Filed To Story: Secret with Betas Daughter: Skylar Story Series
Sam winks at me and I feel my face burn brighter. “Knock it off, Sam, I’m serious.”
Mateo slaps him upside the head again. n,Nho gets to do the honors? Except Sam!” are you talking about?” I ask standing up from my seat looking at each of them. I stop on Sierra trying to catch a hint of what’s going on. She just shrugs, no ideas, but she’s willing to go with whatever the guys are going to do to me. At least I’m not the only one in the dark. I don’t feel unsafe though, and she’s probably thinking the same thing. Of all the emotions feel around them, fear has never been “Me!” Dakota shouts and before I know what’s happening I’m lifted up and instinctually wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, painfully aware of all the beautiful bare skin I am touching. Before could ask again what was going on we hit the warm water of the pool. My muscles involuntarily tighten around him as the bubbles from our plunge swirl around us. Kota swims for the surface and as we break free I can hear Sierra’s scream as I assume she is being thrown in as well. Then a torrent of splashes and noise happened around us. A’Vhat was that all about?” I question wiping water and hair from my face. rradition. Once we finish eating and celebrating, we swim until midnight when the birthday is officially over.”
“You really could have just said that. Was the aggressive dunk really necessary?” He looks down between us at my legs wrapped around him and then at my arms wrapped around his neck. “Absolutely.”
The little twitch of his lips, telling me he’s fighting his smile, makes me feel all warm again. Thank you for today, Kota. was fun.”
hugged him again. Cam swims up close behind me wrapping an arm around my waist, effectively pulling me off of Kota. “Did you have a good day?” “l did, Thank you.”
I lean back, tucking my face into his neck and smile up at him as he hugs me from behind. “My turn.”
Oliver swims over and I don’t even hesitate to wrap my arms around his neck, laughing. Cam releases me slowly. Thank you for today, you guys really made it special for me.”
The smile he gives me when I pull back from the hug,
I know it will start a whole new competition if I do, but I can’t help instigating his troublemaker tendencies. I slide a hand in his hair at the nape of his neck and place the other on his opposite cheek and pull him to me pressing my lips softly against his stubbly cheek. I barely touched him with my lips wthen he gasped. His fingers flex into my side and leg where he’s holding me. ‘IF*ck! Little Bit. That was hot! Now I get why Alpha was blushing.”
His voice is low and deeper than normal and he’s not quite looking at me. “Does that mean the rest of us get one too?” Kota asks expectantly. I pretend to think for a moment. “Of course.”
I wiggle out of Sam’s arms and swim to his waiting arrns_ He grabs my waist gently and I wrap both hands into his curly black hair and pull his cheek to my lips. Turning in his arms I reach for Cam doing the same and then Oliver. I leave them all looking a little stunned and swim over to Sierra “Ooh! Is it my turn?” She bats her eyes at me. I grab her, wrap my legs around her waist like the guys and kiss her slowly on both cheeks before looking over my shoulder at them, smiling. I don’t know what made me so brave all of a sudden. Maybe having friends who actuallywant to know me. I felt light and really happy, off the training grounds, for the first time in a long time. “I think you broke them.”
She laughs at them all standing in a line, mouths open, not blinking, staring at us. “They don’t know how to handle the Skylar orgy, or the girl on girl action” I just cringe and try not to be embarrassed by her statement, then laugh and hug her tightly. “Thank you for being here today, this means a lot.”
I say into her ear. “Now, what are we going to do until midnight? These boys are being weird, and we need to lighten the mood.”
‘Let’s see how long it takes them to join a volleyball game.”
She looks at me and then over to them finally broken from their trance and milling about talking together at the opposite end of the pool. The pool is a beautiful large rectangle edged in large flat stones so it resembles a natural lake rather than a modern pool. The concrete inside the pool is painted a light green with lights placed every few feet so it looks ethereal. It’s all one depth across, making pool games more fun, although it’s designed for the average tall werewolf, so I can barely touch. Now, knowing these guys better, everything gets turned into a competition, so this should be easy. We pull the net across and hook it to the support bar and start lazily hitting it back and forth. It took all of three minutes for Sam to reach over Sierra’s head and return a volley for her. Then Oliver joins my side and we start playing two on two. Of course the twins and my brother couldn’t be left out for long. With the odd number we just kept rotating, the plays getting more and more wild and aggressive as we went and who knows what kind of point system they were using. I stopped trying to figure it out and just had fun. We started splashing as a distraction and once when I was close to the net, Kota grabbed my legs from the other side and pulled me under to make me miss the ball. That turned into an all out dunking match and somehow Sierra and I became the main targets. I kept getting caught and tossed. It was too hard to swim away while still being fully dressed. The guys tried to talk me into going in my underwear, Sierra had finally conceded, but there was no way Iwas joining in. I was really good at keeping my injuries covered, even with all the activities. But swimming around half naked in a pool, nothing was going to make me expose myself like that.
“I need a break” I finally call out to them and go to climb out of the side of the pool to grab a drink have barely stood to my full height, when I hear my brother. “WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT?!”
