wolf snarled, instant and stupid.

Then the burn hit.

Wolfsbane. Muted. Like it was in her clothes or her hair. It wasn't fresh, but it was definitely there.

My Roda Quebrada ached. f*****g Durão. For three seconds I thought she was his. Bait. A trap with pretty eyes. Until I saw her face. That kind of caution wasn't the kind you faked. It was the kind that lived in your bones.

Prey didn't run like that unless it'd been caught before.

Not his. Damsel. Protect.

And now she was here, knee jumping like she couldn't keep it still. Next to me, smelling like my war and my future at the same time.

Her metal thermos sat in front of her, sealed tight, but my nose caught the rotten green. She was literally poisoning herself. Mãe had drilled the cautions of the herb since I could talk, but I’d never seen someone purposefully dose themselves. It hid her scent from me, just barely. Until the breeze caught her. And now no wolfsbane in the world could hide her from me. Not anymore. Because now I knew what was under the burn.

There was a warmth to her, a quiet radiance, like the sun leaned closer when she entered a room. Her skin was tanned, but softer than mine. Not from work. From living. She’d let her hair out of its thick braid sometime since the field, and now it fell wild around her face. In the dead fluorescent light it was a deep chestnut, like wet earth. But when she’d looked up at me earlier, the whole thing lit. Copper. Mahogany. Burnt cinnamon. Not redhead orange. Not dyed. Hers. The color of iron warming or of blood drying on wood.

It was big, too big, thick as sin with frizz haloing the crown where the braid had been. The rest tumbled past her shoulders in dense springy coils that shrank and expanded with every breath she took. Strands stuck to her temples with sweat from the field or the heater working overtime. One fat curl fell over her eye and she didn’t brush it away. I nearly did but kept my hands where they were.

A mane. Untamed. Wild and feral. She was breath-taking.

My wolf had known before I did. The second our eyes locked on the field, even from a distance, even just in my memory. Mate. He’d been screaming it since, clawing up my throat, demanding I turn, grab, introduce, claim. Put my scent on her before anyone else thought to try.

Especially not Kelsey’s table.

I didn’t. I counted instead. Inhale four. Hold four. Exhale four. My skin stretched tight across my bones with each breath.

FREAK stayed hidden under my forearm, the letters gouged deep into the desk. As long as I didn’t move, no one had to see it.

Her nose was broad, tipped up at the end like she’d been born to question the world. Her eyes were downcast, but I’d seen them when she looked up. Honey brown, hot and dark, like honey that would burn going down. She wasn’t looking at me now. Her book was open, but I hadn’t heard her turn a page in five minutes.

Kelsey’s voice sliced through the low murmur. “Yeah, I told my father it was probably her. She just emits murderous energy.”

She didn’t say a name but she didn’t have to.

My jaw ticked.

End her, my wolf snarled, the sound vibrating in my bones.

I didn’t. Not here. Not with twenty witnesses.

Eira didn’t flinch, but rigid turned to stone.

I wanted to look, to check she was alright, but moving drew eyes. It drew his eyes. The staring guy. He wasn’t Kelsey’s boyfriend. He wasn’t laughing. He was watching, still and deliberate, like I was a problem he hadn’t accounted for.

The TA finally pushed through the door, breathless. “Professor’s stuck in traffic. Stay in your seats. Please don’t leave.”

The tension in the room didn’t break, it actually coiled tighter.

The two guys by Kelsey started in on each other, voices low, then not. It wasn’t about notes. It was about the looks. About me. About her.

Then the staring guy swung.

Chair legs shrieked against tile. A girl yelped while the TA shouted. The fight rolled across the room, not toward us, but close. Too close. A stool toppled and books scattered.

Eventually someone’s boot caught a metal trash can and sent it airborne, end over end, before a hand launched it outright.

It arced at just the wrong angle, heading straight for Eira’s head.

I didn’t think.

My arm banded around her waist, my other hand cradling the back of her skull, and I twisted. We hit the floor together. My shoulders took the tile, the corner of a desk, her weight. The pain registered a second late, dull and distant.

The can didn’t hit her. It hit the window behind us. Glass shattered outward into the courtyard with a sound like ice breaking.

Silence dropped for only half a breath.

Then the TA was yelling again and the two guys were being hauled apart by their collars. The staring guy stood there breathing hard, chest heaving, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at us. At me. Eyes flat. Calculating.

I dismissed him. Because Eira was on top of me, hair shielding our faces like an orange blossom scented curtain. Her face hovering inches from mine, that heart-shaped mouth of hers was parted. Her honey eyes were wide, not with fear, with shock. Raw and unguarded, like no one had ever taken a hit for her before.

Color flooded her face accentuating a few freckles I'd missed scattered here and there on her cheeks, and the warmth around her seemed to flare. I felt it hit my chest, warm and certain, and my wolf went quiet. Not gone. Just still. For the first time since I’d walked into this room.

MATE.

“Você está bem?” It slipped out before I could catch it. Portuguese for ‘Are you okay’? She shut her eyes tight but didn’t answer. Her breath came fast and shallow, like she was trying not to breathe me in.

Then came Kelsey’s voice, shrill and disgusted. “Oh my god. Get a room.”

I didn’t move. If I did, she’d leave my chest. If I did, she’d feel me pressed against her leg, eager and throbbing.

My wolf said stay.

So I stayed.

She didn’t say thank you.

