Under My Skin (6 page)

For a girl previously known as the ice queen, I was sparking my share of attention in this town.

“Ummm. You smell delicious.” He met my gaze, held it, and inhaled deeply.

Grey—his eyes were grey mist, clouds rolling in over the mountain. Wonderful, now all I needed was a truck analogy, and I’d be writing a country song. I forced myself to relax, to control the fluttering of my heart. I’d been around eye candy before. Looks and wolven were a given—all wild things had a natural beauty—but this guy was too refined, his features too perfect. Wolven were catastrophically sexy in a rugged sort of way.

More like Alec.

Rats.

And I’d been doing so well at not thinking about him. Why did I always go for the road less traveled? Why get stupid over a guy who could only complicate my life and possibly want to kill me once he found out I was half paranorm? Did I need any more stress?

My new friend’s glance flicked to my sketch. “Delacroix?” He read aloud, his brow furrowed. “Have those guys been sniffing around you?”

My fingers squeezed my mechanical pencil, popping off the little white eraser. It pinged against the desk next to mine, earning me a glare from the girl sitting there. “Have they been
what
?”

He made a face. “I’m just saying, if I were you, new to town, not up on the gossip, I’d watch my back around the Delacroix. That family is dangerous.”

How ironic, first Brit and now Redgrave High’s resident hottie warning me against Alec, but for entirely different reasons. Brit had wanted to save me from heartache. This guy seemed to want to save me. Period.

Forget Alec.

Forget everything.

I took a slow breath and surrendered to the soothing balm of harmless flirtation.

“So what are you? The Big Bad Wolf of Redgrave High? Protecting the innocent new girls in town from the Delacroix?” I spun around. My desk creaked, drawing more interest from the class than a fire alarm.

“Exactly.” He shook his head to toss his dark bangs out of his eyes.

“My, what big teeth you have.” I smirked, aware we had an audience. Play-by-play whispers snaked across the room.

“All the better to bite you with, my dear,” he said. “Sadly, we know how that story ended. Not so good from the wolf’s perspective.” He leaned over his desk. “I’m Wade, and you are…?”

A twitching mass of hormones at your feet
. “Eryn,” I said over the bell’s harsh peal. For once, students didn’t bolt for the hall. Instead they wavered, watching us.

Wade angled his chin. “What’s with the paparazzi?”

I shrugged, then eyed the students shooting us furtive looks. “I’ve got New-Girl-itis. The doctors say it should pass any day. No lasting effects. I guess you don’t get a lot of newbies around here.”

“Well, there was one new kid a few years ago. I think they ran him out of town. Angry mob. Torches. The usual. After that….” Wade stroked his chin, pretending to be stumped.

I chuckled.

“Ah, I made you laugh. And you, diseased and near death, an almost impossible feat. You must really like me.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning like an idiot. He was over the top, but I liked his easy-going attitude, the way he lightened my mood. Plus, he was definitely not a hunter.

“Have I been in a coma? Why haven’t I seen you in this class before?” I blurted.

“And just like that, I’m busted,” Wade said, charmingly shamefaced. “I don’t have physics until next semester. The guys said there was a real hottie in this class.” He glanced at the girls hovering near the door, and his gaze lingered over a few pretty faces. “I thought I’d drop by and see for myself. Phillips has no idea who’s in his class.” His attention shifted to Mr. Phillips, still sitting at his computer. “His online girlfriend sucks up a lot of his time, as you can see.”

While the scoop on Mr. Phillips and his cyber girlfriend was entertaining, I couldn’t help but feel let down. Wade wasn’t interested in me? The flirting killed time while he trolled for girls? Disappointment made me crabby.

“Don’t be a sexist pig or anything,” I said. “Last time I checked, this wasn’t a harem. You might have more luck in chemistry. It’s down the hall.”

I gathered my books and untangled my long legs from under the desk. The class, as if released from a spell, shuffled toward the door. Brit-the-Brainiac, like a store greeter, smiled at kids passing her desk, but waved them by while she glared bullets at me and Wade. The others didn’t even notice her as they filed out of the room sideways, crablike, to keep me and Wade in their view.

Wade jumped to his feet, blocking my attempt to pass him. “I don’t think
chemistry
will be a problem,” he said, a teasing light in his grey eyes.

