THE FAKE BOYFRIEND

WEREWOLF HIGH #7

ANITA OH

Werewolf High #7: The Fake Boyfriend

© Anita Oh 2017

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, places or events, is purely coincidental.

This book, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

WEREWOLF HIGH SERIES

Book 1: The Truth Spell

A dastardly spell. Mysterious billionaires. An ordinary girl thrust into an extraordinary world.

Lucy O’Connor is more IT girl than “it girl” but even though she’ll never fit in, the scholarship to elite Amaris High is an opportunity she can’t refuse.

The day Lucy arrives at Amaris, she sees her best friend, Sam Spencer. But Sam had died three years ago, on the night that had changed Lucy’s life forever. The more Lucy looks for answers, the worse things get for her, as she makes an enemy of the richest, most popular boy in school, Tennyson Wilde.

When the entire school is hit by a truth spell, it seems like the perfect chance to find out what Sam and Tennyson are hiding, but the closer Lucy gets, the more she realizes that the truth is stranger than she ever imagined.

A Very Werey Christmas: A Werewolf High Short

When Lucy is kidnapped by a creepy old man in a red suit and transformed into a reindeer, it will take a Christmas miracle to sort things out.

Book 2: The Tiny Curse

A powerful enemy. An estranged love. And only one tiny girl to make things right.

Life isn’t going so well for Lucy at elite boarding school, Amaris High. Classes are a struggle. She has no leads on the evil magic user. Sam’s avoiding her, and the entire student population hates her.

But someone hates her more than the rest. Rumors start spreading that lead to Lucy being bullied worse than ever before. Just when she thinks she couldn’t feel smaller, she’s hit with a spell that shrinks her down to only two inches tall.

Forced to rely on Sam, Tennyson and the other Golden to survive, Lucy is determined to get to the bottom of things once and for all. But the more she learns, she finds that being tiny might not be her biggest problem.

Book 3: The Body Swap

A shocking betrayal. An impossible deadline. Everything is about to change.

Lucy's world is turned upside down when she learns that her enemy is the one person she never suspected.

Although she has Sam and the Golden on her side, she no longer knows who to trust. Then, when she's hit with one final spell, she has no choice but to put her faith in the person the she despises the most.

Stuck in Tennyson Wilde's body, Lucy and Tennyson must work together to break the curse or risk becoming each other for real. But in order to fix things, Lucy will face the greatest betrayal of all.

Book 4: The Soul Bond

A new threat. An unexpected ally. And a spark of unwanted power.

Sophomore year isn’t shaping up to be the cake walk that Lucy had hoped. Everyone still hates her. She can’t forgive Sam for his secrets. Her father is back and she can’t forgive him either. There’s been no sign of Hannah, and Lucy can’t help but resent her new roommate because of it.

And Tennyson Wilde is everywhere. In the dining room. In her dorm. In class. Even inside her head. She thinks it’s just a residual effect of being in his body, the fact that she can hear his thoughts, feel his feelings. But the more it happens, the worse it becomes and it seems to be awakening something inside her.

Lucy never wanted powers. She never wanted to be anything but a normal girl, but the longer she stays at Amaris, the more impossible that seems.

A Very Werey Halloween: A Werewolf High Short

It wasn’t that Tennyson Wilde hated Halloween, he just found it offensive. He saw no reason to celebrate a day that literally demonized non-human peoples, that labeled them as monsters and reinforced negative stereotypes. It only served to further the “us vs. them” mentality that was so deeply ingrained in human culture. Those were perfectly valid reasons not to celebrate.
Also, he hated Halloween.

Book 5: The Love Potion

A lurking danger. Untamed powers. And a tangled mess of feelings.

Being a werewolf is hard work. Lucy just wants to frolic in the forest chasing butterflies, but real life won’t give her a break. Classes are a drag, classmates even worse. Her dad is trying to kill Tennyson again and being part of a pack has its own problems.

Sam is complicated, Tennyson is a jerk, and her new alpha has no time for her. When a threat on Tennyson’s life goes wildly wrong, Lucy ends up the victim of a love potion, and that’s when things get really messy.

Book 6: The Time Loop

An unbreakable bond. A magical trap. One bad day that never ends.

Lucy is having a bad day. Things are awkward with Sam. She's failing history. One of her roommates is missing and the other is crazy. Her evil dad is at it again, and this time, he's not playing around.

Lucy has a choice: leave the pack or stay trapped in this day forever. What do you do when the only way to save the people you love is to abandon them? Will Lucy fight to stay in the pack or fight to save them?

Book 7: The Fake Boyfriend

An old friend. A new pack member. Faking it has never been more deadly.

Lucy's junior year starts off on totally the wrong foot when Tennyson's cousin Henry arrives at school to spy on them. Lucy and Sam thought it would be easy to fake being a couple, but Lucy's feelings for Tennyson aren't so easy to ignore, and Sam is acting weird. They need to be convincing or she's out of the pack but Lucy isn't sure of anything anymore.

To top it all off, her dad has escaped police custody, Hannah is back, and Lucy has a bunch of new powers to deal with. If Lucy thought things were tough before, that's nothing to what's in store for her this year!

CHAPTER 1

Summer was not going like I’d expected. Even after everything that had happened, I hadn’t really thought things would change, not in any real-life way. But instead of going home for the holidays, I’d been taken to the safe house where Tennyson Wilde had hidden my family. I knew it was the smart thing to do, but I really missed all my stuff. I missed the smell of home. There was nothing wrong with the safe house; it was a perfectly nice place. More than perfectly nice, it was perfectly perfect, exactly right for my family — a storybook cottage, big enough for everyone to have their own room and enough space for Hamish to ride around and around on the bicycle Tennyson had given him. We were on the Wilde Estate, far enough from the main house for privacy but close enough for their security to monitor. Even though I was safer there than anywhere, it was hard for me to relax. I knew my father and all his cohorts were locked away, but I couldn’t lock away the things they’d done. They’d threatened my family. They’d tortured my friends. They’d killed Katie. I couldn’t just forget.

So, I tried to enjoy it while it lasted. In most ways, it was the best summer ever. My family were taken care of. We had a beautiful place to live. I got to see my friends all the time. I knew that once it was ended, I’d want it back — like when you finish eating something so delicious that you immediately want to eat it all over again, but you can’t because it’s gone. There were probably other summers down the track that would be just as good, maybe even better, but this particular summer had such a distinctive flavor that I was sure it would never be repeated. Maybe it was something particular to the air at the Wilde Estate, but everything seemed tinged with the warmth of the season, a sort of rose-gold hue. Maybe it was being so close to the pack. Maybe it was the way that Tennyson had come by every day to teach Hamish to ride his bike or Fletcher to swim or Liam to speak Italian.

Not that it meant anything. Not on his part. But it was reassuring to have him close by.

Everyone had come over after dinner, and we were sitting out on the back patio. They seemed to gravitate to my house, and I assumed it was because Alpha Wilde didn’t want me at the main house, but nobody wanted to tell me that outright. It was nice having everyone together, as usually it was just one or two of them. The night was warm, but there was a soft breeze that carried the sound of Hamish dinging his bicycle bell as he rode it around and around. Liam and Fletcher were inside playing video games, which surprised me a bit. Liam had been all but glued to Sam’s side every time he came over, still half-convinced that he wasn’t real and was about to vanish from right in front of him. I understood how that felt. I guessed the novelty had to wear off sometime.

Sam and Althea were sitting on sun lounges at the side of the patio, sipping on fruity drinks. Althea had the umbrella tilted above her and was wearing a big floppy hat so that not an inch of her skin was at risk of sun damage. Nikolai was sprawled across the steps, doing something on his phone. Tennyson was sitting on the bench swing by the back door, his posture as stiff as a statue.

“Do sit down,” he said to me. “It’s too warm for you to be bustling around like that.”

“I just need to…” I sighed.

I was tidying up, but really there was nothing to do. Still, I had to keep myself busy. The only place to sit was on the bench beside Tennyson, and it felt like that would be weird. I would make it weird. It had been like that the whole summer. I just didn’t know how to act around him anymore. How do you act around someone that you realize you have feelings for but who can sense your feelings? You can’t just block him or cut him off completely or he’d know something had changed. But there was no way I could let him know either. Every time the possibility even crossed my mind, I wanted to vomit.

Still, I had no excuse not to sit down that would sound legit, so I took a seat at the other end of the swing. Immediately, I began to second-guess myself. Was I sitting too close to him? It wasn’t a big bench, and our legs were almost touching. Would he think I meant something by that? What was I supposed to do with my arms? There didn’t seem to be anywhere good to put them. The bench swung back and forth gently as if it was trying to lull me in his direction, but I had to be vigilant. I tucked my elbows in and folded my arms awkwardly across my chest.

Althea groaned and set her glass on the side table. “I don’t want to go back to school.”

Sam and I exchanged a glance. Even though the summer had been amazing, there was one thing about returning to school that would be a relief. We wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. On the Wilde Estate, we couldn’t let our guard down at all. The only reason Alpha Wilde had agreed to let me and my family stay on pack property was because Tennyson had somehow convinced her that our bond was broken, and that Sam and I were werewolf soulmates or something. It was believable even to her superior senses because of how recently we’d broken up, not to mention how little time I spent in her presence, so it wasn’t that hard to convince her that Sam and I were in love. There were a lot of rules when it came to all that pack stuff, especially if two people were “mates”, and even the alpha couldn’t override them. Althea had given me a bunch of books to read up about it, but I’d had so much reading for school that I hadn’t got to it. Plus, the idea of any sort of mating with Sam kind of freaked me out, even if it was fake mating. Now that summer was nearly over and we’d gotten away with it, extra reading seemed pointless.

“At least this year should be relatively quiet,” said Tennyson.

“Oh em gee, I can’t believe you just said that,” I said, forgetting any awkwardness in my shock and slapping his arm.

His eyes went huge. “I didn’t mean… that is to say… It’s not that I’m pleased your father is incarcerated. It’s just that it will hopefully make the year less dramatic.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “That’s not what I mean at all,” I told him. “Of course I’m pleased that jerk is behind bars where he belongs. But how could you jinx our whole year like that? Oh, man, I really wanted to knock Fatima from first in the class, and there’s no way that will happen now! You’ve probably just woken a dragon living under the school or unleashed an ancient curse or something.” I shook my head, half-expecting to be struck by a lightning bolt then and there. “At least this year should be relatively quiet,” I said in my Tennyson Wilde voice. “Of all the dumbass things to say.”

“How foolish of me,” he said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “As if anything would be undramatic with you around.”

The smile began to spread across his face, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, and for a moment I was transfixed. Nothing else existed but that spark in his eyes. He was perfect, and I didn’t even need to breathe, so it was okay that I’d forgotten how.

Somewhere, far away, a bell rang. It took me a moment to register that it wasn’t from Hamish’s bicycle.

Sam stood, collecting up the empty glasses. “I’ll go. It’s fine.” He smiled at me as he walked past me and went inside. He’d been fairly quiet all summer, but I didn’t think too much of it. I knew he’d had a lot to think about since our breakup, stuff to work through in his head.

My mother had been suspiciously unsurprised that Sam was still alive, and I wondered how much she knew. My father had told me once that she’d been bitten by a werewolf and that had caused her illness because she didn’t have the lycanthropy gene, but I didn’t know how much of anything he’d said I could believe. Her health had never improved, but she did perk up whenever Sam was around, and it seemed to comfort him to spend time with her as well. If he wanted to wait on her and her increasingly unreasonable demands, that just made things easier for me, so I was fine to take advantage of it while I could.

It was going to be difficult to go back to our old lives after this.

Tennyson nudged me with his elbow, and when I looked over to him, I saw that traces of that smile still echoed on his face.

I’ll speak to my mother about what happens at the end of summer, he said to me silently.

I wasn’t sure how he knew I’d been worrying about that; I’d been careful to keep it to myself so he wouldn’t feel obligated, but it had been on my mind for a while.

My brothers have school…

We’ll sort something out, he said. You don’t have to worry about all this on your own anymore. That’s what being part of a pack means.

I’d started to realize that. Those four had been there for me every time I’d needed them. They’d always had my back. But my place in the pack was conditional, and I couldn’t help worrying what would happen to my family if everything changed and the alpha discovered that Sam and I were faking it. Maybe it was better for us to go back to our old lives. My father was locked up and couldn’t hurt us, so it should be safe enough at our old house. It wouldn’t be fair on my brothers to be uprooted, change school and have to make new friends, only to have it all taken away again because I’d messed up or the alpha had changed her mind. It was one thing if it was only me and my place in the pack, but to make my family dependent on that as well made me uncomfortable.

Before I could bring any of that up with Tennyson, though, both he and Althea went completely rigid. I was sitting close enough to Tennyson to feel the hairs on his arms stand on end.

Mother is coming, he said.

Instinctively, I sprang away from Tennyson, as if we’d been doing something wrong.

Go find Sam.

I nodded and headed inside, my heart pounding. Something about Tennyson’s and Althea’s reaction to their mother always made me more afraid of her than I normally would’ve been.

Although it was evening, the house seemed dark after being outside. From the living room, I could hear the dramatic music and shouts of my brothers doing battle. I moved past the doorway toward my mother’s room. That room seemed even darker than the rest of the house. My mother never pulled up her blinds. Any sort of light seemed to hurt her, and she was sensitive to noise and strong smells as well. I stood in the doorway, blinking to adjust my eyes. Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed, speaking quietly to her. He glanced over at me and nodded to show that he understood. The others all seemed to sense the alpha so clearly, but I couldn’t at all. I couldn’t sense any of the pack since my father had severed the pack bond. Part of me hoped that if the alpha accepted me into the pack officially, I’d get that bond back, but I knew it wasn’t likely. And if I couldn’t feel the bond, could I ever really be part of the pack? It was another reason I was worried about the permanency of my position there.

Sam said something quietly to my mother, and she smiled at him. When he stood up, she turned away, not looking over at me.

Sam took me by the hand and led me down the hallway toward my room. Even though I knew it was fake, just a motion we had to go through, my stomach clenched. Sam squeezed my hand as he opened the door to my room, and I took a deep breath. Even if I couldn’t sense her, Alpha Wilde would definitely be able to sense me and probably every slight nuance of my mood and feelings. I had to get a grip. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Sam, but neither of us was comfortable with this touchy-feely stuff. Even when we were dating, we hadn’t been good with it.

