Riley’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? Your bloodline. This is one of my favorite things to think about! You know, I come from a line that’s over three thousand years old! We started in South America, back before it was even called that, of course.” She laughed in this infectious way that sounded almost angelic, even though I had a feeling it came from a darker place.
“South America, huh?” I said, my heart drummed in my throat. “That’s cool.”
I pressed back into the crowd, hoping to give Riley the slip. I prayed that Celeste would come back and get me out of whatever bind this was. But before I knew what was happening, I had knocked directly into someone’s drink—and beer splashed all over my back and shoulders.
I turned quickly to discover Raphael—the werewolf Celeste and I had run into in downtown Hillside Falls. He gripped his now half-filled beer and blinked down at me, his face absolutely wild with anger. He hadn’t shaved, and his dirty blonde hairs poked out of his chiseled jaw and above his lips. His hair wafted around his ears and neck, looking curly and wild. He was probably six-three or something, and he towered over me. I felt like a complete idiot, standing there beneath him, reeking of his spilled beer.
Slowly, Raphael leaned toward me, his nostrils flared. His breath was hot as he whispered, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I was overwhelmed with fear mixed in with lust. I had never felt this way before; that I suddenly wanted someone who seemed like they wanted to hurt me. I shivered and took a small step back, but he closed the distance. He drew his hips toward my body and began to grind in time with the music. With his free hand, he drew a line across my back and tugged me tight against him.
“Aren’t you that human we ran into in Hillside Falls?” he asked in a deep gruff voice.
I nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“I figured. You smell exactly the same. I never forget a smell like that.” His head dipped down to the juncture of my neck and he slowly sucked in a breath, smelling my scent.
“But you must have smelled that I wasn’t really a human, then,” I whispered.
Raphael cut me a delicious smile. God, he was so gorgeous. Actually rugged, but sizzling with malice, but it turned me on all the same.
“I knew there was something off about you, sure,” Raphael said. “But I always think there’s something off about the girls I want. It’s why you want them, you know? Because they’re different.”
Girls he wants? What the fuck. I’d been at Origins for like, twelve hours, and already some werewolf was telling me he wanted to fuck me. But the drink was filling my head, making me woozy. Raphael’s head dipped lower so that his lips were a few inches from mine.
They glistened in the moonlight.
With a jolt, I turned my head toward the moon—realizing that it was almost nearly full. I’d grown up at a distance from the supernatural world, but even I knew that full moons meant that werewolves were meant to change.
“How are you able to do this?” I whispered.
“What?” he asked.
“Be out hereunder that. Isn’t it getting to you?” I asked, peering up at him.
Raphael let out a rippling laugh. “You really haven’t dealt with us much, have you, little fae? There are ways of getting around it if you want to. I’m part Lycan, anyway, which means that I can change whenever I want. The moon has nothing to do with it. I’m a more advanced species.”
His eyes glittered as he went on. “The moon does affect me, though. I can feel my blood ripping through my veins. My cock is hard as a fucking rock. And I know exactly how I want to fix it...”
I couldn’t control it. I felt a wave of desire that made me woozy. My free hand draped over his chest, dribbling down below the cut of his tank top to find the softness of his nipple, the coarse dark hairs that surrounded it.
He looked every bit the man he would eventually become. He was maybe seventeen or eighteen years old—and my mind ached for him to touch me, for his fingers to unfurl the soft wetness at the juncture between my legs—for him to see me, stroke me, and taste me.
I had only been with a few guys ever, and only one had been full-blown sex, but it had ended pretty badly, to be honest—neither of us knew what we were doing. But this feeling that brewed between Raphael and I felt enormous, like a bubble that was on the verge of bursting. And whatever happened when it burst.
“Come on,” he muttered, yanking me even closer. Before long, his lips pressed over mine, warm and ravenous.
