Unwinnable Page 3

  Her hands slid across my thighs, her fingernails skating over my skin, and she looked up at me curiously, as if she were trying to read my enjoyment. My thighs tensed as my cock twitched in her mouth.

  “I’m going to come,” I warned her, and she almost smiled around my cock but didn’t stop, drawing me in over and over again. One of her hands went to my shaft, working up and down steadily, her pace quickening, her tongue stroking up and down faster. The evident joy she felt was the sexiest damn thing in the world, and I shattered in her mouth, my fingers squeezing the edge of the hot tub.

  She looked up at me, swallowing, and wiped her arm across the back of her mouth.

  “You are the most amazing girl,” I whispered. Then, because I knew what she would say, I added, “and it’s not because of the blowjob. You’re beautiful,” I kissed her cheek to punctuate my words, sweeping her hair back behind her ear, “and smart and kind,” I kissed the corner of her mouth, “and don’t tell Rafe this, but you’re the true leader of our team.”

  She grinned, and I kissed her fully, deeply, as her arms twined around my neck.

  With Maddie by my side, I really did feel like maybe I could tackle anything.

  Chapter Four

  Maddie

  I loved Jensen McCauley dearly, but the man and I were about to come to blows.

  “This is straight,” I said, jerking a folding chair back into place.

  All the teams were involved in various chores around the academy preparing for the onslaught of visitors; ours was out on the quad, arranging chairs in front of the temporary wooden stage another team was decorating. At least we were out in the sunshine and staying busy enough not to obsess too much about my favorite cadre leaving me behind.

  He crouched, squinting down the line of chairs we were supposed to be lining up. “No, there’s a definite curve.”

  “You’re just making things up to antagonize me,” I accused.

  He straightened, crossing his arms over his chest. “That is a hobby of mine, yes. But in this case, you apparently just can’t tell a straight line from meandering chairs.”

  “You’re not going to make it to graduation if you keep annoying me, McCauley,” I told him, before I bobbed up onto my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck.

  “Oh? What are you going to do to me?” he murmured, and even though I was trying to make dire threats here, his voice had gone husky.

  Apparently, the man didn’t find me scary at all, even though from what I’d heard, half the academy would rather not fight me in the pits. No one wanted to get their asses kicked by a girl.

  “Maybe I’ll bite you,” I murmured, fisting his t-shirt in one hand to drag him down closer to me before I pressed my lips to the side of his throat.

  “Sounds like a promising start,” he said, his hands spanning my hips, his fingertips brushing the curve of my ass.

  “And then—” I began.

  Rafe’s voice cut into our moment. “Well, the first six rows of chairs are straight, but why does it go to hell after that?”

  Jensen grinned at me.

  I released his shirt, patting his chest. “Maybe I’m not going to bite you in the fun way.”

  “Oh, Maddie, there’s no way you can touch me that doesn’t turn me on,” he said, his voice low. He acted so wild for me that it was impossible not to smile, even if he did make me crazy.

  Right before I turned into Rafe’s irritated gaze. He somehow managed to glare at me while he dragged chairs around.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed for the ceremony?” I demanded. “We don’t need you to supervise us.”

  “Oh, apparently you do,” he said. “Because otherwise, you’ll get distracted from your work by kisses and kinky asides.”

  “I mean, I do really like both those things,” I admitted, before Rafe pointed down the row, silently telling me to shut up and move chairs. I spoke fluent Rafe at this point; his eyebrows had a language all their own. An angry language, usually.

  “Anyway, you’re not going to be around to supervise us next year,” I reminded him as I pulled chairs into place. “We’ll be on our own. Imagine that. Chairs could be left crooked. Ties unknotted.”

  Rafe paused, his hands on the backs of two chairs, and leaned toward me, although there were two rows of chairs between us. “Why are you trying to annoy me?”

  I shrugged, smiling back at him.

