All We See & Seem (Timber Wolves) (3 page)

Things hadn’t always been this way between the two of them. There was a time when Jase would have apologized for hours if he thought he’d hurt Talley’s feelings, and while he was never Mrs. Matthews’s biggest fan, he did respect her. There were times when Talley wondered how she didn’t get whiplash from how quickly everything had changed.

Once they got to the bottom of the stairs, Jase threw open the door with enough force to make it bounce off the wall and scatter little bits of brick onto the grass. The sun was bright and hot, the temperature shooting past ninety degrees. The humidity seemed even more suffocating with the knowledge that it should be gone by now, allowing autumn to come sweeping in to save them all from melting into tiny human puddles on the sidewalk.

“I assume Walker is on his way back to Arizona now?”

Talley reached up to worry a lock of hair. “Ummmm….”

Again Jase stopped in front of her, but this time she hadn’t been paying attention and almost plowed into him. He stepped to the left just in time, recoiling from their almost-touch like it was a venomous snake ready to strike.

“He’s still here?”

“I have his shirt,” she said, pointing to it as if he was going to forget which shirt she was talking about.

“How is it the noble Mr. Helkamp happened to be on hand at just the right moment to give you his shirt?”

“I wasn’t paying attention when he came up, and he startled me.”

“And he gallantly gave you his shirt out of remorse.” Jase’s eyebrows were doing an annoying arched thing as he looked around. “So is there now a random Shifter wandering around campus half naked?”

“No, he was wearing an extra.”

Jase’s face did something that might have qualified as a smile to someone who didn’t know him as well as Talley did. “How convenient.”

“Jase, you can’t seriously think he orchestrated the whole thing.”

“I can, and I do.”

Talley started walking, refusing to just stand there any longer. If he wanted to keep spouting off crazy to her, then he could follow her to her next class. “What purpose would having me spill a drink down my shirt so I’d have to borrow his serve?” She asked once she certain he was following along behind her.

“Now you’re covered in his scent.” To emphasis his point, Jase wrinkled up his nose. “It marks you as his.”

“I think you’re stretching to come up with some sort of nefarious intent.”

“And I think you’re being played.”

Without meaning to, they had stopped again. Jase was just inches away from her, his green eyes clashing with her blue ones. With him standing this close, her mind flashed back to the dream. The memory of it had been plaguing her since she’d woken up from it days ago. Her hands ached to reach out and touch him like she had then. The urge was so strong she had to ball her hands into fists, digging her fingernails into the soft flesh of her palm to keep from doing something stupid. It had been over a year since Jase allowed her the privilege of touching him. At first, it was merely a bit hurtful, but now it was agonizingly painful.

Talley had always adored Jase. It was impossible not to adore the boy who radiated confidence and joy with every breath he took. Sure, sometimes she found herself thinking unkind thoughts about whatever girl he was dating at the time, but in high school it was more of an isn’t-my-friend-fabulous, I-wish-I-could-get-a-guy-like-that-to-love-me adoration. It wasn’t until a couple of months ago when they’d had to fake being in a relationship that Talley actually allowed her thoughts to go there. And now that she’d let herself think about what it would be like to be loved by Jase, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

And the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to touch him.

To put some distance between herself and temptation, Talley took a step back and then started walking again. Like before, Jase immediately trailed behind her.

“You said you needed to talk to me about something,” she said as they approached the Chem-Phys building.

Jase scanned the area around them, and a familiar knot of dread wound its way into her stomach. “Did you know Toby is in Virginia?”

“Virginia? No.” Like Jase, she was purposefully kept out of the loop when it came to Toby’s whereabouts and actions. “Did he call you?”

“No, Sarvarna did.”

The Alpha Female knew where Toby was, and Jase decide to lead with,
“Whose shirt are you wearing?”
Sometimes Talley didn’t understand him or his priorities in the least.

The biggest problem with being a spy amongst Shifters is you never knew when someone was listening in on your conversation. Jase was pretty good at picking up on another Shifter’s scent, but he wasn’t flawless. Only the most dominant of Shifters could actually listen to a conversation from miles away, but unfortunately those were the exact Shifters they were pitting themselves against. The Alpha Pack was the most elite of their kind, which meant they had the most power and skills. Everyone told her the ability to smell a lie was a myth, but Talley still worried about it. Every conversation, every
thought
made her nervous. She just knew someone would discover the truth, sending both her and Jase to the guillotine intended for Scout.

“How is our majesty today?” Talley asked, noticing how her voice shook.

“Concerned. She worries she doesn’t have Toby’s full allegiance.”

Talley’s mind flashed to a night five weeks ago. Toby, who had always been the embodiment of strength and vitality, was covered in blood. His face was so swollen he was barely recognizable. Even without the power of X-ray vision, Talley could tell three of his fingers were broken. It wasn’t hard since they were bent in a ninety-degree angle.

“I believe Toby learned his lesson before. He would never harm our queen again.” Maybe Shifters can’t smell a lie, but surely they could hear how her heart sped up. “I’m sure there is a good reason he’s ventured into… Whose territory is it?”

“Northcutt.”

Someone bumped into Talley, their thoughts about how a decent person would move off the busy sidewalk screaming in her head. Feeling more than a little ashamed, she moved into the grass.

“That’s Amy’s Pack, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Jase answered.

“Oh, well. That’s it. Toby mentioned going to visit her to ask her to See if Charlie was strong enough to fully recover. Surely Sarvarna will understand that.”

“She did,” Jase said. “But she’s still concerned. It seems someone has been relaying some unfortunate gossip about our former Pack Leader.”

