Mated with My Ruthless Bully

Chapter 4

Lucas' POV

I leaned against the hood of my car with the engine ticking as it cooled and every second I waited felt like an insult. This was not how the future Alpha spent his time. Chauffeur duty was the last thing I'd sign for.

The front door opened and Sophia walked out with her head down and a bulky backpack slung over one shoulder. She looked so… small and so breakable. My wolf stirred, with a low curious rumble in my chest but I immediately shoved the feeling down, locking it away behind a wall of cold disgust.

She hesitated by the passenger door.

“Are you just going to stand there all day?” I snapped, my voice colder than the morning air.

She flinched and scrambled inside, practically folding herself into the seat to avoid touching me. Her sweet clean scent filled the car and it was a direct assault on my senses, a cruel joke from the Moon Goddess. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

The drive to campus was a silent war. I could feel her anxiety like a thick fog choking the air between us. My wolf hated it. It hated the tension.. it wanted to comfort her, to nuzzle against her neck and breathe in that damn scent until it was the only thing we knew.

But I hated it more!

I pulled up to the curb with a jerk, the tires scraping against the concrete.

“Get the hell out!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her hand flew to the door handle.

“Th-thank you for the ride, Lucas.”

“It wasn’t a favor,” I said, not looking at her. “It was an order. Don’t expect conversation. Don’t expect anything. You’re a chore I have to endure. Understood?”

She froze for a second with a flicker of pain crossing her face before she shut it down, her expression going blank.

“Understood.”

She slid out of the car and as she shut the door with a sharp, irrational pang of… something… shot through me.

My wolf whined, unhappy with her departure and I growled low in my throat, slamming my palm against the steering wheel.

“Stupid beast,” I muttered.

I watched her hurry away with her form getting smaller and swallowed by the crowd of students. Pathetic.

“Well, well, well. Who was that?”

I looked up and Tyler was leaning in through the open passenger window with a cocky grin on his face.

“Saw you drop someone off. Didn’t know you were into the shy, library type. She’s cute. Your new girl?”

A wave of pure revulsion washed over me.

“Don’t be disgusting,” I snarled, shoving his head back out of the window. “That’s my father’s fiancée’s daughter. My soon-to-be stepsister.”

Tyler’s eyebrows shot up.

“No way. Your dad's engaged? To a human? And she comes with a kid? Wow.” He whistled, looking after her with newfound interest. “Small world.”

“Tell me about it,” I grumbled, getting out of the car and slamming the door. The less we talked about it, the better.

Lunchtime found us at our usual table in the cafeteria. It was our territory, the center of the social universe. Tyler, me and a few other guys from the basketball team... a mix of werewolves and humans who had no idea what they were really sitting with.

And then there was Jake.

He’d just made the team as a backup wide receiver and now thought that gave him a free pass to sit with us. He was loud, clapping people on the back too hard and laughing at his own jokes. My wolf watched him with a deep simmering contempt.

My wolf grumbled internally. 'He is unworthy. He touched what is ours.'

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the thought. She wasn’t ours.. she was a problem.. a human problem.

My gaze, against my will, drifted across the cafeteria and there she was. Sophia.. Sitting alone at a small table in the far corner with a physics textbook propped open next to her tray. She was pushing a limp salad around with her fork, completely oblivious to the social chaos around her.

A fresh wave of bitter disappointment crashed over me. This was my fated mate? A nerdy loner who ate lunch by herself? This was the future Luna of the Blackwood Pack? The woman who was supposed to stand by my side, to command respect and to strengthen my bloodline?

I cursed the Moon Goddess under my breath. What had I done to deserve this?

Tyler followed my gaze.

“Oh, right. That’s her.” He took a bite of his pizza. “You know, I heard some stuff about her.”

I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t.

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of sad,” he continued, ignoring me. “Her mom’s been through, like, a bunch of failed relationships. Sounds like they moved around a lot. Never any money and never stable. Guess that’s why she’s always got her nose in a book. Probably trying to scholarship her way out of that life.”

A strange uncomfortable feeling twisted in my gut.. pity. It was a weak human emotion. I saw a flash of her from last night in my mind... not the girl in the library but the one in my room.. the vulnerability in her eyes and the way she’d trembled…

No.

I crushed the feeling instantly. I didn’t care about her rough childhood and I didn’t care about her struggles. Humans were the reason for my own deepest pain, a scar that had never fully healed. Their weakness, their cruelty… they were all the same.

“Her background doesn’t change what she is,” I said with my voice flat and cold.

I stood up, ready to leave this noisy crowded place and the frustrating thoughts that came with it. Tyler and the guys got up with me but Jake was still chattering away about some play completely oblivious.

We were halfway to the door when a sound cut through the cafeteria din.

A sharp mocking laugh was followed by the sound of a plastic cup hitting the floor and then a splash.

My head snapped toward the corner.

Jessica Monroe, the school’s head cheerleader and a perennial pain in my ass, was standing over Sophia’s table while a group of her friends flanked her, giggling.

A red slushie dripped from Sophia’s hair, down her face, staining her textbook and her white shirt a pathetic pink.

Sophia was on the floor, having clearly jumped back from her seat. She looked up totally humiliated with her eyes wide with shock and welling with tears she was desperately trying to hold back.

“Oops,” Jessica said, her voice sweet and venomous. “Clumsy me. I guess you should look where you’re going, bookworm. This area is for people who actually belong here.”

Rage seized me. And it was instant.. a red-hot fury unlike anything I’d ever felt exploded behind my eyes. The world narrowed to that single point.. my mate, on the ground, wet and publicly shamed.

A dangerous growl rumbled in my chest, so deep I felt it in my bones and my vision sharpened with the colors in the room becoming painfully vivid.

I could smell Jessica’s perfume, the cloying sweetness of the spilled slushie and beneath it all, the sharp acrid scent of Sophia’s distress.

My wolf was right there at the surface with claws out, teeth bared. Its thoughts were a single raging command.

MATE. HURT. PROTECT!

Every muscle in my body tightened and coiled like a spring. The cafeteria fell silent as every eye turned toward the scene.

Jessica took a hesitant step back with her smug smile faltering as she finally saw me approach.

But I didn’t see her. All I saw was Sophia on the floor and the darkness inside me began to rise….!