Chapter 5

So now—because Fate is a bitch with a mean sense of humor—I’m obsessed with Preston Charge.

I probably cursed myself by saying his name while we cooked the dragon’s tongue. I didn’t even throw salt over my shoulder. Amateur hour.

In my defense, he’s something to watch.

For one, he plays basketball as well as the humans on TV.

He glides down the court, aims the ball, and sinks it into the net—no show, all swish. He gives Kyle Freeman the perfect approximation of a human high five and jogs back to the middle line, his shorts hanging low on his hips, a slight sheen of sweat on his roped shoulders.

My mouth waters. I swallow.

Preston is one hundred percent masterful composure. He makes Human Sport look easy instead of the torture that it is. We’re supposed to learn how to play human games because that’s where they do their real business—make deals, network, whatever that shit means.

Human games are all rules and waiting around. You get penalized for tussling or doing things the easiest way, like going straight from first to the third base or holding the ball while you run to the basket. It’s dumb, and it sucks.

I don’t know why scavengers aren’t excused. It’s not like we’re going to be working with humans when we graduate. Next year, we’ll be living out of the donation box, cleaning up after the nobs, or working on all fours. Everyone knows it, but still, sixth period every day I have to change into a baggy shirt that reads “Sunset Pride Athletics” and too tight shorts made from synthetic itch.

At least the view is nice.

Preston passes effortlessly to a teammate and then scores on the rebound. He’s taller, his moves are smoother, and his instincts are quicker than anyone else on the court. No one can block him.

Next to me on the bleachers, Essie sighs. “I’m with you, Nevaeh-cakes. I’d present for Preston Charge any day of the week.”

My face blazes, and I kind of want to smack her.

“What?” She slides me a smirking glance. “You’re the one who said it.”

I didn’t. Not in those words.

“You have a mate,” I remind her. We’re not rehashing that conversation. Not in broad daylight when Preston is right there and still smelling woodsy in the best possible way.

“Richard? He wouldn’t mind.” Essie scans the gym until she finds him squatting at the sidelines, scratching his midsection, half-watching the game and half-watching her with hooded eyes.

He catches her looking, and he curls his top lip, revealing a long, sharp canine. Essie rolls her eyes.

“I think he’d mind.” Richard gives Essie her space, but he’s never that far away.

“He doesn’t get to mind. Biology is not destiny.” Essie tosses her long black hair, her piercings glittering in the sunlight streaming down from the high gymnasium windows. She’s supposed to take them out for sports class, but she has fifteen—lobes, daith, helix, tragus, anti-tragus, all of ‘em—and she’s not about to bother. That’s why she’s benched.

I’m benched because if you tell the human coach, Mr. Frank, that it’s “that time of the month,” he lets you sit out. I haven’t even shifted yet, and he doesn’t seem to realize that the time of the month is the same for all of us—the full moon, right?—but no one has ever told him because we all want a break sometimes.

Essie bares her fangs back at Richard and snaps her molars. He smirks.

“It is though. We are who we are born to be.” I watch as Preston faces off against his cousin Nick in the center circle. Mr. Frank throws the ball in the air. I know what will happen. Everyone does.

The ball reaches its apex. Preston and Nick both make a show of jumping for it, but Preston is the one to tip it to his second. For a split second, Nick’s eyes shine yellow with his wolf, but he masters himself and keeps playing because Preston outranks him. Preston was born a day earlier than Nick, so Preston will be our next alpha, and that’s that.

Everyone in Sunset Pride pack is born into his place. There’s no fighting it. Biology is destiny.

“What the hell is Bert doing?” Essie cranes her neck, squinting down the court.

My cousin has intercepted the ball, and he’s driving toward the net, bowling into people. He leaps way too high and dunks way too hard. The backboard rattles.

“Oh, shit. We watched that teenage werewolf movie from the 80s the other night.” I don’t want to watch, but I can’t tear my eyes away. Bert’s gonna get in so much trouble.

The whole point of this class is to practice hiding your shifter strength so you don’t freak out the humans on the golf course.

Bert catches his own rebound, spins the ball on the tip of his finger for a minute, and then sprints for the opposite net. Nick’s team goes for him, and he launches himself over their heads, hollering, “Look out! P-speed! Get out the way!”

Now, Preston’s team is on him, too. They’re trying to take the ball. Bert cackles, feinting left and right. Kyle lunges for him. Bert can’t dodge, so he springs up, leaping skyward with a foot on Kyle’s shoulder, grabbing a metal rafter with his claws.

