Chapter 43

Ava looked down at the stripes on her brand-new blazer. An Alpha. She had Alpha stripes.

Zeke came out of his dressing room, still adjusting his tie.

“Looking good, Alpha,” he said with a grin.

“This is so weird,” she muttered.

She’d become so used to wearing her plain blazer that the added stripes made it look like a different uniform.

“Get used to it,” Zeke said, dropping a kiss on her head as he pulled her into him and met her eyes in the mirror.

They looked like a power couple. She had never been one of the popular kids while growing up, so being with Zeke felt a little unreal. If only their problems were about jealous girls and deciding what clothes to wear to a party instead of the Council.

He was more content today, as she was. Being alone by the lake all night had done them some good, and she felt more hopeful that they could pull this off. It was probably the excess oxytocin in their bodies. She blushed as she looked away from her handsome mate and wished again that they had the usual problems.

Zeke grinned and then kissed her cheek before he released her.

“Samantha and Julie have cooked up another feast for you. I’m starving; let's go and eat in case we have to skip lunch.”

She'd smelled the food while they had still been in the shower. It was Samantha who’d met them at the door when they had returned not too long ago, and she’d had the parcel from the dean containing her new uniforms and paperwork for her change of classes.

She heard voices before she reached the bottom of the stairs and realised it was Derek arguing with...Samantha?

“Seriously, who’s Omega are you?” Derek said.

“You have to wait for Alpha Ava,” Samantha said.

That...That sounded so odd.

And the fact that the Omega was speaking back at all was surprising. She looked at Zeke with a raised brow as they walked towards the dining room.

“But I’m starving, and you’ve cooked everything,” Derek added. “Why did you have to cook everything?”

“Because I don’t know what she likes yet.”

“She eats everything. You’ve seen her,” Myles said with a snort.

When they stopped at the door, she saw that Samantha and Julie were actually guarding the food.

She couldn’t believe they were still cooking for her after what she had done. Were they not scared? And it could have been any one of them, instead of Emily, murdered by the vampire.

“Good morning, Alpha,” Julie said when she saw them and lowered her head.

Zeke nudged her, and she realised that greeting was meant for her.

“Oh...Good morning,” she said awkwardly.

“I hope you enjoy your breakfast,” Samantha said, finally stepping away from guarding the table.

“I’ve told you guys to stop doing that,” she said when she saw the spread.

The food looked amazing. She drooled a little, and her stomach grumbled loudly.

“The first shift takes it out of you. You’ll need plenty of rest and nourishment for a while,” Samantha explained.

She didn’t tell them she’d felt perfectly fine after a nap as Zeke led her to a chair. It was only after she sat that Derek and Myles took their sets, too. She could still feel their nervousness without her wolf lending her a hand. And then she could feel Samantha and Julie’s nervousness even though they had cooked the feast to impress her. Maybe she had been too hasty to assume they were not scared of her.

“Please,” she said to them, “sit and eat. Just because they said you can’t live here doesn't mean anything has changed in this house.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Julie answered.

She didn’t know how she felt about that. It felt like a betrayal of sorts. She’d been one of them, and now they had to lower their gazes when they spoke to her.

The meal was a little strained, and though the food was delicious, she couldn’t wait to leave the house despite what she knew waited for her outside these walls. Surprisingly, Derek and Myles came into Zeke’s car and sat in the back. She’d assumed they would choose to go by themselves. Though they had met in the basement a couple of times since, she still couldn’t face them.

She had shifted to protect them because she considered them friends after everything they had gone through together, and now her only real friend was Zeke.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” she whispered when Zeke parked the car.

“You saved our lives,” Derek said. “Don’t apologise for that.”

“Yeah, but...I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t express how she felt. They had been there when she had admitted she was willing to sacrifice other students at the school for her father’s life. If that didn’t make her a heartless, dangerous bitch then she didn’t know what did.

“The first time Zeke shifted, he almost killed us. I’m sure we can get over what you did,” Myles said.

She looked back at them, and they smiled at her, but she knew they wouldn’t treat her the same now.

When she got out of the car, she felt eyes on her, not just from the students but also whatever magic Mr Hansson was using to spy on them.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Zeke asked.

“No, I’ll be fine.”

Maybe she should have said yes. Having the other students go the other way when they saw her or refuse to spar with her had been depressing the other day, and now she would be starting new classes as if it was the first day all over again.

It felt odd when she was seated in her first Business Foundations class and not Housekeeping. It was what she had wanted, but she still felt like a traitor. Like her people were the Omegas, and she was a fraud there with the Alphas.

“Miss Morgan.”

She looked up at the professor and realised he had been speaking to her all along. Professor. Not Instructor. She was finally doing college how it was meant to be.

“I said I will send you some work to your tablet to help you catch up and assign someone to help you.”

Tension rose in the classroom. No one would want that job; even the professor knew that. But she nodded and looked down at her work.

“I can help her.”

She was shocked when she heard that voice. Douche Dexter. He looked at her warily, but she hadn’t had any issues with him since the incident with his dad.

“Thank you, Mr Smith,” the professor said. “Now, in our last lesson...”

She had never had so much preferential treatment in her life. Since her lessons were no longer in one building, she went to the wrong building for her next class, and when she finally found the right one, she was more than fifteen minutes late. No one threatened her with detention. It might have been because they were scared of her, but she was pretty sure that was the standard for all the Alpha blood students. The divide between the students was so glaringly obvious that she wondered why everyone else was okay with it.

She hated the system more now that she was on the other side.

She was so glad when lunchtime came. She rushed out of her last class but stopped when she saw who was leaning against the pillars outside the door. Andrei and Diego looked at her so intently that she felt shivers run down her spine.

Was it already time for her decision?

“We’re coming for lunch,” Alpha Diego said.

“Tell your friends. I think it's time we all sit down and have a little chat about the future," Andrei added.