by Aileen Erin
The girl had lost her mind. “I ate a humungo-sized omelet, hash browns, a bagel with cream cheese, and a bowl of fruit. That’s more than I’ve ever eaten in one sitting.” There physically wasn’t any more room in my stomach.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Hang on one second.” She walked back to the guy making the omelets, talking to him while pointing at me. He shook his head in disapproval.
Jeez. Why didn’t she call the National Guard while she was at it?
Meredith came back with some sandwiches in plastic bags and an apple. “Take these. You might not think you need them, but when your stomach growls in ten minutes, do yourself a favor and eat them. Okay?”
I saluted. “Yes, ma’am.” I shoved them in my bag.
We walked outside with a group of other students.
“The classes are all in there.” She pointed to a two-story red brick building next to the infirmary. “The physical stuff is on the first floor. Don’t want anyone going out a window, right?”
I laughed. “They’re not so bad.”
“I kind of was bummed about getting a suite-mate, but that moment changed my mind. The whole breaking the window with the IV stand and then jumping thing was kind of badass.”
“Thanks,” I said, grinning. “In retrospect, maybe not my smartest move, but you gotta go with what you’re feeling at the time, right?”
“Totally.” She laughed. “Anyway, the academic stuff is on the second floor. All of the lockers are there too, so we can stash your stuff.”
Off to the side of the building was some training equipment. It looked way more Navy SEAL than high school. “What’s that?”
“Anyone who wants to be a Cazador has to pass a physical test and a sparring test. Most people try it after they graduate. Although some will come back and practice after graduation if they can’t pass it the first go-round.”
“Cazador? As in Spanish for hunter?”
“Yup. They keep the norms safe from all the things not so normal.”
My mind kept bouncing back and forth between two things: either these people were seriously demented or the world was a lot scarier than I thought. Werewolves weren’t bad enough? There had to be more?
Someone darted out of the woods between the buildings. Someone with strong arms, a broad chest, and long legs roped with muscle. I knew who it was, even from this distance. I stood frozen in place as I watched Dastien run toward the course with equal parts raw power and grace. He was wearing a pair of running shorts and nothing else.
“Wow.” It came out half moan as I watched the play of muscle across his body.
“Yeah. He’s kind of amazing to watch. One of the best Cazadores we’ve seen in a long time.”
Dastien ran at the hurdles, jumping over them without slowing down.
“But I thought he stayed here?”
“He goes out on assignment, but likes to keep his home base here. He teaches martial arts sometimes and gets the seniors ready for the Cazador test when he’s around.”
He took a running leap at the rope wall, gaining half of it by that alone. Hand over hand, he lifted his body up like it was easy. He leaped off the top of the wall, shifting midair, and landed as a beautiful white and gray wolf.
Well that was not what I was expecting to see. Undeniable proof that Dastien was a werewolf. I shoved any feelings I had about that way down. I had more than my fair share of junk to deal with for today.
Steeling my shoulders, I forced myself to turn away from him and keep walking.
Chapter Nineteen
The second floor had a long hallway lined with wooden doors and tall, black lockers. Each locker had a name on it instead of the usual numbers, and none of them had actual locks on them. Meredith pointed me in the right direction before heading to hers.
The schedule said I had English first. I left one notebook and the English books in my backpack, and dumped everything else in the locker. Meredith waited by one of the open doors.
All talking stopped when I entered the classroom.
“Ignore them,” Meredith said.
I focused on keeping my chin up and followed her to our seats. The teacher strode in. Everyone in the class sat up straight in their chairs as she set her papers down on her desk. I shifted in my seat, not knowing what I should be doing. I grabbed my notebook and a pen, and waited for class to begin.
I checked my schedule again for her name. Mrs. Ramirez. Thick black hair flowed down her back. Her large almond-shaped brown eyes made her look fey. She scanned the desks and stopped when she saw me.