Sam nodded toward the bed, and I shrugged. Surely she wouldn’t come into my bedroom? That was a bit invasive. Well, I supposed that technically the whole house was hers and she could go where she liked, but it would be nice to maintain the illusion of boundaries.

Who was I kidding? Werewolves had no concept of boundaries. I lay down on the bed beside Sam, on my side facing him. He screwed up his nose at me, and I bit down on a laugh. This was so weird. Maybe if I pretended he wasn’t Sam, it wouldn’t feel so creepy. But if I imagined I was there with Tennyson, would she know what I was thinking? Would he? I wasn’t sure how far her alpha powers went, but if I slipped up and Tennyson realized what I was doing, that would be the worst. How would I even live with that kind of humiliation?

Sam sighed. “Just… come here.”

He rolled onto his back and pulled me to him so that my head rested on his shoulder. That wasn’t so bad; it was like having a Sammish pillow. It was comfortable and nice, so I let myself relax. I wondered if there was time for a quick nap before she got there, but as soon as I closed my eyes, there was a knock on the door.

“Lucy,” called Fletcher. “The scary lady’s here to see you.”

I sighed and went out to meet my doom.

CHAPTER 2

When I got to the living area, the first thing I noticed was that Hamish had finally come in from riding his bike. He was perched up on the sofa, right next to where Alpha Wilde was sitting, her back as straight as an army general’s. His face was covered in dirt, and he’d somehow pried the bell off his bike to bring inside with him.

“And then I rode for two hours straight without a break,” he told her. “But you have to ding the bell every time you go past the lamppost, or else you might get bad luck and fall off.” He dinged the bell to demonstrate. “It would’ve been four hours, but Lucy made me come in for lunch.”

Alpha Wilde stared down at him, but with the angle of her face, I couldn’t quite see her expression. I braced myself. If she was mean to my little brother, I wouldn’t be able to let that slide, no matter the consequences. I clenched my fists, ready to take her on.

“Well, that’s just poppycock,” she said to him sternly. “It wasn’t some silly superstition that kept you on the bicycle, it was your own skill. You should have more belief in yourself. And that bell should only be used for its intended purpose. It is a warning signal. If you use it frivolously, you could put yourself and others in danger.”

Hamish looked up at her with huge eyes, clutching at his bell. “You’re right, scary lady,” he said in an awed voice. “I’m super good at riding bikes! Tomorrow, I’ll do it for ten hours and I won’t even ring the bell!”

She nodded. “Very good. Now, run along and wash your face. I need to talk to your sister.”

It normally took me hours and a huge screaming match to get him to wash anything, but he jumped off the couch and ran out of the room to the bathroom. I stared after him, amazed at the power of an alpha.

“I don’t have time to wait while you stand around all day,” she said, any softness in her manner vanishing as she turned her attention to me. “Come in and sit down.”

I eyed her cautiously as I made my way into the room, trying not to wince as I stepped on the PlayStation controller with my bare feet. Instead of trying to convince her that Sam and I were together, I wished I’d spent that time tidying up the living area, because there were empty snack wrappers and stinky boy shoes and half-full glasses of soft drink sitting around on the once pristine carpet. They’d only been playing in there since this morning, but it looked as if it had been days. She didn’t look directly at the mess, but she was definitely judging me for it.

I sat down in the chair opposite her. I intended to keep my eyes cast downward because I’d seen other people do that when they spoke to her, but there was a filthy sock right below me and it was super off-putting, so I couldn’t help but glance up at her. Then I wished I hadn’t. Her glare was worse than laser eyes. It cut straight through me.

“I won’t sugar-coat it,” she said briskly. “Your father has escaped from the institution where he was being imprisoned.”

The world slipped out from underneath me. She kept talking, but the words seemed far away. I’d thought we were safe. I’d thought it was over. Now, he’d be coming for me. I’d opposed him, destroyed everything he’d worked for. No way would he let that go. He’d warned me what would happen.

“We need to go,” I said, getting to my feet. “We’re not safe here. He’ll know you’ve been protecting us, and it will be the first place he’ll look.”

“Sit down,” she said. “Did you hear a word I said?”

I shook my head, still wrapped up in my thoughts.

“I need you to listen to me very carefully,” she said in a quiet voice that somehow was impossible to ignore. “I have let you stay here and provided shelter for your family because my children vouched for you and because council law is strict on the matter of paired mates, but do not think for one second that I don’t see through your ruse.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, and my heart thudded in my chest. She knew. She knew Sam and I weren’t in love, and my family were going to be defenseless.

“What do you mean?” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

“I know what you are,” she told me in a tone that clearly said she didn’t like whatever that was. “I don’t know what dark powers you’ve used to bewitch my children, but I will put a stop to it.”

“I didn’t bewitch anyone,” I told her, even though I knew it was pointless. I remembered all too well when Tennyson had thought I was some sort of evil witch as well and how little good it had done to try to convince him otherwise. You’d think they were a family of were-mules, they were so stubborn. “And that’s hardly the issue. We’re not safe here, not any of us. Don’t you get it? His goal is to wipe out anyone he thinks is different. The whole pack is in danger. Everyone. He’s not going to stop until he’s done.”

“And you’re going to help him,” she said, her voice colder than I’d ever heard it. “Sit down and listen to me.”

I sat.

“I don’t think for a moment that your father escaped without some sort of insider help. I’m not sure how you did it, or even if you were fully conscious of what you were doing, but I know you helped him.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she raised her hand to silence me.

“Nothing you have to say will change my mind unless you have concrete proof of your innocence. Empty denials will only further irritate me, so think carefully before you speak.”

I scowled at her.

“I believe you are in league with your father. I believe you intend to destroy this pack and everyone like us. I will do everything in my power to stop you. I can’t separate you from Sam, and I can’t forbid you from associating with the other pack members. Due to your connection with Sam, I must treat you as if you belong to my pack, even if only nominally. However, I have put measures in place to ensure our safety.”

Something told me I would not like these measures.

“Firstly,” she said. “Your family will remain here, on pack land, where we can monitor them closely. They will have twenty-four-hour supervision by my personal security team. I will provide tutors for your brothers and medical care for your mother. They will be safe, so long as you do not collude with your father.”

I nodded. “That works for me. As long as you can promise me that they’re safe, I don’t care about anything else.” Whether the security was to watch them or protect them, at least they’d be there if my father tried anything. I’d seen those guys take down my father’s entire organization, so they should be able to protect my brothers as well as anyone could.

“Secondly,” said Alpha Wilde. “You are to submit a full report to me weekly on the evolution of your powers.”

I blinked at her. That was unexpected. I thought about it for a moment before I answered her. As alpha, I supposed she had a right to know what I was capable of and if I was going to go dark side. I nodded.

“That seems fair,” I said. “What else?”

“We’ve had the sword that you conjured at the end of the school year fully analyzed and can tell that it is imbued with great power, though it is unlike anything our experts have studied before. Of course, it won’t be returned to you while you pose a threat to our safety. Nevertheless, our research department would like permission before they do any further testing.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Will it hurt the sword?” I didn’t like the idea of it being dismantled or stripped back or something.

“No, but they feel that the sword is connected to your individual power in some way, so they thought you might find it invasive for the power to be more fully explored.”

Every comic book I’d ever read told me that letting magical scientists have control of this thing was how supervillains were born, so giving blanket permission seemed like a bad idea.

“If I say yes, can I have a weekly report on their research?” I asked. “In exchange for my weekly report to you?”

She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow and I thought she might refuse, but she gave me a short nod. “Acceptable. There will be an increased security presence at your school, both to watch you and to protect my children.”

For the first time, it occurred to me that when she said “my children”, she included Sam and Nikolai in that as well as her biological children.

“That actually would’ve been really helpful last year,” I said, then bit my tongue. Her glare was so fierce now that I was beginning to worry that she really did have laser eyes. It might be an alpha skill that nobody had told me about, and then I’d be in serious trouble.

She sighed. “And, finally, I’m sending along an older pack member to watch you. Whatever you’re doing, however you’re doing it, I am going to end your influence over my children so that this pack can finally be free of you and your trouble.”

I forced myself to meet her laser eyes head-on. “If there was any way to keep them out of danger, I’d do it myself,” I told her.

She gave me a tight smile. “If only I could believe you.”

CHAPTER 3

Even though there were still a few days left of summer, I couldn’t enjoy them. I was as twitchy as a ferret, jumping at shadows, always expecting my father to appear out of nowhere and take away everything I cared about. My brothers were happy enough to stay and be tutored rather than going home for school, but I didn’t tell Hamish or Fletcher why. I didn’t want to worry them. Liam’s reaction was bad enough, and I hadn’t even told him a fraction of the things our dad had done. I told him they’d be fine, that they were safe there, but he didn’t look as if he believed me. I couldn’t expect him to when I barely did myself.

The night before we left for school, Tennyson took me aside while everyone else was cooking barbecue.

He pulled me around the side of the house, behind the huge oak tree. He stopped walking and stood facing me, his long fingers curled around my wrist. He’d gotten so tall that I had to tip my head back to look into his face.

He stood so close. For a moment, one impossible moment, I hoped.

I know you’re thinking of staying behind, he said.

I wasn’t sure why we needed to be in such a private place if he was only going to speak inside my head anyway, or why he needed to be holding on to me. Not that I was going to complain about it.

I could keep them safe, I said.

More than my mother’s security detail? You know they’re trained in magical combat as well as physical. What do you think you could do that they couldn’t?

I shook my head. He didn’t understand.

They won’t be any safer just because you can see whether or not they’re okay.

Okay, maybe he understood, but he was still annoying.

Shut up with your logic, I said, trying to pull my arm out of his grip, though admittedly not very hard.

Logically, he said with a little smirk, they’re safer if you’re not here. You know if he comes after anyone, it will be you.

So, I’m putting you in danger instead of my family. You and Althea and Sam and Nikolai.

He shrugged. We’ll be fine. We’re always fine. And I think your father is smart enough not to show himself anywhere so obvious. He won’t want to be caught again so soon.

He had a point, and it made me feel a little better.

I know you’ve barely slept since you heard he’d escaped, Tennyson said. You need to relax. You can’t protect everyone all the time, and you can’t do anything if you can’t function.

I nodded, and he seemed satisfied with that. He turned to go back to the others, dropping his hold on me once they came back into sight.

You know this is because you jinxed us, right? I told him. This year is just going to go downhill from here.

But we didn’t realize exactly how badly it would go downhill until we arrived at school the next day.

When we walked into the Golden common room, someone was already there. He was sitting in a wingback chair by the fireplace as if it were the iron throne. He had golden blond hair and a sneering mouth, but he looked similar enough to Tennyson and Althea for me to realize who he was.

“Cousin Henry?” said Althea, the disgust in her voice palpable.

“I see,” Tennyson said quietly, nodding to himself.

His feelings were in such a tangle that they seeped through our bond. He was mostly annoyed, but also a little amused — at his mother, I assumed, for devising this particular torture. And it really was a torture for him to be around Henry Hawthorne, I knew that, even though the details of why were sketchy. But there was an undercurrent of something else running beneath everything else Tennyson was feeling, something I wasn’t used to from him. He was afraid.

“Finally,” Henry said in a bored, nasal voice. “Is that all of you? Very well, I call this meeting to order. You, half-breed girl, go and fetch me something to drink, will you?”

He waved in my general direction, and I glanced behind me, but nobody was there.

“Oh, you mean me?” I said.

Henry rolled his eyes. “Obviously. There’s not much point in keeping you around if you’re not going to make yourself useful.”

“Henry, you can’t speak to people like that,” Althea said.

“Shhhhh,” he said, holding up a finger to silence her. “The men are speaking now. Why don’t you go and braid your hair, and we’ll call you when we’re done.”

I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing. “Is this guy for real?” I asked Nikolai.

Nikolai grinned at me. “Oh, this is going to be fun,” he said.

I stepped forward to give this jerkface a piece of my mind. How dare he speak to Althea like that? How dare he make Tennyson feel anything remotely resembling fear? It was my fault he was there, so it was my responsibility to ensure this guy pulled into line. I opened my mouth to tell him what was what, but before I could speak, Sam took me by the hand. The action was surprising enough to startle away the words I was about to say, but then I realized why he’d done it.

Henry was there to spy on us. He was the one who would report back to Alpha Wilde on what we’d been doing, how we’d been acting. He had to believe that Sam and I were a couple. He had to have no reason to tell her I was evil or acting against the pack. Technically, he couldn’t outright lie to his alpha, I was fairly sure, but he could say things in a way that could make our lives very difficult. And I had no doubt that he would.

“I am your new trigonometry instructor,” Henry proclaimed.

“You didn’t even graduate college!” Althea said. “You’re not qualified to teach us anything!”

Henry continued as if she’d never even spoken. “Outside of class, you may still address me as Henry, but around other students I expect to be treated with all due respect and addressed as Lord Hawthorne. I notice that none of you were at the welcome ceremony. That kind of lazy behavior ends now. Everything you do reflects on the pack, and when I become alpha —”

“That’s never going to happen, Henry. But please, do continue.” Tennyson waved a hand for Henry to go on. I wished he wouldn’t.

“When I become alpha,” he continued, injecting force into the words as if that would make them more true. “I will expect things done at a certain standard. None of you half-breeds or mongrel dogs.” He jerked his chin toward Sam and me. “Just because your mother has let things slip is no reason to hasten the decline. You will show up to classes on time, dressed only in the prescribed uniform. I don’t expect you to mix with the humans, but you could at least try not to set yourselves apart so much. That’s why you continue to get yourselves wrapped up in these disasters.”

He was speaking generally, but it was obvious he was addressing himself to Tennyson.

“Your mother is the alpha, so she has certain rules that she must abide by, but there are no such restrictions imposed on me,” he said, getting to his feet. He took a step toward Tennyson, and for a moment, I thought they would attack one another. “I’ll not allow your little halfie into this pack, no matter what council law might say. I’ll get her out of here before she can sully our pack any more than she already has.”

A growl sounded, low and feral. It took me a moment to realize that it had come from Tennyson.

Henry gave a short, derisive laugh. “And what are you going to do?”

“We’re leaving,” Tennyson announced.

We all turned as one to follow him out of the room. Behind us, Henry laughed.

“If you’re storming off to your room, the one at the top of the north tower is now mine!” he called after us.

