Theodore and Moses walked into the room, both of them adding their stuff to the now-growing pile.
“You really want to know?” Moses asked out of nowhere, his dark eyes lit with some sort of challenge as he brushed past her, waving his phone in the air.
“Ah, yes?” she said to his back.
Theodore tucked his phone back into his bag before dropping his arm over her shoulders and steering her to the stretching mat.
“How you feeling, pretty?” His lips delivered the question into her hair a second before he pressed her down to the mat, and then scooted a few inches away to start stretching.
She arranged herself to copy his exercises, but before she could answer him, Moses was hovering by the edge of the mat.
“For the record, I don’t think anyone will appear inside you without warning, so you don’t have to worry about their level of ability.”
“Shut the fuck up, you idiot.” Theodore pounced forward, tackling Moses to the mat, the crash of their bodies narrowly missing her.
She scooted closer to the wall, continuing her stretches with an annoyed look on her face to hide the embarrassment that wanted to flush over her cheeks instead.
“You’re an animal,” she grumbled, as she bent over her outstretched legs and found herself face to face with Moses, Theodore holding his head tight against the mat.
He laughed darkly, throwing Theodore off him, and switching their positions.
“That’s what you should be able to do by now,” Niko stated dryly, standing at the edge of the mat, and pointing to Moses.
She glanced over his shoulder, noting that Kilian, Cian, and Sato—Oscar—had also arrived.
“Yeah, exactly.” She bit her lip as she looked up at Niko. “So why can’t I?”
They teased each other sometimes when they were wrestling, but he didn’t usually react the way he was now: by falling silent, his nostrils flaring, his eyes tracing the way she stretched before darting off to the side.
“I guess you had a good sleep,” he muttered, falling down beside her and pressing her back down again, forcing her deeper into the stretch. “No excuse to be lazy, though.”
She huffed, trying to shrug him off. “This is Professor Easton’s session, not yours.”
He snorted. “This is Professor Easton’s vocal session. He can keep your throat. I’m the one in charge of your body.”
“Ni-ko.” Moses flopped off Theodore, his laughter sudden and deep. “You make it too easy.”
Niko scowled. “I obviously didn’t mean it like that.”
Moses rolled to his side, that devilish eyebrow of his jumping up again as he leaned on his elbow, propping his chin into his hand. “Her spine is in the wrong position.”
“It is not,” Isobel snapped back.
“Actually, it is,” Niko said. “Sit up.”
He waited for her to obey before he shifted partially behind her, flattening his hand to her stomach, his other hand pressing just above her mid-back.
“Straighten up,” he instructed, his breath brushing her neck. “You don’t want that curve when you start to bend.”
Niko never touched her like this.
She tried to correct the position of her spine, but Niko made a dissatisfied sound, both of his hands dropping to her hips, fingers digging in just above her hipbones and pulling back.
That strange, empty feeling that she had woken up with sparked back to life again, even more hollow and cavernous, an ice-cold itch creeping up through her organs.
“Better,” Niko grunted. “Now keep that rotation in your hips, keep your spine straight, and …” He pressed against her back, forcing her to bend over her legs again. He was right. Her spine had been in the wrong position.
She was too distracted to even stretch properly.
There was a spark of satisfaction in Moses’ gaze that reminded her of Oscar for an uncomfortable moment. A glint of sadistic enjoyment, as though he had just engineered a moment of chaos. A private unravelling of something just for his own private viewing.
Theodore gripped her thigh and dragged her halfway across the mat, refusing to look at the others as he went quietly back to his exercises. She returned to copying him, and Moses smirked like he had won.
“I know when people are lying.” Niko was speaking to the mat, and several heads whipped up at his confession. “That’s what my ability is.” He directed his attention to the door, ignoring everyone else. “What’s keeping Mikki?”
Isobel almost bit her tongue to hold back the barrage of questions. It wasn’t polite to interrogate people about their abilities. But being able to tell when people were lying? That was powerful. It made her think about her own father, and his claims that he didn’t have an ability. So far, all the Alphas she had met were in possession of very potent abilities. The ability to control time? To control the weather? To turn into murderous … somethings? To read the future? To turn invisible? To create chaos? To control people? She still didn’t know what Gabriel’s ability was, but she was sure he had one, and she was sure it would be illegal.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem so feasible that her father was born without an ability.
“He had a rough night,” Cian answered, only a second before Easton stepped into the room, slamming the door behind him.
“You four—” He pointed to Moses, Theodore, Cian, and Elijah. “—and Carter. On the treadmills. Now.” He grunted the words, barely even sparing them a glance. “Oscar, Gabriel, and Kilian. On the rowing machines. Fifteen minutes hard and fast and then switch.” He clapped his hands together, making Isobel twitch an inch closer to Theodore. “Go!”
Theodore pulled her up with him, giving her a carefree grin, reassuring her that Easton’s sharp mood was nothing to be concerned about. But she accidentally looked up at Easton as she passed by him, catching sight of a new scar on his cheek, deep and pink, and mottled bruising around his neck peeking up from the top of his collar.
She stumbled, her eyes stretching wide as his attention zeroed in on her, his eyelids lowering over mismatched pupils to make his gaze more severe as a hint of annoyance pinged against her chest from his direction.
“Something you want to say, Carter?” His tone wasn’t quite as sharp as when he had been addressing the group, but there was a deeply unhappy undercurrent that made her want to tuck her chin and run away.
“N-No, Professor.”
“Treadmill!” Theodore stepped between her and Easton, quickly pushing her toward one of the machines. “Hurry now.” He waited until she was tapping the buttons to increase her speed, her neck prickling like Easton was still watching her before Theodore leaned over from the treadmill beside hers.
“Keep your head down this session,” he whispered. “If you need to leave, just leave. One of us will go with you.”
She reared her head back, blinking at him in confusion. “Because of Ea—” she began to ask, but he just put a finger to his lips and hiked up the speed on his machine, kicking it into a sprint. He even pulled out headphones, but he flashed her a short, apologetic smile in the mirror as he tuned out the rest of the room.
She found her attention drifting to the left, studying Easton in the mirror as he scrolled through his phone, snarling at the boys on the rowing machines for slacking off. He was definitely in a state, but she couldn’t tell exactly what the state was, because every Alpha in the room seemed to be feeling something negative, and it was hitting her from all directions.