“Hi, Tessa. Welcome to English. We’re doing Macbeth. Have you studied it before?”
I nodded.
A smile spread across her face and she stepped toward my desk. “You’ll be ahead of this bunch.” She handed me some papers and turned, her paisley printed maxi-skirt swirling around her legs. “Let’s begin.”
She started asking questions, but the syllabus distracted me. My old school had always been more of a straight out of the textbook kind of thing. But this was different. I flipped through the pages and couldn’t find anything about when the standardized tests were. Instead there were descriptions after each piece of literature—two essay question exams, blue books provided.
What the hell was a blue book?
I tried not to stress, unsuccessfully. I flipped open my notebook, furiously writing down everything that Mrs. Ramirez said.
Meredith hadn’t been kidding about the classes being hard. At my old school, you could get by on the Cliff’s Notes version. Not here, apparently. By the time the bell rang, my hands were sweating. I should’ve worn a thinner pair of gloves.
I scribbled the last few points in my notebook and shoved it in my backpack. By the time I got up, everyone was gone except the teacher.
Mrs. Ramirez eyed me carefully with a small smile. “You’re going to do fine, Tessa,” Mrs. Ramirez said.
I forced a smile. “Sure.” Honestly, I wasn’t at all sure that she knew what she was talking about. I rushed to my locker and grabbed the books for my next class, where Meredith stood waiting by the door.
It wasn’t just werewolf stuff I was behind on—it was everything. The new workload made it easier to ignore the wave of silence that followed me into every classroom.
By the time the bell chimed for lunch, I wanted to run back to my room and suck my thumb, but Meredith wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Come on. It’s not that bad.”
“Totally not bad at all.” The whine in my voice was pretty thick.
She quirked an eyebrow. “You put claw marks in the lab table.”
“Oh. Um. Ooops?” That wasn’t good. “Should I tell someone? Do I need to pay for it to get fixed?”
Meredith shook her head. “No way. Stuff like that happens all the time here. It’s part of life. But maybe next time eat the sandwiches?”
I’d completely forgotten about them, but now that she said something, I realized that my stomach was trying to eat itself.
Shannon waited in the hall. “How was chemistry?” Her smooth Irish lilt made me smile, even though I wasn’t sure that she liked me.
“It was fantastic,” I said. “I think I’ll go shoot myself in the face now, and avoid the pain and humiliation of flunking. How am I so far behind?”
Shannon laughed. The sound of it lessened the tension in my shoulders a little bit as we walked to the cafeteria. I didn’t know how I was going to face the next round of classes after lunch.
I piled my tray high when we got there. I needed a plan, fast. In a mere forty minutes, my classes were going to take a turn for the strange and I was already at my stress limit.
Chris smiled when I took the seat across from him. “How’s it going?”
“As well as can be expected, I guess.”
“She’s got Were classes after lunch,” Meredith said.
Adrian laughed. “Be prepared to hear some funky shit.”
“Don’t scare the girl, Adrian. She’s already panicking,”
Shannon said. “You should try to be open to what Mr. Dawson has to say in Were history.”
“I’ll do my best.” But I still didn’t know what Were history meant.
“Hell, I wouldn’t buy any of it if I were you,” Chris said. “But I know what I know.” Chris’ easy smile comforted me. I wasn’t threatened or intimidated by him like I was with other guys.
Like Dastien.
Chris relaxed, reclining in his chair a little, muscles at ease.
“We all have martial arts and yoga class together,” Meredith said. “It’s fun, promise. So keep that in mind while you’re in the more wolfy classes.”
“Wouldn’t picture you as a yoga kind of a guy,” I said to Chris.
“Hey. You don’t know me that well. Plus, I’m an artist. It’s hip and arty to do yoga.”
“Whatever, dude. You like it so you can check out all the girls’ butts in downward dog,” Adrian said, shoving Chris.
“Hey!” Chris shoved Adrian. “You’re doing the same thing!”