CHAPTER 4

We helped Tennyson carry his luggage down to one of the dungeon rooms, then the five of us sat around plotting ways to get rid of Henry. Althea wouldn’t let us behead him, for some reason.

“It’s a very bad sign, though,” Althea said, watching Tennyson’s face closely. “She’s putting a lot of trust in Henry, sending him here to spy on us. It’s the same as her saying she trusts him more than us.”

Tennyson gave nothing away.

“She’s thinks I’ve bewitched you all,” I told her. “That I’ve got some sort of hold over you.”

Nikolai snorted. “She’d only need to spend five minutes with you to realize exactly how much of a mastermind you aren’t.” He seemed to find the idea hilarious. “Lucy the puppet master, dangling us all on her strings!” He waved his arms around like a marionette.

It was a little offensive, how funny he thought that was. “I could be!” I told him. “Maybe I’m just so good at it that you’d never suspect!”

Tennyson rolled his eyes. “You do realize that our minds have literally merged? I know everything about you. If you had any evil intentions, I’d be aware of it.”

I felt my cheeks heat up. “You don’t know everything,” I told him.

I really hoped that was true.

The dungeon room really suited Tennyson. It looked deceptively cold, with its stone walls and murky corners, but the dim light added an air of intimacy, and there was a bunch of soft cushions to lounge around on. It was comfortable and I didn’t want to leave, but eventually I knew I had to go back to my own house. I wondered who my roommate would be this year. Hopefully, some normal, human girl who would stay out of my business far enough to not get hurt.

Eventually, I found the energy to get to my feet.

“I’ll walk you back,” Sam offered.

It seemed a bit strange of him, and I could see from the looks on everyone else’s faces that they thought so too, but I shrugged and followed him to the door. Maybe he was worried about my dad, which I supposed was fair enough, considering his track record. He could’ve heard Henry creeping around, too. Sam had spent a lot of time alone over the summer, but whenever he was around and the five of us were bored enough to do training exercises, it was obvious he’d been honing his senses. He could hear and scent better than any of us, so he’d definitely know if Henry was around. But as we left the Golden House, there was no sign of anyone.

We walked in silence through the school gardens. He’d been quiet all night again. I was getting used to it, but I didn’t want him to think I didn’t care.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

He was walking so slowly that I had to drag my feet to stay beside him, and it took three attempts and a poke in the side for him to realize I’d spoken.

“Nothing’s up,” he said, forcing a smile so fake, he shouldn’t have even bothered. “Just tired, I guess.”

I knew from years of painful experience that nothing would get him to talk if he didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Something is most definitely up,” I said. A thought occurred to me, and I frowned at him. “Look, if you’re having second thoughts about…” I waved a hand between the two of us to indicate the whole weird fake relationship thing. I couldn’t blame him if he wanted to back out. It was one thing if we just had to hold hands for five minutes on the rare occasion Alpha Wilde happened by, but to keep it up full-time – that was going to be really tough.

Not for the first time, it struck me that I really caused the pack nothing but bother. If not for me, Henry wouldn’t be here, and that was obviously causing Tennyson a lot of distress. All of them had lost the trust of their alpha because of me. I knew they thought that losing a pack member was the worst possible thing that could happen, but from a practical viewpoint, they really would be better off.

Especially once I started changing.

“Hey,” Sam said. He stopped walking, but it took me a moment to notice. He caught me by the hand and pulled me around to face him. “I’m not having second thoughts. I’m good with this, really.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but I couldn’t sense any sort of lie. I decided to let it drop for now, but he was definitely being weird about something, and I had every intention of getting to the bottom of it.

“So,” I said as we resumed walking. “Tennyson and Henry. I take it there’s a story there?”

Sam shrugged. “As long as I’ve known them, they’ve hated each other. At first, I thought it was just because Henry is a few years older, so he resents that Tennyson is next in line for alpha, but they hate each other so much, I’ve sometimes wondered if there’s more to it.”

I nodded. I didn’t say anything to Sam, but I couldn’t help thinking of that spike of fear I’d felt from Tennyson. That was more than family rivalry. Henry had done something to Tennyson, something awful. The cold-blooded rage I felt at the thought of someone hurting a small, defenseless Tennyson surprised me.

“We’re here,” Sam said, startling me out of my thoughts. “I guess I’ll see you bright and early in the morning, now that there’s a new sheriff in town.”

I grinned at him.

For a moment, we stared at each other awkwardly, not sure what to do. It would be weird for a real couple to just walk away after saying goodbye, right? But if nobody was around to see us, it would be pointless to make some affectionate display. Still, I supposed it was better not to risk it.

“Night,” I said and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek before I turned away and went into the Red House.

As I got in the elevator and waited to get to the floor that would be my home for junior year, I began to grow a little nervous. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say most of the other kids in my year hated me; in fact, that was probably generous. You heard horror stories about things that happened if your roomie hated you, things even worse than the curses Hannah had thrown at me in freshman year, and if Britt Pendlebury was my new roommate, then no way was I leaving my toothbrush unattended. Maybe after what had happened to my last two roomies, I’d get the room to myself. That might be a little lonely, though probably safer for everyone.

When I got to the door and saw the nameplate, I stopped in my tracks. I stared at it. That couldn’t be right. Maybe they were just re-using the old nameplate, because after what I’d seen at the end of last year, no way was Hannah Morgan okay to come back to school.

I swiped my student card and opened the door a crack to peek inside.

Not only was Hannah back, but she looked as if she’d never been gone. She was sitting at one end of the sofa, talking and laughing with Fatima and Milo. For a moment, I wondered if I’d somehow stumbled back to freshman year, the scene looked so familiar. But there were a few small differences. Hannah’s cheeks no longer had that rosy bloom. Fatima was sitting at the farthest point away from them, on the very edge of her seat, as if now that she was in Green House, she didn’t want to be contaminated by Red House for fear that it would drag her back. Milo was Milo, though it did look as if he’d gotten substantially taller over the summer. Broader across the shoulders, too.

I knew I should stop loitering in the hallway and watching them like a creeper, but it was hard to walk into the middle of that. Still, it would be worse to be caught, so I forced myself to open the door.

Milo didn’t even look up when I entered, and Fatima gave me a tight smile, but Hannah’s reaction was the last thing I expected. She gave a little squeal and jumped to her feet, then dashed across the room to hug me. I’d been half-expecting her to blame me for her being kidnapped. When I saw her after she was rescued, she’d been friendly enough, but that had been under fairly extreme circumstances. I’d assumed that if we ever saw each other again, things would be weird between us. I mean, even aside from whatever my father and his cronies had done to her, she had spent the majority of freshman year out to get me. Our friendship wasn’t exactly what you’d call normal.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” she said, squeezing me so hard, I could barely breathe. “I thought you might not come!”

I tried to answer her, but she was hugging me too hard for me to speak. Considering how tiny she was, she sure was strong. That didn’t necessarily mean she was evil though, right?

“Guys! Look! Lucy’s here!” she said to the others.

“That’s great,” Milo said in a flat voice, already on his feet and edging toward the door. “Oh, dear, I just realized the time! Better get going! Class tomorrow!” He shot Fatima a glare, and she rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said, standing up with a huff. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” she told Hannah, then nodded to me as she left.

When the door closed behind them, Hannah visibly sagged.

“Ugh, I’m so glad they’re gone! It’s exhausting pretending everything’s normal!” She walked over to the sofa and slumped down into the cushions. “The official story is that my family had received threats, so they hid me away in the mountains for the year. Around people, I’m supposed to act like I’ve had a refreshing break.”

I sat down opposite her. Up close, I could see there were dark circles under her eyes that she’d tried to cover with makeup.

“So, how are you, really?” I was a bit afraid to ask, but it seemed as if she wanted me to.

She shrugged. “I spent the whole summer catching up with school so I could go into junior year with everybody else, so I haven’t had a chance to think about things much. But when I do…” Her eyes slid out of focus for a moment, but then she shook herself. “I’m okay! I’m fine! Anyway, enough about all that! How about you! I hear that you and Tennyson Wilde are a thing now. How did that happen?”

I shook my head and leaned away from her so she couldn’t read my face. “No! We’re just friends. You know that people only think that because of your evil social media campaign.”

For a moment she looked at me blankly, then seemed to realize I expected a response. “Oh, right, that! Well, you don’t need to worry. I don’t want revenge anymore. Not on him, anyway. We’ve all got bigger things to worry about, so there’s no point fighting amongst ourselves.” She gave me a shrewd look. “I heard them talking, you know? The men who ‘rescued’ me from those creatures. Your father’s friends. They were very interested in you. They had big plans for you.”

I shrugged. “Well, they’re all gone now.” I didn’t dare mention my father’s escape to her, not when she was so unnaturally perky.

“Maybe,” she said. “But they had a lot of ideas about you, what you were, what you’d become.” Her eyes traveled over me in a way that made me think she didn’t see me at all. “I see what they mean. You have power. Power that you didn’t have before.” Her eyes came back to my face, and she smiled at me. It wasn’t a friendly smile, but it wasn’t unfriendly either; it was manic, a little crazed. “We’re going to have so much fun together this year!”

I had heard that from her before, and the words made me shiver.

“I’m going to teach you magic!” she told me, clapping her hands. “It’ll be the best! Now, let’s get snacks, and you can fill me in on everything I’ve missed. Is it true that you made Tennyson and Sam duel for the right to kiss you?”

CHAPTER 5

Hannah was deadly serious about teaching me magic. I hoped more serious than deadly. By the time I woke up the next morning, she’d already been to Assistant Head Noel and had gotten permission to start up a Wicca club.

“We’re not actually Wiccan,” she said, bouncing up and down on the end of my bed. “But I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, and this way the school can fund any supplies we need! Plus, I really didn’t want to have to rejoin piano club.” She flexed her fingers in a way that seemed like it caused her pain. “I hope it’s okay that I forged your signature on the form. You need at least two people to start a club.”

I was too sleepy to mind very much, though it seemed a bad foot to start off on. “Did you sleep at all?” I asked her.

“I’m going to meet up with Fatima before breakfast. She’s going to tutor me so I can keep up. I’ll see you in class!”

She was gone in a whirlwind, and it only seemed to reinforce what I’d suspected the night before — she really wasn’t dealing with what had happened to her.

I’d hoped that being woken up so early meant I could get in and out of the dining hall for breakfast before it got too crowded, but I was in for disappointment. Not only was the place packed, everyone seemed hyped up about something, more than the first day of classes warranted. It didn’t take me long to realize that everyone was shocked to see the Golden all at their table. They normally preferred a late breakfast, and rarely made it to morning classes.

Their presence left me in a bit of a pickle. Should I eat with them or Hannah? Hannah was sitting with Milo, Fatima, and a few of Fatima’s friends from Green House, so I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to climb the stairs up to the Golden table when everyone’s attention was on them. Before my indecision became weird, the question was answered for me.

Henry is here, Tennyson said. He expects you to breakfast with us.

Henry didn’t know about our bond, and I was beginning to realize what an advantage that could be if we needed to come up with secret plots.

The excited buzzing in the dining hall rose as I climbed the stairs up to the Golden table. I often ate with them at mealtimes, but usually I was with one of them when I came in, so we just went there naturally, or else the dining hall was fairly empty and nobody really noticed. It was different with all eyes staring at me, and my super-hearing could pick out threads of what they were saying, no matter how much I wanted to block it.

“So full of herself…”

“…Like a blond Tennyson, so sexy…”

“…probably blackmail. I mean, look at her…”

It was a relief to get to the table and sit down, even with Henry creepily staring at me. At least it was only one person staring now.

I took the seat next to Sam and pressed the button for food and coffee.

“Not a morning person, I see,” Henry said. “Really, Tennyson, you could’ve trained her to have at least some manners. This is why you were never allowed a puppy.”

Althea and Nikolai drew in sharp breaths.

“We all know why I didn’t have a puppy, Henry.” Tennyson’s voice was so cold that it made me shiver, and I tried not to think about what Henry might have done to some poor puppy in Tennyson’s past.

“Still as soft as ever,” Henry said, taking a sip from a cup of black tea. “The two of them don’t seem very affectionate. I thought commoners and halfies enjoyed that sort of thing.”

“We have a date tonight, actually,” Sam said suddenly, glancing up from buttering his toast. “Do you need to be there, or should we just tell you about it after?”

Henry clearly didn’t like being addressed directly by a lesser being and completely ignored Sam as if he were made of air.

“You need to learn to keep your friends in line,” he said to Tennyson in a hard voice. “Any insubordination will reflect badly in my reports to the alpha.”

He rose from the table without excusing himself and left.

“No offence,” I told Tennyson. “But I really don’t like your cousin.”

“He’s from Mother’s side of the family,” Althea said, as if that explained everything.

I spent morning classes dreading the afternoon, when I’d have Henry for trigonometry. None of the others were in that class with me, so I was sure he’d take the chance to single me out and bully me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If I’d thought his attitude toward “halfies” was bad, it was nothing to how he thought of humans. And certain humans in particular.

“My name is Henry, Lord Hawthorne,” he said, standing at the front of the class. He was wearing some weird black robe that looked like a graduation gown. Maybe he thought it made him look scholarly, but it actually made him look like a twit. “If necessary, you may address me as milord; however, I would prefer that none of you address me at all. I discourage speaking of any kind in the classroom. You are here to listen and learn.”

“So manly,” muttered Charlotte Du Pont from the seat behind me. That girl had serious problems if that was her definition of manliness.

Hannah caught my eye and mimed vomiting, but we were clearly in the minority. There were more than a few appreciative glances at Henry’s butt as he turned around.

“I hear you,” Milo muttered, so quietly even I barely heard him.

Unfortunately, Henry also had super-hearing. In a flash, he was standing by Milo’s desk.

“Like what you see, do you?” he asked, staring down at Milo with a cruel little smirk. He shifted closer to the desk so that his crotch was right beside Milo’s face. “Of course you do. Dirty little freak. You can’t help yourself, can you?” He brushed a lock of hair from Milo’s forehead, and Milo flinched away. “At least that’s the excuse you use.” He gave a nasty laugh and stepped back from the desk. “Take note, class. This is your first lesson. Come on, hurry up! Write this down.” Henry began to pace the aisles between the desks, making sure everyone was ready to note down whatever he said. “Milo Visconti is a filthy homosexual. He is a stain on humanity, and that stain must be washed clean.”