“Nice line.” I murmured. “Use it often?”

“Never. You’re the one and only. Maybe
my
one and only.”

“Wow.” I snorted. “The soul mate card. You really think you have girls figured out, don’t you?”

“Girls, yes,” he deadpanned. “You? Now that could take a lifetime. I’m game if you are.”

At eye level, I stared directly at his sculpted lips as they formed the flirtatious words and then slanted into a sexy grin. We stood pressed together for a few glorious seconds. My insides quivered. And tingled. And yeah, he certainly did have big, I-give-good-love-bites teeth.

At least Wade stood a few inches taller than me. A minimum requirement for potential love interests in my book. His presence crowded, demanded a response. We were as close as we could get in public, yet he was too far away. I wanted us to sink into each other. Wade inhaled and his chest rose, pushing against mine. I shivered at the curl of sensations winding around me, binding me, making me lean against him.

“Eryn, a moment, please.” Mr. Philips came out of nowhere, shattering the moment.

Wade and I flinched as if firecrackers had exploded between us. My heart thumped erratically in my chest. I let my breath out slowly. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it.

Mr. Phillips nodded a dismissal at Wade and, taking my arm, led me to the front of the room. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

And it has to be now?

Brit stood there, clutching her books like a shield, her eyes following Wade. Something flickered in their depths. Suspicion? Hatred? When her gaze turned to me, she flatlined her lips as if I were a child she was about to scold.

“Ah, we’ve already…” I began, still a bit dazed.

Brit shushed me with a shake of her head. Explanations must be wasted on Mr. Phillips, because if he’d paid attention to his students, he’d have noticed Brit and I hung out by each other’s desks every day. Well, until today.

I spotted a large manila envelope, emblazoned with my name and practically glowing, on his solid oak desk. My cumulative file. The educational equivalent of a criminal record. I’d become all too familiar with my file’s bulk when I’d made the shrink rounds at my old school.

I cringed.
So much for a clean slate.
By now I was probably on a teacher-rotated suicide watch, with the schedule posted in the staff room.

“If this is about what happened last year…” Mortified, I shot a look over my shoulder, but Wade had already left. My late, great fondness for box cutters remained safely filed away.

“Obviously
physics
didn’t happen for you last year,” Mr. Philips said in his Gregorian-chant-like tone—another reason I was failing his class. “Things will be different here at Redgrave High. You see, Eryn, we believe in our students. We believe in their potential…” He eased into full-lecture mode.

It took five long minutes of teacher rhetoric before Mr. Phillips outlined his plan. It was pretty straightforward. Either Brit tutored me in physics, or I couldn’t take the class.

“Oh, I can so totally do that,” Brit agreed.

I glared at her, but couldn’t really object. Brit had a brain, and I needed to borrow it. We agreed to meet every day after school for one hour.

“What’re you doing for lunch?” Brit asked as we left the room. “We’re starved,” she said, pointing from her bright smile to the skull on her T-shirt who did indeed look famished.

I didn’t laugh. Not only had she lied to me about Alec, but she’d been giving me the evil eye for talking to Wade. Apparently to Brit, friendship meant running my life. No, thank you.

She grabbed my arm as I turned away. “Look, I know I screwed up, but I can explain.” She pressed her lips together, then sighed impatiently. “But you have to hang with me for more than five seconds, or the whole let-me-spill-my-guts thing doesn’t work. Besides, I had no idea you were a hunter yesterday. I was only trying to nix your interest in Alec before you got hurt.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t tell me you haven’t been creative with the truth a time or two. All hunters lie.”

She had a point. I’d lied so much in my lifetime, it was hard to believe anyone ever told the truth. I would have done the same thing in her place, protected a friend from certain heartache—a clueless human girl with no paranormal knowledge would get chewed up and spit out by a hunter.

“You talk, I’ll eat,” I said finally. But I couldn’t stomach the thought of the bologna sandwich Sammi had stuffed in my backpack. My uncle’s wife pseudo-parented a tad too hard, first with overdecorating my room and then with making my lunches like I was six. Besides, wilted lettuce never did appeal. For the last week I’d been hanging out in the library at lunch, munching on a granola bar. My way of avoiding a lonely table in the cafeteria while the whole school watched me eat. “How’s the cafeteria food? I haven’t tried it yet.”

