Territory - Prequel Read Online Free PDF Page B

threw up his hands and backed down the hall, “Look I don’t want any trouble.  It was an accident.”  The boy kept walking backward until he reached the end of the hall then he turned and disappeared down the corridor.
    He didn’t like bullies; despised them actually. W hile part of him wanted to chase the kid down and pound him into the ground, he opted instead to stay and offer the nerdy under classma n a hand.
    He turned to find Chloe already on her knees helping to collect the books that were strewn about the hall.
    “You alright?” she asked the kid.
    “F-fine.  Thanks for your help.  No one’s ever stuck up for me like that before.”
    He watched as Chloe rose and placed the few books she had on the kid’s towering pile.  Dell remembered wondering how the kid’s pale boney arms were even able to endure the weight.
    “My name is Chloe Lott.”
    The nerdy kid simply nodded, “I’m Jerry.  Thanks for your help.”
    “Anytime,” Chloe smiled, “and thank you.”  She’d turned to smile at Dell.
    “Sure,” he supplied lamely before a teacher had shouted from down the hall for the trio to “Get to class!”
    He didn’t want to go, but then Chloe stepped to a door, double-checked her class assignment card and entered it leaving him alone in the hall with the nerd.
    “You need help with th at,” he’d asked the underclassma n. 
    When the kid confirmed that he could handle his load, Dell double-timed it to class and spent the remainder of the day thinking about the new girl who wasn’t afraid to challenge the bully.   
    After that day he’d watched her incessantly, wondering if her temporary lapse in sanity was a fluke.  It wasn’t.  She defended the ‘little guy’ at every opportunity that presented itself and it was more than a little intriguing.
    He watched her constantly, even shifting to follow her home under the cover of the woods.  Hell, her brother had even caught him ogling her ass a time or two.   When he’d finally built up the nerve to finally ask her out, it had been too late. 
    The change that affects all shifters had come upon him suddenly and it hit him hard.  So hard in fact that Mama was forced to pull him from school.  He’d been forced to finish his senior year in the confines of the Blackbird compound.  Convinced he’d fallen ill with some mysterious ailment, the school official s were more than willing to cooperate.  Cindy spread the word that he’d gr aduated early and that was that.  H igh school was over. 
    The change in him had taken so much time, energy, and patience that he’d soon given up on ever seeing Chloe again.  By the time he’d mastered his abilities, it was too late.  She’d a lready graduated and moved on.  Even if she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have pursued her.  He’d had a difficult enough time coming to terms with what he was; he’d have been unable to explain it to anyone else. 
    Chloe wasn’t the only thing he’d missed out on.  He’d been a national wrestling champion, but was forced to quit the team and refuse all thirteen of the scholarships that he’d been offered.
    “You’re different son,” Mama had told him, “our destiny is not that of the average man.  You have responsibilities.”
    He’d always known that they were different, that they were shifters, but it wasn’t until he came into his own abilities that he’d realized just how different they were.  While his brothers and sister dated, he’d shied away from it.  He didn’t want to drag anyone into his life, especially someone he cared for.  Those first years of coming to terms with what he was had him questioning his own existence, and while things got better with time his life was still certainly something he wouldn’t wish on any child or non-shifter mate of his own.  
    Mate of his own .  Chloe.   God, why couldn’t Mace have mated another woman, any other woman.   No, he’d gone after the only possible option that was destined to draw