Everyone stared at Henry, not sure if he was joking or what was happening. We’d had bad teachers before. Creepy teachers. Evil teachers. But never anything like this.

“WELL, COME ON! I GAVE YOU AN ORDER!” he yelled, so loudly that his face turned red.

Everyone turned to their screens and began to type frantically.

I refused. I didn’t have any particular love for Milo, but Henry couldn’t do that to people: take their biggest vulnerability and hold it up for everyone to see, making them feel ashamed of it. I was fairly sure Milo wasn’t even out, which made the whole thing even worse.

Henry came to stand beside my desk. He looked down at my blank screen.

“That’s right,” he said. “It’s not a lesson you can learn. You’re even worse than him.”

I glared up at him, but there was nothing I could say, nothing I could do. He’d report it straight back to the alpha, and my family would be out on the street faster than you could say “evil dad.” But no way was I going to forget this.

The rest of the class passed without much incident. Henry told us to work through the problems in chapter one of the textbook and self-correct from the answer key, then he sat at the front of the class playing games on his phone with the sound on max. It was going to be a tough year.

When the bell rang, everyone streamed toward the door, chatting happily. Some of the girls were talking about how sexy and authoritative Henry was, but I could tell that more than a few people were uncomfortable. They slunk out the door trying not to attract Henry’s attention. Henry watched them leave, and even though I didn’t share a pack bond with him, I could still feel the waves of hatred radiating off him.

Hannah had hurried ahead, obviously wanting to catch up with Milo and make sure he was okay, but before I could get away, Henry called me back.

“You know this is all your fault, don’t you?” he said. “Me being here, teaching your classmates these valuable lessons. Teaching Tennyson and the others. It’s all thanks to you that they have to learn these things the hard way. You know you can stop it at any time. All you need to do is leave the pack. Bonus points if you take your mongrel dog with you.” He moved to give me a condescending pat on the shoulder, then pulled his hand back as if he’d thought better than to touch me. He smiled to himself as he left the room, like he’d done an awesome job.

With everything else going on, I was looking forward to my fake date with Sam. At least it would be a few hours when I could just kick back and not think about anything.

When Sam and I were an actual couple, I’d never really gone to all that much effort to look nice for him. I figured he knew how I looked and accepted the whole Lucyness of my unadorned self. This date was for show, though, so I put on some makeup and a cute dress that Althea had given me, then headed over to the Golden House to meet Sam.

The Golden common room was empty when I got there, so I sat in my favorite chair to wait for Sam. I really hoped he got there before Henry showed up. Even though the date was for Henry’s benefit, I didn’t want to actually spend any more time with him than necessary.

“Wow!” said Nikolai, who I hadn’t noticed curled up on the sofa, phone in his hand. “You look… groomed.”

“Thank you,” I said, assuming he meant it as a compliment. “I have a date. With Sam.”

“He’s not back yet,” said Nikolai. “Nobody is. I’ve been terribly lonely.” I couldn’t tell from the tone of his voice whether or not he was being sarcastic. “Actually, I meant to ask you, have you joined a club yet? Because C&C club was a bit boring last year without you.”

I stared at him for a moment, not sure of his angle. “I thought you’d joined some sort of dance club last year?” Though I’d never seen him do anything remotely associated with dance, and he had talked about C&C club an awful lot.

“I stopped going after none of the girls wore leotards the first week,” he said. “So, how about it? Cake and coffee club? They’re two of your favorite things!”

“You know that’s not what it stands for,” I said. “Also, you’re a pig. And I’ve already joined a club. I’m doing Wicca club with Hannah.”

Nikolai sat up and actually set his phone aside. “Wait, what?” He held up a finger to stop me answering. “Wait, I have questions. One, Hannah Morgan is back at school? Two, why did you not tell me that Hannah Morgan is back at school? Three, there’s a Wicca club? Four, can I join Wicca club? Do you do naked rituals on the full moon? Or, rather, does she?”

I shrugged. “She formed it so she can teach me about magic, I don’t think we’ll be naked at any point. If you want to join, you should ask her. Probably use different words than those ones, though.”

Nikolai’s eyes got big, and he got up and moved over to sit on the arm of my chair.

“Or… you could ask her for me!” He clasped his hands to his chest and pouted, which I assumed was supposed to make him look cute, but the crazy look in his eyes kind of countered the effect.

“Really?” I asked him, raising my eyebrows. “You want to play it like that?”

“She doesn’t really know me, and she may have a bad impression of me due to past circumstances that were beyond my control, but she trusts you! Maybe. If you were to talk me up a little, you could tell her how I’m handsome and strong and brave and respectful of women. She might look more favorably upon me.”

“You want me to lie? I’m not comfortable with that. Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”

“Well, you could tell her I have the Ostanes Grimoire. I’d be willing to share it with her if she lets me into the Wicca club.”

I didn’t know what the Ostanes Grimoire was, but Nikolai clearly thought it was a big deal.

“I’ll tell her, but no promises,” I said. “We want to study magic seriously.”

“I’m always serious,” Nikolai said, going back to his own seat.

“That’s maybe the weakest lie you’ve ever told,” Sam said as he came into the room.

He glanced over at me with a smile, but his face fell when he took in what I was wearing.

“You forgot?” I asked.

Sam wrinkled up his nose, and I could tell he was trying to think of an excuse.

“It’s okay,” I said, even though it kind of wasn’t. “I can just go and —”

“It’s not okay,” he interrupted. “It’s disrespectful of your time, and I’m sorry. I’ll just go get changed.”

“Does he seem a bit off to you lately?” Nikolai asked me when Sam had left the room. “I mean, more than usual? I think he’s hiding something from us.”

Even though I hated to ever think that Nikolai might be right about something, I had no other explanation for the way Sam had been lately, especially after we set out on our date.

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked him.

We were wandering aimlessly through the gardens, and although I knew that Sam had only asked me out because Henry had been there and had then promptly forgotten about it, I had thought he’d have some sort of plan.

“What?” he asked me, preoccupied. “Oh, I’m not sure.”

We walked a bit more. I’d never found it hard to make conversation with him before.

“So, how’s the meditation and stuff going?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t really been doing it so much lately.”

That seemed a bit weird. He’d been so into it, and it had helped him so much. All the times he’d gone off by himself and I’d figured that he was meditating, what was he even doing?

“Maybe we should just go to the library and study?” I said, unable to bear the weirdness any longer.

I didn’t have any school stuff with me, and we were a little overdressed, but at least it was something to do, somewhere we’d be seen.

“Um,” he said. He was looking super shifty, glancing around. He kept reaching for the phone in his back pocket, as if he wanted to check his messages.

“What’s going on with you?” I asked him. “Don’t tell me there’s nothing up, because something is definitely up.”

Sam sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I’m really sorry to do this, but I’d actually made plans. I messaged to cancel while I was getting changed, but they didn’t respond, and I think they’re probably at the meeting place already.”

“You want to leave?”

“Only if it’s okay with you.”

There were a million things I wanted to say to him. No, it wasn’t okay. He’d wasted my time. And what if Henry saw him leave me to go off and meet someone else? But at the same time, I was super curious. Who was he meeting? Was it a date? Why didn’t he mention who he was meeting? Why was he being so cagey about it all? But in the end, I didn’t say any of it. I just nodded and told him it was fine. What else could I do? The whole fake dating thing was for my benefit. He had no obligation to go along with it in the first place.

As I stood there, watching him leave, I thought about following him. I knew it would be bad, a total betrayal of trust, but at the same time, I really wanted to know who he was meeting that he didn’t want to tell me about. A terrible thought struck me that set my feet on his trail — what if it was my father? He’d secretly met with him in the past. But surely if it was, he’d be sneakier about it? Surely, right?

I stopped walking. Still, now that the idea had taken root, it was hard to shake, and I reasoned with myself that it would be better to know for sure. I’d almost convinced myself that it was okay to follow and spy on him when a feeling hit me that drove every other thought out of my head.

The feeling came through the bond like a freight train and crashed into me. Something was wrong with Tennyson. Something bad.

CHAPTER 6

I ran toward him blindly, barely knowing where I was going. I crashed through trees, maybe even people, but none of it mattered. I just had to reach him. We’d both been so good about holding ourselves apart, keeping up the wall between us, that I’d almost forgotten the sensation of him flooding into me like that, merging with me completely. Whatever had happened, it must be bad for him to have dropped his defenses. He was in so much pain.

The pain only grew as I got closer to him. It became sharper and sharper, like a knife digging in more deeply with each step. But when I finally reached him, when I grabbed hold of him and pulled him to me, the pain started to fade.

We breathed deeply for a few moments, savoring being so close. It was a guilty pleasure — I knew it was wrong, unhealthy, but I couldn’t help but enjoy the way all the parts of me mixed with all the parts of him, like primary colors blending together to make an entirely new color. I loved to be lost in him. It was the first time we’d been together like this since I’d realized my feelings for him, and it made me wonder how I hadn’t known from the start.

His pain brought us back to ourselves. He was still too distressed to put the wall up between us, but his pain was his own, something I didn’t share, so it gave a shape to our sense of self. I pushed back a little, just enough to give him some space.

“What happened?” I asked him.

He clutched my shoulders hard enough to bruise. “Shadow,” he whispered.

For a moment, the word made no sense, but then I realized where we were. We were outside the stables. Shadow was his horse, and she was screaming in pain. The sound filled the air.

“Henry,” Tennyson started, but his voice was too choked to get any more words out.

“Shhh,” I said, rubbing circles on Tennyson’s back. “It’s going to be okay.”

I didn’t know how I could promise that to him, but I knew it was true. I thought about his horse, and how Tennyson took so much time and effort grooming her and caring for her. I thought about the puppy they’d mentioned at breakfast. I thought about how much pain Tennyson was in, and for a moment I hated Henry Hawthorne more than I’d ever hated anyone in my life, even my father.

“Come with me,” I told him.

I took him by the hand and led him into the stables, toward that awful sound.

There was an older man in the stall, kneeling down beside where Shadow was lying on the hay, her back leg bent at a horrific angle, bone sticking out through the skin. The man was clearly a vet, judging by the medical equipment with him. It struck me how rare it was to see anyone on school grounds, gardeners or maintenance people or anything, and that as much as the injury made me realize how serious it was.

“I’ve sedated her,” the vet said. “But there’s nothing more I can do.”

He glanced at Tennyson and then away.

“Could you give us a minute?” I asked him.

He nodded and left us alone with Shadow. Shadow thrashed around, obviously distressed, until Tennyson put a hand on her. I’d never seen that expression on his face before, completely broken. I wanted never to see it again. He should never look like that, not ever. I had to fix this.

I concentrated on Tennyson, on the points where we were joined, on the spaces we weren’t. That power was still inside me, the dark power that I couldn’t ignore. It hadn’t shown me what shape it would take now, what it was going to do with me next, but it was still my power. I could use it, manipulate it to my will. As I felt the power rise inside me, it latched on to the part of me that was filled with hatred toward Henry. It wanted to hurt him, tear him apart, and I knew I could do it. But that wasn’t what I wanted. Hurting Henry wouldn’t help Tennyson or his horse. Surely, I could use the power for something good, for something constructive, as well as to destroy. I kept my gaze on Tennyson, I focused on that light within him, the light that shone so brightly, it lit up my entire world. Nothing should ever dim that light, not ever.

“Lucy,” Tennyson whispered, and I realized he was staring back at me. “Your hands.”

I didn’t want to look away from him, but that didn’t matter. I could feel it. The power had drawn down into my hands, where it glowed and radiated outward.

“Is it working?” I asked him, not wanting to break my concentration.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he did speak, his voice was hushed, awed. “You did it. You healed her.”

I let my focus slip and glanced down. Shadow’s leg looked normal again, the bone straight. There was some blood on her velvety black coat, but it was dried, not fresh, and the wound had fully closed. Her head hung heavy, the painkillers the vet had given her finally kicking in now that she’d calmed down.

The glow faded from my hands.

I’d never done anything like that before, anything good. I didn’t want to question it too much, not in that moment when everything still seemed so fragile, when it seemed as if we’d just witnessed a miracle and it might get snatched away.

We sat there for the longest time, Shadow’s head cradled in Tennyson’s lap as she fell into a peaceful sleep. Tennyson’s face looked so soft as he watched her, so gentle.

“Henry has always done this,” he said finally. “He takes the things I love, and he breaks them.”

“Well, that’s over now,” I told him. “I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore.”

Tennyson looked up at me, his eyes filled with belief, and I knew that no matter what the cost, I’d keep that promise.

CHAPTER 7

We sat with Shadow for what felt like half the night. I knew Tennyson didn’t want to leave her, that even though he knew logically that she was fine now, he was scared that as soon as he took his eyes off her, she’d vanish forever. The vet came back at one point and looked in on us, and even though he looked surprised, he didn’t say anything. I wondered exactly how long he’d been working at the school and what kinds of weird things he must’ve seen for him to barely flinch at seeing such an awful injury suddenly healed, but he just raised his eyebrows and left us to it.

Eventually, Tennyson’s head started to nod, and his eyes grew heavy.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said, getting to my feet and holding out a hand to help him up. “You can come back in the morning, but you can’t sleep here.”

He gave me a tired smile. I knew he really would sleep there unless I forced him, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet.

We didn’t talk as we made our way back. We didn’t need to. I felt closer to him than I had in a long time. We were so careful to maintain our boundaries that it felt sometimes as if we were pushing each other away, so it was nice to be able to forget all that, just for a while, even if it was under such awful circumstances.

Without discussing it, we headed to the forest at the back of the house, where we knew the others were waiting for us. They’d been there for hours, having sensed Tennyson’s distress. Their faces sagged with relief when they saw us, and I noticed that there was a trail of dried tears on Nikolai’s cheek. Even though he always acted like he didn’t care about anything, on the inside he was such a marshmallow.

“What happened?” Althea asked.

The three of them were sitting in a circle on the dried leaves of the forest floor. They moved to make room for us to sit down, Althea and Sam shuffling closer to Nikolai.

“Henry took Shadow out for a run,” Tennyson said, his voice husky. “He ran her too hard, through the forest. Well, you know what he’s like. He was obviously trying to hurt her.” He took a deep, shuddery breath, and I couldn’t help but reach out and touch him on the wrist, just to pull him out of his thoughts. He took my hand in his and squeezed it. I knew it was just for emotional support, but still, my heart missed a beat. “She broke her leg, quite badly. But he rode her back to the stables, made her walk on it.”

