Chosen by the Ruthless Alpha

Four

The unfamiliar scent disappeared before I was able to fully place it.

I stopped near the row of tall windows at the end of the hallway. My gaze looked out over the student parking lot while irritation slowly prickled beneath my skin.

Thick clouds had started gathering over the mountains in the distance, turning the sky a dull gray that made everything outside feel colder than it actually was. Students wandered across the pavement in groups, laughing loudly enough that even through the glass I could hear pieces of conversation. Teachers moved between cars with coffee cups in hand and exhaustion rolling off them in waves.

Normal. Everything looked normal. Yet, the hairs along the back of my neck still stood upright.

“You gonna tell us what’s wrong?” Jade asked quietly from behind me.

I didn’t answer immediately. Instead, I inhaled slowly through my nose, searching again for the scent beneath the overwhelming mix of cleaning chemicals, cafeteria food, perfume, rain-soaked pavement, and human.

It had vanished now. Either whoever it belonged to had already moved away from the school or it had been too faint for me to properly catch in the first place.

“I smelled something strange,” I finally murmured.

Kyle immediately straightened beside Jade. “Rogue?”

“I don’t know.” My eyes narrowed slightly as I continued scanning the parking lot. “But it wasn’t from our pack.” The words settled heavily between us.

White Wolf territory stretched far beyond the boundaries of our actual village. Humans unknowingly spent their entire lives living safely within our borders without realizing it. Rogues usually avoided stronger pack territories unless they were desperate, stupid, or had a death wish. Unfortunately, rogues often tended to be some unfortunate combination of all three.

“Do you think they’re watching one of the Charges?” Jade asked quietly.

My jaw tightened. Maybe. Or maybe I was letting Alpha Jon’s call get into my head.

Protectors were trained to notice everything. Strange scents. Strange movement. Strange behavior. Most of the time, it amounted to absolutely nothing. But sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes one missed detail cost lives.

A sharp bell suddenly rang through the hallway. Doors to classrooms swung open immediately.

Teenagers flooded into the corridor in loud waves, voices piling over each other until it felt like the walls themselves were vibrating with noise. I resisted the urge to rub at the bridge of my nose.

Humans were loud. Incredibly loud.

“God,” Kyle muttered. “How do they do this every day?”

“Poorly,” I replied.

“Fair.”

Movement caught my attention, and my eyes move in time to see Will emerge from his classroom. His backpack hung lazily over one shoulder while he talked to another boy from his history class. He laughed at something the other teenager said, the sound carrying through the crowded hallway before his eyes found me standing near the windows.

Immediately, his expression changed. “Oh no,” he groaned while walking toward us. “That look means you’re thinking too hard.”

I slowly raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You get this wrinkle right here.” He pointed between my eyebrows. “Means either someone annoyed you or you’re planning violence.”

Kyle snorted.

Jade crossed her arms. “That narrows it down absolutely nowhere,” she said.

Will ignored her completely. “What happened?” he asked.

I hesitated, but only briefly. “I caught an unfamiliar scent.”

His entire posture changed. Gone was the sixteen-year-old who complained about school and failed his driver’s test twice. Future warrior stood in his place.

“Human?” he asked quietly.

“No.”

“Rogue?”

“I said I don’t know.” His eyes darkened slightly. “Until we get back to territory,” I continued calmly, “you stay close to me.”

“I’m always—” He started, but I cut him off.

“Closer.”

Will begins to argue. “Raven—”

“William.”

“I’m sixteen,” he says, exasperated.

I raise a brow. “And?”

“And I can handle myself.”

“You got pinned into a ditch this morning.”

“That was different.”

“It really wasn’t.”

Kyle laughed earning him a glare from Will. “Traitor,” he muttered.

“Correct,” Kyle said.

Despite the lingering tension twisting beneath my ribs, the corner of my mouth almost pulled upward. Almost.

That was the problem with Will. He made it entirely too easy to forget that emotions complicated things. Complicated people. Complicated leadership. And leadership was already difficult enough.

Will spent the rest of the school day proving that despite being chosen by the Elders to someday become one of White Wolf’s strongest warriors, he still possessed an extraordinary ability to irritate me.

It started during gym. It somehow got worse after lunch.

And by the time final period rolled around, I was strongly considering whether exile from the pack might actually be more peaceful than spending two more years following a sixteen-year-old around high school hallways.

“Raven!”

I lifted my head from where I leaned against the wall outside Will’s final class His voice alone told me trouble was approaching.

A few seconds later, he rounded the corner at a run, backpack half-zipped and hanging dangerously off one shoulder while three human boys followed behind him, laughing.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

“William Martin,” I said slowly.

He immediately slowed. “I know that tone.”

“You should.” The words were low, full of the promise to handle whatever he just got himself into.

“I didn’t do anything,” Will said defensively.

One of the boys behind him snorted. “Will nearly got himself detention,” another said.

My eyes slowly shifted toward Will. “Explain.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he started.

I cut him off, my voice firm. “I said explain.”

There was a pause. “The teacher asked a question.”

I raised a brow. “And?”

“I answered it.”

“That usually isn’t detention-worthy.”

“It was health class.”

Something dangerous settled into the silence.

I folded my arms. “William.”

“It sounded funnier in my head.”

One of the boys lost whatever battle he had been fighting not to laugh. “He asked if wolves traveled in packs,” one of them said.

My stomach dropped. No. No way. Please no.

“And?” I said carefully.

Will visibly considered lying. Unfortunately for him, I knew him too well. “I said—” He coughed awkwardly. “I said technically yes.”

I closed my eyes. “William.”

“And then he asked how I knew—”

“William.”

“And I said because my family owns a lot of dogs—”

“William.”

“And then someone barked—”

“William!”

“—and then Kyle started howling from across the room!”

The hallway fell silent for a full three seconds. I stared at Will and he stared back. His friends, sensing the tension, immediately abandoned him.

Cowards.

“Tell me,” I said carefully, “that you did not nearly expose our species because Kyle Bennett decided to become a comedian.”

“I didn’t expose anything,” Will argued, throwing out a hand.

“You started the conversation, Will.”

“I finished it, too.”

“Poorly,” I add.

“Exceptionally.”

“You are going to be training all weekend,” I growled as more students pushed by.

“What?” Genuine horror crossed his face. “Raven—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re not getting out of it.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I absolutely can,” I reply.

Rain had started sometime during the final period. Not enough to soak anything yet, just enough to leave a sheen over the pavement outside the school’s front entrance. It painted the sky an ugly shade of grey.

Students poured out around us in waves, backpacks bouncing against shoulders, laughter and conversation filling the air while they hurried toward waiting cars before the weather decided to fully break open.

Will fell into step beside me as we headed toward the parking lot, sneakers scraping lightly against damp concrete. “You’re evil,” he muttered.

I rolled my eyes in response. “I’ve been told.”

“Multiple times?” he asked, raising a brow.

“Consistently,” I said with a shrug.

Will studied me for a moment with slightly narrowed eyes. “You enjoy this.”

My lips twitched with a smirk. “Deeply.”

A group of freshmen cut across our path, nearly clipping Will’s shoulder. Instinct kicked in before thought did. My hand caught the back of his hoodie and pulled him a half-step closer without breaking stride The teenagers kept moving.

Will slowed and I immediately knew what expression he was wearing without even looking. “No,” I said flatly.

His gaze returned to me. “No what?”

“No to whatever you’re thinking,” I clarify.

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

I let out a small laugh. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Will looked away from me, his gaze returning to the sea of students in front of him. “Future Beta, my ass,” he grumbled under his breath.

“I heard that,” I snapped.

“You were supposed to.”