Wicked Wolves and Tangled Truths: An Urban Fantasy Romance (Blood and Magic : Hellbound Book 1)

I don’t plan on making it easy for her. Like every other student here at Hellbound High, she’ll need to learn her place. At the bottom.
I rule this school. Me and the other Hellbound High wolves—Desmond Pierce and Jordy Salgado. Which is how I know that despite his words, Rourke couldn’t care less if I’m friendly to the girl. The Druid stays out of shifter business. It works in my favor because when she decides she’s had enough and goes crying to his office, he’ll offer her words of comfort and little else. All he cares about—all any of the teachers at this school care about—is whether or not my Pack will keep bankrolling this little experiment of a school.
Hellbound High is funded by four local factions. The Shifters, the Vampires, the Humans, and the Witches. My father is the Southwest Pack Alpha. Piss him off and the Pack pulls out of this project we have going on here.
He already isn’t the biggest fan of it as it is. He’s old school and thinks we should all stay within our own species.
Now, I like to think I’m above such petty bullshit. The concept of an interspecies school is supposed to allow for future collaborations between factions, assuming we make friends and can tolerate each other. Which we don’t. But in theory it can help our Pack in the future. Which is the only reason I agreed to go here.
I won’t fuck that up. Pack always comes first. I’d never jeopardize my people’s future. But I’m not above holding that threat over the Hellbound High faculty. They need me here if they want the Pack on board. If the Pack pulls out, it’s likely the other factions will too. Aside from the vampires, we’re the biggest power player on the board.
We have our own businesses and our own interests. We don’t need to work with the other factions for our survival, much like the vampires, who are here for the same reason we are.
Humans are afraid of us. We’re the scary animals that shift into monsters and, in the vamps’ case, creatures of the night out to drink your blood. Such fucking bullshit. But this is supposed to help with our image and hopefully, smooth over prejudices. We don’t need humans to like us. But it would help if they learned to accept us.
Humans are irrational in the face of their fears which often turns into anger resulting in violence. We’ve already gone through the Awakening—when paranormals made their presence known to the human world and well, let’s just say it didn’t go over well.
War broke out. People died on all sides and in the end, the United States government fell apart and the world fell into anarchy. Things are better now that time has passed. It’s been ten years and the world has slowly picked up the pieces but things still aren’t the same. And places like Hellbound High are supposed to help get things back on track.
I’ve been going here since freshman year. When my father enrolled me, other faction leaders began taking the project seriously and enrolled their kids. As the Alpha’s son, they saw my enrollment as a sign of good faith. It’s also why the wolves get preferential treatment and why, most of the time, teachers turn a blind eye when we mouth off or start a fight. They need my Clan here. Not just my Pack. My Clan.
But Mrs. Ford is the one and only teacher who doesn’t seem to give a fuck about who my father is. I don’t know why she hasn’t been fired yet. She’s a fae and the only one to ever try and call me on my shit. I don’t see her lasting much longer if I have anything to say about it.
Isa’s steps are near silent as she follows me down the hallway to first period English. She looks so fucking innocent as she hugs a textbook to her chest, looking around the hallway with wide doe eyes, and all I want to do is dirty her perfect image. It’s the complete opposite of what I should feel toward her. She’s a wolf. A female. I should want to protect her. Wrap her in bubble wrap and make sure no one touches a hair on her head.
But underneath her first-class exterior is a feisty she-wolf just waiting to come out—and it calls to the beast inside of me. My wolf wants to challenge her. To bite her and chase her and force her to submit.
She’s pretty, if you look past the preppy shit she’s wearing. Long, dark hair. Brown eyes. Her white jeans hug her ass and highlight her hips. I wish she was walking in front of me instead of behind so I could watch that ass bounce with every step.
She’s most definitely Latina, but on the fairer side. Rourke called her Ms. Kline and there is only one Kline in the area and he’s the very white head of the human faction in these parts. Some Human Alliance Corporation bullshit.
I bet she’s half on her mom’s side. And knowing she’s a wolf and that Kline is 100% human, I wonder how she wound up here. And why she isn’t with a Pack. She didn’t transfer into ours. If she had, my pops wouldn’t have warned me away from her.
Wolves don’t do well away from our kind. More so than some of the other breeds, we need our Pack. Without it, our beasts can teeter on the edge of humanity. Des will need to keep an eye on her.
I can already feel that familiar spark of interest. I want to play with her. Make her my shiny new toy. I don’t usually bother with the chicks here. Most look at me as a status piece, a way to climb the social ladder if they’re shifters. And if they’re not, then I’m a means of rebellion. A way to see what a wolf is like in the sack so