“I’m a dude, dude. It’s what I do.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the boys. The tension in my shoulders eased some more and I smiled.
“You’re really pretty when you smile,” Chris said as he leaned toward me.
“Thanks,” I said. My cheeks heated.
“It was merely my observation,” he said with a wink. He settled back into his relaxed pose.
Yeah, I wasn’t buying that for a second. The guys here were way too smooth.
The chair next to me scraped against the floor. Dastien stepped into the empty space and leaned in close to my ear. “I need to talk to you.”
I froze, unable to look at him. My pulse sped up at the sound of his voice, his breath hot on my neck.
I was seriously messed up where he was concerned. He ignored me ever since he bit me and here I was, drooling at the chance to get close to him. This had to stop. My body, heart, and hormones might want to do whatever he wanted, but my head was in charge of the lot.
I turned away from him. “No. You can’t just come over here and—”
He gently circled my arm with his fingers.
Jealousy. Rage. It swamped me. My stomach burned with it. My heart raced and I had an urge to rip something apart.
The intensity of his feelings made it hard for me to breathe. Was he really that mad?
He squatted down next to me. “Now. Outside.” His words weren’t a demand, but a plea.
I tried to jerk my arm away, but he slid his hand down to twine his fingers with mine. Dastien’s hair stuck out all over the place and his shoulders hunched down. He mouthed the word “please.”
I glanced around the table. Shannon and Meredith’s mouths hung open, but Chris sat forward, every muscle tense. His eyes were bright as he stared at Dastien.
I shook my head. I didn’t need Chris to protect me. Dastien had already done his worst by turning me into a werewolf.
I was probably going to regret this. “You’ve got five minutes.”
I followed Dastien out the door. He kept walking until he hit the tree line between the dorm and the classroom building. His grey T-shirt wasn’t tight, but he couldn’t have hidden his muscles if he tried.
Use your head, Tessa. “Are you going to keep walking, or do you want to talk?”
He spun, eyes glowing. “Stay away from Christopher Matthews.”
I had a second to be freaked out by the eye change, before I got seriously pissed off. “You’ve got some nerve. You’re the one with the fucking girlfriend.”
“What? I don’t have a girlfriend. Just please. Tessa. Just stay away from the guys.”
“What do you call Imogene?”
“A friend. A very old, very loyal friend.”
“Well guess what. Chris is a friend. A very new, very fun friend.” My blood boiled. “News flash: I haven’t done anything wrong. You have no right to drag me out here and yell at me. Hello? You bit me. Now, I’m here and struggling to keep my head above water. So you need to get your shit together.”
His eyes dulled back to his normal light amber. “I—”
“No. Don’t say anything. There’s no taking back what you did.” I took a couple steps toward him and poked him in the chest. “And now you want to boss me around? Tell me who to talk to!”
“You’ve been flirting with Chris.” His voice was more growl than anything else.
“You’re jealous. You’re a big ball of lime green jelly.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. Maybe my visions were coming back. But why was it just words and emotions? Why didn’t I “see” anything.
He punched the closest tree. I ducked as splinters rained down. “Merde, Tessa. S’il vous plait…”
I took a giant step back. “What’s your deal?”
He closed his eyes, breathing heavily. “I don’t know.”
“You have no right to tell me anything. To speak to me. To be around me. What you did is unforgivable!” I forced myself to take a breath, but it didn’t help calm my anger. “You can’t ignore me, and then come over, drag me out of lunch to tell me who I can and cannot talk to. I don’t care—” My skin started tingling and my knuckles cracked. “Shit. This isn’t happening. This can’t happen. Christ. I didn’t eat enough.” Hair sprouted down my arms. My breath came out in gasps as I watched it thicken into fur.
“It’s going to be okay, Tessa. Just let the shift take over.”
I looked up at him, unable to keep a tear from escaping. I crumpled to the ground. “No. I can’t. I—” I panted as pain swept through my body, my muscles moving and shifting.
