by Jayme Morse
“Because I’m in love with you. You protect the one you love… your mate.” Without saying another word, he brought his lips to mine.
I was hesitant at first, considering there was a dead body just feet away from us.
But I quickly gave into the kiss as he deepened it, and his hands fell to the back of my neck.
The rain began to fall all around us as we continued to kiss out there. I could smell the scent of the rain hitting against the cement patio. Something about the moment we were in all felt so perfect, and I found myself getting completely lost in him.
When we pulled away, he breathed against my mouth. His emerald green eyes stared deeply into mine.
The way he stared at me… Well, we were lucky we weren’t on Nocturne Island. I was pretty sure that if we were there, we would have set the night on fire with the burning desire that lingered in the air between us.
His arms fell to my waist. Running his hands underneath the hemline, he peeled the white shirt I was wearing over my head.
I pulled his shirt off of him, too.
His eyes ran down the length of my body, and I could see the hunger in them. It matched my own craving for him.
I needed to know what it would be like with him. I knew that if I didn’t find out now, I could end up wondering for the rest of my life.
So, I didn’t stop him as he pulled off my bra or my shorts. I didn’t stop him as he pushed my panties to the side, or as he touched me in places that I had been dying for him to touch.
I didn’t stop him as his mouth explored every inch of me, making me explode against his tongue, or as he pushed himself inside of me.
As I moaned and writhed underneath of him as he moved in and out of me, I didn’t regret any of it. And as we both called each other’s names out into the darkness of the night, our bodies perfectly in sync as we climaxed together, I knew that even if this was the only time that I ever got to experience this with Kane, it was worth every second.
Chapter 25
All five of my mates and I ended up burying Javier’s body in the Dark Woods around two a.m. that night.
We were all nervous about the possibility of getting caught, even though nothing technically said that you weren’t allowed to bury a dead body there. But just to avoid anyone spotting us, we had Colton and Rhys stand guard at different parts of the woods.
“I gotta admit, I’m really glad that he’s dead,” Aiden said as he finished shoveling the last bit of dirt into the grave, covering Javier’s body. “Knowing that you could have died at any moment before of this asshole was pretty nerve-wracking.”
“Yeah, I think we’ll all be able to sleep much better from now on knowing that he’s gone,” Theo admitted.
“You’re welcome.” Kane’s green eyes flitted over to meet mine, and I knew that he was gloating.
I rolled my eyes. I still felt sort of sad about it, but I knew I needed to stop feeling that way. I needed to stop sympathizing with the villains in my life. At the end of the day, Javier never should have compelled me to be his blood mate if he didn’t want to end up dead. It was some really bad decision-making on his behalf, one that had landed him buried in the Dark Woods.
From a distance, I heard the sound of something rustling in the leaves.
“Do you guys hear that?” I whispered to my mates.
If they hadn’t heard it the first time, there was no mistaking the sound of footsteps, which seemed to be moving swiftly in our direction.
“Let’s go invisible.” Kane’s voice filled my mind, and I knew that he was communicating to all of us as a pack.
I closed my eyes and whispered “Invisbla” in the witch language.
I watched as my arms and legs went transparent, just as all of my mates seemed to disappear into thin air themselves.
We all went invisible right in the nick of time. Shortly after we all became transparent, I spotted Headmaster Black walking in our direction.
Fortunately, I didn’t think he had seen us. Or, if he had, he didn’t give any indication on his face that he had.
He was carrying a large bag at his side, and instantly, I just knew what it was.
Another student who he had murdered.
As he came to the small clearing where we had just buried Javier’s body, he laid the bag down and pulled out a shovel of his own.
He began to dig at the same patch of dirt that we had just covered.
Oh, shit. Headmaster Black was about to find Javier’s body.
I held my breath as I watched the Headmaster dig up all of the dirt that we had just laid down.
I heard the sound of his shovel hitting what I knew was Javier’s body. It made me cringe.
“How peculiar,” Headmaster Black whispered to himself. He dug up a little more dirt and then he stared down into the grave. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? A vampire-werewolf hybrid. I always knew you would end up like this. You were never one to make very bright decisions, now were you?”
The Headmaster chuckled. He sounded completely amused by the fact that Javier was dead. It made me feel sick to my stomach.
Re-covering Javier’s body, Headmaster Black moved a few feet away and then began to dig another hole.
It didn’t take him long to dig up the dirt. In fact, he dug it all up quicker than my mates had dug up the hole we’d buried Javier in. It made me realize then just how strong the Headmaster was.
Once he was done, he pulled the dead body out of the bag he had carried there.
Since it was so dark, I couldn’t see who it was. The only thing I could tell was that it was a female with dark hair… and she was completely lifeless.
A knot twisted in my stomach. My wolfy intuition had swung into high gear again. I had this weird feeling that I knew the dead girl.
The worst-case scenario ran through my mind. Maddie had long dark hair…
But like Theo had pointed out in the past. Headmaster Black wouldn’t have wanted to feed from one of the Marked, and that was exactly what Maddie was.