I squeezed his hand even tighter, trying to stop him thinking about how she’d suffered.

“You know, I only brought her here so I could join the polo club, so I could take them down from the inside and stop other horses from being hurt, and now she…” He broke off, hanging his head.

“Are you…” said Althea, looking pale. “I mean, is she…”

I knew she wanted to ask if Shadow was still alive but couldn’t get the words out.

I shook my head. “She’s alive,” I said. “She’s fine now.”

The three of them spun their heads to stare at me.

“What?” asked Nikolai. “How?”

I wiggled my fingers at him. “Magic hands.” I shrugged. “Not really sure how, actually, but it worked.” I jiggled Tennyson’s hand. “She’s fine now, right? You don’t need to worry anymore.”

Tennyson shook his head, glancing up at me through his long, dark lashes. “What he did to Shadow is just the beginning. All he’s ever wanted is to become the alpha, and everything he does is to make that happen. He’d break anything in his path, and I’m the first obstacle. He’s been trying most of his life to break me.”

“Well, obviously, that’s not going to happen,” I said, though I wasn’t as sure as I would have been before. I’d never seen Tennyson shaken like this, and it made me understand the fear I’d felt from him when he discovered Henry was there. He was afraid of the lengths Henry would go to in order to hurt him, of who else would get hurt in the process. “We’re not going to let him win.”

I sounded stronger than I felt. Tennyson had always been like a rock, sturdy and unchangeable. No matter what the situation, Tennyson had always been able to handle it without really being affected — sure, maybe his cool facade slipped occasionally, but he’d always kept it together. He’d always kept me grounded, even before we became bonded. If he needed me to be the strong one for a change, that was what I’d do.

“We need to get rid of him,” I said. “Not just from the school, but everywhere.”

“You want to put a hit out on him?” asked Nikolai. “Do you have any idea how much that would cost?”

“No!” I said, though I had zero doubt that he could set it up if I really wanted to, and probably front the money too. I couldn’t look at Tennyson’s ashen face or I’d be tempted to think about it. “I mean, get rid of him as a threat, get rid of any chance he’ll ever become alpha. If he’s forced to give up that idea, he’ll have to fall into line, right? Isn’t that how pack hierarchy works?”

I really needed to read more of those pack books. They might give me ideas.

Nikolai and Althea exchanged a look.

“You don’t think it’ll work?” I asked them.

“I think my idea was more realistic.” Nikolai’s tone said he was kidding, but his eyes did not.

“Henry is very tenacious,” said Althea. “He’s wanted this his whole life. There’s no way to dissuade him from it.”

I nodded, thinking it over. “It’s up to the current alpha who follows next, right? So, we just have to discredit him in her eyes.”

Althea shook her head. “Mother likes to use Henry’s position in the pack to keep Tennyson and me in line. She knows he’d be a terrible alpha, so she uses it as a threat. I doubt she’d ever put him in charge of the pack. She wouldn’t put the pack at risk in such a way, but to use it as a threat, she has to keep his hope alive.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, it would have to be something big enough and public enough that it wouldn’t be realistic for the option to stay on the table.”

I had no ideas. This type of political maneuvering wasn’t my thing at all.

“I think for now, we should focus on the short-term solution,” said Althea. “We need to get Henry out of the school. With any luck, Mother will outlive us all and we’ll never need to worry about the alpha succession, but in the meantime, I’m not sure I can stand seeing his face across the breakfast table every morning.”

“I can’t even stand the thought of being at the breakfast table every morning,” said Nikolai.

“We just need to convince him that Lucy and Sam are in love,” said Althea. “So, if you spend more time together… Weren’t you supposed to be on a date tonight?”

I glanced at Sam, expecting him to answer, but he didn’t even look as if he was listening. He was leaning back on his elbows, his head tilted up, looking up into the trees.

“Sam?” I said, maybe a little sharply.

“Hmmm?” he said, looking around the circle. “Sure, good idea.”

I glanced at Althea to signal that it was exactly this kind of weirdness that had cancelled the date. She nodded in understanding.

“And you should probably dial back on this kind of thing,” she said, pointing to Tennyson and me.

My first instinct was to argue. Tennyson had gone through something awful, and he needed my support. But before I could say anything, he pulled his hand out of mine and shuffled away from me.

“Of course,” he said. “There will be no more of this overly familiar behavior.”

The way he said it made me go cold, as if I’d been stepping over a line, taking liberties with his person while he was in a vulnerable state. Had I? It hadn’t felt like it, but maybe I was just deluding myself because I wanted to be close to him.

“Henry doesn’t know about your bond, and it’s vital that he doesn’t find out. Mother thinks your bond is broken, but if he becomes aware of it, how strong it is, it will be hard to convince him that you and Sam have any kind of relationship. There are already all sorts of rumors about the two of you, so any added evidence will only strengthen Henry’s case.”

“Sure,” I said, that cold feeling spreading through my body. “We’ll keep our distance.”

“Great,” said Althea, smiling at me. “Hopefully, we’ll be rid of Henry without much more bother!”

It was easy enough for her to say, but I didn’t think it would be so easy for me to stay away from Tennyson. But when I glanced over at him, he really didn’t seem bothered at all.

CHAPTER 8

Even though I had to stay away from Tennyson, my brain didn’t seem to get the message. It didn’t help that the wall in our bond had crumbled and we hadn’t had a chance to rebuild it. That would take time and effort, and both of us had been left exhausted by the experience with Shadow. That meant I sensed Tennyson more strongly than usual, even when I didn’t mean to. I had a constant awareness of him; a piece of my mind was always with him. I needed to rebuild that wall as fast as possible, before he realized I had feelings for him. That kind of awkwardness would be too much to bear. I started studying like crazy to distract myself.

I got my first report about the tests on the sword — not actually from the alpha, but the head of security, some bozo called Jerome who I’d seen around the estate a couple of times and remembered as a massive guy with a shiny bald head. The report had a lot of words but didn’t actually say anything. Apparently, they’d barely been able to touch the sword, though there had been a spike in the energy readings from it around the time I’d cured Shadow, interestingly enough. In my answering report, which I sent directly to the alpha, not Jerome, I described the Shadow incident in great detail, leaving out the bond with Tennyson and emphasizing Henry’s part in it. I wanted to tell her everything Henry had done, to yell it into her face so she couldn’t ignore it. It wasn’t right she’d inflicted him on the entire school, let alone her family. Still, I couldn’t find a way to work trig class into my magic report.

A few days later, Hannah gave me the perfect distraction from my feelings for Tennyson. Wicca club. We met after class on Thursday afternoon in one of the unused drama rooms in the upper west wing. The place smelled musty, as if it had been closed up for years, and there were racks of old costumes pushed up against the walls.

“This place is kind of creepy,” I told her, trying not to sneeze.

“We needed somewhere with a lot of space,” she said. She moved to the center of the room and started unpacking supplies from her bag. “How much do you know about magic already?”

I shrugged. “I’ve read a lot of magic books, but mostly I was just skimming for specific information. So, not all that much, really.”

I didn’t add that the information was often to stop her evil curses. I felt that was implied.

“Sit down there,” she told me, pointing to a random spot on the carpet.

I sat, and she started drawing lines and shapes on the carpet around me with chalk. I remembered the floor of that room where my father had ripped my pack away from me, where I’d last seen Katie, and I shuddered.

“These lines represent the natural ley lines of the earth,” she said. She met my eyes, and I knew she understood my reaction. It made me wonder what horrors she’d been put through. “The symbols I’m drawing represent the elements. By themselves, the lines and symbols don’t do anything, but we can use them to channel magic. Nothing is going to happen here that you don’t want.” She said that last part more to herself than to me. Then she took a deep breath and sat down opposite me. “I know you’ve got no reason to trust me after everything I did, but I wanted to tell you that you don’t need to worry. When I was in that place, they did something to me. They cut me off from magic, somehow. I know it’s still there; I just can’t access it. It’s like I’m standing on one side of the river and magic is on the other side, but there’s no bridge anymore.”

“Oh, Hannah, I’m so sorry,” I said.

I wanted to ask who had done it. Had it been the Others or my father? But I was afraid I already knew the answer.

She shook her head and looked away, drawing more lines. “It was my own fault. I misused the magic. I got what I deserved.” Her voice sounded hollow and far away.

“You made a mistake,” I said. “What they did to you wasn’t a punishment. It was a violation.”

She put the chalk away and started unstacking some small wooden boxes. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s not as if we can undo it. But at least if I help you, I can feel what it’s like again.”

I wondered if there was some way to rebuild the bridge to her magic. They’d thought that the curse on Tennyson was unbreakable as well, but it hadn’t been, so maybe this was reversible too. But before I could suggest it to her, the door burst open and Nikolai stumbled in.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sashaying into the room.

Hannah stared at him as if he were some sort of strange bug. “I think you’re lost, not late,” she said.

“Wicca club, right? Does this mean wiccan go out later tonight?” He snapped his fingers and shot her with a finger gun.

Hannah scowled at me. “Did you invite him?”

“School clubs are open for anyone to join,” he said. “And I’ve always had an affinity for magic. You know my great aunt was High Magus of the East Council for almost twenty years.”

“And your grandfather was the most brutal witch hunter in history.” Hannah’s eyes glinted so brightly that her magic didn’t seem cut off at all.

“Well, you can’t choose your family,” he said. “But you can choose your after-school club. And you know I have the Ostanes Grimoire.” He turned to me. “I told you to tell her I have the Ostanes Grimoire.”

I shrugged. “Sorry, I forgot.”

He shook his head as if I was the greatest disappointment of his life.

“There’s no way you have the Ostanes Grimoire. It was lost in the Middle Ages,” Hannah said, folding her arms across her chest. “And you’re a werewolf. You can’t even use magic.”

“Well, apparently, neither can you,” he said. “Sorry, super-hearing. And that’s not the issue. We’re constantly under magic threat. I just want to be informed. Maybe if we’d all known more when you were taken or when Lucy’s father attacked us, we’d have been able to stop it.”

His argument was pretty convincing, and I could tell that Hannah was trying to find some hole in it. Eventually, she huffed out a sigh.

“Fine. You can stay, but at the first sign of funny business, you’re out of here!”

He shot her with a pair of finger guns this time. “You betcha!”

“Well, if there’s three of us, these lines are all wrong,” she said. “Help me rub them out. I’ll need to redraw them.”

The three of us walked around the room, trying to get rid of the chalk lines with our feet. As we did it, Hannah explained about the lines.

“It’s all about the flow of power,” she said. “There are different types of magic, but the one thing they all have in common is that it’s a transfer of power or energy. Different areas of magic call it different things, and they tap into it and use it in different ways, but all magic is fundamentally the same thing. It’s just physics, really.”

I thought about that for a moment. “But magic can break the laws of physics.”

She shook her head. “Humans don’t know as much about physics as they think. Magic is just a different type of physics.”

That made as much sense as anything and didn’t contradict anything I’d read.

“So, think of this like a power circuit, and these lines are power cords. Nikolai and I will be charging stations, and the symbols are the devices you want to use. That one is your laptop, that’s the TV, that’s your phone and that’s the fridge. You understand I don’t mean that literally, right?”

I nodded. We finished erasing the lines, and she pointed out the spots for us to sit, then began to redraw them.

“In my family, we learn about this our whole lives, so stop me if I’m going too fast or you don’t understand something,” she said. “Once you know what you’re doing, you won’t need the lines and symbols. You’ll just feel them instinctively. It’s only really beginners or people stealing power who need them.”

She finished drawing the lines and then sat down, forming a triangle with Nikolai and me.

“Everyone who can practice magic has a natural affinity with one type. There’s dozens of different types, depending on what type of power source is used, but the four main branches are nature magic, elemental, ancient and raw magic. Nature magic is what Wiccans practice, and it’s all about drawing power from the living world around you. Plants and animals, mainly. This type of magic is fairly limited in what it can do. Elemental magic is similar but slightly more powerful. You can still only draw power from the things around you, so you need something you can tap into close by — fire, water, and wind, for the most part, but anything that can generate electricity could be used. The stronger you are, the farther the power source can be from you physically, but once it’s drained, it’s like a dead battery. With nature and elemental magic, you’re mainly doing small stuff like protection or fertility spells and making potions. They’re hedge witches. You don’t need a lot of magic to be able to do that kind of thing. That’s why some humans can use it, even some werewolves.”

“Lycanthropes,” Nikolai and I said at the same time.

Hannah ignored us and continued. “Ancient magic is usually hereditary. It’s a little harder to explain, but it’s basically tapping into the power of human life or whatever you want to call it, the soul or chi or life force. Most people only use their own power, but it’s possible to use other people’s, though they have to give it up willingly.”

“That’s the type of magic you use, isn’t it?” I asked her. “That orb of power from your spells – that was your life force? Is that why you were so sick with the truth spell?” Tennyson had said that the magic user couldn’t be affected by their own spell, but Hannah had been as sick as the rest of us.

She shook her head, grinning at me. “Nope, I was just faking it. I’m an awesome actor, right? I was actually thinking about drama club this year, but I decided your need was greater. The world will have to wait.”

“What happens if you take someone else’s power by force?” asked Nikolai. He looked surprisingly disturbed by the idea.

“Stealing someone else’s power to use for magic is pretty much the most evil thing you can do.”

I thought about my father, about the things he’d done. There had been so many souls in that dome thing, and I knew he’d stolen them to use for magic. What did that make him?

“But what happens to the person?” Nikolai’s voice was so soft, so tense, that I didn’t want to look at him.

I held my breath, waiting for Hannah’s answer. Whatever had happened to Katie, it had been my fault.

“It’s like they’re being burnt up from the inside out,” Hannah said, and her voice was so cold that I knew she was speaking from experience. I wondered if that was why she couldn’t use magic now, because my father had used up all her power. I didn’t know if I could fix that or ever make it right.

The tension in the room was like a thick fog. Hannah’s eyes were unfocussed, and Nikolai had hung his head.

“What’s the fourth type or magic?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. “Raw magic?”

Hannah snapped back to attention.

“Raw magic is very rare, so we don’t know much about it,” she said. “I suspect from what I’ve heard that raw magic is what you use. The energy you draw on is magic itself, the essence of it, whatever that means. Because magic is something undefined, undefinable, we don’t know where it comes from or how it’s created. Potentially, the well of energy that you can draw from is infinite. That’s why they were all so interested in you. If they can tap into that power, imagine what could be done with it.”

