FERAL FOR HIM

ASHER

Pride goes before a fall?

Yeah, I was starting to believe that total bullshit—but it wasn’t meant for me. I was fucking perfect. Acing my tests, the school’s top student, the pack’s most loved and treasured Alpha heir, and of course, the varsity hockey captain. I didn’t fall.

No, what I actually meant was that this arrogant scholarship wolf was the one who needed to be dragged down a few pegs. Why on earth was he so fucking arrogant? He got first place by barely half a mark, and suddenly he thought he owned the ice.

The royal suv pulled over at the transit station. My eyes darted to him subconsciously. Through the tinted window, I could see him biting into his nails, looking anxious as hell. That’s what you get for running your mouth to a captain like me.

“Get in, scholarship case. I don’t want your poverty stench staining my seats,” I grunted, leaning across the console to throw the door open. I had no reason to be nice to a packless rogue. It wasn’t bad enough he’d beaten me on the leaderboard—he’d also seen me getting slapped by my mother. It was rotting my brain, eating at my sanity.

“No one asked for your fancy ride…  your royal highness ,” he sneered in a mocking, hateful tone. He climbed into the passenger side, ensuring he slammed the door hard enough to vibrate the entire chassis. I only scoffed, throwing the car into drive.

I had no reason to be obsessed with him, but this once… I’d been dying to get under his skin. He was arrogant, and I’d do anything to knock him down a peg. He didn’t know it, but I’d noticed him from the very first day he’d been brought to the academy. I’d watched keenly, following him through the corridors while his eyes were glued to the floor, trying not to breathe too hard or draw attention.

Too fucking bad he’d drawn mine.

He had attended every game on the roster. He did well in all his tests. And maybe, just maybe this time, I’d actually found a match. Now we were attending the national tournament together.

Shaking those ridiculously stupid thoughts out of my head, I pulled up to the location and stepped out of the SUV. My eyes scanned the massive residence we’d be staying in—a three-story cabin. It wasn’t a palace, but the space was vast.

I shrugged with a low sigh, watching him step out after me. His glasses were resting lightly on the ridge of his nose, his fingers flicking nervously over his sweater. He had a lean, athletic build, but I could tell he deliberately hid most of it beneath baggy clothes and oversized academy uniforms. His brown-red hair fell in thick, wavy strands over his forehead, framing his face.

He was… perfect.

Then, the temperature in my blood spiked.

My hackles rose, a vicious growl catching in my throat as I saw the infamous captain of our rival team approach him. A sleek, predatory smile sat on his face.

“I’m Zane,” he greeted, his voice dripping like honey as he slid right into Marlowe’s personal space. “Top student of the Fierce Claw Academy.” He took his hand, his eyes locking dead onto mine over his shoulder as he pressed a lingering, deliberate kiss onto the back of his palm.

I moved faster than I could fucking think.

I stormed forward, violently slapping his hand away from Zane’s grasp and shoving my my bodyframe directly between them, caging Marlowe behind my back.

“Don’t you have some other place to be your usual puck-bunny-chasing self, Blackthorn?” I snapped. The bitterness and venom in my words were unmistakable, my inner wolf clawing at my chest to rip his throat out.

“And if it isn't his royal highness, Asher Varun,” Zane smirked deeply, a mocking sneer forming at the edge of his lips. “I heard a guy beat you on the leaderboard. Isn’t that a massive knock to your highness’s ego?”

The bastard was insufferable. Zane Blackthorn and I had been bitter enemies forever. With him being the son of the High Council's Beta—and my father's rival—he was the one guy I couldn't stand.

I whipped my head back, glaring down into Marlowe's eyes, my fury boiling over. “And you—have a little fucking self-esteem, Marlowe! Don’t just stand there letting every bottom-feeder text and flirt with you. Behave yourself. You’re representing Havenmoon, not begging for attention like a desperate omega.”

Marlowe’s face flushed with a deep, burning crimson, his eyes snapping with pure irritation. “He was just being polite, you delusional psycho! Unlike you, some people actually have manners.” He pushed past my shoulder, deliberately brushing against Zane. “Don’t listen to him, Zane. He thinks he owns the quadrant.”

Zane’s smirk widened, casting a triumphant look at me that made my vision blur with amber sparks.  I’m going to fucking kill him. 

 … 

The pre-tournament party was absolute chaos, but my eyes hadn't left him for a single second.