  “Ah,” he said, as if understanding had just dawned. He nodded, then went back to arranging chairs.

  I didn’t know how to take that, but he added as he moved down the row, “Be careful what you wish for, Maddie.”

  “I’ve waited a long time for what I wish for,” I told him. “I’m actually wondering if you can possibly live up to the expectations you’ve built.”

  He nodded, not looking at me as he moved down the row tweaking chairs into place, and I wondered if I’d gone a bit too far. I adjusted the last few chairs in my row, and then headed toward a new one.

  Rafe was just exiting his row, and he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. Butterflies rose in my stomach, as always when Rafe was near me. He leaned close, so close his aftershave washed over me even though no part of his body touched me except that firm hand on my shoulder.

  “If that other team weren’t here, I’d take you over my knee right here in front of the rest of the guys,” he warned me.

  His low voice sparked a warm throb between my thighs.

  “As long as this time, you finish what you start,” I said.

  “Oh, I’ll decide what we finish when,” he said. “After all, I have to live up to your expectations—and you’ve always made it clear that your expectation is that I’m a bossy, domineering jerk who doesn’t play fair.”

  He squeezed my shoulder gently, a smile playing over his lips, as he moved toward the next row.

  “I never said I hated that, though,” I said, frowning at him.

  I was suddenly a bit worried about all the plans I’d had for Rafe for, oh, the hour after graduation.

  I was dragging a chair into place when I bumped into someone, ass-first. My ass rubbed across a hard, warm body. I didn’t bother to say I was sorry as I straightened, because I wasn’t. I knew it was one of my men.

  It was Ty. His dark blond hair was ruffled in the breeze, his eyes bright. He usually stayed as far away from me as he could these days, and maybe it was because I was out of practice, but my heart stuttered when I saw him.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  Things hadn’t been normal between Ty and me, though we’d tried to settle into a new friendship.

  Still, it was hard to get comfortable as friends when every time he was near me, my body ignited with warmth at the sight of his handsome, unsmiling face, his broad shoulders and the lean taper of his waist, his perfectly straight spine as he carefully didn’t touch me. Just being close to him left my body aching.

  And I constantly remembered that he didn’t want me to feel this way.

  His nostrils flared as if he was trying to breathe my scent but he couldn’t now that he was human. The long, lean lines of his body were tense, as if he were about to go into a fight. But this connection between us was worse than a fight for him. He didn’t want to feel this way, either. He was terrified of it.

  With all that between us, when any casual touch set our hearts racing, it was hard to just relax and pretend anything was normal.

  Penn jumped lightly over the row of chairs and landed between us. He ran his hand through his long hair, pushing it back from his hard-angled face. “Why are you two like this?”

  Penn’s tone was joking as always, but there was a sharp look in his eyes that made me think he was really frustrated.

  Or maybe even…hurt. As if the distance between Lex and me hurt him too.

  Lex stopped with his hand in his pocket, already dressed in his blazer and trousers, and surveyed us all. The rest of us were still in our PT shirts and shorts, which were we
lcome on a warm spring day like today when we were moving around chairs.

  “You all need to get dressed,” he said. “Then Clearborn wants to see us.”

  “Right before the graduation ceremony?” Rafe straightened, running his hand through his hair. There was a look of exasperation written across his face that Clearborn wouldn’t have appreciated, but I decided to keep that thought to myself. Rafe was always stressed when his family was anywhere around.

  Lex checked his watch. “We still have three hours.”

  “The chairs aren’t going to arrange themselves,” Rafe said.

  The man was so cool in an emergency, but he lost his mind over folding chairs. Men are wild.

  Lex frowned. “They look fine.”

  “And that’s why you and I are soul mates,” I told Lex.

  He grinned at me, his sun-streaked brown hair tousled by the wind. He looked so handsome in that school blazer and tie.

  And today was the last time he’d ever wear it.

  Was it possible to feel nostalgic for a time that wasn’t even quite over yet?

