Untamed (Rejected Mate Academy #1) - E. M. Moore Page 0,14
the room and waves at her.
She waves back but leads me toward the buffet line, which has so much more food than I ever dreamed of eating for breakfast. I’m usually a cereal-in-the-morning kind of girl, but there are so many choices. Eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, yogurt, fruit, and an entire cereal section. Determined to get something out of my stay here, I load up on bacon and pancakes, then grab some fruit, too. Our last stop is the drink counter where I’m bombarded with a bunch of juice choices along with milk, chocolate milk, and strawberry milk. I opt for chocolate and then follow Mia further into the glass room.
I get caught up into peering at the clouds hovering in the sky that I almost walk right into a table. “Woah there,” a masculine voice calls out. I glance over at him, and he grins at me. “New here?”
“Very.”
Mia nods toward the oblong, wooden piece of furniture that almost made me a klutz. It’s massive and must be at least ten feet in length. Benches run up and down the sides, so I take a seat across from Mia and the guy who stopped me from making an ass out of myself. “This is Nathan,” Mia tells me. “The other shifter in my fucked-up love quartet.”
I grimace. “That sounds like a nightmare. Sorry guys.” They watch me as I pick up my fork, and it’s as if I’m on display in a store window. I’ve never eaten breakfast with anyone but my parents. Hell, I’ve never eaten inside a cafeteria with anyone before. During lunch at Lunar High, I took my food outside and ate by myself.
“What are you in for?” Nathan asks.
He’s a handsome guy with dark hair and a line of stubble down his cheeks and across his jaw. He’s not as built as Jonah, but no one is. Just looking at him, I can’t imagine why no one would want to snatch him up. The same goes for Mia, too.
When I tell them as much, they laugh.
Mia clutches her stomach. “That made my whole week. My whole month. I’m going to tell my little sweetie pie asshole that the next time I see him.”
Nathan chuckles and rolls his eyes. “You do that.” He bites into an apple and peers back at me. “So?”
Oh, right. Me. I blush. I’m really screwing up this friend thing. “I’m Kinsey. Rejected for not fitting in, I guess.”
Mia helpfully supplies the true answer. “Her mate said she didn’t ever try to fit in with the pack.”
“And he thought that sending you to the place for the ultimate castoffs would change that?” Nathan squeezes the apple in his hand until it splits in half with a crunch. Mia pats his shoulder while he drops the remnants of it right onto the table and glances away.
Behind us, someone sniffles. We all turn to find a girl with blonde hair entering the room. Complete despair mars her face as she peers around, wide-eyed. We instantly sober. My wolf mirrors the girl’s emotions, mewling inside me. I rub my chest, and Mia frowns. “It’ll get better.”
“Sometimes worse,” Nathan adds unhelpfully.
Mia hits him. “Don’t tell the newbie all the bad things.”
He doesn’t listen. His face sours as he watches the blonde girl. “Wait until the first counseling meeting when you see him for the first time since the rejection.”
He’s not kidding about that. Last night in the hall, the same horrible despair ripped through me. “I already saw him again.” I place a sliver of pancake in my mouth and start to chew. It takes a moment for me to notice that they’re staring at me slack-jawed. I hurry and swallow. “What?”
“You saw him already?”
I shrug. “During my meeting with Ebon, I kind of shifted. Accidentally, of course. I ran out into the hall, and he was there.”
Mia grabs Nathan’s arm. “You fucking shifted in the academy?”
Heat blooms on my cheeks. I peer around to make sure no one’s listening to us, then turn back. “Yeah, it was an accident. I got mad.”
Nathan watches me quizzically as if he can’t figure me out. Mia picks up on his face and says, “I know, right? I dropped by her room yesterday. No tears.”
“You have a heart of steel.” He studies me even further before staring right into my eyes. “Even I shed a few tears on my first night.”
“Please, you were a wreck,” Mia points out, poking him playfully.