Gabriel fell into step beside her as she was leaving Dorm A half an hour later. She was showered and dressed for the day in a pair of spandex shorts and one of Kilian’s T-shirts that she was pretending she had picked up by accident after he unloaded most of her clothes into his closet.
“Puppy.” Gabriel yawned, looking down over Alpha Hill as the sun climbed higher, turning the colourful desert flowers into vivid, beautiful hues of yellow, orange, and red. “Can I persuade you to reschedule your practise time and come to group session instead?”
Her shoulders hunched in a little, feeling the constrictions of her situation tightening around her, but she fought to keep her tone free from any of the strain. “Sure. Thanks for, you know—” She waved her hand awkwardly. “—the help.”
He just stared back at her, his russet eyes murky, his features so perfect and symmetrical that they almost distracted her away from the fact that there was no emotion on his face whatsoever. “No problem. We’ve got the situation handled.”
She pulled out her phone to reschedule her practice sessions, knowing that whoever was keeping an eye on her calendar would inform her father. He usually returned to the academy on Sunday evenings but didn’t expect her to see him until Monday. He liked to question her on every single minute change to her routine, her classes, and her social media feed.
Reed caught up to them as they reached the bottom of the stairs, falling in on her other side without a word.
Halfway there, she stumbled, and both of them stopped, a hand on each of her biceps, staring down at her with narrowed eyes and sharp attention, watchful and alarmed.
They seemed even more worked up about Eve returning than she was.
“What is it?” Reed’s attention swept down to her chest.
“Cian said this session is going to take a few hours.” She swallowed as they released her. “Sorry, I was just wondering how you endure a few hours of … that.”
Reed rolled his eyes, and they both started walking again, Gabriel’s hand low on her spine urging her to keep pace.
“It’s a singing lesson,” Reed—Elijah said. She might as well use his name, since he was now her sort-of roommate and she was his sort-of captive.
She might as well use all their names.
“It’s hardly taxing,” Reed added on. Elijah, dammit.
It was harder with him. He was so cold, so unfeeling, so analytical. She didn’t feel like they were friends at all.
“Right.” She focussed on the path ahead of her, the urge to ask Elijah about his illegal power and why he refused to use it popping back up into her throat no matter how many times she pushed it down.
When the urge grew unbearable, she pulled out her phone and sent a quick group message.
Isobel: I should know exactly what all your abilities are if they’re going to suddenly appear inside me without warning.
Both Alphas pulled out their phones as Elijah pushed open the door to the fitness centre, leading them toward Easton’s usual room. He groaned quietly. “Moses is going to jump on that.”
They entered the room, finding it empty. It was the first time she had ever arrived before everyone else.
Elijah and Gabriel moved to dump their bags on the floor beside the door and Isobel dropped her own belongings, tying up her hair just in case Easton made her exercise with the others.
Theodore and Moses walked into the room, both of them adding their stuff to the now-growing pile.
“You really want to know?” Moses asked out of nowhere, his dark eyes lit with some sort of challenge as he brushed past her, waving his phone in the air.
“Ah, yes?” she said to his back.
Theodore tucked his phone back into his bag before dropping his arm over her shoulders and steering her to the stretching mat.
“How you feeling, pretty?” His lips delivered the question into her hair a second before he pressed her down to the mat, and then scooted a few inches away to start stretching.
She arranged herself to copy his exercises, but before she could answer him, Moses was hovering by the edge of the mat.
“For the record, I don’t think anyone will appear inside you without warning, so you don’t have to worry about their level of ability.”
“Shut the fuck up, you idiot.” Theodore pounced forward, tackling Moses to the mat, the crash of their bodies narrowly missing her.
She scooted closer to the wall, continuing her stretches with an annoyed look on her face to hide the embarrassment that wanted to flush over her cheeks instead.
“You’re an animal,” she grumbled, as she bent over her outstretched legs and found herself face to face with Moses, Theodore holding his head tight against the mat.
He laughed darkly, throwing Theodore off him, and switching their positions.
“That’s what you should be able to do by now,” Niko stated dryly, standing at the edge of the mat, and pointing to Moses.
She glanced over his shoulder, noting that Kilian, Cian, and Sato—Oscar—had also arrived.
“Yeah, exactly.” She bit her lip as she looked up at Niko. “So why can’t I?”
They teased each other sometimes when they were wrestling, but he didn’t usually react the way he was now: by falling silent, his nostrils flaring, his eyes tracing the way she stretched before darting off to the side.
“I guess you had a good sleep,” he muttered, falling down beside her and pressing her back down again, forcing her deeper into the stretch. “No excuse to be lazy, though.”
She huffed, trying to shrug him off. “This is Professor Easton’s session, not yours.”
He snorted. “This is Professor Easton’s vocal session. He can keep your throat. I’m the one in charge of your body.”
“Ni-ko.” Moses flopped off Theodore, his laughter sudden and deep. “You make it too easy.”
Niko scowled. “I obviously didn’t mean it like that.”
Moses rolled to his side, that devilish eyebrow of his jumping up again as he leaned on his elbow, propping his chin into his hand. “Her spine is in the wrong position.”
“It is not,” Isobel snapped back.
“Actually, it is,” Niko said. “Sit up.”
He waited for her to obey before he shifted partially behind her, flattening his hand to her stomach, his other hand pressing just above her mid-back.
“Straighten up,” he instructed, his breath brushing her neck. “You don’t want that curve when you start to bend.”
Niko never touched her like this.
She tried to correct the position of her spine, but Niko made a dissatisfied sound, both of his hands dropping to her hips, fingers digging in just above her hipbones and pulling back.
That strange, empty feeling that she had woken up with sparked back to life again, even more hollow and cavernous, an ice-cold itch creeping up through her organs.
“Better,” Niko grunted. “Now keep that rotation in your hips, keep your spine straight, and …” He pressed against her back, forcing her to bend over her legs again. He was right. Her spine had been in the wrong position.