I stared at her for a moment, trying to take in what she’d said. “That is legitimately the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, wondering if it was too late to take back my permission to do experiments on that sword. Nobody should have that kind of power. “I’m just here, walking around with, like, this massive A-bomb inside of me.”

“Well, technically, that’s not true,” said Nikolai, his strange mood already passed. “The power of an atomic bomb is finite, so really, your destructive power is like an unlimited number of bombs.”

I glared at him. He grinned back and gave me a thumbs-up.

“That’s why it’s so important that you learn to control that power,” said Hannah.

I had about a million questions, but I didn’t ask them. Now that I knew what I was capable of, I wanted to learn how to put a lid on it as soon as possible.

“What do I need to do?” I asked her.

She nodded. “We’ll start with something simple. What’s the one thing that you want more than anything else right now?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “I want to find my father and make sure he can never hurt anyone again.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized I hadn’t actually told Hannah that he’d escaped prison. I bit my lip and waited for her reaction.

Hannah barely blinked. “I thought you were going to say a cake, something easy.” She sighed. “Okay, there’s a simple spell to find something that’s been lost. We can try that. It doesn’t normally work on humans because the object needs to be still in order to pinpoint it, but maybe he’s asleep or something. Though I have to warn you that he’s probably got all sorts of protections in place to guard against this sort of thing, and it’s possible that he’ll know someone is using magic on him, maybe even that it’s you. Do you still want to do it?”

I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”

“Okay, so, we need to hold hands,” Hannah said.

Nikolai grabbed her hand eagerly. She scowled at him, and he grinned at her.

“Now, concentrate on the ley lines. Summon your power and channel it into the lines. Once you can feel your power, focus on your father, on the essence of him, whatever it is that makes him seem the most vivid to you.”

I was about to complain that her instructions were vague and unhelpful. How was I supposed to summon my power? What did that even mean? But then, as if it had been waiting for my permission, the power slammed into me. It was exactly as she’d described, and now that Hannah had explained it all to me, I realized it was something I’d felt before. It was the same power that had risen up in me when I was going through the Becoming, when I was fighting my father. Everything made sense to me now that I could see it clearly and had a frame of reference for it. The power had always been accessible to me; I just hadn’t realized that, and so I’d kept the door to it closed. When Tennyson and I had swapped bodies, that had opened the gateway and the power had flooded in, which had triggered my Becoming. It had always been the same power, changing me, taking different forms, and it made sense now because Hannah had said that the power was magic itself. The magic didn’t differentiate between lycanthropy or witchcraft or whatever else, no more than a power current cared whether you were turning on a light or watching Netflix. It had been changing me because it needed somewhere to go, something to do. That was why, when I’d channeled it into the tree behind the Golden House, it had stopped changing me and changed the tree instead. So, maybe, if I could master this power, this magic, I could stop myself from changing into anything else. I could stop myself from becoming an Other.

I was so pumped about the idea that I completely lost my focus. I’d forgotten entirely about trying to find my dad, and I was barely aware of being in the room with Hannah and Nikolai. I finally understood what I was, what I could do. I had access to infinite power. The world was filled with infinite possibilities. I’d been convinced that there was only one path I could take, that my future was certain, that I was on a downward spiral. I’d thought I was evil at the core, like my father, that evil was the only thing I could be, but I was wrong. This power was neither good nor evil. It simply needed to be shown the right direction.

Everything was amazing and filled with light.

Then everything went black.

CHAPTER 9

I woke up in my own bed with a thumping headache. I tried to open my eyes, but it was too painful. I could hear voices. They were loud.

“Well, perhaps you should have taken precautions.”

That was Tennyson. Nobody else could sound that annoyed.

“We did take precautions, Tennyson. I took the precaution of knocking her out.”

That was Nikolai. Normally, he never argued with Tennyson, but it was hard not to when Tennyson used that condescending tone.

“I never thought she’d be so powerful,” said Hannah quietly.

“You just told me that she could access limitless power,” Tennyson said.

“I assumed it was theoretically possible. I didn’t assume she’d actually do it.” Hannah sounded strange, and it was enough to make me force my eyes open.

Hannah was sitting on her bed, her knees tucked up under her chin. She looked pale and drawn, and her eyes darted around the room. Tennyson was pacing the space between the beds with his arms folded across his chest, glowering at her.

Tennyson, I said. Even in my head, my voice sounded weak.

He stopped pacing and glowered down at me.

It wasn’t her fault, it’s mine. I let it get out of control.

Well, obviously, he said, sitting down beside me. How do you feel?

I shrugged. A bit weak, but otherwise fine. How is everyone else? I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?

He shook his head. You just gave them a bit of a fright.

It was nice to have him so close by, acting so warm. I knew I shouldn’t allow it, that it went against everything I’d agreed to, but I wasn’t just weak from the magic. I was weak from Tennyson as well. He was so close that I could smell the woodsy scent of him, and the scent made me feel stronger, refreshed. His presence was all-encompassing; it wrapped around me, and I wanted to close my eyes and lean into it.

“What’s going on right now?” asked Hannah. “Is this a werewolf thing?”

“Why?” asked Nikolai, edging closer to where she was sitting. “Do you find it creepy? Because if you think it’s creepy, then no, it’s definitely not a werewolf thing. But if you like it, then it’s totally something I could do.”

I thought she’d roll her eyes again or something, but instead she gave him a little smile. I caught Tennyson’s eye to see if he’d noticed as well, and he bit down on a smile.

“Maybe, if you’re feeling up to it, we should go for a walk?” Tennyson suggested, glancing back over at the two of them. “You must be hungry. You missed dinner.”

“I would, but I’m worried about Hannah,” I said loudly, wondering if we were laying it on too thick. “She must be a bit shaken up after what happened.”

“I’m sure Nikolai would stay with her until we get back,” Tennyson said. I was surprised he didn’t give me a sly wink to top it off.

“I’m fine,” Hannah said. “I don’t need anyone to stay with me.”

“You can’t fool me. I have super-senses,” I told her. Even though we were trying to set her up with Nikolai, I was also legitimately worried about her. She was clearly not okay, and I didn’t want her to be alone.

Hannah pouted but didn’t argue anymore, and I could tell she was a little relieved to not be left by herself.

“Behave yourself,” I told Nikolai. “And don’t touch my stuff!”

Even though I’d missed dinner, I didn’t really feel hungry. That in itself was a bit of a worry. It was also hard for me to move very quickly. Tennyson slowed his pace to walk by my side as we followed the path up to the school.

“I’m not really sure why you trust her so easily,” he said.

“She can’t do magic anymore,” I told him.

“That is only according to her. And the type of malevolence she’s shown toward us in the past doesn’t simply vanish.”

I shrugged. “Maybe my father ripped that out of her when he took her powers.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to find him,” Tennyson said. “Not on your own, not like that. We have people for that sort of thing.”

I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to get into a fight, but their “people” had done nothing to protect anyone. Maybe they’d been the ones to capture my father and shut down his work, but as far as I knew, they were the same people who had let him escape too.

“You need to stop worrying about him and start worrying about yourself,” he said softly.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

He raised his eyebrows skeptically.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I’ve figured something out.”

It was too difficult to explain to him, but I could show him. I dragged him off the path and into one of the gardens, where I sat him down on a bench.

I’m not evil, I told him.

Yes, I do realize that. I didn’t think it was ever an issue.

But you know about what I am, what I could turn into. But look!

I took his hands in mine to strengthen our connection. The wall between us still wasn’t rebuilt, so it was easy enough to show him everything I’d seen, to make him understand everything I’d realized. I let him feel the power within me and what it could do, if only I could master it.

I let go of his hands and pulled back the connection. When I looked into his eyes, I could almost see that power reflected there, the sparking colors of it.

“Lucy!” he whispered. “Do you know what this means?”

I nodded.

“It means you’re never going to be alpha!” said a harsh, nasal voice from out of the bushes.

Henry. He’d been watching the whole thing.

I racked my brain for what I’d said aloud, trying to judge how badly we’d incriminated ourselves. But whatever we’d said, it probably wasn’t as bad as sitting there holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes undoubtedly looked.

Henry pushed his way into the garden, trampling all the carefully cultivated flowers. He pointed an accusing finger at us.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

We didn’t answer him. He’d know if we lied, but we couldn’t exactly tell him the truth about that, either.

“Do you think that just because you’re Tennyson Wilde, you can make a fool out of everyone around you? You think you’re so smart, but you don’t fool me, Tenny. You’re no better than anyone else, sneaking around behind your best friend’s back. I’ve heard you spouting off about how the two of you are closer than brothers. What would he think if he saw you here with his chosen mate?” He sauntered closer to us, a horrible sneer twisting his face. “Or perhaps he already knows. Perhaps he doesn’t mind. Perhaps he likes to share. Is that how it is?” He reached out to trail a finger down my cheek, and I slapped his hand away. “Nikolai too?” he asked. “Cousin Althea? If that’s how it is, I’m a packmate too. This could all go much more agreeably…”

Instinctively, I jabbed out a fist to give him a much-deserved punch to the privates, but it only hit air. Faster than I could see, Tennyson had lunged for Henry and was holding him up against a tree by the neck.

Whatever Tennyson said to Henry, he said it too quietly for me to hear, but Henry’s face turned white. Tennyson looked feral. It was rare to see his calm control slip, and the contrast made him seem terrifying. Or at least, I could understand why Henry was terrified. I couldn’t imagine ever having that rage turned on me.

After a long moment, Tennyson let him go and stepped away.

“At any rate, you’ve got it all wrong,” Tennyson said, brushing imaginary dust from his chest. “There is nothing at all between Lucy and me.”

“That’s right,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. Those words were painful to hear. Even though he was only saying them for Henry’s benefit, it didn’t make them less true. “We barely even tolerate each other.” Mentally, I took myself back to the time when Tennyson and I had first met, when that part had been true as well. If Henry sensed the lie now, we were done for.

“Just so, just so,” said Tennyson. “In fact, I am in love with someone else. I have been keeping it from Mother because the relationship is still new, but there’s no use hiding it from you now. Lucy was merely counselling me on the wisest course of action to take with my love.”

Even though I knew that part was a lie, the idea of it was like a cold glass of water in the face. I knew it was inevitable that one day Tennyson would fall in love with someone and I’d have to deal with that, but I didn’t want to think about it before I was forced to.

I ignored the fact that I couldn’t feel a lie in what he’d said. He was just very good at playing the part.

Henry gave us a mean little smile. “Well, I look forward to meeting her, then.”

I could feel Tennyson’s horror through the bond. Where would we find someone who could go along with this?

CHAPTER 10

Nearly every girl in school was a rabid Tennyson Wilde fan. Finding someone to pose as his girlfriend wasn’t the issue; we could pick anyone out of the crowd. Finding someone who could go along with the whole story, on the other hand, might be a problem. We found the perfect opportunity to look for someone the next morning at breakfast. Henry had an important staff meeting — we’d triple-checked that he was actually there — which meant we could munch on croissants and scan the student body for the perfect girl for the job.

“Charlotte Du Pont would do it, no questions asked,” said Nikolai. “She’d literally bend over backwards if you wanted her to.”

“No!” Tennyson and I said in unison.

“We don’t want anyone who might expect more from the situation than what it is,” said Althea. “We’re trying to avoid problems, not create more of them.”

“Stephanie Von Platen? Stefanie Van Lynden? Stephanie Von Thorne?” said Nikolai.

Wow, no wonder I was always confused about Stephanie’s last name.

“No, no, no,” said Tennyson. “Stephanie VP sends me unwashed items of her clothing at least once a month, and Stefanie VL once actually cut a lock of hair from my head.”

“What about Cecily Arden?” I asked. She was in some of my classes and had always seemed okay. She mostly kept to herself.

Tennyson coughed into his hand and looked away, his cheeks turning pink. His reaction made me insanely curious.

“You can’t possibly still be embarrassed about that,” said Althea, sounding amused.

Tennyson drew himself up. “I’m not embarrassed. I just think it’s proof that she can’t be relied upon to act appropriately in high-stress situations.”

“She was six years old, Tennyson.”

“It was still non-consensual touching,” he said. “And she ruined my cake.”

I looked to Nikolai for an explanation, but he was too busy laughing.

“Our cake,” said Althea. She turned to me. “We invited the entire class to our birthday one year, and Cecily kissed Tennyson. In his struggle to get away, he tripped and fell into our birthday cake.”

“Maybe not her, then,” I said, trying not to laugh. Tennyson did seem very distressed by the idea. “Though it would make for a really cute story when you were telling Henry about your romantic past.”

Tennyson glared at me.

Nikolai listed more names, but each came with a valid reason why it wouldn’t work.

“This is so stupid,” I said after we’d been through what felt like every girl on the planet. “Why are people so obsessed with you?”

The fact that I was no different was completely irrelevant. I wasn’t even on the list.

“Rich, handsome, popular,” said Nikolai. “Charming, stylish, good with animals… Need I go on?”

“Maybe you should date him,” I said. “Anyway, so are all of you, but nobody’s writing poetry about your eyebrows.”

Nikolai gasped in shock. “Are you kidding?” he said. He pulled out his phone and typed something into it, then turned it around so I could see the screen. He’d Googled himself, and there were millions of hits. The few I could see were clearly fan sites.

“I have one guy who sends me a vial of blood on the first of each month,” said Althea. “And he’s not even one of the creepier ones.”

“I was on the Time list of most influential people,” said Sam. “And I’m basically just a charity case. I’ve never even done anything.”

All of that was something I’d known, of course, but had mostly forgotten about. Even though everyone in school was nuts for them, they were just regular people I saw every day, so it seemed strange that all around the world, people not only knew who they were, but loved them to the point of obsession.

“Okay,” I said. “So, how are we supposed to find someone who’s not only rational about Tennyson but will go along with this and won’t ask too many questions?”

“I think the answer to that is actually pretty obvious,” said Sam, nodding toward the door.

The rest of us glanced down to see Hannah entering the dining hall.

“She’s perfect,” said Sam. “She knows what’s going on, so we don’t need to worry about her keeping our secret, and she doesn’t really like Tennyson.”

“Bad idea,” said Nikolai. “She’s in a very emotionally fragile place right now. I don’t think we should ask her.”

