Werewolf Academy Book 1: Strays by Cheree Alsop Read Free Book Online Page A

sorrow in his voice. “I know you’d love it.”
    He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the statue’s right foreleg. It was his favorite place at night. The lights were out in the Academy windows, stars winked down from their deep velvet blanket, and the wind, always the wind, circling, toying with his black hair that was getting a bit longer than he usually let it grow, and promising that a run beyond the walls would be amazing.
    Alex was about to give into the urge to run when the front door to the Academy opened.
    The form paused on the top step, then made its way to the statue.
    The familiar scent made Alex’s tight muscles loosen.
    “I thought I’d find you here,” Dean Jaze said amiably when he reached the statue.
    Alex smiled. “Maybe I’m getting too predictable.”
    The dean chuckled. “You proved that wrong today.”
    Alex nodded. “That was a bit above the norm.”
    “A bit,” Jaze conceded, smiling at the sarcasm. “I suppose the Lifers and Termers are getting along?”
    “As good as can be expected. Someone tied our door shut,” Alex said. At Jaze’s raised eyebrows, Alex shrugged. “I untied it. No harm done.”
    Jaze’s gaze said he guessed more than what Alex let on. “Be careful, Alex. Don’t push yourself too hard. I know how much you want to be an Alpha.”
    Alex shook his head. He lowered his gaze and said quietly, “I don’t want to be an Alpha. I want to be like my brother.”
    Jaze’s eyes traveled from the young Gray to the statue of the black wolf behind him.
    Heartbreak filled Alex’s voice when he asked the question that had circled in his mind hundreds of times but he had never dared to ask. He made himself do so now. “Could you have saved him?”
    Jaze let out a slow breath. He turned and leaned against the base of the statue next to Alex. He glanced at the young werewolf. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself that same question,” he said. “How many times I’ve ran the scenario over and over again in my head.” The dean closed his eyes. “If I had known he was going to sacrifice himself for me, I would have demanded to go up there beside him, and he knew that.”
    “And you would have died, too,” Alex answered in a whisper.
    Jaze nodded. “I would have fought side by side with my best friend and died beside him.” He stifled a smile when he said, “And he would have been so angry at me for sacrificing myself, even if I pointed out that was exactly what he had done.”
    Alex fought to keep the pain at bay, forcing the memories away of the day his parents were killed. Jet had found them and taken them to a werewolf safe house called Two. It was there he and Cassie had been told about Jet’s death. He hadn’t broken down then; he had been strong for Cassie, holding her as she cried, lost inside herself at the thought of all of their loved ones gone.
    At the Academy, he had to be strong for different reasons. While Cassie found consolation in the woods and in the peace that reigned when the terms were no longer in session, Alex was constantly on guard, fighting for his spot among the packs, hoping someday to prove Jet proud, to be a brother worthy of the one who had died to make the Academy happen.
    “I think he deserves to be here instead of me,” Alex said quietly.
    Jaze looked at him. He was quiet for several minutes. Alex appreciated the way the dean never talked down to him or acted like his opinion didn’t matter. Jaze and Nikki were all Alex and Cassie had when they were brought to the Academy. Jaze had become a father figure to the twins, helping them through the heartache as he survived it himself.
    “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought that myself,” Jaze admitted into the silence. “He had gone through so much in his life. To see what he had become in the time I knew him made me realize what it truly meant to love and to sacrifice, to trust and to be loyal.”
    Jaze looked at Alex as if debating