Free Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) by Ashley Stoyanoff Page B

watched Aidan, if only to piss them
off.   Well that and I couldn’t bring
myself to directly look at Dominic.
    What was it about this guy that had them on
edge?   I really wanted to know.   When Dominic wasn’t staring at me, he was
watching Aidan, and Erika … Well, Erika looked as if at any moment she was
going to cock her leg and pee on him to mark her territory.   Did female dogs do that?   Well, if they did, I was sure she would do it
soon.   The whole thing was starting to
make me feel a little sick.
    Erika wasn’t the only she wolf acting like that, though.   Linda, Becca, and Tiffany were all following Aidan around, giving dirty
looks to any girl that looked his way.   And they were snapping at each other just as much.   They stared each other down, and shoved each
other around.   It was the strangest thing
I had ever seen.   Weren’t girls usually
more tactful than this?   What happened to
the snide comments and mean girl manipulation?
    Aidan took it all in stride.   It was as if he didn’t even notice.   He talked to everyone.   He was friendly.   He smiled.   Everyone seemed to like him, especially the pack, and darn it, but I
did, too.   And it made my stomach sink.   No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come
up with anything that would get the pack away from him.   It was clear that they were recruiting him,
and the more I thought about it, the more the sinking feeling in my stomach
grew.
    But the weirdest thing was that no one was
talking about Ray.   The police still
hadn’t said anything.   His death hadn’t
been in the paper, and as far as I knew, the pack hadn’t had any kind of a
service.   The only thing that I managed
to find out was that Ray’s wife had vanished.   Their house was empty.   It was
almost as if neither of them had ever existed.
    I still hadn’t talked to Dominic, but then,
he hadn’t made an effort to talk to me either, and I was beginning to think it
was better that way.   All I was getting
from him was a bunch of what I thought were supposed to be meaningful glances,
except I didn’t know what the meanings were.   I figured he was trying to make a point, but the joke was on him,
because whatever the point was, I wasn’t getting it.   I was pretty much ready to chalk up the
weekend to a weak moment.   It was
probably better to just forget it.   And
if he had stopped watching me, I would have done just that.
    I sat in class, watching the clock slowly
tick the minutes away.   Lunch couldn’t
come soon enough.   I needed a break, not
that I had been doing much in class.   I
couldn’t focus on anything other than the burn of Dominic’s eyes and the sneer
on Erika’s face.
    When the bell finally rang, I forced myself
to stay in my seat until they left.   For
about half a second, Dominic looked as if he was going to approach me, but
before he could, Aidan slung a loose arm over his shoulder and led him out the
door.
    The cafeteria was already packed by the
time I got there.   I glanced at the
overly long line of students waiting to be served and spotted Marcy at the
front.   She waved what I thought was a
boxed salad at me, and then she pointed to a table and mouthed, ‘ I got it.’
    Ben and Ann were chowing down on French
fries and gravy when I plopped down at my usual table.   The fraternal twins were dressed the same, as
always, in blue jeans and black hoodies.   I’ve always thought that they secretly wished they were identical.   They sure tried hard enough to look the
same.   Ben had even dyed his blond hair
brown to match Ann’s, and Ann always wore blue contacts, the same shade as Ben’s
natural eye color.
    “Hey, Jade,” Ann said, and smiled.   “I’m surprised you’re sitting with us.”   She didn’t mean it to be unkind; I could see
that from the soft smile she was giving me, but the statement got my back up
anyway.
    “What?   Why?” I asked.   My voice sounded
harsher than I had intended.
    Ben cut Ann a