A little moan escaped my lips as I let his tongue glide over mine. Our mouths were fully open, our tongues exploring each other. My dress was so tight-fitting, and a bit damp from beer, that it began to slip down my breasts. I felt one of my nipples pop out the top of the fabric, but I didn’t care. I felt it graze over the fabric of his tank top. He broke the kiss and beamed down at it, grinding so hard against me that I could feel all of him, the entire girth of his cock, against my upper belly.
I was just a teenager enjoying the moment at a party.
Horny and wild and wanting to live—
I wanted nothing more than to forget all the weird shit that had been happening, the dreams and what would come.
“What have you got here?”
The words rattled around in my head. I turned from Raphael’s kiss to find Ezra beside him, peering down at me with curious, evil blue eyes. Before I forgot, I snapped the fabric of my dress back into place to conceal my nipple. I knew Ezra saw it just before, though. He gave me a crooked grin, which drew out one of his bright white fangs.
“Ezra. There you are,” Raphael flashed him an evil grin. “I wanted to show you. That human we ran into downtown in Hillside Falls? Not such a human, huh?”
Ezra’s blue eyes burned into mine. There was an intensity to it I couldn’t fully understand. Suddenly, I felt like the air was too thick around me like I couldn’t breathe. As I stared into Ezra’s eyes, images began to spit in the back of my head. Horrible images—blood splashing, wild screams, and panic.
The screams seemed to belong to Ezra.
But how? What?
What was I seeing?
Ezra in pain.
Ezra calling out my name.
But he didn’t even know my name yet.
Suddenly, I let out the breath that I had been holding and suddenly realized that I had toppled to the ground. My wine had spilled everywhere. Raphael, Ezra, and the other one—the dragon named Quinton—hovered over me. Quintin stretched out his hand.
“Looks like you need a little bit of help?”
The air still felt heavy. I stumbled up, gripping Quinton’s hand. My lips buzzed with the memory of Raphael’s kiss. This desire stirred within a huge crater of darkness and fear, living in the back of my mind.
Ezra drew his hand around my lower back. “Not a human, are you?” he said. “I didn’t think so—something is off about you.”
“That’s what I sensed,” Raphael blurted.
“Maybe we should talk about it more,” Ezra suggested, tilting his head to the side. Everything he did seemed slow and methodical like he was already a few steps ahead of you and he wasn’t going to hurry to the end of his plan.
I stumbled a little bit as I walked alongside Ezra, marching toward the edge of the party and away from most of the crowd. Raphael and Quintin hovered a bit behind us, talking too low for me to hear. I couldn’t help but side-eye Ezra every few steps, borderline mesmerized with how fucking hot he was. Celeste had said these three boys ruled the entire academy—and for whatever reason, I was hanging with them.
Ezra and I paused at the beginning of one of the rickety docks. It shifted a little beneath us. Ezra beamed at me, his blue eyes reflecting the moon.
“You’re really beautiful, aren’t you?” he whispered. He drew a hand up to tuck a bit of hair behind my ear.
I shivered.
“I mean, we have all heard that you haven’t discovered your powers yet, or quite know what race you belong to for that matter,” he said, arching h
is eyebrow.
“Umm—” I began.
Ezra shrugged. “A little bird told me that it'd been a struggle. You don’t even know how you’re going to get grouped on the first day. Tell me, pretty girl. Why are you here? Did your parents bribe someone to get you in? I’ve never heard of it. Someone so unsure of their powers that they don’t know how they’re going to be grouped.”
I felt an alarm going off in my head. This was all wrong. Ezra was now looking at me like meat, like a plaything, rather than someone he wanted to flirt with. I shuffled a bit to the side, my heartbeat thudding in my chest so hard it might burst through.
“I’m here because I’m like all of you. In time I’ll learn my powers, but frankly, it’s really none of your business.” I retorted, cursing myself for not coming up with some sort of strategy. I wasn’t prepared for any of this. I hadn’t thought anyone would be interested in me! I had thought I could just skate through to my seventeenth birthday when shit would really hit the fan.
Clearly, I was wrong.
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice.
