Nerd's Badboy Alpha novel Chapter 3

I grab a clean towel from the cabinet and head for the showers, where I shed my uniform of skirt, button-down shirt, and navy-blue-cardigan, which now has a hole on the right elbow. The entire front of my white blouse is drenched in coffee and what smells like tomato sauce and now also decorated with my blood. Great. How am I supposed to explain this to Ramona, our housekeeper?

I take my hair out of the French braid I weave it into every morning before stepping under the shower of warm water, which has pretty good pressure since forty girls aren't using it at the same time. I forgot to take out my soap and shampoo from my locker, but that's okay. I just really want to hose the nastiness off.

I wiggle my jaw, which aches a little, and my nose, which thankfully remained intact. I've broken it three times already this year. It does heal on its own, good as new, but not within minutes like for other wolves. It takes about a day or two for me and till then, I suffer from the soreness and the swelling.

I wonder what Alex Royce sees when he looks at me. He has literally never paid attention to me before today. I didn't even think he knew I existed. There's a hierarchy here in our school that's pretty much law. On top are the Apex, then the Mezos like the hyenas and coyotes, the regular folk (neither Alpha nor Beta, just hanging out), and then there are the prey. You can tell which ones we are because we huddle together during school assemblies and lunch periods like a bunch of little orphan kids in a Charles Dickens' novel trying to keep warm, with the smallest, weakest of us in the middle. I'm a wolf, so technically I don't even belong with them, but I'm about as useless as a human according to the community at large, so I was designated properly.

I don't look like the others of my pack, either. My cousins, Bethany and Stephanie, Uncle Alfred's daughters are tall, slender brunettes with lightly tanned-skin and blue eyes. Their brother Roger is tall and lanky, but he's got the signature Ramsey good looks, too. The three of them take after my Uncle Alfred and Aunt Ruffia who have long, lean bodies and muscles. The five of them together could be a brochure for a successful eugenics program.

I resemble them in a way since I have dark hair and tanned skin, but that's it. I'm nearly half a foot shorter than my female cousins and my aunt and uncle tower over me. Unlike my father, my eyes are hazel, which my Uncle Alfred tells me I inherited from my mother.

I'm not what you would call lean, unless lean means "meager" because I've got no musculature at all. My stomach is sensitive and there are a lot of things I can't eat, so I have a very limited diet. I'm allergic to gluten, I'm lactose-intolerant, and I have a nut allergy. Wolves don't usually suffer from these ailments, which is how I'm one of a kind. In a bad way.

My Uncle Alfred tells me it's because I haven't gone through my "bleeding." I'm seventeen years old, eighteen in five months. Female wolves start their bleeding at around age twelve and that's when they usually start growing lady parts that make their humanoid form enticing to males. I'm still stuck in my default body from childhood.

I turn off the shower and mop myself dry with a clean towel before heading back to my locker where I always have a clean pair of shorts, underwear, and a t-shirt because during my school day, something inevitably happens to me that necessitates a change of clothing. I put on my trainers and gather my soiled uniform and shoes into it. This isn't the first time I've gone dumpster diving to hide and it won't be the last.

It is the first time somebody saved me, though.

I tried to hurry as best as I could, but the whole thing still took fifteen minutes, so I was sure Alex Royce would be gone by the time I got to the door.

I find him just where I left him, his eyes trained on the screen of his mobile phone. The spare yellow light from above his head highlighted his patrician features: high cheekbones, square jaw, and a long, straight nose more Greek than Roman. It's obvious that Alex came from a long line of warriors and aristocrats. He can be on the brochure of the successful eugenics program, too.

He looks up from his mobile. "All set?"

I swallow and nod. I have to be dreaming. But I've never even had a dream about Alex Royce before. He's in the stratosphere. I might as well dream about getting with a movie star. And now here he is, standing in front of me. No one else is around and he's smiling at me for some reason.