Chapter 5

Raven POV

Ever since we got here, I have had this feeling that someone is watching me. I don’t know who. I have tried to figure it out, but I haven’t been able to catch anyone staring. I have, though, spent most of the night watching guy after guy hit on Sara, but I’m used to it. That is how it has always been in our friendship. She was the girl that all the guys wanted, and I was the one that their friends would talk to while they waited. The guy who is talking to Sara now is giving me the creeps, and his friend, who was talking to me, not that I have been paying attention, isn’t any better. Suddenly, a loud growl followed by an angry-sounding howl ripped through the air, but what surprised me the most was Kevin running out of the woods looking like what I would call almost feral. He stopped in front of us, pushed the guys that was talking to Sara to the side and stepped right in close to Sara. They were so close I don’t think a breeze could have passed between them. Kevin didn’t say anything. He just stood there breathing hard. It was like he was trying to get himself to calm down. “Hey, man, I was talking to her. Wait your turn.” Said the guy who had been pushed to the side, trying to assert his dominance

“No, talk. Mine.” Kevin said, though it sounded more animalistic than human. I had never heard anything like it.

Kevin then threw Sara over his shoulder and ran off with her. It all happened so fast that I barely had time to realize she was gone and Trish was talking to me. The next thing I know, I could hear Sara yelling at Kevon, and Trish was introducing me to three strange guys before running off following Duke, who had run after Kevin. One of the guys just stood there for a few minutes staring at me. He was over six feet tall with broad shoulders that filled out the t-shirt he was wearing. He filled it out everywhere else as well, from the well-toned muscles of his biceps and chest to his abs that I had the sudden urge to run my hands over.

Shaking my head, I tried to get my thoughts back on track as to what was happening with my best friend. I knew I should be going after her, but I also had the feeling that I might be more in the way than help. I was brought back from my thoughts to the situation I was in, being left with a group of strange guys, by the feel of a tingling sensation in my hand that was slowly moving up my arm. That is when I realized that the magnificent male specimen that I had just been ogling was touching me. He was talking to me, and not because one of his friends wanted to talk to Sara.

I looked up, meeting his gaze and found myself staring into the most beautiful set of hazel eyes I have ever seen. He said something that I didn’t register at first. Then I pieced it together when he held my hand as he led me over to one of the picnic tables by the fire and helped me sit down. He sat beside me but didn’t say anything. He just stared.

Normally, I would have found it creepy and would have wanted to run, but instead, for some unknown reason, I felt safe. I can’t explain it. I have never felt like this before. I don’t know how to process it, but I think for the time being I will stay where I am. There are enough people around us that he shouldn’t be able to do anything, plus I trusted Trish when she said that I was safe with them. I also believed her when she said that Kevin would not hurt Sara, at least not physically, emotionally, I’m not too sure. “So do you think he will be able to get her to take him back?”  One of the guys across from me asks.

I looked back towards the trees. “I don’t know, he hurt her a lot,” I answered, turning back to study the guys who were sitting with me.

All three of these guys are big and well-toned. I haven’t been surrounded by this much muscle since Sara was dating Kevin, and we were hanging around with some of his buddies from school. The guy who asked about Sara and Kevin has light brown hair and blue eyes, Ben, I think his name is. The other one, I think, is Zane, he has blond hair and caramel coloured eyes. They are both really good-looking, but I don’t feel drawn to them the same way I am to the guy next to me, Jacob. I have never been this distracted by a guy in my life. As I said, we hung out with some very attractive guys when Sara was with Kevin, but I didn’t react to any of them like this. It makes it very hard to focus.

I go on to tell them a basic rundown of what happened between Kevin and Sara. By their reaction, I think they have heard part of the story already, but I continue so that I have something else to focus on other than the body that is beside me. I explain how she caught him with his ex-girlfriend and his lame excuse that Sara couldn’t expect him to wait until she was eighteen, whatever that was supposed to mean. When I said that these three almost looked like they understood what Kevin had meant by it, it must be a guy thing.

The whole time I talked, the other two asked questions, but Jacob never said a word. I could feel the heat coming off his body. That heat was keeping me warmer than the nearby fire was. But that could be because his nearness was causing other parts, parts that had never reacted to a guy like this before, to also become quite warm. I was struggling to resist the urge to fan my face when the richest, smoothest baritone voice that I had ever heard drifted over from beside me.

“So, Trish was telling us that you graduated earlier and are starting college on a full scholarship.”