The knot of dread in Talley’s stomach developed a knot of dread all its own. “Gossip?”

The bell from the clock tower chimed three times in the distance.

“You’re going to be late to class,” Jase said, double-checking the time on his phone.

Talley was normally a big believer in promptness and class attendance, but some things took a priority over school. “You can’t just leave me with that kind of cliff-hanger.”

Jase pretended like she hadn’t spoken at all. “My room. Six o’clock. Be there, and bring pizza,” he said, walking backwards. Talley wanted to strangle him for leaving like that, but she was too busy worrying he was going to run over someone or something. He turned just before plowing into a blonde, who blushed furiously when he apologized. “I want pepperoni this time,” he called over his shoulder before disappearing around the corner of the building.

On a normal day, Talley didn’t automatically reach for her gun when someone knocked on her door. But days involving random Shifters and phone calls from the Alpha Female weren’t typical days.

“I know we got off on the wrong foot, but this is a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

In a single movement, Talley turned and aimed. Her hands didn’t tremble even as she put the center of Walker Helkamp’s forehead in her sight.

“Okay, that was a joke. A bad one, admittedly, but still…” Walker raised his hands in surrender. “I’ve never had a gun aimed at me before. It’s really way more terrifying than I imagined.”

“What are you doing in my room?”

“Not actually in your room. Just standing in the open doorway.” A line of sweat was breaking out on his forehead. “Sorry, I thought the ‘it’s unlocked’ note was an open invitation. I swear, I didn’t mean to…” His eyes darted around the cinder-block walls as if the end of his sentence might be found there.

“How did you know where I live?”

A door closed somewhere down the hall. Talley moved to the left, concealing herself so no one passing by would see the gun. Her connection to the Alphas might be able to get her out of a lot of sticky situations, but she had a feeling having a firearm on university property and threatening another individual with it wouldn’t be one of them. Walker glanced down the hall, apparently coming to the same realization.

“I swear, I’m not here to hurt you and will explain everything if you’ll just give me a chance.”

A chorus of laughter moving towards them made up her mind for her. “Come inside and close the door. Try anything, and we’ll see which is faster, a Shifter or a speeding bullet.”

“What the Hades are you doing?”
The voice in her head sounded like Scout.
“You don’t point guns at people and order them around. Shouldn’t you be apologizing or crying right about now?”

A few months ago, she would have. She clearly remembered the first time Charlie placed a gun in her hand. Her stomach had rolled, and she thought she might puke. But that was before. That was when life was still somewhat normal and she believed herself to be safe in the world. Now the feel of steel in her hands gave her a sense of peace and a dose of courage she’d never had before.

Plus, Jase had been making her practice that stance and speeding bullet line for the past three weeks.

Walker stepped into the room, stopping just a few feet inside. Since his hands were still up in surrender, he had to kick the door shut with his foot. It was the first time a guy had been in Talley’s room. Her roommate, Allie, was very vocal about her feelings on having guys over, so whenever she and Jase got together, it was always in his room. Since Allie declared it an all-girls-all-the-time space, she wasn’t concerned with the placement of her undergarments. Two bras hung from her bedpost and a pair of bright yellow underwear hung out of a dresser drawer. Talley was embarrassed for her, but only a tiny bit. It was hard to feel much in the way of empathy with a person who liked to watch countless hours of Fox News and left half-eaten food lying all over the room.

Talley cleared her throat and searched for what to say next. Jase hadn’t really planned anything beyond the threat. What did she do now? Her mind filtered through every single action movie she’d ever seen. “Talk,” she finally said, deciding to keep it simple.

“I knew where you lived because I stopped by the housing office and asked.” Walker’s hands were still up, but he squared his shoulders and looked straight ahead as he answered, reminding Talley that ‘not dominant’ wasn’t the same thing as ‘weak’. “I told the lady working the desk that I was your boyfriend and drove over 1800 miles to surprise you. She wouldn’t tell me your room number, but she did suggest I hang out around the Honor’s dorms. Once I got here, I started asking around. A girl with pink hair and purple glasses told me where to find you.”

Talley blinked at his explanation. Could he really not know what he was doing?

“You do know that approaching the home of a member or potential of the Alpha Pack without an invitation is considered a hostile act, right?”

The color drained from Walker’s face. “I didn’t mean to… I was just…” His chin quivered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I swear to God, I didn’t know. I just wanted to see you again.”

Talley dropped the gun. Jase’s voice barked in her head that it was an act and to pick the damn thing back up, but she just couldn’t. Somewhere over the past year she’d begun to read people’s faces almost as well as she could read their minds. Walker really didn’t know. He was just a Shifter from a small pack who had no idea how things worked in the Alpha Pack. It was like a kid from a small town getting dropped in the middle of New York City. He might have some of the basics down, but he didn’t actually know how to navigate the strange world he was suddenly thrust into the middle of.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t and wouldn’t do something to hurt her or someone she loved. “We’re going to talk,” she said, flicking on the safety and placing the gun on her desk. “And while we’re talking, I’m going to need to touch you. You understand why?”

“You want to See if I’m telling the truth.”

“Right.” She wished she could also See what the best set-up would be. The easiest thing would be to hold his hand, but that would be way too awkward with some guy she didn’t know. Actually, it was often awkward with the guys she did know. Awkwardness aside, there was also the issue of personal safety. Without her gun, she had no advantage, and by getting close enough to touch him, she was pretty much at his mercy. She’d picked up a few self-defense tactics over the summer, but she knew she couldn’t actually take on a fully grown Shifter, even if he was completely submissive.

But he doesn’t know that.
Jase’s voice reminded her.
You’re only as badass as people think you are. Fake it.