I spin quickly, thinking there is some kind of threat, I’m on high alert. “What?” My wet ponytail whips around and wraps around my neck, hands at the ready for a fight. “What is on your back Skylar?” He hasn ‘t used my full name in months, since I started hanging out with him and the guys regularly. He looks like he is trying to hold in his temper and his eye color is swirling, letting me know his wolf is pissed and close to the surface. I reach back and realize my shirt has been pushed all the way up to my bra, exposing my whole torso. I didn’t even feel it move in the water. My eyes widen and I know what he can see, the bruising around my ribs in various shades of healing and the pink and mottled scars along my back from the whip and silver. The make-up Sierra put on the exposed parts must have come off too, not helping the case. “It’s nothing, just training injuries, that’s all.”
I ramble out a little too quickly to be believable, more concerned with getting my shirt down. “You’re lying. Why are you lying to us, Skylar?” Cam and Kota ask in the crazy twin unison that happens sometimes. Again using my full name, not the nickname they gave me as they climb out of the pool and begin to move closer to me. “It’s not a big deal. Some people go a little more rough since they know I can fight now, that’s all. That isn’t a total lie. My attackers have gotten more rough now that they la-low I can actually fight. Trying to bait me into fighting them back And when I don’t they try to get paired with me during training so I have to. I have abandoned the idea of getting a drink and now just want to get out Of here and lock myself in my room for a few days. Pm disappointed, they should have never seen this and I was careless enough to let my guard down, and now they won’t let it go. Using my peripherals, I’m looking for the best way to escape.
“You don’t fight anyone, but us and Sierra at group training and the Luna and a few warriors during advanced training. None of us have sparred with you in a way to leave marks like that and some of them are older, before we started training with you. You wanna try again, Skylar?” Oliver’s deep voice and menacing look stalls my breathing as he stalks towards me, the rest of the guys have followed suit. He was built to be an interrogator. “It’s nothing really, let it go. I’m pleading now, not even trying to come up with another excuse. I move towards the side of the house closest to mine. I am just as fast as all of them, but getting into my house is what will slow me down for them. Think Sky, think. “Sky, we aren’t going to let it go. Who put their hands on you? We need to handle this and deal with them. Let them know they can’t mess with any of us and get away with it. The question from Sam came out growly and he had that same look as when we were at the mall talking to Kaley. Deal with them? What? I stop trying to walk away and look at all of them. These raging fuming boys who had no idea what they were even mad at. They all of a sudden noticed something was wrong and got protective. Well, they are too late, way too late. A hot boiling builds inside me and something snaps. Now I am pissed and my rage flares the minute that one phrase falls from his lips. For years I have been dealing with this, years, because they believe in survival of the fittest and looking the other way when kids are being roughed up or pushed around. And my particular bully thinks she’s untouchable because of her dad and the rumors she’s spread about being the next Luna. They have heard all of them and just ignore it, do nothing, or at the very best not enough to stop it. Because when you ignore things they go away in their world. I see red and my wolf is fired up too, she knows what I have gone through, but we have kept her a secret, I am already a freak for the fighting skills I have that ‘came out of nowhere’ and the grades and schedule I keep, I don’t need
‘weirdo early shifter’ to be added to the list. I give them my own death glare. “NO!” I roar, and they all stop wide eyed. “You. Will. Let. It. Go! You will let it go, because said so. You will let it go because wthile all of this has been going on,” I gesture to myself, “I still did everything that was ever asked of me. I showed up, did the work, became the best at everything. The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect warrior and no one took notice then. You never gave a sh*t before I was a part of your friend group, until you deemed me good enough.”
I looked at my brother pointedly. “Delta Kyle and the Luna noticed eventually,” I looked at Sam and the twins with my best glare. “and that was just as instructors. They respected my wishes and let it go. Sierra noticed the first day we met, she didn’t even know me, and she respected my wishes and let it go. You five have known me MYWHOLE F*CKING LIFE and didn’t notice or give two sh*ts until right now. You don’t get to be protective now, it’s too late. I don’t need you to step in now. I spit out, letting years of pent up anger flow from my mouth, not caring who I hurt with my words. I wanted someone to hurt as bad as me for once. TO understand the isolating and suffocating pain.
“A lot of this has gone on in your presence and you were too caught up in yourselves to notice, you nonverbally gave permission for this to happen to me and, more importantly, to others. So no, you don’t get to “handle this’ or ‘deal with it’.”
I air quote. am handling it in my own way, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. LET. IT. GO!” I turned and started walking off before I got so angry I shifted in front of them.
My muscles are shaking, and my wolf is clawing to get out and beat all of them. Luna Ava POV
I jumped off the couch when I started to hear shouting from the back yard.
Lucas followed me to the balcony.
I can see the boys gathered together just outside the pool and Skylar at the edge of the patio soaking wet and looking ready to murder them. Sierra must be just out of sight, I can still smell her here though.
Not all of their words travel up to me, but they must have really done a number on her for her to look like that.
I can only see the backs of the boys heads, but they appear hesitant to move at all.
“I still did everything that was ever asked of me.
I showed up, did the work, became the best at everything.
The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect warrior and no one took notice then.
You never gave a sh*t before I was a part of your friend group, until you deemed me good enough.”
I looked at my brother pointedly.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.