Chapter 12

Asher

“Asher!”

Cynthia followed in my shadow as I left the dorm and started my trek across campus. She jogged to keep up with my brisk pace.

She wasn’t going to give up, was she?

With a sigh, I slowed so she could walk normally beside me. Last thing I needed was for her to overexert herself because of me.

True to her word, the moment she caught her breath, she started using it. She seemed bound and determined to convince me she was capable of taking care of her and her baby.

“You don’t understand how hard I’ve worked to be here,” she said. “I had no one except Dylan. No one else offered any support. Not the rest of my family, and I didn’t have any friends. I had to sneak around to practice.”

I carefully schooled my face to show no reaction, despite the rumble of anger inside me.

“I practiced at least five hours every day,” she went on. “Early in the morning before the sun came up, or late at night. Whenever I wouldn’t be missed. In between was my schoolwork and my family chores. I never had a spare moment.”

Instead of sounding bitter about her past hardships, her voice remained strong with purpose.

“I can’t let those sacrifices go to waste. I’m not ready to give up. And who knows? Maybe the school rules will become more forgiving soon.”

Not likely. I didn’t bother saying it aloud.

“I have some time,” she said. “This early in my pregnancy, cheerleading shouldn’t be too dangerous. Especially not if I’m extra careful.”

Jaw clenched, I stayed silent.

“Asher?”

I wasn’t about to answer. Why would I? Everything she said was ridiculous.

Unlike me, she was not as talented at hiding her emotions. Her entire face twisted up with annoyance. I ignored a twinge of excitement, expecting a fight.

Voice raising, she said, “You think you can control everything, don’t you? But Dylan asked you to take care of me, not lord over me. And since he’s too busy to find out about this…” She waved to her stomach. “Then what gives you the right to make decisions for me?”

Silence wouldn’t cut it this time.

“If you don’t need me to step in every time something bad comes your way, you can just say that. But do you really believe that you are making the right choice?”

“I don’t need to prove to you that I can be both a good mom and a good cheerleader. It is my decision, and you don’t get to stop me. I’m not some kid who needs your permission.”

Yet here you are, trying to convince me to give it. I opened my mouth, ready to snap back.

“Don’t,” said my wolf from within my head, stopping me before I could speak.

“She’s too immature,” I replied in my thoughts. “She needs someone to remind her how helpless she is.”

“No,” the wolf whispered, warning. “She’ll hate us.”

“So?” Though even as I thought it, my chest tightened.

“I don’t want her to hate us,” the wolf said.

I frowned.

“She makes me feel... strange,” the wolf rumbled. “I don’t fully understand, but somehow I know we can trust this little girl. She’s not as mindless as you want to believe.”

I huffed. Cynthia glanced at me strangely, but I just kept walking.

Infuriatingly, she stayed at my side.

“I’m not wrong,” I said in my mind. “She is too young and too inexperienced to make the right decisions for herself. She’s reckless with her well-being, and unforgivably stubborn, and if I don’t step in then –”

“We are to protect her,” the wolf cut in. “Not hurt her ourselves.”

My thoughts halted at once, as did my feet. Usually my wolf and I were in sync in all ways.

“What’s the compromise, then?” I asked in my mind.

“Do not make her hate us,” the wolf said.

What difference did it make if she hated us? I had promised Dylan that I would take care of her, not that she had to like it. But…

From my side, she glared up at me. Her pink lips curled down in disgust.

I didn’t like her looking at me like that.

Sighing, I said, “I don’t exactly enjoy being your babysitter.”

“So, stop,” she snapped.

I bit back a growl.

“Gently,” my wolf whispered.

“Just watch how you act,” I grumbled. “I don’t like when things get complicated.”

Complicated, like in my dorm room when I had changed, and her eyes burned hot looking at my body. She blushed so hard her face was as red as a tomato. My wolf hummed in satisfaction. She had liked what she had seen.

I shook my head. Cynthia was my best friend’s sister.

Dylan and I had been near inseparable until Dylan went into the exchange program. We’d talked about our worries and our secrets. I knew how important Cynthia was to her older brother.

When Dylan entrusted me with Cynthia, only I knew how truly serious he was. Dylan had already told me how naïve his little sister was, and how much he worried about her when he wasn’t around.

Naïve? Dylan hadn’t known the half of it.

“Things won’t get complicated,” Cynthia said.

I avoided looking at her again as I went into the building housing my lecture hall, leaving her outside.

My presentation was simple, made easy by my preparation. I stood on one half of the stage, my slides projected on a screen behind me.

On the other side of the stage, a group of my classmates sat, ready to ask me follow up questions as part of the assignment.

It did not surprise me to find my selection of classmates were the familiar girls who seemed to follow me everywhere. Asher’s fangirls, they liked to call themselves.

They wore too much make up and not enough clothes, especially for an academic event. When I’d finished talking, they scrambled over each other to ask me questions.

One girl jumped to her feet, hand raised. With her low-cut blouse, her bosom nearly bounced straight out of her top.

Disinterested, I averted my gaze. As I answered her question, my thoughts drifted to a more perfect pair of breasts.

I’d told Cynthia I had forgotten about seeing her chest through her wet, transparent shirt.

I had lied.

Her breasts had been perky and full. If I had placed my hands on them, their generous size would have spilled from my palm. And those budding nipples, straining against the confines of that damned shirt… what I would have done to rub them between my fingers.

If it had not been for my steely control, I would have torn that offending shirt from her and tossed it aside. Nothing should be between me and her body.

If I could have, I would have taken those nipples into my mouth, licking and sucking until she begged me to stop… No, to keep going.

Would she have looked at me with that same lust-crazed glance she had given me when I changed?

Would that cherry-red blush bloomed down her neck and lower? Could I trace it with my tongue?

Asher, when she growled my name in anger, likely wasn’t so different to how she’d beg me in bed. Maybe more lilting. More desperate.

God, she was so fucking hot.

The professor politely cleared their throat, and I remembered where I was, standing on the stage, half-hard thinking about Cynthia.

I shifted my stance. No one would have seen with my suit jacket buttoned. But I knew. There was no escaping my own shame. My own want.

I took all my thoughts of Cynthia and shoved them to the very back of my mind. I refused to lose control like some pup.

Shutting down my libido, I called on another girl to give her question.

Cynthia was my best friend’s sister.

I would not forget it.