by Anita Oh
His eyes began to glow. I’d seen Tennyson angry before, but I’d never seen him actually lose his temper, lose that tight control he kept on himself. My heart was pounding, but I couldn’t show him that I was afraid.
“That’s it,” I said. I could feel myself beginning to change too, the claws pricking at my fingertips. I wondered what would happen if we both changed. Would we rip each other to pieces? “I’ve had enough of this. You think that because your mother is the alpha, you can tell me what to do? Well, I don’t recognize your authority. All you care about is trying to make me submit to your power. Do you know what that makes you, Tennyson? It makes you a bully. And I’m sick of it. Just… leave me alone.”
I marched over to the door and held it open. He stared at me in silence for a moment.
“Fine,” he said tightly. “If that’s how you feel, you’re on your own.”
He swept out of the room without looking at me. I felt a cold chill in my heart as he left, but I was sure it was because I was so tired and angry. I didn’t care one bit if he was walking out of my life forever. Good riddance to him.
I hadn’t meant to kick out the others as well, but they also stood up to leave. Althea gave me a small smile as she walked past, and Sam leaned in for a hug.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
Nikolai waited for them to leave before he got up and walked over to stand in front of me. My heart raced. I hadn’t seen him all day. I felt a thousand things at once. I was happy he was there but ashamed of how I’d attacked him. I wanted to reach out and touch him but I didn’t want him to be even more creeped out by me than he already was.
He stared at me for a moment and then sighed.
“Come with me for a minute,” he said, then walked out, obviously expecting that I’d follow straight after him.
I followed him outside, and he sat down on one of the benches in the Red Garden, underneath a hanging lantern. He patted the spot beside him, and I sat down. I had no idea what was going on. Part of me hoped he was making a move on me, that he’d use that low, private voice I’d heard him use on other girls when he was flirting, and would slide his arm around my shoulders and pull me close. Another part of me was revolted by the idea and sure he wouldn’t do it. That little peck on the mouth for the sake of reversing the potion had been bad enough; he wouldn’t put us through something like that again. And he didn’t think of me like that, I knew that. And even though I knew his morals were questionable at best, he knew any feelings I had for him were fake. He wouldn’t abuse that, surely? Not when I was powerless to resist him.
All those thoughts raced through my head, and a million more. We were sitting so close together. He might try to kiss me. Of course, he wouldn’t. But if he tried, I wouldn’t stop him.
I edged a little farther away from him on the bench.
“I’m sorry about attacking you,” I said, staring down at my hands. “It was inexcusable.”
He shrugged. “No biggie. You didn’t actually get near me, though you hit Sam pretty hard. I think he blacked out for a minute, there.”
“It is a biggie,” I told him. “If I’d got to you, I don’t even know what I would’ve done.”
“But you didn’t,” he said. “You can’t sit around worrying about every stupid thing you almost did. If I did that, I would literally never move. Let’s just be grateful that we dodged that particular bullet and move on.”
I stared at him. Of all the things I expected from Nikolai, I’d never expected anything that sounded kind of like common sense.
“Thanks,” I told him.
He shrugged again. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. If you’re going to apologize to anyone, it should be Tennyson.”
I pulled back from him. “What?” I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him.
“This is hard on him too,” said Nikolai. “Tennyson finds it really hard to connect with people – that much should be obvious, even to you. So, this creepy bond thing you guys had was really important to him. He’s never been close to anyone outside the pack before, and even with us, he still holds a lot back. I’ve never seen him open up to anyone like he did with you. I guess having someone in your brain 24/7 would kind of force the issue, but even so, he’s closer to you than anyone, even Althea in some ways. I know you’ve had a lot going on. I mean, I can understand being distracted by all this…” He waved a hand along his body. “But did you ever stop to think how it felt for him to have your bond cut off like that? And you’ve been such a brat about anything he’s suggested, when it’s obvious that all he’s been trying to do is help and maybe get to know you a bit outside of the bond. And you can’t tell me that you haven’t been holding back with the pack bond. It’s obvious that you’re blocking it, so he can’t even feel you through that. I really think you could give him a break, you know? He was frantic all day today, thinking you’d been kidnapped or murdered or something.”
He gave another shrug and stood up. “Just think about it. He may not act like it, but Tennyson has feelings too, and you, more than anyone, should know that.”
I barely noticed as Nikolai disappeared into the shadows. His words were ringing in my ears. I’d been so selfish and unthinking, so wrapped up in myself. I always called Tennyson a jerk, but maybe I was the jerk. It wasn’t a nice thing to realize. Even though the night was cold, I sat there in a daze, going back over the things I’d said to him. He really had been trying to help me, and I’d been so mean to him. It was as if, as soon as I’d stopped being able to feel his feelings, I’d stopped feeling anything. Was I such a cold person?
I sat there half the night, taking a long, hard look at myself. I’d felt so ashamed about attacking Nikolai, but what I’d done to Tennyson was a lot worse. I didn’t deserve the bond with him. I hadn’t appreciated it properly, hadn’t taken proper advantage of being able to be so close to him. I always thought of his as being cold and strong, like a marble statue, but he wasn’t really like that at all, and it wasn’t fair to treat him like that, especially when I knew better. All the things I’d accused him of – that was actually me.
