The Alpha's Hidden Mate

Roomies

*Ember*

Kyan’s icy blue eyes lock on my face, and my jaw involuntarily drops open. You’ve got to be shitting me! Of all the roommates I could’ve possibly gotten–it’s this guy?

He doesn’t exactly look happy at first, either. I can’t quite read the emotions that tumble across his face before he puts on a practiced, royal smile, and takes a few strides toward me. “Hi. I’m Kyan Stone, Granite Pack.” He extends a massive hand, and I stare at it a beat too long. He’s about to withdraw it, probably offended, when my manners click into place, and I slip my tiny feminine hand into his.

I give his hand the firmest shake I can muster under the circumstances, but he probably feels like a kitten is tickling his paw. “Emory Fireraker. Fire Pack.”

Suspicion clouds his blue eyes for a moment, but he nods politely. “Nice to meet you. You’re in two sixty-six?” He bends to look at my paperwork, and I can’t blame him. I’m certain he’s hoping there’s been some sort of a mistake, and he’s not fated to be my roommate.

Reluctantly, I show him the sheet with my assigned room number written on it. “So it seems.”

He smiles, but it’s just a slight upturn of the corners of his mouth, nothing genuine. “Cool. Well, come on in. I took the top bunk, but if you want it–”

“No, that’s fine,” I assure him, tossing my bag on the bottom bunk. A pile of sheets and a blanket and pillow sit on the end, suggesting we are to make our own beds. I’m not sure I even know how since the castle staff usually does that, but I’ll figure it out.

Kyan returns to looking out the window, so I go about deciphering the riddle that is a fitted sheet. I start by moving my bag off the bed, as well as the blanket and pillow. Then, I hold it up, my forehead crinkling as I take it on. It seems simple enough, but when I put one corner on, then move to the other side, that one pops off. I try for, like, five minutes and have gotten nowhere when a loud sigh escapes my mouth.

A sound like I’ve never heard before hits my ear. I turn my head to realize it’s Kyan laughing. It sounds… magical somehow. My stomach flips over. What the hell is wrong with me?

“Need some help?” He comes over and grabs the corner I’ve been fighting most recently, tugging it down over the mattress. “I’ll hold this one while you get the opposite one.” He points at the part of the mattress catty cornered from where he’s standing, so I move over and grab that part of the sheet, demanding it into place. When it sticks, we do the other two, and I nearly collapse onto the bed, tired from a workout that shouldn’t count for anything at all.

How am I going to make it through Alpha training?

“I guess your mom didn’t get a chance to teach you about sheets, huh?” Kyan is back over by the window, and while I am curious as to what is so interesting out there, I wouldn’t dare get that close to him at the moment, not when I’m sure I smell sweaty and am practically panting.

Instinctively, I almost tell him my mother is dead–but my aunt is not dead–and I’m not Ember, I’m Emory. “She sort of… forgot that one, I guess,” I reply, finally getting the strength to tackle the flat sheet and the blanket. I manage to get them into place–sort of–and toss my pillow to the head of the bed. Now, all I want to do is curl up and go to sleep, and maybe wake up from this nightmare.

“Yeah, my mom made sure she went over everything with me. I guess my grandmother was a bit embarrassed at how ill prepared my father was, so she made sure whomever he married knew how to prepare her son for Academy life.” He snickers, but somehow, I get the idea that not everything he’s telling me is sunshine and roses. There’s a sadness behind his eyes I can’t read.

I don’t pry, though.

“My family is a little different,” I reply, not wanting to share too much, but not wanting to be standoffish either. “We don’t talk a lot. Not about the important things anyway.”

He turns to look at me, and when his eyes meet my face, that roiling feeling deep within me stirs again. I have to look away.

“You’re not close to your family?” His tone seems nonchalant, but his eyes betray an underlying curiosity.

“Some of them, I guess. My cousin–and my sister. But… nah, not our folks. Especially not my uncle.” I can’t help but grimace when I think of my father, how he’s probably looking for me right now so that he can marry me off to that horrid Alpha Gavin.

“You’re not close with Alpha Ross?” Kian asks, still using that same slightly interested yet not uncaring tone that makes me wonder how sincere he is and how much of this is just practice at being royal.

I am surprised he knows my father's name. I have no idea who the current Alpha of Granite Pack is. “Nope, not really. We used to be closer when I was younger, but he’s been… different recently.” I feel a lump forming in my throat that I have to swallow down. Crying about my dead “aunt” in front of Kyan on the first day of Academy is probably a good way to get labeled a sissy and get beaten up. Not by him, but by someone.

Kyan’s head rocks back and forth in empathy. “Sorry. I heard about his wife dying. That had to be rough for the whole pack.”

I meet his gaze again, not intentionally, but I can’t help it, not when he’s referring to my mother and sounds more sympathetic than anyone has outside of Ruby in a long time. “It was.” That’s all I can say, or else I’m going to start crying.

“Well, you’re here now. And… it looks like you’ll be the next Alpha of Fire Pack, so he’s got to respect you.” Kyan manages a faint smile before he lets out a sigh. “Looks like it’s time for dinner. You hungry?”

I glance across the room at the clock on the wall and see that he’s right. Thankful for the reprieve, I pull myself off the bed. “Starving.”

“Me, too.” Kyan places his hand on my shoulder for a brief second in an attempt to let me know he understands that I’m feeling bad about my family situation, but the moment his fingertips land on my body, even through my shirt, I feel a burst of electricity I cannot explain.

A shuddered breath catches in my throat, but I don’t dare look up at him to see if he felt it, too. Whatever the f**k it was, it isn’t good.

I hope he didn’t notice–or we’re both in big trouble.

Huge.