Wild Blood

Chapter Three

Eira

The snarl slipped out before I could catch it.

It was quiet, barely a sound. More breath than voice but the girl next to me in the hall flinched anyway. She looked down, eyes darting across the linoleum like she expected to see a dog.

“—hear that?” she muttered to her friend. “Sounded like a dog growled.”

I shut my eyes, hard, because I knew what they’d see if I didn’t.

I kept them closed until I was past them. Until I was past him and her f*****g hand on his f*****g arm.

Goddess, Kelsey worked fast. Faster than she worked my nerves. Of course she’d be pining after the new guy. It wasn’t like she didn’t have most of the guys from high school wrapped around her finger. I thought maybe she’d grow up once we graduated, but she still had the personality of milk sitting out in Kona on a windless day. Spoiled f*****g rotten.

My chest hurt, but not from the fall. From my wolf shoving to the surface so fast for half a second just to see him with her.

I didn’t understand. I’d taken the last of my tea before my second class. Rowan had been brewing it double strength since I found the body. Wolfsbane and chamomile and lies. It was supposed to keep me quiet. Human. Safe.

He was human. So why was my wolf trying to climb out of my throat every time he breathed near me? Why did she snarl when another girl touched him?

We shouldn’t care. I didn’t care.

Lunch was a mistake. I wasn’t really hungry, the tea always had my stomach in shambles, but I grabbed an apple from the common area anyway and took it outside. Because not eating made Rowan upset and me ornery.

The rain had stopped and the sidewalks were still dark with it. The air smelled like wet concrete and cut grass and too many people trying to enjoy the last of fall’s weather before tonight’s ice storm.

I found a bench on the edge of the quad, away from the tables and Kelsey’s usual spot. I hated that I didn’t have my book and I was too afraid to look. So it sat in my bag like a drowned thing, bloated and the ink probably bleeding on the paper towels I’d tried to stuff between pages. I left it there. I didn’t want to see the one thing I had left from her ruined.

So I people-watched. Or pretended to. Really I just stared at nothing and listened.

It was too loud. Even with the tea burning in my veins. Even with four years of practice. The world was too loud today. Conversations layered over each other. A chair scraped inside. Someone laughed, high and fake. A basketball hit pavement three courts over.

My wolf was awake, pacing, hackles up and every sound felt like it was happening inside my skull. It made me nauseous.

Then I heard her.

Freaking Kelsey.

“—can’t believe him,” she was saying to her group. They were by the vending machines, maybe twenty feet off. “I literally gave him my number. He just— ugh. He’s so hot, but what is his problem?”

One of her friends murmured something I didn’t catch.

“No,” Kelsey snapped. “It’s not me. I’m Kelsey f*****g Reyes. It’s her."

My stomach dropped. She was going to say my name. She was going to tell them it was because of me, because ever since I got here people were too nice and attentive despite me keeping to myself. Because—

Kelsey gasped, loud, cutting herself off.

“You’ve got to be f*****g kidding me.” Then, lower, more vicious: “s**t!”

The bench dipped.

I didn’t want to look but my wolf pleaded for me to. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that he’d sat down next to me.

Tiago.

He was sitting on my bench, facing me, his knee bracketing mine. Not touching, but it was close. Six inches. Maybe less. The air between us went heavy and I tried not to breathe him in.

A history book balanced on his leg holding his lunch: sandwich, chips, orange. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. No jacket even though it was forty degrees. Psychopath.

He didn't say a word, or even glance up at me at first. He was just there. One second the space beside me was empty, the next it was full of sweet tropical and rain and heat.

I stared at my apple. I didn’t bite it, I couldn’t. I was trying to keep my hands from shaking. Kelsey was still staring. I could feel it and her whole table went quiet waiting for her reaction.

He didn’t look at them. He looked at me and I kept my gaze straight ahead, knowing if I did look over at him my eyes would do it again. I knew it. I could feel the gold pressing at the edges, wanting out.

I lost.

I looked.