He wasn't wearing his baggy oversized sweaters tonight. He wore a fitted, dark orange shirt that hugged his lean frame, his wavy hair falling loose over his forehead. The sight of him made my jaw tick, a dark, suffocating possessiveness ripping through my chest. Every wolf in the room was staring at him, and it was making my inner wolf rage beneath my skin.

I was leaning against a pillar a few feet away, a drink clamped tightly in my fist, tracking the line of his shoulders and the way he moved through the crowd.

Then, the bastard moved in.

Zane slid his hand around Marlowe’s waist, pulling him onto the crowded floor. I watched, my vision going entirely amber as the music slowed down, turning heavy and intimate. Zane leaned in close, his lips brushing his ear before he suddenly dipped his head, pressing his mouth firmly onto his.

My drink shattered in my bare hand, glass embedding into my palm, but I didn't feel a fucking thing. A deafening, monstrous roar ripped from the absolute depths of my throat, a sound so primal and violently dominant that the music cut instantly and the wolves on the floor scrambled back in pure terror.

I crossed the room in a fraction of a second—a lethal, unhinged blur. Before Zane could even pull his mouth away from Marlowe’s, my hand clamped around his throat like a vice.

I threw his entire body weight through the nearest wooden banquet table, splintering it into kindling before pinning him against the brick wall behind it. My claws tore straight through his expensive suit jacket, sinking directly into his shoulders as blood began to seep through the fabric.

“I told you,” I choked out, my voice completely distorted by my inner wolf, vibrating at a pitch that forced half the packless students in the room to their knees. My eyes were burning, glowing a blinding, supernatural gold. “Touch what belongs to me again, and I will rip your fucking spine out through your throat.”

“Asher, get the fuck off him!” Marlowe’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears. He didn't look scared. He looked disgusted. He shoved his way through the debris, forcefully grabbing my bloody wrist and trying to pry my claws out of Zane's flesh. “You are a sick, insecure psycho! He didn't do anything wrong! Get your disgusting, territorial hands off him right now!”

I slowly snapped my head toward him, my chest heaving, blood dripping from my knuckles. He was defending him. He was looking at me with absolute, freezing contempt, completely unbothered by the fact that I could snap him in half.

Instantly, I felt a brutal, agonizing shockwave that rattled the bones in my chest. A heavy, iron-clad celestial chain slammed into my soul, wrapping around my heart and binding me directly to the man standing in front of me. The air in the room completely plummeted into ice before exploding into a suffocating, lethal heat. The scent of the party vanished, entirely replaced by a sudden, intoxicating flood of his scent mixed with mine.

My entire body went completely rigid. My fingers locked onto Zane’s collar lost all their strength, letting him slump to the floor in a heap, but I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.

My tongue rolled over my pierced lower lip as the true nature of his scent hit my lungs—amplified a thousand times over by the violent, permanent snap of the mate bond.

My pupils dilated until my eyes were entirely pitch black, ringed only by a dangerous, bleeding gold. I stared down at him, my inner wolf screaming a single, deafening word over and over again.

 MATE. MATE. MATE. 

He was my destiny. He was my entire fucking world.

I stepped closer, the possessiveness consuming me so fast it felt like a sickness. I wanted to lock him away where no other male could breathe his air. I wanted to tear the dress off his body and brand my initials into his skin.

But as I stared at him, waiting for him to gasp, waiting for him to feel the shockwave—nothing happened.

Marlowe just stood there, his chin parallel to mine, his eyes perfectly cold and void of any connection. His face was twisted in deep, burning irritation. His inner wolf was totally dead, a late-bloomer ghost that didn't feel a single fucking thing. He was completely, utterly oblivious to the fact that the universe had just handed him to me. He didn't feel the heat. He didn't feel the chain.

He just looked at my bloody hand, scoffed with pure hatred, and stepped back to help Zane up.

“You’re pathetic, Asher,” he hissed, his voice sharp as ice, cutting right through the bond that he couldn't even feel. “Stay the hell away from me.”

A dark, dangerous laugh caught in my throat as I closed the distance between us in one terrifying stride, caging his body against the wall before he could even blink. The possessiveness radiating off me was suffocating, my shadow completely swallowing him whole.

“Marlowe…” I growled, my voice dropped to a raspy, demonic whisper, my lips hovering mere millimeters from his ear. “You think you can walk away from me? You think you can touch another male in front of me? Look at me. Look at me, you little rogue.”