“Mhmm.” She chewed on her lip as she nervously turned to properly face Kalen. She wasn’t sure if there was any kind of formality required, but she didn’t want to do it wrong. “Will you be my sponsor?”
His lips firmed into an unyielding line, approval rushing over his expression fast enough that she was sure she had misread it when it disappeared. He wasn’t saying anything, and she wondered if she had to say more to appease their concerns.
Whatever they were feeling, it wasn’t negative, because there was only her own nervousness churning in her stomach. Either they were feeling nothing at all, or they were expelling an impressive amount of effort to keep their feelings under lock so that she wouldn’t be influenced during what was clearly an important conversation for them. That fact alone stopped her from lowering her wall and reaching out to feel their emotions against their will.
Kalen let out a short breath. “If you were one of our Alphas, this conversation wouldn’t even be happening. We would decide what was best for you based on your individual capabilities and needs, and we would assign you to whoever suits you best. That’s how we work here. It’s the only way any of this works.”
“We’re at a bit of a loss,” Mikel added, his tone low. “We don’t know enough about you. If we assign you to Kalen and then later find out that you can’t handle—”
“I can handle anything,” she interrupted, straightening her spine. “Put me in the ring with Oscar, I don’t care.”
Mikel’s grin twitched into being, his eyes sparkling. “Maybe another time. Please understand what we’re saying here, Isobel. We’re talking about throwing a virgin into a kink club and asking her to swim.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, an embarrassed sound catching in the back of her throat. “I’m not a child,” she muttered. “And I have some experience. What makes you think I’m a virgin? Because nobody would want to date a Sigma?”
The last part was tacked on with a wince, and she wished she could have taken it back as soon as she said it.
“Because you’re the colour of the rug,” Kalen remarked calmly, pointing to the Persian carpet beneath them, where scarlet thread twisted in bright patterns. “And Moses was your first kiss, wasn’t he?”
“Maybe.” She firmed her lips. “You Alphas really like to gossip.”
Kalen scoffed. “It’s our job to monitor them. And now it’s our job to monitor you. If Moses was your first kiss, who would you have had time to fuck between then and now?” He frowned, eyes flicking over her face. “Not to mention you just flinched when I said ‘fuck.’”
She tossed her hands up. “Test me, then! Give me a … a kink … exam.”
Mikel’s smirk turned into a full-blown smile, his scars twisting around his face, his mismatched eyes crinkling at the sides. She had seen a picture of his full smile once. The comments had been brutal. Saying he was unnaturally ugly. Saying that Alphas were supposed to have perfect skin. None of the comments explained why they thought all Alphas should have perfect skin, so it wasn’t likely that they all knew about the Alpha healing abilities. Perhaps their healing abilities made all the other Alphas who had starred on the Ironside Show over the years appear somewhat perfect.
Mikel’s smile was a short, aching flash of nostalgia. A brief window into a version of him that had once smiled and laughed often, and easily. A version of him that was now dead. His smile was a memorial, and it was too sad to be beautiful, but her heart ached as much as it did for one of Theodore’s picture-perfect, superstar smiles.
Kalen laughed, but it died too quickly, the deep, husky sound fading away and leaving her feeling like she had been dropped from a cliff with the way her stomach swooped. “There’s one more problem,” he said. “Mates are possessive by nature. I’m sure you would know that—your parents being who they are. When Theodore finds out what you’re doing in the club—and he will—how do you think he’s going to react?”
She frowned. “Well, wouldn’t I just be standing in a corner or something? Or will I be like … your assistant?”
“You’ll do whatever I tell you to do.”
The silence that stretched between them was heavy, making her clothes feel too hot and cumbersome.
“W-What will you tell me to do?” She tried to peer past the mask of his calm composure. She was finally beginning to feel little trickles of their emotion. Drips of discomfort and feelings of being trapped. They were being forced into this by the Track Team, and they didn’t like it.
“To not touch anyone, talk to anyone, or look at anyone except me.” Kalen’s voice had lowered to a growl, the words delivered to her with some sort of weighted, grave subtext.
“Isobel.” Mikel drew her attention immediately, and she turned her head his way. “Do you think you can do that?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t really have any friends here anyway, except Theodore and Kilian. And Cian. And Gabriel, I guess. And maybe Teak and Charlie, but they aren’t even students.”
Both of them seemed mildly amused at her listing out everyone she might consider a friend.
“You won’t be permitted to play.” Mikel emphasised the words carefully. “Or to experiment.”
A sudden image of Kalen wrapping her wrists with rope dropped like a cement block into her mind, crushing all rational thought. Her skin grew sensitive and hot, and the dull ache in her stomach briefly turned into a sharper pinch.
“How is that fair?” she managed to get out, her voice strangled. “Do the others get to do whatever they want?”
“Elijah, Gabriel, and I do not have sex in the rooms,” Kalen rumbled.
“But you do other things.” She hated that she didn’t know the specifics of what those things were. It made her sound so inexperienced. “What if I want to h-humiliate someone?”
“Try it out.” Kalen leaned back, folding thick, muscled arms over his chest, his posture relaxed as he settled a hard stare on her. “Insult me.”
“You’re bossy,” she said immediately.
“You can do better than that,” Mikel goaded. “What else?”
“He’s …” She trailed off, chewing on her lip.
Wonderful. Kalen is wonderful. He saved her life.
“Say it to me, Carter.” Kalen’s voice was deepening, her surname slipping out like a whip.
“You’re not very good at modulating your tone.” Wow. Way to go, Isobel. That’ll teach him.
Kalen drew all the way forward, his arms uncrossing, his hand cupping her chin, his scent digging into her pores. “Degradation isn’t your thing, princess.” Despite the pitiful insult she had slung at him, his voice had turned into a very pleasant rumble, the pet name making her brain short-circuit as she tried to remember why it sounded familiar and where she had heard it before.
The first time he taught her to climb.
His touch was soft, barely brushing her skin as his thumb skirted along her jaw. “You prefer to be praised, isn’t that right?”
She found herself nodding, not entirely sure she understood what she was agreeing to.