She just peeled away from me. Slow, like every joint hurt, like touching me a second longer might set her on fire. She planted a hand on the tile beside my shoulder and pushed up. Our chests separated and the air rushed cold between us where her heat had been.

My wolf protested at the distance and I snapped at him to shut up since her face was still inches from mine for one heartbeat more. I saw the gold of her wolf flicker in her eyes when her gaze dropped down to my apparent eagerness. Not honey anymore, but something brighter, wilder. Then she blinked and it was gone while she scrambled the rest of the way off, knees hitting tile, and reached for her book.

Icy rain had already started coming through the shattered window and one of our chairs had tipped in the fall, knocking over a trashcan collecting rainwater from the leaking ceiling. Both spattered the floor in a widening dark circle that her ruined book now laid in. Pages wilting like flowers. The puddle had gotten bigger while we were on the ground and I hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed anything but her and how much I wanted to keep her planted on my chest, in my arms.

She stared at it with tense shoulders but she didn’t curse or cry. She just closed her eyes for a moment, like she was counting too. When she opened them, her face was blank again.

The TA was still yelling. “Everyone out! Class is canceled! Maintenance is coming!”

Eira stood. She didn’t look at me. Didn’t look at Kelsey who was still sneering. She just grabbed her bag, hugged the wet book to her chest like a shield, and walked out through the side door. No thanks. No goodbye.

I got up slower, my back screaming where the desk edge had caught me.

Worth it.

I left before Kelsey could talk. Before anyone could ask if I was okay. I wasn’t. My wolf was pacing, furious and satisfied at once.

Touched her. Saved her. She ran? Follow. Outside, the rain was lighter but still cold. It hit the broken glass on the sidewalk and the blood drying on my knuckles. I’d scraped them on the tile but didn’t remember doing it.

My truck was three rows back in the lot. I climbed in, dropped my head against the steering wheel, and tried to breathe the familiar diesel, but her scent was lodged there, in my brain.

Mate.

The word wasn’t quiet anymore but it wasn’t screaming either. It was settled. Fact. Like gravity. Like the fact that she smelled like lightning and citrus and that her eyes barely changed when she was on top of me.

Wolfsbane. I’d doubted my nose earlier with her thermos but she was on it. Had to be. No wolf could be that close to their mate and not—

Unless she didn’t know. Or didn’t want to.

I pushed that thought down. Deep. I had forty minutes before my next class and I spent them watching rain run down the windshield, telling myself not to go looking for her.

---

History smelled like old books with stadium seats that were half full. I took a row near the middle, an aisle seat.

I still could feel her weight on my chest, her hair brushing my cheek. Professor Moore walked in, already talking about the War of 1812. I pulled out a notebook and tried to focus. Tried to be normal. Tried to stop hearing mate every time my heart beat.

The door opened and my wolf stood at attention before settling with disappointment. Kelsey. Porra. She slid in late, heels clicking on the steps, perfume announcing her before she sat down directly behind me. Citrus but too sharp. Chemical. Nothing like orange blossom. Nothing like home.

She leaned forward immediately, spearmint breath hitting the back of my neck. “Miss me, new boy?”

My pen stopped mid-word and my wolf went from pacing to snarling.

I didn’t answer, just kept my eyes on the board. Britain, North America, Napoleon. “Guess you’re the strong, silent type,” she whispered. “I like that.”

Professor Moore paused and looked up from his computer. “Ms. Reyes. Is there something you’d like to share with the class, or can the rest of us learn without the commentary?”

A few people snickered and Kelsey sat back, hard.

Good.

I felt her glare burning into my shoulders for the rest of the lecture. I didn’t turn. Didn’t give her anything. Just wrote notes I wouldn’t remember and pretended the honey gold wasn’t still printed on the inside of my eyelids, and the heat of her body wasn’t imprinted on mine.

When the bell rang, I was up first with my bag over my shoulder and nearly out the door.

She was faster.

Kelsey cornered me in the hall, my back to the frame, her body angled to block anyone walking past.

“You’re rude,” she said, but she was smiling. Like rude was a game.

“Got class.”

“Me too. Yours.” She stepped closer. Pulled a folded piece of paper from her bag. Pink ink. Ten digits. A heart. She pressed it into my palm, then let her fingers linger, trailing up my arm. Touching. Claiming.

The hallway door at the end opened. Eira.

She was the third body out the door, head down, ignoring her surroundings despite the lanky guy beside her speaking with his hands. She shook her head at something he said and he stopped his flirtatious ramble. After nudging her arm he turned the opposite direction. My wolf snarled at this boy’s disrespect for what he deemed now his and as if she felt it through the fated-pull, or possibly heard Kelsey’s equally flirtatious laugh, Eira froze midstep and looked up right at us.

At Kelsey’s hand on my arm.

Her eyes weren’t honey brown anymore.

They blew gold. Bright, liquid, wild. Pupils wide. And for one second she wasn’t drugged. Wasn’t human. Wasn’t scared. She was all wolf. She was mine.

Her lip curled in a snarl that seemed to surprise her and when she realized what she’d done, she bit her lip, slammed her eyes shut like the sight burned and walked past without another glance.

No one seemed to notice. Specifically Kelsey didn’t notice since she was still in my personal space. “So? Tonight? My dad’s out of town.”

I looked down at the note in my hand and crushed it into my fist before dropping it to the ground.

“Don’t touch me again,” I nearly growled.

Her smile dropped. “Excuse me?”

I stepped around her and didn’t look back.

Class hadn’t even ended two minutes and I’d already lost Eira twice.