“Hey! ‘Allo! Ezra!”
The accent was French, yet cheerful—a bit different than it had been earlier, but more familiar than this vampire who looked like he was about to fucking turn me. I leaped to the side to see Margot running toward me. She gave me a huge, electric smile—proof, I guess, that all French women are far more beautiful than the rest of us.
“What is he doing to you?” she asked, in a half-teasing voice.
I shrugged, overwhelmed with relief. Margot was the leader of the second-year girls, which meant that she had to protect me from whatever it was Ezra wanted.
“Come on, Margot,” Ezra said playfully. “You know I just wanted to get to know the new girl. I’m asking her all those questions that you’re burning to know the answer to. Really doing the dirty work for you.”
Margot stepped closer to him. I could see from the way she beamed up at him, her eyes flashing, that she was all-out in love with him.
This was probably bad news for me. I felt it like a jolt of electricity, up and down my spine. But they had me out on the dock, and they were standing in front of me and dry land—which meant that I either had to leap into the water to get away from them or...
Yep. That was the only option. Shit.
“I should really head back to the party,” I said, trying to sound confident, sure of myself. Course, with all the fucking changes over the past few months, there was no way in hell I could feel confident inside.
Margot turned back to me and gave me a puppy dog face. “No, no. That’s stupid,” she said. “Really. I’m sorry Ezra was so idiotic.”
She said that last word with a French drawl, which irritated the shit out of me. But she was nice, so I smiled.
Margot gestured toward a little boat, roped to the side of the dock. “I feel that we got off on the wrong foot today, Ivy Whitestone. And I feel terrible about it.”
“No, no. We’re fine,” I said, kind of stuttering it. Jesus, why couldn’t I get it together?
“There’s something I want to show you,” Margot said, shrugging. “It’s kind of important to me. A place just around the corner, over on that further beach.”
She pointed to the left. The docks ended very shortly before the forest completely took over and whirled out to a little peninsula, which rocketed out into the Gulf. It looked dark, forbidden, its trees shifting in the breeze.
“It’s beautiful. But maybe we could go when it’s light.” I suggested as I scanned the water.
Margot gave me an eye roll that seemed entirely, saucily French. “That’s such an American response. Isn’t it?”
Ezra, Raphael, and Quintin hovered behind Margot, looking ghoulish and strange.
“How do we even get out there?” I asked Margot. I felt like my words were caught in my throat.
“We just take this little boat,” Margot said. “Just you and me. I’ll bring some champagne and it will allow us to bond a little. Get to know one another a little better. You don’t want to be stuck having only Celeste as a friend all year, do you?”
Actually, Celeste is perfect, and I don’t need anyone else, I thought to myself but also didn’t want to piss her off.
I knew that this wasn’t rational. I was at a new school, and times were changing. I needed as much love and friendship as I could. And, even though it was difficult to admit to myself, I wanted to look brave in front of the boys. It was obvious they had some sort of attachment to Margot.
Maybe Ezra was her boyfriend—even though he had seemed pretty eager to slip his tongue down my throat.
“Okay. Why not,” I said, with a slight sigh of resign. “I’m a little sick of the party, anyway.”
Margot clapped her hands and did a few little jumps. The dock shook beneath us. “Okay. Why don’t you get in the boat? I’ll go grab some champagne and maybe some snacks—oh, and a blanket. We don’t want to get stuck out there without a blanket. Oh, it’ll be so beautiful, Ivy Whitestone. We can watch the sunrise together.”
Raphael, Ezra, and Quintin exchanged glances. I couldn’t quite read what they meant. My head was still bleary from the weird images I had seen when I’d run back into Ezra. I stepped back toward the boat, feeling myself nod. Then, my foot found the first little step in the boat. Before I knew it, I was seated at the far end of the rickety fishing boat, gazing up at Margot.
“That’s it,” Margot said. She sounded like she was speaking to a child. And right then, I definitely felt like one. “I’ll be right back.”
