Beta Bully (F/F) - Chapter 4 (Early Access) (Patreon)

The Interrogation

Luna dragged her by the arm to the nearest empty classroom and bundled her inside roughly. None of the student body noticed Darcy’s kidnapping as far as she could tell, all too busy marching to their first lessons of the day. Luna shut the door behind them.

“I don’t know anything!” Darcy blurted immediately. She retreated away from the beta’s intimidating presence, further into the room, until her butt hit the teacher’s desk.

Luna stalked towards her, very much the predator she is in every movement. “I didn’t ask you anything yet,” she reminded her.

“It doesn’t matter what you ask! I won’t know the answer!”

“What’s your name?” Luna asked sarcastically.

Darcy turned her face away and huffed. “That information is on a need-to-know basis.”

“Darcy.” Her name on Luna’s tongue was delicious. She hated her heart’s erratic behaviour as soon as her name slid from her mate’s mouth.

“Who is that?” Darcy rebutted quickly.

“My mate, apparently.”

Darcy switched to the safety of silence.

Luna continued, but Darcy couldn’t fit her tone or body language into a category. She was either annoyed, patronising her or perhaps feeling awkward. Maybe a mixture of the three. “According to MYSTIKA, Darcy J Cove is the full name of my soul-mate.” She plucked the piece of card embossed with MYSTIKA’s logo from her phone case and flipped it to show Darcy’s name scrawled on the other side.

“I don’t believe in psychics,” Darcy mumbled feebly.

“You don’t believe you’re my mate?”

A splash of realisation hit her brain at Luna’s words. She didn’t know Darcy had turned eighteen. Darcy had never thought about it before but why would she know? She didn’t have to deny knowing they were mates, she could deny even being old enough to feel the connection between them.

“No, I don’t,” Darcy said, pushing her voice to be stronger. If she poke with conviction, maybe she’d believe her.

“When is your birthday?”

“August,” she lied. Her birthday was January 8th.

“Okay, so I’m up first. I’m June 15th.”

Darcy was well aware of her mate’s far too fast approaching birthday.

“Perfect.” Darcy pushed away from the desk. “So until then, we don’t need to worry about this. Or talk about it.” She swung under Luna’s elbow and darted for the door. “Or be within ten feet of each other.”

Luna snagged her back by the backpack, hooking her fingers through the loop and pulling her body to her own roughly. Darcy’s feet skidded on the smooth wood floor. Luna’s body heat was permeating both their clothes.

“Hold up,” Luna snapped. “We’re probably soul-mates and you’re fine to stay apart for two months and pretend like we don’t know any better?”

Darcy wanted to tell her she would be fine to stay apart for the rest of their lives. “I’m so glad you understand my feelings on this matter,” she said instead, business-like in tone. She made another attempt to pull away but Luna’s oversized hand did not release her bag.

Without any room for question, she dismissed Darcy’s words. “That’s not happening.” She spun her by the loop on her backpack, forcing Darcy to face her and her stern gaze.

Darcy took a mini step back, attempting to put any space between them she could. Anything to avoid her intoxicating scent. She wanted to roll in it like a dog in a flower field.

“But you could be wasting your time,” she countered, a tiny tremble finding its way into her voice. “Time you could spend meeting the real deal. What if she’s out there and she sees you sniffing around someone else?”

“What if I see someone else sniffing around you?” Luna growled.

“The only people that bother me are not looking for a hug, Luna.” Her voice cracked on her soul-mate’s name and she wanted to die. It was her first time using it to her face. She covered it by continuing, “and the ones that do are just you and your goons anyway.”

“My goons?” Luna repeated with an impish smirk. That word seemingly tickling her.

“You know who I mean,” Darcy grumbled, cheeks warming. “Your little group of henchmen that follow you around. They have bad intentions but not… those kind.”

She crept in closer. “The hug kind?” she repeated Darcy’s earlier words with a laugh, it was bordering on her cruel one. The one that made her teeth look particularly sharp.

“You know what I meant.”

Luna bent her head down. Her nose pressed against Darcy’s cheek. Darcy twisted away, tilting her face downwards. Long fingers curled around her arms and kept her still as Luna spoke huskily into her skin. “Hugs are not my intention with my mate.” Her scent was suffocating, Darcy could sink into it and never leave.

It took every ounce of willpower within her not to submit to her completely. To turn into a helpless goo in her arms. “How lucky for me that I’m not your mate then,” she said. Where she found the strength to say those words was beyond her.

“I don’t like your tone.” Her own tone was growing impatient and frustrated. It made Darcy nervous. She knew what she could be like when she was angry.

She responded quietly and carefully. “I… I don’t like how close your… face is.”

Luna connected their foreheads, her body hooked over her. “Maybe you’ll get used to it.” There was a flirtatious edge to her words. That made Darcy even more nervous. Sickly nervous. She knew what she was dealing with when she was mad, but this version of Luna was unchartered.

Darcy’s voice became a reed-thin whisper. “I don’t think so.”

She ducked under her arm and dashed. This time, she made it.

She threw the door back into Luna’s face and hurtled down the corridor like a flailing baby bird that just couldn’t get up into the air. Beta scent was following her. Luna’s breaths were huffing out behind her, tinged with anger.

She reached the resource cupboard on the opposite end of the hallway and burst inside as Luna’s fingers grazed her back over her sweater. She slammed the door shut and grappled with the button lock. The door bounced as Luna thumped it with her frame, but Darcy kept pushing back with her shoulder in the pause between each hit. It took multiple attempts but finally she got it closed and locked, with her bully on the other side of the wood. Darcy slumped to the ground with her back pressed against the door. For a few minutes she listened to Luna growl quietly on the other side. The sound sent tingles up her neck and scalp like ASMR.

Darcy took some time to catch her breath, text her friends, and compose herself. Eventually, the growling faded.

When the bustle of second period class changes could be heard through the door, she peeled it open. Either Luna had blended her body and scent amongst the student body pushing through the corridor, or she had given up.

Darcy didn’t have time to wait any longer, she needed to get to her next class, it was the only place she knew she would be safe. She ran into the crowd clumsily.

Less than a hundred yards from the cupboard an enormous figure stepped out into her path too suddenly for her to halt. A crack of pain across her forehead brought her eyes to a pinch. She stumbled backwards, bringing a hand to her face in both mortification and pain.

“Hey, you okay?” The giant asked. The voice was deep and unfamiliar.

Darcy wanted the ground to eat her up, but she managed to garble out, “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” She squinted up at him through the pain in her forehead. “Are you okay? I shouldn’t have been… I’m sorry.” She was rambling, but at least the giant didn’t seem offended.

“It’s fine, this took the full force of your face,” he laughed while waving the hard-back book he was carrying.

Darcy flushed. She was about to apologise again when a gravelly, all too familiar, voice spoke firmly behind her. “I’ve got her from here.”

The tall boy started at the sight of the person at Darcy’s back and nodded respectfully to them both. He mingled back into the crowds as they disappeared into the classrooms.

Luna began to ask her if she was okay, but Darcy had taken off again.