Finding His Mate (His Mate Book 1)

Chapter 5

FRIDAY

"It's next period and I have no idea what it's going to be about!" Liam frantically flipped through his large binder, sending papers flying everywhere in the cafeteria.

I frowned. "How do you know we have a pop quiz in French?"

"Well, I texted Mikaela, who told me that her friend Sarah knows a girl named Rachelle on the soccer team, who's in Mme. Yates' grade 11 class, which is the period right before us. Rachelle was told by Aiden that he overheard Mme. Yates talking to Mme. Stone about 'giving a pop quiz to her grade 12 class tomorrow', and that was yesterday."

My head spun listening to all those names. "Okay, wait. So you're saying we have a pop quiz?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Not 100%, but everyone in the grade's talking about it. I just found out now."

"Did they mention what it was going to be about?"

"No!" Liam wailed. "That's what's freaking me out!"

"Little Fluff, listen," I said gently. "Knowing Mme. Yates, it's most likely going to be a small grammar quiz on the stuff we covered this or last week."

"Like...the tenses and stuff?"

"Yes. A quiz on the subjonctif. That's the only thing she can really quiz us on. I mean, what else is she going to test us on? Something we've never covered in class?"

He deadpanned. "Dylan, you just described every teacher, ever."

The bell rang, and Liam blanched. "Ah! It's time!"

"It's time to succeed!" I reminded him, trying to be cheery and optimistic for once so I could calm his nerves. "Here, on our way up, we can go through some of the rules, okay?"

He nodded, although he was still a bit shaky about our potential pop quiz. As we put our bags away, we rehearsed conjugation rules for the subjunctive tense. Eventually, we arrived at the classroom.

"Thank you, Dylan, for volunteering to bring down the attendance," Mme. Yates voluntold me once she checked everyone off her attendance list.

"It's okay," I mouthed to Liam, who was sitting all tensed up in his seat.

The journey down to the office was fine and without any interruptions, much to my relief. On the way up, however, I was most unfortunate to stumble across a particular someone.

Marcus.

Somehow, seeing him felt even worse than running into Coach Rotisserie. At least she could be shaken off easily. Marcus, on the other hand, was like a leech - latching into you and draining your life force without remorse. He stood there, his pride rolling off him, and carrying himself as if he owned the school. I had no intentions of interacting with him, but Marcus apparently had other plans.

"Hey," he told me smoothly.

"Marcus," I said curtly.

"Nice seeing you around." He gave me a cold smile that resembled a wolf baring its teeth.

"Hm." I wasn't going to lie and pretend I was happy to see him.

I assumed Marcus hadn't given Liam too many issues today in class. Liam only mindlinked me once this morning, and that was to ask me to tell him a joke. I just hoped Marcus didn't do anything to him.

"I'm working with your little Omega friend for our science project," he told me, going straight for the kill. "He's quite precious, that one. A shame he's at school and poisoning his mind with this education. He'd make a perfect mate otherwise."