One of Margot’s cronies—Zelda—appeared at the end of the dock, waving a bottle of champagne back and forth. Margot bounced back and grabbed the bottle, thanking Zelda with a light kiss on the cheek. I imagined another world, where Margot kissed me on the cheek. Maybe she wasn’t so bad? Maybe, if I worked my way in with her, Celeste and I could have an even better year. It was better to make friends with your potential enemies, right? Wasn’t that some kind of proverb?
Margot appeared at the boat again. She handed me the bottle of champagne, grinning broadly. Then, she reached down to the ropes and began to untie them.
“Oh, you shouldn’t do that until you get in.” I began, remembering those endless afternoons with my dad on the fishing boat. “I’ve done this before.”
I reasoned that maybe she wasn’t so used to this stuff since she had grown up in Paris—which only had the one river, I was pretty sure.
But before I could say what I needed to say, Margot shot her fingers toward the edge of the boat, muttering a string of words from her pretty lips. The boat surged out from the dock, sweeping through the waves. Within just a few seconds, I was half a mile away from the dock, my boat tossing in the dark waves.
“AHHHH!” I screamed. My eyes were wide as I scanned everywhere around me. I gaped back at the three kings of the academy, Zelda, and Margot, all standing so far, away from me, across the black, tossing sea.
“What the fuck, Margot!” I screamed out but knew she couldn’t hear me.
I searched everywhere around me, hunting for any sign of a paddle, anything at all. “No, no, no...” I muttered. I couldn’t fucking believe I had trusted anything Margot was saying. Had I really thought we could be friends with each other? Had I really thought that she had my best interest at heart?
“FUCK!” I screamed. My voice rang out into the pristine night sky. It was probably one in the morning, maybe two—and I was caught out on the Gulf, with only a champagne bottle, and no way to get back to shore.
I was fucking screwed.
Chapter Eleven
I had never been out on a boat by myself before. The water knocked against the sides of the hull, with some of it pouring over the top. I stared out at the black, glittering water, watching as Margot, Zelda, and the three kings of the academy wandered back toward the party. I knew better than to think they were going to come out to try to save me. Hell, I didn’t know how they could or why they would.
I sc
anned the party, looking for any sign of Celeste. I didn’t have to try and imagine what she was up to. She was making out with Peter, probably pressed up against the side of a tree, having the night of her life. She was probably just as drunk as I was, although I was feeling a lot fucking sober now that this was happening and she probably assumed I was off having just as much fun as she was.
Jesus Christ!
I turned my attention to the champagne bottle in my hands. With a shrug, I twisted off the top, making the bubbles surge out the top. I capped it with the palm of my hand, careful not to lose too much. Once it stopped bubbling up, I tossed it back, drinking straight from the bottle. It was my own damn party in the middle of the Gulf, all alone.
The waves tossed me around a little bit. Unfortunately, though, they weren’t the kind that would take me back toward land. Margot seemed to have made sure that I was pushed out far enough that this wouldn’t happen. As I drank alone, I watched as the party started to take a turn, becoming more somber, with several students wandering back toward the academy. I closed my eyes and tried to will one of them with my mind, to look over at me and recognize that I was in fucking danger. Of course, nobody bothered when I blinked my eyes open and tried to scan the shoreline.
I drank the champagne slowly, trying to figure out a way to pass the time. I knew that Professor Springer would absolutely freak when she realized I wasn’t in my bed in the morning. I knew then my ass would be hung out to dry and I wasn’t even into my first week yet. If I said what happened to me, then I would be the kind of person to “snitch” on everyone else in the class. I couldn’t do that, which meant Margot would win.
I was the new girl. And what was worse—I couldn’t be clear about who I was or what my powers were. I probably looked like a wannabe, or a weak individual, or someone who didn’t belong in their world at all. I didn’t even feel like I belonged to a different race right then, floating out on the water. If I’d had even a lick of control on my powers, maybe I could tap into Celeste’s mind and tell her where I was.
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