He hangs there swinging for a minute, his tail poking a tent in the butt of his athletic shorts. His fur is thick all over, sprouting out of his collar, puffing his socks. His paws bust through the rubber toes of his sneakers.

Essie and I both rise to our feet, shielding our eyes from the sunlight. Bert lifts himself onto the rafter and starts walking it like a balance beam, the basketball spinning on his index finger.

“I’m the king of the world!” he shouts and throws the ball to the bounce it off the ceiling, beating his chest like a gorilla during the second it takes to drop back down.

Essie blows out her cheeks. “He’s gonna get his ass beat.”

On the court, the action has stopped. Preston and his crew are gathering around Mr. Frank, staring up. Nick and his guys are standing in a semi-circle at the other end of the gym, arms folded, muttering amongst themselves—no doubt about dirty scavengers and how we should be driven from the pack lands like rats. The usual.

“Are you high?” one of Nick’s crew calls up to Bert.

“Yes! About thirty feet, give or take,” Bert answers. Their voices echo.

“He is, isn’t he?” I sigh.

“Most likely.” Essie’s fingers brush her pocket. I bet he’s got her holding his stash.

Like everyone else in the gym, I watch to see what Preston will do.

Technically, Mr. Frank is the instructor, but Preston is in charge. Everyone defers to him, even the human students. They’ve taken the opportunity to trot off to the water fountain. They don’t look so good, especially the female that Bert likes. She’s bent over and heaving.

We’re supposed to go easy on the humans, but it’s hard to gauge if you’re going slow enough. It’s a privilege for a human to earn a spot at Sunset Pride Academy, so they don’t like to show weakness. That human female’s definitely past her limits, though. She’s gonna puke. One of her people should get her a bucket.

Preston is staring up at Bert like a monkey that’s gotten loose at the zoo. Kyle and his other males seem to be offering advice, but he ignores them.

Eventually, Bert deigns to acknowledge his audience and shrieks a few “ooh, ooh, ah, ah’s” while dangling from the rafter one-armed, tossing and catching the ball with the other.

Preston’s chiseled jaw tightens until there are dents in his temple, and the harsh slash of his mouth turns down at the corner. That’s a lot of emotion for the alpha heir.

My stomach slithers into a knot. Bert’s in for it.

I hate watching a scavenger get a beatdown. Even if the unlucky bastard isn’t a relative—and most of us are related somehow, if not by blood than by matehood—it hurts to stand by and do nothing while one of your own gets it.

But what can you do? The unranked have to take what the nobs dish out. If you want to eat, and you want a roof over your head, that’s pack life. Fight back and you get it worse. Or maybe your crazy cousin or uncle jumps in to get your back, and then they get it, too.

Maybe the next day or the next week, they go for a walk, and you don’t see them again.

I shiver. The almost invisible hairs on my arms prickle from goosebumps.

Finally, Preston makes a pronouncement. I can’t hear what he says, but everyone quiets with expectation. Mr. Frank blows his whistle and shouts, “Get down from there, Nevitts!”

Mr. Frank is one of the instructors who calls us by our last names for some reason. It’s dumb. He hollers Nevitts or Kemble or Scurlock, and he could be talking to any one of a dozen of us from the Bogs. We generally don’t respond. If he bitches, we say we thought he meant our cousin.

Bert, of course, ignores the command. He hoists himself back onto the rafter and walks it like a tight rope, staggering a few steps and wobbling for effect. The humans gasp.

You’d think after four years with us, they’d have a sense of what we can do. A three-story fall is nothing.

Bert begins to bounce the ball. It hits the rafter funny, goes off at an angle, and he reaches for it. For a second, it looks like he’s going to lose his footing. A human female screams.

I guess freaking out the humans is the line.

Preston Charge shakes his head, and without a hint of urgency, he jogs for the climbing rope, lifts himself hand-over-hand, his legs a dead weight, and then swings himself onto the rafter. The whole sequence is one seamless sequence.

He catches Bert in three strides. Bert squawks, and Preston hoists him bodily over his shoulder like an errant pup. It’s like a Great Dane’s got a pug.

Preston steps off the rafter and lands on the court so lightly that his sneakers don’t even squeak.

“My hero!” Bert shouts from upside down.

“Idiot,” Essie mutters.

“What’s Preston gonna do?” I ask, but I know. My stomach is sloshing. Now it feels like there’s a rock in there, rolling around.

“Kick Bert’s ass.” Essie’s face goes hard. Her hands clench, but her claws stop her from making a fist. “Bert’s been a bad wolf.”