Brit studied me. “I think you’re ready.”

“For what?”

“Clogged arteries.” She started down the hall, her heavy boots clunking loudly enough for an entire military parade. “We better go together. I can point out the least toxic items on the menu. But first there’s something important you’ve got to see. I think it will put last night into perspective for you.”

As we rounded the corner, a skinny blonde slammed into Brit knocking her against the wall.

“Sorry,” the girl tossed over her shoulder, barely breaking stride.

Brit pushed away from the locker she’d crashed into. Strands of her straight black hair, charged with static, floated around her head. With her flying hair, goth clothes, and super-pale foundation, Brit had a kind of Bride of Frankenstein look going on. But I suppose the real Bride of Franky was probably taller.

I fought back a grin.

“You okay?” I scooped up her backpack, surprised at the weight. She must have crammed every textbook for the whole year inside.

“Yeah.” She glowered down the hallway. “There goes your new boyfriend’s usual type. Wade likes them blonde, brainless, and with boobs out to here.” She held her hands at a physically impossible distance from her chest, then glanced at the front of my shirt and shrugged.

I resisted the urge to roll my shoulders back and stick out my chest. Not that it would make much difference. I’d even put in extra effort this morning and worn a padded bra to fill out Paige’s hand-me-down shirt. Regrettably, the bra slipped around because I had nothing to hold it in place. I’d definitely gotten shafted in the boobage department.

Brit led me down the hall and paused at a six-foot-high trophy cabinet outside the gymnasium. Sports trophies, banners, and photos decorated the glass shelving. She pointed to a section featuring Redgrave’s community hockey league.

“Here are the guys from our school who made the town team.” Brit pointed to a group shot of guys in hockey gear. They stood in a rink, helmets at their hips, their hair mussed and smiles wide. “Recognize anyone?”

I stepped closer to the glass to scan the faces. I gestured to a familiar face in the middle. “There’s Wade.” Oh, he looked amazing in all that extra shoulder padding.

Brit rolled her eyes. “Anyone
else?”

I slid my finger along the glass and studied each face. At the last one, my finger stopped. “That’s the guy from last night. Ethan.” How happy he looked in that photo. How cute and cool. How dead he’d looked on the pet shop floor.

“What if I told you that he”—she jabbed her finger at a short guy in the middle of the photo—“and he”—at the tall blond on the end—“were the two werewolves we took down before you moved here?”

I examined the picture again. Three out of the six guys pictured had turned into werewolves? No wonder Alec had sounded so bitter last night. The kills his crew had made couldn’t have been easy. These beasts were once kids they knew, went to school with, grew up with, but now they were taking them down.

I turned away from the confident, grinning guys in the picture to face Brit.

“Okay,” I said. “So someone’s targeting Redgrave High, that’s obvious. Why hasn’t anyone done anything about it? Paranorm activity or not, the police should be involved by now.”

Brit patted me on the back. “You know, I thought you’d never get there. Well done. And now for the whopper.” She leaned closer, her gaze holding mine as she spoke her next words. “My dad’s a cop on the force and was almost fired for asking those questions. Guess whose father is the chief of police? Wade’s. And he’s pointing the finger at Matt and Alec.”

I pursed my lips. “Oh. That’s ironic. Now you want to blame Wade’s father for the rumors about the Delacroix?” I gave Brit an are-you-feeling-the-irony look. “The same rumors you used to keep me away from Alec? And Wade warned me to stay away from Alec because his family is dangerous.” I crossed my arms. “There’s a lot of finger pointing going on with you guys, and I don’t like being in the middle. I just got to town.”

“Yeah,” Brit said, nodding. “Don’t you think it’s interesting that all this started right before you showed up? Like maybe there’s a reason you’re here?

I frowned. “And what would that be?”

“To help us.” Brit dragged me a bit further down the hall. I let her pull me along, a bit dazed by her logic.

“Here we are,” Brit announced. “Let’s eat before the big reveal. I can’t unload Redgrave’s secrets on an empty stomach.”

My mouth watered on cue.

The weight of grease thickened the air in the crowded cafeteria. My stomach rumbled again, loudly. Brit laughed and handed me a tray.