Scum (Book 1)

13. Tension

Jenna’s POV

Waiting for my brother to pick me up from school is not ideal, especially since I know that his girlfriend will be in the car. I’m not sure why he’s so obsessed with her, but whenever I try to bring it up, he hangs up on me like I’m nothing to him.

He and I may not be close anymore, but I’m his family, and he should at least hear me out. My whole life I have been striving to be like him, but I feel like lately, he sees me as nothing more than competition.

I guess it’s in his alpha nature to think that way, but I’m not sure what kind of threat I can possibly pose when he not only has the support of the pack, but also the birth right of the title.

It's not just me who feels like something is wrong, but my father also thinks that Liam’s a little too caught up on Porsha’s lineage to really pay attention to anything else she says or does. I’ve met the woman in the past, and she was so rude to me that we got into it.

Oddly enough, my brother knew of that interaction before he met Porsha, but somehow, it’s become a non-factor in their relationship.

Everyone is entitled to a second chance as he’s said, and so giving the woman the benefit of the doubt, I want to greet her in an informal setting. That way, she and I can ‘bond.’

“Finally,” I grumble to myself, seeing a familiar car pull up.

Liam is done with school, forcing me to come back for the summer to celebrate his achievement, and his girlfriend is with him for the same reason. She’s going to be formally introduced to the pack, and it’s looking like she will be our future Luna.

The car stops, and Kelvin opens the door from the inside, but as soon as he does, I’m frozen in place and my thoughts are running wild.

Royce has always been handsome to me, but has he always smelled so…

“Yummy,” I say aloud, covering my mouth because I didn’t mean to speak.

My brother is just staring between me and his beta, clearly confused by our staring contest. It’s Kelvin who understands what’s happening first, and his expression makes my face go red in shame.

“Oh, my goddess. You and Jenna? Poor girl.”

“Shut the hell up!” Royce shouts, climbing over the man to get to me instead of using the door on his side of the car. “Hi,” my mate says, but I can’t even look at him.

I have tried to seduce Royce a time too many, and the last time he flat out told me that I wasn’t his type, so right now, I don’t know how to feel.

“Jenna, can you please look at me?”

“I don’t want to,” I admit, and he roughly pulls my hands away from my face while pulling me close.

“Let’s leave the past in the past.”

“That’s very easy for you to say.” Royce can say that because he wasn’t rejected by me.

However, the embarrassment of knowing that I’m not the kind of girl he would go for is overwhelming to me right now, especially because Royce doesn’t have a type. Simply put, he just didn’t want to be with me.

“What the f*ck is going on here?” I feel myself being roughly tugged back as my brother glares at his beta, making me roll my eyes at his denseness.

“Bro, this may be hard for you, but Jenna is my mate. I won’t reject her.” My brother rubs his temples, but I know it’s not because he’s concerned; he’s jealous.

“Are you sure? She doesn’t look very happy.”

“She and I have some misunderstandings between us that need to be worked out, but she is mine.” I grow nervous because I can tell that my brother was offended by Royce’s words, so I stand in between the men, telling them that we can talk about it later, but Porsha decides the tension needs to be added to.

“Beta Royce, you have displayed your disrespect for your alpha on several occasions during this trip, and mate or not, you will not issue commands to your alpha.”

“It was a claim, not a command, and-” Royce stops me from speaking by pulling me back, and now I’m concerned.

“It’s not worth it,” he says. “Let’s just go home.” I nod, moving to climb into the car, but Porsha physically blocks my path.

“Porsha, stop. She’s still my sister.”

“Yes, but if you look the other way on this, they will try to push you out.”

“What the hell are you talking about you crazy bi- “

“Jen!” My brother shouting my name is confusing to me, but I quiet down because my mate looks ready to defend me. “This is the last time I will ignore your blatant disrespect. I don’t want to talk about this any further.”

Royce nudges me into the car, and I end up conceding, even though I want to smack Porsha for making things up. She may not have a fated partner, but she should know the difference between a command and a claim, so I’m certain that she’s purposefully trying to cause trouble.

