Page 7 of Brutal Reign
“Is this bunk taken?” a deep voice drawls.
I lift my head to see a gorgeous dark-skinned guy approaching us with a massive backpack strapped to his back, eyeing the bottom bunk across from ours.
Gus ducks out from behind the bunk in question, his green eyes sweeping over the newcomer skeptically. “No, but all the other meatheads here have been avoiding it since I’m not hetero.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” the new guy remarks, shrugging his backpack off his shoulders and tossing it down onto the lower mattress. Then he steps toward Gus, extending a hand in greeting. “Kendrick Hall.”
Gus slaps his palm into his. “August Atwood, my friends call me Gus.” He nods toward Hayden and me. “And that’s Hayden Price and River Jacobsen, we just met.”
Kendrick snaps his head around, a dark brow lifting when our eyes meet. “TheRiver Jacobsen?”
“I’m starting to suspect I’ve already got a reputation around here,” I grit out.
He chuckles, flashing me a roguish grin. “Nah, but your dad does.”
I roll my eyes. “Story of my life,” I sigh, waving a hand dismissively as I let my head drop back down onto the bed.
“C’mon, get up,” Hayden huffs, coming back around the side of the bunk and grabbing onto my arm. I groan as she forces me to my feet, then points up at my bag resting on the top bunk. “Your stuff isn’t going to unpack itself, and these beds aren’t big enough for two.”
“Apparently those guys think they are,” Kendrick muses, glancing across the barracks to the bunks situated in the opposite corner. Seb and his friends have claimed them, and it’s no surprise that they’re already making a spectacle of themselves.
Beau’s sprawled out on a lower bunk, a red-haired girl straddling him with her tongue down his throat. Eli’s putting the moves on a pair of brunettes, evidently trying to coax one or both onto the mattress of the neighboring bunk with him. Seb’s wearing that trademark aloof expression of his, casually leaning a hip against the metal bedframe opposite his friends while a tall blonde plasters herself to his front, desperately grasping for a crumb of his attention. Micah’s evidently the only one who can keep it in his pants, busying himself with unpacking his belongings and seemingly oblivious to his friends’ display.
It must be obvious which interaction I’ve zeroed in on, because Gus suddenly appears at my side to fill me in, bumping his shoulder against mine. “That’s Chandler Stetson,” he provides, joining me in watching the girl feeling up my former best friend. “She’s from Westfield like me, and she’s a total Alpha chaser.”
“She’s in luck, I’ve heard Seb only likes blondes,” I bite out.
Chandler loops her arms around Seb’s neck, tossing her head back on a laugh while my stomach curls in on itself. Then Seb’sdark-eyed gaze suddenly lifts, colliding with mine from across the room.
I don’t flinch. Not even when Chandler pushes up on her tiptoes and leans in to drag her tongue along the harsh line of his jaw. Seb’s stare burns into mine, but I don’t react. I just turn away and grab my bag off the bunk, carrying it around to the cabinet at the end to start unpacking.
On the outside, I’m completely unaffected by Seb Walker. But on the inside, I’m choking on resentment; seething with hate. It’s the kind of hate that burns you up until you feel like you might combust.
The kind that can only be borne from love.
3
“You sure you don’t wanna play, Seb?” Eli asks, waving a Playstation controller at me tauntingly as Beau queues up another track on the street racing game.
I pointedly ignore him, watching Micah roll a joint in his lap as he rattles off the stats from earlier today. We’re posted up in the lounge above the recruit barracks, but the place is a ghost town. Most of the other squad recruits went straight to the barracks after dinner. A few found their way up here after a while, but those who’ve stuck around have been keeping a healthy distance from me and my friends, likely sensing the predator in their midst. And if they get too close, one glare is all it takes to get them to back the fuck up again.
“Nate Hines was the first to finish, you’ll wanna keep your eye on him,” Micah murmurs as his fingers work the thin paper. “He’s from Stillwater, I think he’s a distant cousin of Alpha Reid.”
I grind my molars as I watch him fumble with the roll, hating that Ace isn’t here. Not only do I feel like I’m missing a fucking limb without my best friend, but Micah can’t roll a joint forshit. They’re always too tight or too loose, never that perfect in-between that Ace manages to achieve every time.
“Bailey Monroe was the girl who came in second, but I heard her telling her bunkmate that she runs ten miles every day,” he continues, lifting the shitty excuse for a joint to his mouth and running his tongue along the edge of the paper to seal it. “So of course today was a walk in the park for her. Judging by her size, I’ll bet she sucks at sparring.”
Grunting in agreement, I shift my gaze to Beau and Eli planted on the couch opposite us. Both are intently focused on the huge flatscreen TV on the wall, mashing the buttons of the gaming controllers in their hands. They should be paying attention right now, not fucking around, but Ace isn’t here to knock their heads together and remind them to give a shit, and I don’t give enough of one to crash their party. Honestly, I’d rather join it.
“Some of the bigger guys came in later, but that’s to be expected,” Micah drones on.
This is what he’s good at- boring the fuck out of people with statistics. He should be working with his dad to track investment trends and keep our pack’s coffers padded, but since Ace decided to skip training camp, I think Micah felt obligated to fill in as my second. Even if heisa shitty substitute.
“Asher Fields and Kendrick Hall both have reputations of being beasts in hand-to-hand combat. And as for the girls, the ones to watch are Tillie Jacobs, Chandler Stetson, and even though she clearly can’t run for shit, Riv…”
I jerk my head around and Micah immediately snaps his mouth shut, eyes widening when they meet my icy glare. “I’m just sayin’, she’s got Alpha blood,” he mumbles, averting his gaze.
“Word on the street is that she’s gonna have the title, too,” Beau chimes in, still aggressively smashing the buttons of his controller.