What were the odds of the Headmaster actually killing my best friend?
Unless he was doing it for a reason. Like to send a message to me…
“Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite,” Headmaster Black chuckled as he tossed the girl’s body into the grave he’d just dug.
I watched as he covered the body with dirt. It didn’t take him very long to cover her.
Within a few minutes, the body was buried and then he smiled.
He glanced around the area, that annoying smile still plastered on his lips. I might have only been imagining it, but I couldn’t help but think that somehow, he knew we were still there.
After a few long moments, he walked away from us.
We listened until his footsteps could no longer be heard. Then, finally, we all allowed our bodies to be visible again.
“I guess he’s been feeding on young people again,” Aiden said. The horror I felt about the situation was mirrored in his honey brown eyes.
“So it seems.” Theo looked sort of nauseated. “My only question is who.”
“Should we find out?” I whispered.
The absolute last thing I wanted to do was dig up the dead body the Headmaster had just dumped here. A part of me also didn’t want to know who it was; ignorance was bliss.
But I had also seen the dark hair and gotten that feeling. I just wanted to make sure that I was wrong, that there was no way this body could have belonged to Maddie.
I knew I could have just called or texted her, but it had to have been close to four a.m. now, and I didn’t want to wake her up. And what was I supposed to say, anyway? “Hey, just calling to make sure you’re not dead”?
“Are you suggesting that we dig up the body he just buried?” Aiden asked me.
I nodded.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Theo asked, glancing over at me with a look of concern. “It might not be pretty.”
“I’m sure,” I replied. I wasn�
�t looking forward to whatever we were about to see, but I just had this feeling that we had to look. The feeling was gnawing away at my gut.
“We should probably go invisible again, just in case he comes back here. I wouldn’t want him to see that we’re tampering with his dead bodies,” Aiden said.
“Good idea,” Kane replied. “Alright, let’s do this.”
We all went invisible again.
I watched as Theo, Aiden, and Kane dug up the dirt. I could see the dirt moving, even though I couldn’t see them—or the shovels.
With every shovel full of dirt that they dug up, the knot in my stomach twisted a little further.
Finally, they had dug up enough dirt for us to get a good luck at the body.
I saw one of their flashlights turn on, and they shone it into the grave.
As I moved in closer to get a good look at her, I gasped.
It wasn’t Maddie who the Headmaster had killed.
It was Jessica Davis.
Chapter 26
I just kept picturing Jessica Davis’s dead body for weeks after we had found her in the Dead Woods.
Her black hair fell around her shoulders, and her olive skin had been drained of all its color.
I still couldn’t believe that he had killed her.
Of course, it made sense. Theo’s theory had been put into action.
Headmaster Black had wanted to drink from the most powerful werewolves the school had to offer. That much was clear. He had chosen Milos Santorini’s daughter for a reason. She was a direct Descendant to an Ancient, of course he had wanted to drink from her.
It just made me think that Theo was right, that the Headmaster would do anything to get his hands on me if he could.
Any time I passed the Headmaster in the halls at school, he gave me this creepy smile. I wasn’t sure if his smile had always been this creepy and I was only noticing it now, or if this smile was new.
A part of me wondered if he kept smiling at me that way because he suspected that me and the rest of the Darken pack had been in the Dead Woods with him that night. After all, who else would have wanted Javier dead more than me and my mates? I had a legitimate reason to kill my blood mate. As far as I knew, Javier hadn’t had any other enemies.
So, if Headmaster Black thought that we were the ones who had been out there with him, then that probably meant he knew he had killed Jessica, too.
More than anything, I wished we didn’t know. I almost wished that we hadn’t dug up her body, that we had just left well enough alone.
The whole thing left me feeling haunted, and I just couldn’t seem to get it out of my mind.
One night over dinner at the Darken house, I said, “We have to do something about Headmaster Black.”
“What do you mean?” Rhys asked, glancing over at me.
“He killed Jessica Davis, remember?”
“Of course we remember, Raven. How could we have forgotten?” Theo asked. “But what do you want us to do about it?”
“I don’t know. All I do know is that we can’t let him get away with it,” I explained. “We have to do something about it.”
“Have you discussed it with Milos yet?” Aiden asked.
“Oh, yeah. Let me just talk to my enemy about the fact that the Headmaster killed his daughter.” I rolled my eyes.
“Raven, I was actually being serious.”
“He’s got a point,” Kane said. “Milos is one of the Triangle. I wouldn’t want to mess with one of us.”
“And if Milos knows that the Headmaster, then he can do something about it, instead of us,” Theo added.
I sighed. “Fine. Let me summon him.”
Closing my eyes, I thought, “Milos, Headmaster Black killed Jessica.”
His eyes quickly appeared in my mind, and I realized that he must have been listening to our entire conversation as it was. “I’m aware of that, Raven.”
“Well, are you going to do something about it? Or are you going to just let him get away with murdering your daughter?”