Eventually, I fell asleep on that bench, exhausted by the day and the travel and the shocking realizations. I dreamed that I was a cloud, and all I could do was cover the sun and rain on people.
Chapter 14
I woke up with a layer of frost settled over me. My body was so stiff that I could barely move, but I forced myself to get up and move around a bit. I wanted to rush off and find Tennyson and apologize, but I knew him well enough to know that wouldn’t go well, so I went back up to my room for a hot shower and to think about how to approach the whole Tennyson thing.
Katie was still asleep, snoring her head off.
I thought about Tennyson while I washed my hair, about the best way to approach him. A direct apology would make him defensive and awkward. What I needed to do was to somehow erase what I’d said the night before. I still didn’t like the way he went about things, being all bossy and stubborn, but I couldn’t do anything to change that until we were on good terms again. That could come later. First, I had to fix all the damage I’d done.
I hadn’t tried reaching out through the pack bond to Tennyson, not really. It seemed too much of a sad mockery of the bond we had lost. I hadn’t intentionally blocked it, but I definitely hadn’t tried to use it, either, not with him.
I dressed in my warmest clothes and sat on the end of my bed, prodding at the pack bond. It was so different from my bond with Tennyson, like going from using precision tools to something primitive, a laser to a hammer. My bond with Tennyson had been a direct line between us, a tunnel that our thoughts and feelings easily travelled through, but the pack bond was more like a map. I could see where things were, even see some information about them, but it wasn’t the same as actually being there, as truly knowing. Still, having a map was useful. You could get the lay of the land, go into a situation prepared.
I stood up, unable to put it off any lo
nger. I had to go find Tennyson and make things right between us.
He’d gone to breakfast early and was just heading back. If I hurried, I could intercept him before he got back to the house. I didn’t push too hard, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he was feeling and I didn’t want to intrude if he didn’t want me to. As I rushed down the path, I examined that feeling of him from the pack bond. It was distinctly Tennyson, though I couldn’t really describe what made it so. It was like a scent or a flavor or a color, only in my mind. It was the same flavor as through our soul bond, only much more distilled, watered down. Still, it was familiar enough to give me comfort.
I was so wrapped up in examining it, all the angles and textures of it, that I didn’t notice someone else was on the path until they grabbed me by the arm and stopped me.
It was Olivia Hearst.
I was so close to Tennyson, so close to the Golden House, right near the topiary garden. If I let her delay me here, I might miss him, and it would be a pain to get him on his own if he was determined not to talk to me.
“I’m in a hurry,” I told her.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you playing at?” she asked me. “I’ve been watching you, and I know something’s going on. Isn’t one boy enough for you? Now you’re playing around with Nikolai Volkov as well as Tennyson and Sam, when you’re not even good enough to wipe the boots of any of them.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her. “You should butt out of things you don’t understand.”
She screwed up her whole face, like she’d been sucking on a lemon. “If you’re worried that I’ll tell everyone about your creepy sex dungeon, you shouldn’t. When I get my revenge on you, it’s going to be something you’ll never come back from.”
This girl was so annoying, and I was in a rush. I was about to lose my patience with her. It would feel kind of good to take all my frustrations out on her, the nasty little cow. But as I opened my mouth, about to let her have it, I noticed someone lurking creepily behind the topiary T-Rex. Only one person I knew could lurk with that level of creepiness. Suddenly, Olivia and her stupid threats didn’t seem important.
“Sure,” I told her. “Do that. Get all the revenge on me you like. That’s really going to make Tennyson fall for you. He’ll really love you for being nasty and spiteful to one of his friends.”
She gave a little huff, then turned and walked away, leaving me free to slip into the topiary garden.
I couldn’t find him at first, because he’d melted into the shadows. My heart sank. He really didn’t want to talk to me. He was going to avoid me forever, and I’d never be able to make things right with him. Then, I felt for him with the pack bond. He was still close by.
I made my way through the topiary garden and finally found him sitting on a seat hidden in the curve of a topiary dragon’s wing. I sat down beside him with no idea what to say.
“I was out of line,” I told him. “I was a jerk.”
He shook his head. “No, you were right. I shouldn’t have been ordering you around.”
I was speechless for a moment. I didn’t think I’d ever heard him admit to being wrong before. He sounded so defeated. I didn’t like it one bit.
“You were only trying to help me,” I said, staring at my hands. “I should’ve listened to you. If I’d listened to you about controlling my lycanthropy, you wouldn’t have needed to lock me in the lighthouse. I never would have attacked Nikolai. If I’d been more in control, I’d have thought to use the bond to tell you not to drink the tea, and none of this would have happened in the first place.”
“If I’d listened to you, I wouldn’t have tried to drink the tea,” he said.
“Maybe we’re both jerks,” I said, glancing up at him.
