Maisie

Quinlan finally pulled back, breaking the kiss with a slow tug on my bottom lip that sent a fresh, traitorous shiver through me.

I was dizzy. Annoyingly flustered.

My knees nearly gave out beneath me and for one horrifying second I actually pitched forward.

His hands settled on my waist automatically.

His smile was edged with masculine satisfaction and arrogance. "Can you walk, cherie?"

The smug tone pulled on the anger I felt inside.

My grip on his shirt tightened and without hesitation, I drove my knee high between his legs. "I am not your cherie."

Quinlan hissed and folded slightly, a pained sound escaping him, but even that did not wipe the heat from his expression. If anything, it only sharpened it.

Goddess, he looked delighted. He grew even harder against my stomach.

"Fuck," he breathed, leaning in close enough to brush my ear. "Keep that up, May, and I’ll rail you right through this door while the whole school watches."

My face flamed.

My pulse tripped.

My body, infuriatingly, did not help me.

I shoved him back with both hands and he stepped away with a low laugh that made me want to hit him again.

I did not trust myself to speak.

Instead, I turned and practically fled into the classroom without looking back at any of them, hoping the rest of the class hadn’t heard or seen any of that.

"Lucky bitch," someone muttered.

The comment, and the sheer number of shocked faces inside the room, confirmed what I already knew. The door had not blocked nearly enough.

Gods, but I hate them.

"May!" Regina waved me over and I nearly sobbed with relief, sliding into the empty seat beside her, legs pressed tightly together, trying desperately to ignore the aching need still pulsing between my thighs.

"So," Regina said, grinning from ear to ear. "That was some kiss, huh?"

"Please tell me you didn’t hear any of that," I groaned.

Jenny supplied from the chair behind mine. "Oh we all did. Can’t you tell?" She leaned back in her seat and rubbed her stomach. "Quinlan’s accent got me pregnant."

Regina fanned herself, feigning a choke and wheeze. "I think I passed out. I need mouth to mouth. The russian’s mouth preferably."

"You got one more room in your mansion for me, Maisie?" Jenny batted her lashes and rolled her hair around her finger. "I need a two week trip to Crest Hill. To get in shape, of course."

"And lots of birth control, too," Regina supplied and started making smoochy faces at me.

"And I think you both need to go jump in a pool," I growled, shoving my bag open to pull out my notebook, and that was when he walked in.

Last week, Regina had told me Lana’s pregnancy was still being kept quiet. Cole still didn’t want to take responsibility for it and the Braxtons had been going back and forth with Alpha Dante to fix their alliance and a wedding date. She had mentioned Cole had seemed a shell of himself during those meetings and rarely paid any attention, but I didn’t expect... this.

Cole Hayes looked... terrible.

His green eyes had dulled. He’d lost weight since the last time I saw him. His high cheekbones looked gaunt. His sweatshirt hung loosely on his frame. There were deep buckets of dark circles underneath his eyes. His lips looked pale and chapped. His blonde hair was thin and looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in ages.

Horror had me staring at him and blinking hard, rapidly. What on earth happened to him?

As if sensing my stare, Cole glanced at where I was seating. And then he froze. His eyes widened. And the entire class seemed to stall its breath as he broke his stride and started walking our way.

The closer he drew, the less I knew what to expect. And when he finally came to a halt in front of my desk, I made a silent promise to myself that if he called me a slut or acted the fool, I would break his front teeth.

But he didn’t. Cole stared at me. And stared at me.

He seemed incapable of words, green eyes roving over my face. My hair. My eyes. My cheekbones. My nose. My lips. The marks on my neck. My wrist. My body. Up and down. Down and up.

There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and feverishly bright look in his eyes as he whispered, "Maisie. Please. We need to talk."

It was the most polite he’d ever spoken to me in his life. But it didn’t matter. "We have nothing to talk about."

"YOU DON’T—" he growled and I flinched back into my chair despite myself at the agitation and sudden aggression with which he grasped the edge of my desk.

It wasn’t so often Cole let this ugly side of him out in front of everyone. He was trembling. Hard. And he swallowed, brought his voice low. "You don’t understand. It’s killing me."

The pain in his voice was raw, cracking it with desperation.

"Back the hell up, Hayes," Regina warned.

I didn’t think he heard her at all. I didn’t think he realized he was making a scene. Or he was in a classroom, with more than half of the students here being members of his pack. He kept looking at me like I was his redemption.

"Please, Maisie. It’ll only be for a minute," he pleaded again.

"No. Go find someone else to bother," I said firmly and dismissed him, glancing back down at my notebook.

I felt the current of violence ripple through the air. Everyone felt it. It was the Alpha aura pouring off him as usual, crippling the entire class, except me. It was suffocating enough to make me pause. It was rage. And fear. And a bunch of complicated emotions that I didn’t think he realized he was even throwing it off in the first place.

I was sure the entire school felt the ripple. And if they did, I could count on one hand how many seconds it would take before my mates arrived and killed him.

And while they could claim they had proper justification for it, I really wasn’t in the mood for any of that posturing.

I stood, brushing past him, and without looking back, I threw the order over my shoulder. "Come."

Cole Hayes fell in step behind me. And followed.

I halted in the hallway outside and though he was still the same bastard and he still towered above me, he looked nothing as intimidating as he used to. Spend enough time around Lycan males who defied regular proportions and a temperamental, sulking Alpha hole didn’t seem like much of a problem anymore.

I crossed my arms. "Give me one reason why I should waste any of my time on you."

"This," Cole said, grabbing the hem of his shirt and yanking it up to flash me a few of his naked torso.

I swallowed a gasp.

His chest and stomach were covered in bruises.

Purple. Blue-black. Red.

Everywhere.

Not just on his ribs. Across his torso. Around his sides. Down toward his waist.

And I recognized it. I recognized it so intimately, I took a step back from him.

His eyes were wide with fear. "The bond is killing me, Maisie."

Well.

If I didn’t believe the moon goddess had a wicked sense of humor before, I certainly did now.