“I am not going to let him get away with it. I already have plans—plans that I’m unable to discuss with you.”
“What plans would those be?” I found myself asking.
“Let’s just say that, by the beginning of the next school year, Headmaster Black will be replaced. There will be a new Headmaster—one who is far more deserving of the position. I will make sure of this.”
Well, that was slightly relieving. Even though I felt that justice needed to be served more than that, the last thing I wanted was for Headmaster Black to continue to be in control of Werewolf Academy. He was far too corrupt to be in that position.
“Who will the new Headmaster be?” I found myself asking Milos.
“Oh, come on now. Tell me you can’t figure this out on your own already.”
“Will one of my mates be promoted?” I asked him. It would have made sense that one of the professors would take over as Headmaster of the school.
Milos chuckled. “You really are naïve sometimes, aren’t you? Guess again.”
And that was when it hit me. “You’re going to be the new Headmaster?”
“Bingo.” I could hear the grin behind his voice. “Just think. You’ll get to see me in the hallways and in your life on a daily basis.”
I swallowed hard.
If what Milos was saying was true, if he really found a way to get Headmaster Black kicked out and he himself became Headmaster, then a change was definitely in order for me.
Either I was going to have to drop out or transfer to another academy for werewolves. But there was no way in hell I was going to walk the halls at a school where my archnemesis was Headmaster.
Finals week should have been hard, and it was—but not because of my studies.
Surprisingly, I had to study very little. I was able to absorb everything lately, but it was my personal life that was challenging.
Everything that was going on consumed me in ways that it shouldn’t have.
There was the issue of Headmaster Black, of Jessica Davis being dead.
There was the fact that we were all waiting for this war to begin. Or at least I was, anyway. Kane still wasn’t entirely convinced.
I also kept waiting for Milos to make his next move. I was surprised that he hadn’t tried anything over the past year, but if I knew Milos as well as I thought I did, the reasoning was simple. He was plotting and planning for something big to happen.
And then there was the issue of having to choose a lifelong mate.
I began to view my each of my mates as one of three elements: water, air, and fire.
With some of my mates, I knew that life would have been easy. With Rhys and Colton, I would have been happy and safe always. Life would always be without drama, without argument. They both reminded me of water, easy and go with the flow.
With Theo and Aiden, life would be a mix of easy and challenging. With both of them, things came easy, but at the same time, there was always some sort of conflict that kept me on my toes. Their personalities were like the wind; sometimes, things were calm, but at other times, the wrong thing could blow things in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
Out of all my mates, being mated to Kane was probably the hardest. He was, by far, the most complicated of the five. And then there was also the fact that he was one of the three most powerful werewolves, one of the three most powerful Alphas, in the entire world. For some reason, it was extremely overwhelming to be mated to him knowing that.
And yet, I absolutely loved every second of the challenges it presented.
Kane was like fire to me. When we were together, our souls were able to ignite a spark. But if we weren’t careful enough, I knew it could burn both of us in the end.
And I was earth. The thing about earth is that it needs each of its elements. Without water, it will go into a drought. Without wind, the earth will get too hot or too cold. And without fire, the earth would be overgrown with vegetarian.
Put in more sim
ple terms, I needed each of my mates, and I didn’t want to choose. Not now or ever.
Chapter 27
The end of the school year festival was in full swing when my mates and I arrived.
“I want a corndog,” Rhys commented as he headed off in the direction of the food stands.
“I’m hungry, too,” Aiden said, following after him.
“Let’s all meet back here for the fireworks show,” Theo suggested.
“Okay, sounds good to me,” I agreed with a nod.
Theo kissed me on the cheek before following after the others.
When I glanced over at Kane, I noticed that he was glaring at Theo’s back as he walked away.
Then Kane walked over to me and, leaning in real close, kissed me on the lips.
When he pulled away, I was breathless.
I wasn’t sure what it was, but my heart felt sort of funny as I walked away from not just one but all of them.
I had a strange feeling, but I couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.
Pushing the weird feeling to the back of my mind, I scanned the area for Maddie and spotted her exactly where I knew she would be: the food stands. She and Branden were already chowing down on funnel cakes when we approached them.
“Thank god you’re finally here. So, listen. I’ve been thinking,” she said as I approached her, “and we have to actually see each other this summer. Seriously. It would be our third summer not seeing each other if we don’t, and I just don’t think I can survive another completely Raven-less summer.”
“I don’t think I can survive a Maddie-less summer, either,” I replied with a grin.
“I don’t think I can survive a summer without either of you,” Vince said as he joined us. He and Julie were holding hands.
“Hey, Raven.” She smiled at me.
“Hey. Do you guys have any fun plans this summer?” I asked them.
“We’re going to live in Hawaii.”
“What? Here I was so excited about the acting camp I’m going to for a few weeks in Los Angeles, and you guys are going to Hawaii?” Maddie just gaped at her. “I’m majorly jeally.”