“If you don’t want to shift, then let me help.” Dastien leaned close to me. He brushed a gentle kiss over my forehead. “Shhhh.”
The sound was balm to my soul. The pain drained away as my hands shrunk back to normal.
A branch cracked beside me. “Everything okay here?” Mr. Dawson said.
“Yes, Michael,” Dastien said. He brushed the hair away from my face. “I think we’ve got it under control.”
Yeah, maybe he thought so, but I was clearly far from being under control. Dastien helped me up, and I brushed off my jeans with shaking hands.
“Sebastian and Donovan should be here soon. We’ll need to set a meeting to discuss the implications of what’s happened between you two.”
That didn’t sound good. I didn’t want to be punished for something that wasn’t my fault, but I didn’t want Dastien to get punished for it either. Did I?
“Understood,” Dastien said like a good little soldier.
“When you say implications, what do you mean exactly?” I said.
“Don’t worry about that.” Mr. Dawson raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ve got a class to get to.” He walked back to the school building.
I hated that. I was going to worry now for sure now.
Dastien ran his fingertips along my jawline. “Je suis desole, mon amour.”
I didn’t know what desole meant, but I was sure amour was love.
Before I could catch my breath, Dastien sprinted into the woods. I kicked the tree as he ran. I wanted to call him back, have him tell me what the hell was going on, but restrained myself. The guy was pure brain-poison.
I leaned my back against the tree, and slid down until I was squatting. There was no way I could face my next class. Who were Sebastian and Donovan? And the “implications” Mr. Dawson was talking about couldn’t possibly be the same ones Meredith told me about. Could they?
Leaves crunched as someone walked toward me.
“I never thought Dastien would run from anything,” Meredith said.
I laughed unhappily. “Except me, apparently.”
“I mean—it’s Dastien. He’s the strongest alpha we’ve seen in generations. He’s amazing. Why is he always running from you?”
She gave me an expectant look, hands on her hips.
“I don’t have some easy answer for you. It wasn’t my bad breath that sent him packing.”
Me
redith stared into the forest for a moment. “I know Dastien. This isn’t something that he’d do. Bite someone and then run. Hide.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to argue with her, but she wouldn’t leave it alone. “Obviously you don’t know him that well if Mr. Perfection would break the Law and bite someone. He ruined my life.” I wanted to hit something, but there was nothing to hit. “And now I apparently have to face the consequences for his screw up.”
Meredith flinched like I’d slapped her. “I just think that you should—”
“I’m really fucking tired of people telling me how I should feel about this or about how amazing Dastien is. I’m allowed to feel the way that I feel. And it seems to me, that I’m the one that got bit. I’m the one dealing with the change. And since there isn’t anyone else here was has been bit, I don’t think that anyone is qualified to give me any more fucking advice.”
“Well, you clearly don’t want my opinion.”
“No. Right now I really don’t.”
Meredith shifted her weight from foot to foot trying to figure out what to say, but finally gave up and stomped back to the school building. Chris was waiting for her in the courtyard. She stopped to drag him along with her, as she gestured wildly.
I thunked my head against the tree. Shit. Why did I have to lose my temper? I’d probably lost the only friend I had at St. Ailbe’s.
A group of girls had gathered in the courtyard to watch the scene. The whispers and giggles annoyed me.
“Show’s over, ladies,” I said.
They laughed again. If I concentrated, I could hear what they were whispering, but that wouldn’t do me any good. Humming to myself I trudged back to the school building.
I grabbed my backpack and the books I needed from my locker and slammed it shut. This was turning into a disaster of epic proportions. There was no way it was going to work. I pulled my schedule from my pocket, and looked down at what I had left. As I scanned the sheet, I realized another awful gem. Didn’t Meredith say that Dastien taught martial arts?
The bell rang, echoing through the now-empty hallway.