I snorted. “She’s even less likely to fall for Tennyson than for you,” I told him. “You don’t need to be jealous.”

“That’s less reassuring than you think it is,” he said.

“I’ve got English with her this morning,” I said. “I’ll ask her then.”

I smiled at Sam, hoping to encourage him. He’d been so strange lately, so shut off, that it was good to see him getting more involved in what was happening around him. He didn’t notice me smiling; he was already staring vaguely into the crowded dining hall.

In English, we had to work in pairs to discuss the themes of The Crucible, so I made sure I got to work with Hannah, even though she was sitting beside Fatima. To be honest, I think Fatima was a little relieved because that meant she was paired with Milo, who was much better at English than Hannah, but I figured it was probably one book she knew something about.

I explained the situation with Henry, using as little detail as possible. Even though we were friends and she was teaching me magic, that didn’t mean I actually trusted her or had forgotten what she’d done, despite what I’d told Tennyson. I wasn’t a total idiot. And, anyway, some things were private.

“No,” she said as soon as I’d finished explaining. She glanced around to make sure nobody was listening, then lowered her voice. “No freaking way. Being Tennyson Wilde’s girlfriend is not a good thing. Remember what happened to you when I made that hilarious fake Facebook page about the two of you? They literally sent a lynch mob after you. I know you’re in a difficult position, and I wish I could help you out, but I don’t have the protection of him and his family like you do to back me up when everything goes wrong. Plus, I really don’t like the guy. No offense. I know you’ve got your whole whatever it is going on, but I think he’s an A-grade douche.”

I gave her my best sad eyes, but I wasn’t cute enough to pull it off. Hannah, on the other hand, was super cute and also an expert at that tactic, so she wasn’t swayed one bit.

“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing I had to give it my best try. I couldn’t face the nightmare if we had to resort to Charlotte Du Pont or a Stephanie. “Even if we sweeten the pot?” I wasn’t sure how we’d sweeten the pot, but I was open to negotiation.

“I’ve never been surer of anything in my entire life,” she said as Mr. Porter called everyone to attention. “Ask Fatima, though. She can be bribed to do most things. Like the lynch mob thing. That only cost me twenty bucks.”

For the rest of the class, I couldn’t help but shoot looks across at Fatima. She was actually a good choice. She’d never shown any interest in Tennyson, but she was a bit of a social climber, so she’d probably like the boost in status from hanging out with the Golden. It could work.

Unfortunately, she caught me scrutinizing her a few too many times, so she bailed me up after class.

“What are you planning?” she asked me. “You’re acting very suspicious.”

I held up my hands to stop her from crowding me so much. “Hold up, there, Miss Paranoia!” I said. “I’m not planning anything!”

She narrowed her eyes at me, stepping in closer so I was squished up against the wall.

“Okay, fine. I might have a business proposition for you,” I told her. “Meet me at the Golden table at lunch, and we’ll talk about it.”

She didn’t reply, but she didn’t step back to give me some space, either, so I slid along the wall to the side to duck away from her.

Do you think you can keep Henry away at lunch? I asked Tennyson. I have a plan.

***

“Fatima?” Nikolai asked across the lunch table after I’d told them about Hannah’s reply. Nikolai was pretty chuffed about Hannah rejecting Tennyson, so he had way too much energy. I slid the coffee pot away from him to the other side of the table.

“What’s wrong with Fatima?” asked Althea.

Nikolai shrugged. “She’s just so… bookish.”

Althea raised an eyebrow at him. “And?”

“And you know you’re the only bookish girl in my heart, Al, baby.” He made grabby hands across the table. “Will you pass the coffee back, please?”

Nobody moved to help him.

“I think she’s a good choice,” said Tennyson. “She’s sensible, from a good family, and seems reasonably ethical.” He nodded. “If I were to choose someone for myself, I’d hope to make such a prudent choice.”

“She did set a lynch mob on me one time,” I said, feeling suddenly spiteful. “For money. Not for ethical reasons.”

He sipped his tea. “Still, relatively speaking, she’s a good choice.”

I was saved from making a less than sensible response by Fatima herself appearing. She stood on the top step, as if she was too nervous to come any farther. Milo stood behind her, a few steps down.

“Um,” she said, looking down at her feet. It was weird seeing her as anything but self-assured. “Lucy said I should come here.”

“Fatima!” said Althea, rising from her seat. She walked across to usher Fatima over to the table. “Come and sit down.” She glanced from Milo back over to the table, and I could see on her face that she was trying to find a way to get rid of him without appearing rude. “We actually needed to speak to Fatima alone, if you could give us a moment?”

Milo stepped up to the next step. His hands were shaking, but he drew in a deep breath and looked up, meeting her eyes.

“I’m not leaving her alone with you,” he said. “I don’t need to listen to your conversation, but I’ll stand here to make sure she’s safe.”

Although she didn’t show it on her face, I could tell Althea was getting frustrated. Even without the pack bond, I knew her well enough now to know that she’d never leave him standing awkwardly on the step like that, and she couldn’t make a big scene by sending him away. She gave a little sigh and motioned for him to come and sit at the table. At least we knew that Milo could keep a secret, since he’d never told anyone about that time when I was in Tennyson’s body and attacked him. I supposed he’d sound like a crazy person if he went around saying we were all werewolves, but it would only take one person to believe him.

“Lucy said something about a business proposal,” Fatima said once everyone was seated. “What do you have in mind?”

She looked to me for an answer, but it was Tennyson who spoke.

“I need my cousin Henry to believe that I am in a relationship,” he said.

Fatima stared at him. “You want me to pose as your girlfriend?”

He nodded. “Convincingly.”

“In exchange for…”

As I watched the two of them talk, a sick feeling began to churn in the bottom of my stomach. Kind of like when it’s been so long since you’ve eaten that you don’t feel hungry anymore. You just feel horrible, only more stabby. They really would work well together. Neither of them had a sense of humor.

“What do you want?” he asked her.

“I want to join the Golden House,” she said without missing a beat.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s not something I have any control over. Anything but that and I’ll arrange it.”

She stared at him for a long time. I wondered what else she’d ask for. Money? Grades? A jet plane made out of pure gold?

Finally, she shrugged. “There’s nothing else I want,” she said. “Nothing that I can’t get for myself. At the moment, things are good for me. I have friends, I get good grades, my life is easy. If I start dating you, real or not, things become less easy. There’s nothing you can give me that would be worth the trouble.”

Tennyson frowned, and I knew her answer had only made him like her more. I understood rationally that he had no romantic feelings for her, and I understood that Fatima had absolutely zero interest in Tennyson, but deep down in my churning belly, a nasty part of myself was pleased I’d broken her arm that time, even if it had been an accident. It made me feel ashamed of myself, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never thought of myself as a jealous person before, but apparently, when it came to Tennyson, I was a monster.

Fatima stood up from the table and made to leave, but Milo didn’t move. Fatima got to the top of the stairs and then turned back to see where he was. “Milo?”

“I’ll do it,” he said, staring right at Tennyson. “I already know your secret, so I’m the best person for the job.”

“What do you want in return?” Tennyson asked.

“Revenge,” said Milo. “I want to see Henry Hawthorne suffer. I want to humiliate him.”

I held my breath as I waited for Tennyson’s reply.

“Deal,” he said.

CHAPTER 11

There were so many things wrong with this plan that I didn’t even know where to start.

You know Milo hates you, right? I asked Tennyson during history.

Tennyson was in English, but as far as I could tell, he wasn’t actually doing anything. His feelings toward me are irrelevant, so long as he performs his task.

It was impossible to have a conversation with him sometimes, he was so stubborn. You know he was president of the I Hate Tennyson Wilde club. I tried to takes notes on the Great Depression, but I was too busy trying to stop my own depression from happening.

I know you tried to join it.

I didn’t see how that mattered. The point was that Milo hated Tennyson way more than he hated Henry. He thinks you tried to eat his face off, I said. He thinks you attacked him.

I sensed no malevolent intent from him. You’re worrying over nothing.

And you’re being naive.

He didn’t respond to me, and I knew it wasn’t because discussion on The Crucible had suddenly gotten action-packed. He did that sometimes when he didn’t agree with me. He’d always been so much better at shutting me out than I was with him, and it made me feel cold that he could do it so easily.

There were other issues as well that I hadn’t discussed with him. As we started to watch a depressing video about life during the Depression, I thought about Milo’s obsession with Tennyson. I hadn’t spent any time with Milo since freshman year, but back then, I’d thought Milo had a crush on Tennyson. He’d never said it in so many words, and I wasn’t even sure he was aware of it himself, so I didn’t want to bring it up. I mean, you can’t just go and out someone to their possible crush; that was as bad as what Henry had done to Milo in class. And what Henry had done was awful. I could understand wanting revenge for it, I really could. I just wasn’t convinced it was enough for Milo to suddenly be on our side. Still, it left me in a tight spot as far as reasoning with Tennyson went.

The way I saw it, Milo wanted to do this for one of two reasons. Either he was still crushing on Tennyson, in which case we might as well get Charlotte Du Pont or anyone else who followed him around, collecting his stray hairs or whatever. Or else, his love had turned sour when I attacked him in Tennyson’s body and he had a dastardly revenge plan. The revenge on Henry thing was probably just icing. I mean, Henry was an A-grade butthead, but Milo had only seen the tip of the butthead iceberg, whereas he was well-acquainted with Tennyson’s buttheadedness. It was out there for everyone to see.

If I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, there was only one option left. I had to find out what Milo was up to for myself and get enough proof to convince Tennyson not to go through with it. It bothered me that I had to; at this point in our relationship, Tennyson should take me at my word. All else aside, he knew me better than anyone else ever had or would. We’d literally blended together, so I was kind of low-level mad at him as I set out after class to spy on Milo.

I couldn’t remember what his extracurricular was, only that it was something pretentious, so I had no clue whether he had a club meeting after class or not. For someone so paranoid, Milo really didn’t do anything to disguise where he was going, so it was easy enough to follow him. He wandered back to Red House leisurely, chatting with a couple of sophomores. I stayed outside when he went in. It would be too easy to be discovered if I followed him inside, and I could listen to what he was doing easily enough while I was sitting in the garden if I focused. It was a nice day, still fading out of summer, but with enough of a cool breeze for me to know winter wasn’t far off. I wished I could’ve sat there and done nothing for real, just listen to the leaves rustling and feel the sun on my skin, but instead I had to listen to Milo going to his room and changing out of his uniform. It was bad to invade people’s privacy – I knew that, mostly because since I’d gotten super-senses, I’d discovered that the things people did when they thought they were alone were disgusting – but this was for the greater good. I just hoped Milo didn’t do anything too gross.

Lucky for me, he apparently had somewhere to be. As soon as he’d changed, he headed back out again. I pretended I was reading something on my phone as he passed by, but he was so preoccupied, he didn’t even notice I was there. Once he was out of sight, I started to follow him. I thought he’d head back toward the school, to a club or the library or something, but when the path split, he kept going straight on. He got to the gates of the Golden House and kept going, then turned down another path and headed into a part of the gardens I wasn’t familiar with.

I slowed my pace. I had to be careful here. Gardens were tricky things. What if there were only flowers, and I had no cover to hide behind? What if the path twisted around in some weird way to make him double back toward me? Because of my caution, I lost track of him for a moment, and by the time I found him again, he was talking to someone.

The other voice was so familiar, I’d know it anywhere. But why was Sam having a secret meeting with Milo? Was he trying to talk him out of this dumb plan? I needed to get closer so I could make out what they were saying, so I moved forward in a crouch-run until I reached the safety of a hedge. The gardens in this part of the school were too nicely cultivated, with their perfectly square box hedges and flat garden beds. How was I supposed to spy on anyone without adequate foliage? I quieted my breathing — if I could hear them, Sam could hear me, and the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt. At least, not before I found out what they were doing.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Sam said.

I was surprised that Sam even knew Milo well enough to have an opinion of his trustworthiness.

“It’s still the best option,” Milo said. “You know I’m discreet.”

It had been good of him not to blab about werewolves – that was a major point in his favor – but the way he’d said it sounded strange, as if he and Sam were sharing some private joke.

“You could’ve just asked me,” said Sam. He sounded as if he was pouting.

“And you’d have told me?” said Milo, mocking Sam’s tone.

Okay, this conversation was taking a strange turn. Maybe it wasn’t about what I’d thought it was about. In which case, I had no idea what was happening.

“As much as I could,” said Sam.

I really needed to get closer to see what they were doing. Maybe if I could see their faces, it would start making sense. I started to crawl forward on my hands and knees.

“Think about that for a second,” said Milo. “How would you feel if you were me? Picture it: a guy asks another guy on a date.”

Wait, what? I stopped crawling so I could eavesdrop better. Everything suddenly started to make a bit more sense.

Milo kept talking. “The askee finds out the asker has a girlfriend. What do you think is the logical conclusion to jump to there? That the asker is in denial about liking boys, or that the asker is fake-dating the girl so she doesn’t get booted from their werewolf pack?”

“Lycanthrope.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth, thinking I’d accidentally said it, but after a second I realized it wasn’t me at all. It was Tennyson.

“You jerk!” I said, jumping to my feet and pointing a finger at him across the garden. “Why couldn’t you just admit that I had a point? Instead, you have to go and spy on people like a creepy-faced stalker!”

I couldn’t believe him. If he’d just for once been able to say something like a normal person, we could’ve talked about it and worked something out instead of crawling around gardens.

“I think that’s the pot calling the stalker creepy-faced,” he said, smirking at me with such a dumb, smug face that he looked exactly like Henry. For the briefest flash of a moment, I hated him.

He felt it. I knew it from the look on his face and from the blast I got back, as if we were playing tennis and he was returning my serve of bad feelings.

I stumbled back from the force of it. I’d known, of course I’d known, that he’d never feel the same way about me as I felt about him, but to actually feel how he did feel about me, all the anger and disdain and animosity. For a moment, that feeling was the only thing that existed. But the moment after that, I felt my power surge up, rising to my defense. It wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me, but I didn’t want to use that power to do bad things. I didn’t want to hurt Tennyson. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to go down that path. The power was there and it needed to be channeled, but that didn’t mean I had to use it to do something destructive. Instead, I used it to create. I rebuilt the wall in our bond that had been damaged, that let us bleed so freely into each other. If Tennyson hated me so much, he could stay on his own side of the wall, and I wouldn’t cross it either. I built it as strong and impenetrable as I could until there was no way anything could get through, not the tiniest feeling or strayest thought. Then I exhaled deeply, as if I’d been holding my breath the entire time the wall had been down.

