Tiger's Mate

Chapter 5

The next few days were fucking irritating, and it seemed like the dark ominous cloud hanging over my head just kept getting darker with every mention of Katski Black's name. I swear, it's been four days since he came to the school, for god's sake, don't people have anything better to talk about?

Like seriously.

And I can't say in those four days that my and Katski's relationship with each other has gone anywhere but down. In the two classes we had together through the week, we didn't do anything but glare at each other, probably wishing the other would fall out of their chair and get a concussion so that we didn't have to be in their presence any longer. Or at least I knew that's how I felt.

Just being around him felt like an annoyance all on its own. It was like the prick of a pine needle in between your paws, painfully irritating. Like the constant feeling of something that you couldn't shake the urge to get rid of until it was finally gone and out of sight. That's how I felt about Katski Black. And I could tell, from the way he reacted to me, that the feeling was mutual.

In History class we didn't speak — and I sure as hell didn't want a repeat of what happened with the group discussions. Even though we sat right next to each other, I was perfectly fine just falling asleep behind my textbook while he actually paid attention and took notes. I didn't really have to do either. When I was a pup, the elder wolves told human history like a bedtime story so I already knew everything I needed. Same for most of my other classes. You're not raised an Alpha's son to be stupid.

In music class, it was a little harder to ignore each other however. Seeing how Mrs. C had been making us work on the project all through the week. At least Katski was smart enough not to try and talk with me since that little statement he made in the detention room. So while all the other groups were milling about and chatting away, we had some unspoken agreement that we'd gather information about the project on our own.

On separate ends of the room.

The teacher was too busy reading her weekly word puzzle magazine to notice our behaviour toward each other anyway. But the other students weren't so oblivious.

Rumours began flying around about why Katski Black and Ethan Drayre seemed to have it out for each other. They could clearly see that Katski didn't just back down in fear to me like the rest of them did, and that alone had done damage to my supposed to be 'unrivalled' reputation.

Not that I particularly cared about what people said or thought about me. But when the rumours started getting as ridiculous as 'Katski Black and Ethan Drayre are fighting about a girl' to 'the both of them are secretly in rival gangs'...yes, I noticed.

One; I don't give a crap about girls enough to fight over them, unless someone just decides to challenge me, because like I said I don't back down from a fight.

And two; that gang rumour is just a bunch of BS. There weren't even any real gangs in this town, that's how I knew people were just trying to make up a story. My advice to them...

Get a life.

In today's end of the day music class, things were like that had been between the two of us. Katski sat at the far end of the room, around a few of the other groups. And I didn't miss how often he was taking a few spare minutes to talk and flirt around with the girls, who giggled and gushed at his supposed 'funny charm'.

I didn't care.

I sat on the other side, away from people. And instead of working on research, I had the guitar I used in this class in my hands, casually strumming a new tune that I had thought up yesterday after another talk with Maia.