Assassin's Honor

Chapter 8

Honerera held her ribs and grimaced. Tanner had kicked her last night, and she wasn't sure if they were broken or merely bruised. It hurt to take a deep breath, and it was unbearable to carry her backpack on her right shoulder. She moved slowly and gingerly through the school on the way to her locker. She had taken some ibuprofen, but it barely touched the pain.

She was late and was still putting her books away when Aaron came with his entourage. He slammed her locker shut and caught her hand in the metal door. She glared at the floor as she pried her crushed fingers loose.

"Hey fatty, get out of my way. You're blocking my locker." He pushed her aside roughly. "Stupid trailer trash bitch."

Seeing that teasing Honerera was the theme of the day, and the girl hadn't run off as quickly as usual, Mark joined in the game. "Yeah, I heard her mom was a crack whore. Sold her off to her uncle for a fix and ran away."

Honerera had heard all these insults before, the story that her mom was a drug addict, that she'd been abandoned to her uncle, nobody wanted her, blah blah blah. She bent to pick up the book she'd dropped when Aaron shut the locker on her hand. The act of bending over was excruciating in her ribs, and she could hardly breathe through the pain.

Mark got a few snickers for his dig, so he decided to ramp it up. "I heard," he said loudly, "that she fucks her drunk uncle. They got that incest thing going on up in the woods. My dad said-'' The little circle of students never got to hear exactly what his dad said because Honerera came up from the floor fast and hard and plowed her small fist straight into his nose. There was an audible crunch, and the blood started to gush as Mark howled like a baby.

"What the fuck, bitch!" Aaron was on her, and she couldn't move fast enough to avoid the fist that came down on her jaw. The force of it knocked her backward off her feet, and in the next moment he kicked her in the side, on her good side, but it hardly mattered, her ribs exploded in pain, and she began to see black spots.

"Break it up right now!" a male voice roared. It was Mr. Shepherd, Honerera realized in utter humiliation. Why did it have to be him? She squeezed her eyes shut, and willed him to walk away, just like teachers always did when she was bullied by the other students.

********

Gabriel grabbed Aaron by the back of the neck and was sending threatening looks to the circle of spectators that had gathered to enjoy the fight. "Someone take Mark to the nurse's office. Aaron, you report to the principal's office." Before he shoved the boy in the direction of the upper house office, he leaned down and sniffed him. The ode of werewolf mingled there with the stink of puberty. The kid was a hybrid. Gabriel was so angry he was shaking. How dare this punk kid touch his mate? He barely restrained his wolf from jumping out to rip the kid’s throat out. He would deal with Aaron Mortem later, in private.

"Hey, lay off man," Aaron complained, "Can't you see she started it? Jesus, she broke his damn nose."

"I saw everything," Gabriel said threateningly. He kicked himself for being second too late to prevent Mortem from striking Honorera. He felt the bitter sting of failure even more keenly than he felt her pain through the mate bond, and that pain was excruciating. Before he could step in that stupid kid had landed a solid punch to her face, and it was all Gabriel could do not to grab him by his scrawny neck and snap his head off. What kind of piece of shit punched a girl in the face? And then kicked her while she was down? And what kind of shitty mate was he that let that happen?

After the hall cleared, she still lay curled on her side, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. He leaned down and carefully picked her up, taking a deep breath of her sweet lilac scent. She whimpered a little when his arm touched her ribs. Gabriel felt the electrical tingle of the mate-bond everywhere that skin touched skin as he carried her. If she felt it too, she gave no indication, but maybe she was in too much pain to notice. He glanced around looking for a place to take her and then headed toward the staff room, which was empty this period. The room was filled with mismatched furniture, a drop-leaf table littered with crumbs, a threadbare recliner, a stained red couch, and a small kitchenette in the corner. He put her gently on the couch ugly red couch.

"Honerera, how badly are you hurt? Should I call an ambulance?" He asked anxiously. His hands longed to skim over her ribs and check her thoroughly, but it was too much, too soon.

She swallowed and took a few shallow, calming breaths. "No. No ambulance." She looked anywhere but at him.

"Your uncle then? We should call him and tell him what's happened." Gabriel pressed.

"No! No, please don't call my uncle. I'm fine! I just-" She sat up and winced as she reflexively covered her injured ribs.

Gabriel pushed her hands aside and carefully lifted her shirt; he sucked in a sharp breath when he saw the huge purple bruise on her right side. Aaron hadn't made this bruise; he'd kicked her on the left. He pulled the shirt up and examined her other side, noting the red mark there that was also darkening into a purple bruise. Gabriel cursed under his breath. He was going to kill that kid.

"Wait here, let me bring you an ice pack." He went to the fridge and used the built-in icemaker to fill a plastic bag with ice. He half expected her to bolt while he was away from the couch, the fact that she was still sitting there, her face pale and drawn, was a testimony to how much pain she was in. He gave her the ice pack, wrapped in a dish towel, and she carefully put it against her ribs.

"I'm late for class." She whispered anxiously.

"I'll write you a pass, he growled.

She looked at him, her eyes wary and guarded. He scribbled out a hall pass on a scrap of paper and handed it to her. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, it's nothing." She stood slowly. "Thanks, Mr. Shepherd. I’m sorry for all the trouble." She slipped away from him and disappeared out the door.

He watched her go with a sinking feeling. Fuck, he was messing this up!

***

When Honerera had left for her class, Gabriel headed to the principal's office. He was surprised to find the principal calmly scrolling through his phone in the otherwise empty office. Gabriel strode up to the metal, industrial desk. "Mr. Dulotte, did Aaron come in here?"

"Oh yes," Mr. Dulotte said casually, "We had a chat and I sent him back to class."

"You sent him back to class?” Gabriel felt a vein start to throb in his forehead. “You didn't expel him or at least give him detention for what he did?"

"What exactly do you think he did, Mr. Shepherd?" Dulotte leveled a cool, dispassionate stare at him.

"He attacked another student, a girl at that! He punched her in the face and kicked her when she was down!" Gabriel was outraged. Even if the victim hadn’t been his mate, such behavior was reprehensible and should not have been tolerated.

"I'm afraid you don’t quite understand the situation. See, that little girl attacked Mark Pickman and Aaron was merely defending his friend. If anyone should be expelled, it should be Miss Talbot."

Gabriel stared at him incredulously. "Are you joking?"

"Do I look like I’m joking? Unfortunately, Honerera Talbot has a long history of causing trouble and instigating mischief. She's a troubled child from a bad family. Aaron, on the other hand, is a model student, class president, captain of the football team, and his dad is one of our biggest alumni donors. He makes considerable contributions to our sports programs every year. Do you understand, Gabriel?"

Gabriel ground his teeth in frustration. "Oh yeah, I understand." He understood that Honerera was being thrown under the bus to protect some spoiled rich boy and keep the school flush with money. He wondered if Principal Dulotte was aware of the werewolf element in the school and if that was also part of the cover-up. However, he couldn’t ask without revealing himself, so he just clenched his jaw and kept quiet.

"Good. Please shut the door on your way out." The principal added offhand, as he went back to his phone. Gabriel accommodated him by slamming the door hard enough to make the plexiglass window shake in its pane.