Still, I stay quiet, trying hard to ignore the awkward atmosphere, but the silence is painful, and Kelvin and Royce look so uncomfortable that it’s making me feel even worse than I already do.

I’m not happy about being fated to Royce. I don’t want to be with a man who doesn’t find me attractive, regardless of the bond, and I really don’t know how I’m going to cope with this.

“Porsha and I got into it just before we got to you. Her anger is with me, not you,” Royce says over mind-link, making me realize that I’m leaning against his body, and he’s been stroking my arm.

I move closer to Kelvin, who looks at me like I’m crazy before pressing himself tightly against the door closest to him. I kind of feel bad for him, but not bad enough to move.

“Jen.” Royce taps my shoulder, but I really don’t want to talk about ‘us’ right now.

I’ve been waiting at my school’s gates for over twenty minutes, I’m tired, hot, and confused. He and I can talk when we get back to the territory, but honestly speaking, I don’t know if I can do this.

Liam’s POV

My sister is fated to Royce, and while I know he will respect her as his mate, he’s going to have a difficult time convincing her of that fact. I know she’s had a crush on him for years, and I’m sure that he knew it too.

There have been several occasions when Jenna was actively trying to get his attention, but like a good friend, Royce literally ignored her.

Aside from that, he has a very bad reputation that sometimes gets ahead of him, and I’m not sure my sister can deal with that.

Then, there’s Porsha. She’s been angry the entire drive because she felt like I should have made private travel arrangements for us, almost as though we are some sort of royalty.

When Royce called her out for not making the arrangements herself, she looked to Kelvin for support, but he, surprisingly, did not take her side.

Kelvin is much more frugal than Royce and me, so he tried to be diplomatic by telling her that the pack respected its leaders for not lavishly spending on themselves, but she took that as saying that she wouldn’t be respected.

Everything went downhill from there, and then being witness to a fated couple meeting for the first time just made everything worse. I know what she felt like because I felt it too.

There is nothing happy about seeing someone else find the happiness you crave for yourself, which is why Porsha and I have a marking pact, but she will not be made my luna until we’ve both exhausted our search for our blessings.

“How do you want to be introduced?” I ask, linking my fingers through Porsha’s in an attempt to lighten the mood in the car.

“You know what I want to hear from you.” Porsha wants a ‘commitment’ from me.

She said she feels like I’m playing her because I haven’t promised to mark her, but we are still young, and for all I know, she may find her mate tomorrow and leave me.

Still, I hate to see her depressed, so I will say what it is she wants to hear, and I hope it fixes things between us because I really want it to work.

When we get close to the pack grounds, I mind-link my father, telling him that I need time to shower and prepare for my speech, and I also hint at the fact that he should prepare himself mentally.

He loves Royce, but that doesn’t mean he would want him with Jenna, his golden girl.

That isn’t a jab, my sister really is kind of golden, and I involuntarily laugh, realizing that when Chey called us the golden boys, she was referring to our physical appearances as well.

Wolves tend to be very mixed as far as our human appearances go, and all three of us are obviously multiethnic. That means that we’ve sporadically picked up dominant and recessive traits from our parents and grandparents, and now that I look at us, we really are the ‘golden’ boys, and Jenna is a golden girl.

“Why are you laughing?” Kelvin asks, clearly the only one paying attention to me.

“I was just thinking about Chey.” The entire car falls into an even greater silence, so I quickly tell them what I just noticed. “When she called us the Golden boys, she might have been talking about our skin tones the way my father describes Jenna.

“You’ve got a pack member who called you spoiled to your face?”

“Yup,” I say with confidence. “She’s a great girl; I think you two will get along.” I know that Chey wants to be a Luna’s escort, so I drop that plug to help further her cause, but Porsha is glaring at me, and I realize that she’s angry, which is odd because she’s never been insecure. “You’ve met her before.”

“What are you doing?” Royce asks over mind-link, shortly followed by Kelvin and my sister.

“What?”

“Are you trying to make Chey a target?”

“Porsha isn’t like that,” I reply, but I notice that my girlfriend is very stiff in her seat, so I explain who Chey is in detail.

“Oh, so she’s the disgraced gamma’s child?” Everyone gasps, unsure how to respond.