Claimed by Her Alpha by Alex Anders Page B

than anything she had done all year. If she had entered school with sun poisoning, she wouldn’t have gotten involved with Dax and wouldn’t be a wolf today. She considered if that would have been better.
    “Do you want to come over today?” Gully asked, sure what her answer would be.
    “I shouldn’t. The doctor said I should rest. I should just go home and sleep.”
    “Yeah, that’s probably best,” Gully replied peering closer at her reddened skin. “Man that’s bad,” he concluded, before turning around.
    Saki knew that she shouldn’t, but she had to take a quick look back at Lane. His pack was looking unusually quiet. He returned her glance. That was all she could allow herself, though. She knew that especially now, she had to keep as much distance from him in public as possible.
    “And where the hell have you been?” Her mother said, yelling at the top of her lungs as Saki entered their van. “Oh my God! Look at your face! What the hell have you been up to?”
    Saki slid into the backseat as quickly as she could, closing the door behind her.
    “Please, just drive. Drive!” She said, looking out the window to see who had heard.
    “Don’t you tell me what to do, Missy. I am your mother. Don’t you disrespect me.”
    “I’m sorry, Mother,” she replied hurriedly. “I’ll tell you everything. But please just drive,” Saki begged.
    Saki‘s mother paused for a moment, then turned and drove away. Saki looked back at the students, trying to figure out if anyone heard the conversation. It was possible that her mother just blew it. But it wasn’t necessarily the case. Saki turned back around and looked up into the rearview mirror to find her mother’s eyes staring back at her. She looked for only a second before glancing up at Marnie who was in the front passenger seat. She, too, was looking back at Saki.
    “Okay, we’re driving. Now where the hell have you been?”
    Saki gave herself as much time to think as possible. Nothing was coming to mind until she considered the truth.
    “I have a boyfriend,” she began.
    “You what?” Her mother retorted.
    “Don’t act surprised. I told you I had a boyfriend 2 months ago. You just didn’t believe me,” Saki said, feeling herself take the upper hand. “And he has a boat,” she continued.
    “Like I told you, I went to the beach on Saturday. It was just Rose Island Beach,” she said, referring to the popular island a few miles off the coast of Nassau.
    “And you didn’t think to add that?” her mother said.
    “You didn’t even believe that I could have a boyfriend, so why would I tell you that?” Saki said, challengingly. Saki waited for a reply.
    “Say what you’re gonna say,” her mother said, annoyed.
    “Well, when we were leaving Rose Island, the boat broke down, and we were stranded. So for the last two days, we were floating in the boat in the middle of the ocean. He finally fixed it this morning, and we got home as soon as we could.”
    Silence filled the car. No one spoke, and Saki wasn’t sure why.
    “So you expect me to believe that for the last two days you and your boyfriend were floating out in the middle of the ocean?”
    “You see how burnt I am? How do you think I got this? This is why I don’t tell you anything. I tell you that I was stranded out in a boat for two days, and you don’t believe me?” Saki was irate and sucked her teeth in disgust.
    “Don’t you suck your teeth at me.”
    “Ya see, that’s why I don’t tell you anything.”
    “So you tell me that you were floating in the middle of the ocean for two days?”
    “Isn’t that what I just said?”
    Her mother paused as the realization settled in. “Of all of the ridiculous things that you’ve done. How could you be so stupid? You could be dead now, all over some boy. You are never seeing that boy again. Do you hear me?”
    “I could have just lied to you, ya know? I fine. I didn’t have to tell you the truth,” she said, practically