  “Fine,” Rafe started.

  Tyson clapped his hands together, interrupting Rafe. “All right, folks. Get showered and dressed. Everyone ready to go in half an hour, out in the hall.”

  Rafe glanced at him, his brows rising.

  Tyson clapped his shoulder as he walked past him toward the dorm. “Sorry, man, you’re moving on.”

  Penn laughed, that brilliant flash of a grin that he always had when someone was getting their head messed with.

  “I’m not going to miss any of you,” Rafe grumbled, but we all knew it was a lie. “I’m fucking thrilled.”

  Half an hour later, we all filed into the anteroom outside Clearborn’s office. McCormac was off somewhere, but Clearborn called from his office, “Come on in.”

  He didn’t need his wolf senses to know when students were lurking outside his office, but then, he probably had a lot of practice. A lot of students stopped out here to marshal their courage before they faced the man.

  I didn’t really mind him anymore, though.

  We headed into his office with a chorus of “Good morning, sir”.

  “I’ve got a deal for you all,” Clearborn said, skipping past the small talk, which was probably for the best given his proficiency with those kinds of social skills. “How would you like to stay together? As one team?”

  Penn glanced at Rafe, then grinned as he said, “I would like that so, so much.”

  Rafe’s face was inscrutable.

  It was Lex who asked, “How would we do that?”

  “No one else really wants to work with you all,” Clearborn said bluntly. “There’s the wizard, the girl, the degenerate—”

  “Which one?” Ty asked, frowning at Penn, then Jensen, as if he wasn’t sure which one of them it was.

  Clearborn waved his hand. “The Council is considering keeping you all together. Those of you who aren’t ready to graduate would still finish serving your time at the academy—”

  Funny how he made it sound like a prison.

  “But you’d be a team, starting now. Rafe and Lex would lead. You’d all be Council’s Own, and you’d take special missions.”

  “And I imagine that starts with a special mission now,” Lex said.

  “That’s right,” Clearborn said. “This is the deal. You guys retrieve the shield of Cain, and you get to stay together.”

  “Really, the packs get what they want,” Ty said slowly. “They get their wolves back, and no one has to worry about their precious cubs going into the misfit team with us?”

  “You can look at it that way if you want to be mad about it,” Clearborn said. “Either way, you’ll attend graduation today with smiles on your faces, act normal with your families—whatever normal is for you people—and be back here tomorrow for the start of your mission.”

  I exhaled a slow breath of relief. The thought that maybe I could stay with these men—if we earned it—was a huge relief.

  “I want you to understand that this solution is quite… unorthodox,” Clearborn said. “So this deal is dependent on how well your team functions on this mission.”

  Why did I have a funny feeling that Clearborn had stuck his neck out for us to get us this deal in the first place? I wondered if some of the other alphas on the Council were trying to block Rafe and Lex from joining anyone else’s team. I could ask Piper about it, but she would never tell me. She was a vault when it came to what happened in those meetings.

  “We won’t let you down,” Lex said.

  We had worked well as a team already, even if we hadn’t graduated yet.

  “I know you’ll make me proud,” Clearborn said, with a confidence that I would’ve believed if I hadn’t heard him express that emotion before.

  But he’d told me he believed in me before he sent me off to the Day, in that same tone of voice, even though I was pretty sure he’d been fifty-fifty on the probability I’d ever make it back alive.

  As we headed back across the quad, Rafe said, “Now you can go back to setting up chairs.”

  “So, set up chairs, then go save the world?” Penn shook his head slowly, as if it were a shame. “No respect.”

  “Nope,” Silas agreed. His eyes were worried, even though he spoke in that usual glib tone. “But I’d rather be one of the misfits than have their respect, anyway.”

  I tucked my hand over his forearm, and he smiled down at me even though I could tell he had feelings about going home in pursuit of the shield of Cain.

  I agreed with him, though.