He wasn't just handsome, that was too soft a word. His jaw was a weapon. Hard, stubbled, clenched like the word no was his default. His nose looked like it'd been broken once, maybe twice. It shouldn’t make him look better but it did. There was a cut on his cheekbone that I hadn’t noticed earlier, fresh. Maybe from the fall. Had to be.

His fingers were long, scarred across the knuckles. When he reached for his sandwich, I saw the tendons move under tanned skin. Steady. Capable. The kind of hands that could snap bone or hold something breakable without crushing it.

I looked away fast, throat tight.

“Você comeu?” His voice was quiet, like in the classroom and again he spoke a language I didn’t understand. Like I should have understood him or like it was a language just for us.

When I didn’t answer he tried again. “That all you’re eating?”

I flinched hard, making the apple jerk up toward my nose. My teeth caught my tongue and blood, sharp and metallic, flooded my mouth.

He was smiling, not smug, not nice. Assessing. Like I was a problem he’d just solved and now he was checking his work.

He saw the flinch. Saw the blood and his eyes flicked to my mouth for half a second, then away, like he was deleting the data. Like it hadn’t happened.

He sat like he’d been invited. He hadn’t. He sat like he wouldn’t leave if I asked.

I didn’t ask.

My wolf, who had been pacing behind my ribs, went dead still. Not pleased. Not angry. Just waiting.

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

He made a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh or a growl before reaching into his bag and pulling out a granola bar. He set it on the bench between us. He didn’t push it at me. Just left it there. Like the pen.

My wolf went still. Not quiet like before. Provider.

Kelsey’s voice carried, sharp now. “Oh my god. She doesn’t even talk. What is she, your f*****g charity case?”

I flinched when his arm moved but not toward me. Onto the back of the bench. Not touching me but close like a barrier between me and them. Between me and her.

He didn’t answer Kelsey, didn’t even look at her though I doubted he could even hear her at this distance. He was still waiting for me to take the granola bar.

He looked at it, then at me. Dead serious. “You’re gonna blow away. I’ll have to fatten you up before winter gets worse.”

A silent beat passed and I’m sure he saw the insult registering on my expression because his face did something complicated, like a wince. “That. That was weird. I mean—” He gestured at the sky, at the gray clouds, at my hoodie. “It’s cold. Calories. Survival, you know?”

I stared. Was he calling me weak?

Out loud, my voice came out flat. “I’m fine.”

I took inventory. The track earlier. My desk. Now lunch. Three points made a pattern. Was this a coincidence or was he following me?

I didn’t lean back or lean in. I went still. Prey or predator depended on what he did next but he was human. I was sure I could take him either way.

He ate half his sandwich in two bites and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. With a frustrated look he ran that hand through his hair and adjusted the braided bun.

“Look. I’m not—” He stopped and exhaled. “I cook. A lot. My sister says I’m annoying about it. You eat like a person who forgets.”

“I don’t forget,” I lied.

“Okay.” He didn’t argue. “You eat like a person who’s careful.”

That landed and he saw when it did.

“Come over sometime.” His tone was easier now, like he’d decided. “I’ll make you something you don’t have to be careful about. Something with red meat. Lots of iron.”

The alarm bells were loud. Come over? Alone? Male. New. After he tackled me. After he watched me run. After he covered FREAK with his arm. After he showed up in my biology class and Kelsey’s hand was on him and my eyes went gold.

Say yes, my wolf sang despite my spiraling thoughts.

“Thank you.” It was polite because wolves and men were the same where it counted. Both took rejection as a challenge. “I’m busy. With school.”

I stood, grabbing my bag, and when the book shifted inside I grimaced at the wet sound of ruined paper.

Tiago didn’t stand or block me, he just watched me go.

“Eira.” The first time he’d said my name. He said it like he’d been holding it in his mouth for weeks.

My wolf somersaulted and I wasn't sure why, but I stopped, though I didn’t turn.

“You’re still bleeding.” His voice was low but not teasing or even concerned. Just fact.

I touched my lip and my fingers came away red from how hard I’d bitten it earlier. I wiped it on my jeans and left him.

I didn’t run but I felt him watching until I was around the corner. Felt Kelsey’s glare. Felt my wolf howl once, low, inside my ribs at the distance she claimed I was forcing between us.