Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
I’ll call her soon.
I keep promising myself I’ll do that tomorrow.
I’ll call her tomorrow.
I won’t tell her I’m not in college. She won’t understand. My whole life, she’s made it clear how lucky I am to have the life I do. She made sure I got the best education I could get. She sacrificed to ensure I could do extracurriculars that would help on a college application.
With my guilt assuaged, I let my mind turn to how I ended up here.
She kept me close my entire life, but she had to let me go once it came time to go to college. Or she at least chose to. It was strange actually. She used to talk about me going to school in-state so I could stay home, but she changed her mind right as applications were going in. I’d been begging her for months, and figured I finally got through to her.
I couldn’t focus once I got to school. I wanted to. I tried. But the second I got to college, something in me just told me to roam. I couldn’t ignore it. It was imperative. Like a bird flying south for the winter. I tried to go to classes, but it was impossible to just sit there like I was still some kid when every part of me needed to go.
So I went. I don’t even remember making the decision to go. One moment I was getting ready to go to class, the next I was on a bus to God knows where.
And that’s when I met my friends.
One of them was on the second bus I hopped. It was a girl who sat next to me and talked to me until I thought my ears were going to fall off. She said she was going to visit her cousin who lived in the woods, and she invited me to come with her.
I wasn’t actually going anywhere, so I agreed. There was something about her that made me feel like I could trust her, a kind of unhinged wildness that I felt inside myself. I’ve spent a lifetime hiding who and what I am. But when I met her, and her friends, I didn’t have to hide anything I was. Not for a second. They’re criminal, they’re fucked up, and they do stuff that requires trips to the hospital time and time again, but they never judge me, and they understand me.
They’re my friends, my tribe, my pack.
I stumble over to some stacked bales of hay where my best friend is waiting for me. She’s drinking a can of beer.
“We’re going to run soon,” she says.
“I won’t be running anywhere,” I remind her.
“You should let Rex fuck you,” Laura says. “He could unlock who you really are.”
“Rex isn’t my mate. It won’t work.”
She smirks, because she knew damn well that me fucking Rex wouldn’t do anything besides get me laid.
“It would stop you from being a virgin, at least.”
“I don’t mind being a virgin.”
“That’s because you don’t know what you’re missing,” she teases. “I can’t do it less than twice a day now. Mark and I fuck so hard, the normal way, and the other way.”
I don’t even want to ask what counts as the ‘other’ way for Laura and Mark. There are so many options, including ones I’m sure have never appeared on any website.
“Steve, get that fucking thing out of your ass, we have shit to do tonight!”
A deep, dominant voice booms out over the party, quieting the yapping that has been going on in all corners. Steve actually looks a little shamefaced as he stops trying to cram the damn ornament up his butt and pulls his pants up.
Trent’s here.
He’s the leader, basically. He’s the one who makes sure everybody stays in line, and beats the hell out of anybody who won’t. He’s capable of some very fucked-up things. I guess I’m scared of him.
He shaves half his head, and lets the other side grow long over his shoulder. He’s wearing a leather jacket that isn’t zipped up, and hangs open, displaying his chest and torso. Both are covered in tattoos.
He’s absolutely ripped, so muscular it’s crazy. He ripples when he so much as draws on a cigarette. The girls all stare at him, even the ones who are mated. He just has big alpha energy.
I was intimidated by him when I first met him. I still am, if I’m to be honest. I stay out of his way, which isn’t hard. Aside from giving me the green light when I first came out this way, and welcoming me into his tribe, he’s left me alone. And he’s made sure that the others are treating me okay and not putting any pressure on me. I’m one of the younger members, and there are quite a few single older guys around. Trent is thirty, and the oldest of us all.