  I’d rather be one of the misfits, and I didn’t care what anyone else thought, as long as I had them.

  Now I had a chance to keep them.

  Chapter Five

  Lex

  “So, how fucked do you think things are with the Alpha Council?” Penn asked me conversationally. The two of us sat on the steps of the academic building, watching the bustle of campus.

  I didn’t think anyone would overhear us, given the patriotic tunes playing on the outside speakers—which seemed ironic, given that shifters were busy with their own pack wars. Most wolves barely paid attention to the rest of the country. Clearborn, with his service in the Marine Corps, was an anomaly.

  “I doubt Clearborn would’ve tried to cut a deal like that just because he likes us,” I admitted. “I’m sure some of the Alphas are trying to keep Rafe and me out of the Council’s Own.”

  I’d bet we were considered tainted by our misfits. Well, fuck the alphas.

  Penn chewed absently on a toothpick, leaning back on his elbows on the stairs. The academy grounds bustled in front of us, filled with visiting families and packs here to celebrate their grads.

  “I’m sorry, Lex,” he said quietly, and the words surprised me. “I know what we all have cost you.”

  There was something about being seen like that which made me feel a surge of emotion. I shrugged, though, as if it meant nothing. “Worth it.”

  Penn pulled a face, as if he were skeptical. He turned his face up toward the sun as if he were enjoying its rays on his face. “We’ll try.”

  Something tightened in my chest. I didn’t have my family or my pack visiting here today. No one I grew up with gave a fuck about me, in the end. But I had Penn and Maddie and the rest of our crew.

  And, unexpectedly, Clearborn was on my side, trying to find a way to still wrangle our dreams into existence, despite how everything had gone to hell over the last year.

  I wouldn’t believe that I was really joining the Council’s Own until I had that sword in my hand.

  If I didn’t?

  I still would choose Maddie and Penn and the rest of my team.

  But the sense of loss, of wanting something that I wasn’t sure I’d ever have, and of trying to steel my heart not to care—it left a restless sense running through my limbs. I rose to my feet, shoving the hem of my blazer up to stick my hand into my pocket.

  Penn went on reclining under
the sun, his adam’s apple working faintly in his throat as he toyed with the toothpick in his mouth.

  “Are you going to call Rosemary?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

  Penn and I had bonded over the past few months, without our rank between us, over our sisters. We both wanted our sisters to come to the academy and realize their full potential. But they refused. Rosemary threatened to never talk to me again if I encouraged her to leave our old pack one more time.

  She wouldn’t tell me if she was still flirting with the alpha, the one who had almost broken me. I tried to tell myself she didn’t realize that the alpha had punished me by chaining me in his yard, beating me half to death, and leaving me cold and starved. I told myself that if she knew, she wouldn’t want to be with him.

  But I wasn’t sure.

  “She hasn’t answered my calls for a month or so,” I said. More like two, honestly. I texted her sometimes, asking her to just let me know she was alive. She’d texted me back once, just two words: drama queen.

  “The two of you don’t see your pack the same way,” he observed.

  I nodded. That was an understatement.

  He must have realized I didn’t want to talk about it, because he sat up on his elbows. “At least Mel hates me for a legitimate reason. I’m a total asshole.”

  I had to grin at that.

  “I wouldn’t say total,” Mel said as she came down the steps from the academic building. “But at least you’re self-aware.”

  She sat down gracefully on the step next to Penn, her skirt billowing out. She shared his dirty-blond, slightly untamed wavy hair, which made her look mussed no matter how perfect her makeup was.

  “Lex and I were just discussing how anyone else in the pack would take my advice to heart,” Penn said.

  She scoffed at that. “Because of fear of violence, Alpha. Not because you’re wise.”

  “Not always,” Penn agreed. “But when I tell you to come to the academy, I am right.”

  He slipped his sunglasses off to smile at her fondly, something real and genuine in it. “This place would be good for you. And you’d be good, too.”