His lip twitched up into the smallest smile. It made my heart ache to see it. I’d really hurt him; I could see that now. I’d never imagined he could be so vulnerable.
“Lucky for us, then,” he said.
He reached over and touched my hand, and I never got to hear the rest of what he was about to say, the reason why it was lucky for us, because as soon as his hand touched mine, our soul bond came rushing back. It smacked into us both like a freight train, and for a moment, all I could do was hang on. I gripped his hand so tightly, afraid to let go.
I could feel everything. All his thoughts, all his feelings. That diluted sense of him from the pack bond was nothing compared to this. This was pure Tennyson. All his goodness, all his strength, it all came flooding through. For that moment, the love potion ceased to have any effect on me whatsoever. How could any mere magic touch us? We were infinite.
I’ve missed this.
I couldn’t tell if that was my thought or his. There was no difference. There was no line where I finished and he began. It all blended seamlessly together.
But it couldn’t last. We knew that as soon as we stopped holding hands, the connection would be lost. We couldn’t sit there forever in the wing of the dragon, but neither of us wanted to let go. No words were necessary between us when we were like this. No awkward apologies or explanations.
We had to let go. We knew we did. But the longer we left it, the harder it became. It had been so long.
When we finally let go, the day had already grown late. Everything looked dull and gray. Already, I missed him, even though he was sitting right beside me. But despite all those things, I had something that I hadn’t before. I had hope.
“The bond isn’t broken,” I said, needing to hear the words aloud. “We can get it back. We can reverse the potion.”
Chapter 15
I threw myself into finding an antidote more wholeheartedly than ever. I didn’t just listen to Althea’s explanations and take the antidotes she gave me; I made her teach me all their properties so that I understood and could test things out for myself. I read every book I could find on potion lore and antidotes. I remembered the headmistress’s office, and we all agreed it would be worthwhile to ask her if we could borrow some books. If she thought it was weird that her students wanted to borrow her books on potions, she didn’t show it, and she sent us off with a stack of books so huge that we definitely needed superstrength to carry them.
And we finally decided it was time to tell Tennyson and Althea’s mother what was going on.
The rest of us hovered around nervously while Tennyson made the call, but in the end, it was anticlimactic. He tried about twenty times and couldn’t get through, so he left a message with her assistant. The others seemed to think that by the time she got back to us, we’d have fixed the problem ourselves, but I wasn’t so sure. I needed to feel as if we were doing something about it. I needed to get the bond with Tennyson back, and even more than that, I needed to get rid of my feelings for Nikolai. They were becoming more than a nuisance; they were affecting every part of my life. My grades were slipping. I had no interest in food, even really delicious food. Even food in bite-sized portions. Nothing. It felt as if everything that had ever interested me before or had made life fun was slowly being drained away and replaced by Nikolai. I tried not to resent him for it, but it was hard not to. He’d been surprisingly good about the whole thing, but it was so tiring thinking about him all the time, looking at him, arranging my time around him. I was so sick of the idea of him, but at the same time, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Sam caught up with me one day after class, just as I was making a beeline for Nikolai’s C&C club.
“Wanna hang out?” he said.
I shrugged. I really wanted to go join in on C&C club, and I knew that Sam knew that too. I also knew it would be way more emotionally healthy not to, so I followed Sam away from the main school buildings.
I thought he’d head out to the clearing behind the Golden House, but he led me in a completely different direction. There was a lot of the school that I was still unfamiliar with. Even though it was my second year there, I’d spent so much time caught up in magical shenanigans, and then catching up
on the schoolwork I’d fallen behind on because of magical shenanigans, that I hadn’t had a heap of time for other things. He led me through some gardens that I hadn’t seen before and down a path through some trees to a little hut.
As we got closer, I realized it wasn’t a hut at all. It was a greenhouse, though it was much bigger than any greenhouse I’d seen before.
“You seem to always be cold lately,” he said, leading me inside.
“Well, it is winter,” I told him, feeling the warmth of the greenhouse wrap around me.
There was a large fountain in the middle of the greenhouse, with all sorts of exotic plants growing around everywhere.
“This is beautiful,” I said, staring around.
Sam nodded, walking farther inside. “It’s so relaxing in here.”
I could see what he meant. The air was so still and fresh, it felt like a whole different world. Just for a moment, I was able to let myself forget everything that was going on.
“I came here a lot when we first started school,” Sam said, vanishing behind a wall of hanging lilacs. “When I was trying to force myself to stay away from you. It helped, at least a bit. So, I thought that maybe it might help you now.”
I followed his voice through the flowers until I stepped out in front of him.
“Was it this hard for you?” I asked, looking up at him.
I wished these feelings I had were for Sam. It would make everything so much easier if I could just go with things, if I didn’t have to fight it. I wanted so much for these feelings I had for Nikolai to be for Sam, for us to be together properly. I took another step closer, almost close enough to touch. Sam was so tall. He was so warm and gentle and kind. So easy to be around. Falling in love with Sam would be like falling asleep. I could just let myself drift off and know I was safe.