Slowly, the world came back into focus.

“Are you sure this is something you want to get in the middle of?” Sam said to Milo.

I didn’t know what they’d just seen, how any of that had looked, but Milo was staring at me with huge, stunned eyes.

“I have no idea what just happened,” he said. He blinked at me, then turned to Sam. “But I agreed to do it, and I won’t back out. I mean, who else could you get to do it? Imagine if someone else had witnessed that. How would you explain it?” He shook his head. “You people need to be more careful.”

Tennyson glared at me from the other side of the garden. Although he was far away, he felt even farther. I only had the slightest awareness of him, sort of how you know you have ears but you can’t really feel them sitting there on the sides of your head. The bond was there, but it was completely blocked; the wall was absolute. Nothing came through it at all, not the slightest sense of him.

I felt empty, hollow. It had been so long since I’d been alone inside my own head that it felt unnatural.

“Very well,” said Tennyson. He narrowed his eyes at me, then turned to Milo. “If we’re going to do this, then let’s begin. Come along.”

He turned and strode off into the gardens. Milo shot Sam an unreadable look, then followed after him. I watched as Tennyson vanished. It felt as if he were disappearing for real, and I supposed in a way he was. At least, all those silly little daydreams I’d had of him when I couldn’t help myself. The two of us walking under an umbrella in the rain. The two of us adopting a puppy. Tennyson bringing me cakes when I was sad. That Tennyson, who I’d secretly hoped cared about me, even if it wasn’t romantically, just on some level that he didn’t care about other people.

“Come and sit down,” Sam said.

I hadn’t even noticed him moving, but he was by my side. He guided me over to a garden bench, and we sat. I tried to pull myself out of my thoughts.

“So, Milo, huh?” I said, waggling my eyebrows at him. My heart wasn’t really in it, but I had to make the effort.

“Aren’t we going to talk about what just happened?” he asked.

“So, Milo, huh?” I said in a harder voice.

He raised his eyebrows at me. I raised mine back at him. We had an epic eyebrow-off until he backed down. Sucker.

“Fine. Let’s talk about me and Milo instead of that little thunder and lightning show you just put on for us.”

I nodded and waved my hand, urging him to go on. “So, Milo, huh?” I said again. “You said you didn’t like boys.”

I didn’t blame him for that. Maybe he’d not been comfortable telling me. Maybe he’d not admitted it to himself. It wasn’t actually my business, except in the way that I was now making it my business so I could avoid my own.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure I do,” he said, settling into the seat and crossing his ankle over his knee. “I mean, I like Milo. But I liked you as much as I’ve ever liked anyone, and that was just…” He paused, and I knew he didn’t want to offend me.

“Weird and gross?” I offered.

“Harsh,” he said. “But fair, I guess. Sorry.”

I shook my head to show him I didn’t mind.

“So, you thought you’d try it out with Milo to see if you just didn’t like girls or if you didn’t like anyone?”

He shrugged. “I’m just trying to work out what works for me.”

“Fair enough,” I said. I took his arm in both mine and hugged it. “You don’t have to work it all out at once, you know.”

He rested his head on top of mine. “So, now we’re done talking about that…” he started.

“Nope,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Let’s go hunt down some ice cream!”

“Lucy, there were literal sparks flying.”

“You’re not coming?” I asked him as I started walking away. “Okay, bye-bye, then. Have a nice whatever.”

I escaped back into the bushes before he could catch up and ask any more questions.

CHAPTER 12

Tennyson and I had had fights before. We’d had our bond blocked before. This felt different. This felt like screaming into a void.

I dreaded seeing him again. How should I act? Should I ignore him? Should I act as if nothing had happened? I didn’t want to see anyone, not ever again. I’d skipped the ice cream after running away from Sam and had gone straight back to my room and gotten into bed. When Hannah came home, I pretended to be asleep. I missed dinner, but I wasn’t hungry anyway. I couldn’t even think of food, but I couldn’t sleep either. All night, I lay awake, thinking back over what had happened, what had gone wrong. Maybe if I’d said this, maybe if I’d done that, it would’ve turned out differently. That led into a spiral of thinking back over every fight we’d ever had, every petty argument. When I thought about it, it was plain that this was always going to happen. It was the inevitable conclusion to a disastrous entanglement. It was better for us to live our lives separately, anyway. It wasn’t a sustainable way of life, being bonded like that, being so close to one other person. It wasn’t healthy. Once I got used to this, I was sure I’d see it was for the best that we cut all ties.

I thought seriously about skipping classes the next day. I needed some time. I needed to not see his dumb face, with those stupid thick eyebrows furrowing up at me across the table. But everyone was going to such lengths to keep me in the pack, and Henry would expect me at breakfast, so I pulled myself out of bed to face the day.

I dragged my feet on the way there. Even if I ignored him, he’d still be there, and his presence filled the whole room. It would be like ripping off a band-aid, I supposed. I just had to get it over with.

But to my surprise, Tennyson wasn’t at the breakfast table, and neither was Henry.

Nikolai was sitting slumped over, his head propped up by his hand and his tie loose around his neck. Althea was sitting straight-backed, eating neatly, as if it were any normal day. Sam nodded hello and filled the cup at my place with coffee. He seemed a lot happier than he had in ages, and I wondered if that was because his secret was out.

“He’s sitting with Milo,” Sam said as I sat down.

I didn’t look over at Milo’s table.

“Henry went nuts. It was hilarious,” Nikolai said in a bored voice, fiddling with his toast. “He said there’d be none of that in his pack, by gum, and he’d inform the alpha directly to have the matter seen to.”

“I don’t think that’s exactly the language he used,” Althea said, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Henry has always been a pig, but his reaction to this is beyond…” She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“What will your mother do?” I asked. I sipped the coffee but still couldn’t face food.

“Nothing, probably. This kind of thing doesn’t concern her, not unless it somehow affects the pack directly.”

“Oh, hey,” said Nikolai, attempting to sit upright and failing. “Did you really try to explode Tennyson with your brain?”

“No!” I shot a filthy look at Sam, who shrugged. “All I did was rebuild the wall in our bond. It had started to break, and you know it’s not good if it’s too… you know.”

Nikolai waved his toast vaguely, as if he neither knew nor cared. “Really? Because I heard you made everything go dark and then threw lightning bolts at his head.”

“Go back to bed,” I told him. “Your brain is obviously still there.”

“He really didn’t seem himself last night, though,” said Althea. “Are you sure the two of you are okay?”

“I’m fine,” I told her. “I can’t speak for him.”

She gave me a piercing look, so I stared down into my coffee cup to avoid looking into her eyes.

Before I could make an excuse to leave, Henry arrived back at the table, puffing slightly and red in the face.

“I’ve messaged her,” he said, holding on to the back of a chair. “She was in a meeting, but I’m sure she’ll get back to me and do something about this abomination.” He noticed me and gave me a sharp look. “You,” he said. “I heard that you and Tennyson had an argument yesterday.”

I shot Sam another filthy look, and again he shrugged. “It wasn’t me this time.”

“I have eyes everywhere,” Henry said. “You can’t avoid them. At any rate, I assume this fight was due to the unsavory nature of my cousin’s relations? Perhaps I was wrong about you, halfie. You might be just the type we need in this pack after all. Listen, I know this might seem distasteful, but I have a task for you. Actually, both of you.” He waved toward Sam. “I need you to get close to Tennyson and this… creature. Keep your eyes and ears open for any information that might be useful. If we can curb these tendencies before they take hold, before this freak can twist him any further, then perhaps Tennyson won’t be lost to us after all.”

I stared at him, not understanding what he’d said. There were words, and individually they had meaning, but hearing them strung together in that order was beyond my comprehension.

Henry nodded to himself. “Yes, that’s the best way. The alpha is busy, so it might be too long before she can get to it, and this kind of thing needs to be nipped in the bud.” He shook a finger at me. “Go on a double date with them. Gain their trust. I’ll tell you the right kind of thing to say. We’ll have him back on our side in no time.”

I glanced at the others, but they seemed just as perplexed as I was. There was one thing he was saying that I could latch on to, though.

“But, Henry,” I said. “Lord Hawthorne, even. I thought you wanted him out of the way so you could become alpha.”

“This is beyond that,” he said. “This kind of thing can’t be allowed to go unchecked, or it will spread like a plague, contaminating anything it touches. I’ll figure out what your approach should be, but in the meantime, make up your argument with Tennyson and organize this date.”

He swept off again, leaving the four of us staring after him.

“Wow,” I said. There was literally no other response I could make. That had been a whirlwind of offensiveness. It was as if nothing could come out of his mouth without being the worst thing ever.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go on a double date with Tennyson. It would mean talking to him, sharing the same space with him, but the whole point to this mess was to convince Henry, and the plan was finally working. Near the end of lunch, Sam and I went down to talk to Tennyson and Milo.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked. “I can do this, if you want to get out of here?”

I shook my head. “We don’t know who’s spying for Henry, but someone is, and we have to assume it’s everyone and that they’ll report everything back. Let’s just get it over with.”

He took my hand and squeezed it.

When we approached the table, Tennyson didn’t look up, but Milo smiled at Sam.

“Hey,” said Hannah, sitting between Milo and Fatima. “Are you ready for club after school?”

I nodded, grateful to have an excuse not to look at Tennyson. “I’m looking forward to it,” I said, and I was. It would be nice to focus on controlling my power and forget everything else for a while.

There were a few other girls at the table from Red House, and a boy I didn’t know from Green House. They were trying to pretend they weren’t curious, playing it cool because Tennyson had chosen to sit with them, but they were overplaying it so much that it was obvious that was what they were doing: not looking directly at him but shooting little glances at the other tables to make sure everyone could see that they were sitting with him.

I just needed to get the words out. Once I’d said them, I could leave and get as far away from Tennyson as possible. But I couldn’t speak. The barrier between us was bigger than the wall in the bond. Instead, I turned to Milo.

“We think it would be fun to go on a double date.” Even though I tried to sound sincere, my voice was so flat that it was obvious I thought it would be anything but fun. “The four of us.”

I had no way to signal to Tennyson that it was Henry’s idea, that we nearly had him. I couldn’t even make eye contact with him, let alone speak to him telepathically. I could barely even feel our bond now, and trying to sense him through it felt like grasping at smoke.

“Sounds fun,” Tennyson said tonelessly. “Friday night?”

“I can’t wait,” I said through gritted teeth, then turned and walked out of the dining hall.

I’d never really thought of myself as a moper. I’d always been the sort of person who thinks she’s superior to those girls who run to the bathroom in tears because of some boy. Maybe it was karma for looking down on those girls, but I was coming to understand how they felt. When you really cared about somebody and then they crushed you like a bug, it wasn’t nice. Never again would I be so judgmental about other people’s feelings. Well, that was probably a lie because sometimes I couldn’t help myself, but I definitely resolved to try.

I sat by the window in history class, watching as the rain started to fall outside. The whole world seemed gray, no longer divided up into green or red or gold. The raindrops trickled down the window like tears until everything blurred together. I couldn’t concentrate on class. What did the Depression matter? What did anything matter?

Afternoon classes dragged on slowly, and I couldn’t wait for them to finish so I could get to Wicca Club. But on my way out of class, Henry stopped me in the hallway.

“I hear you arranged a date for tomorrow night. Good job,” he said, pushing me back into the classroom to escape the pull of the crowd in the hall. “I made some notes for you. Follow these and you shouldn’t go wrong.”

He handed me a large envelope stuffed full of papers. Man, hadn’t he ever heard of email? His note-taking skills were as antiquated as his homophobia.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to find some way to hold the envelope so all the papers wouldn’t spill out.

“Report back to me after the date,” he said. “I’ll base my report to the alpha on how well you perform.”

He turned and left me in the classroom, pushing people out of the way if they didn’t move fast enough as he made his way back down the hall. I shoved his stupid envelope into my bag to deal with later.

Nikolai and Hannah were already in the room when I got there. I glanced between them curiously, wondering if they interacted any differently when I wasn’t around, but they didn’t even seem to have spoken. Nikolai was sitting quietly in the middle of one of Hannah’s symbols, not even on his phone. Hannah was drawing on the floor again, but she seemed distracted, not quite herself. She’d been fine earlier, so I wondered if anything had happened since lunchtime.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

Nikolai nodded, but Hannah barely looked up. I stood awkwardly outside of the chalk lines until she’d finished, not wanting to mess anything up by sitting in the wrong place. When she’d finished, she pointed to a spot and I sat there, and once we were all settled, she looked over at me. She didn’t seem angry, just unfocussed and vague.

“Let’s start small this time,” she said. “You need to learn to control the flow of energy you use. At the moment, when you access the power, it’s like a dam being broken. It all floods out. Rather than a flood, what we want is tiny little drips, like you’re squeezing it out of an eyedropper, one drop at a time.”

I nodded to show that I understood, but I wasn’t sure I really did. I got the concept, but putting it into practice seemed impossible.

“When most people learn how to use magic, the problem is how to draw on enough power to make anything happen, but with you it’s obviously the opposite, so we’ll take the opposite approach.” She set a tennis ball in the middle of the three of us. “Levitation is a pretty basic spell. It’s what they usually use to help beginners understand how to channel their power, how to draw on their energy source. It usually takes people weeks, even months, to raise the ball off the floor, but for you, I want you to try to keep it steady. It will take the tiniest trickle of your power, but if you don’t keep it constant, the ball is going to rise up and up.” She pointed to a spot in the air, around chin-height. “I don’t want you to raise it over this high.”

“And try not to explode anything,” said Nikolai. “Including us. Definitely no lightning bolts.”

Hannah shot him an unreadable look, but as soon as I tried to decipher it, it was gone. Then she held out her hands, and we took them.

“Maintain a steady height,” she repeated.

I felt for the power inside of me and tried to let it trickle out. At first, it worked. I felt the power welling up inside of me, but I only released it from the smallest point, like a pinprick letting sunlight through. The ball began to rise slowly, but the power wasn’t enough to make it keep rising. It hovered in the air around chin-height, like Hannah had said.

Then that pinprick started to get bigger, as if the power was burning a hole in my defenses and trying to escape. I concentrated all my focus on keeping that hole as small as possible, but it was a constant battle, and I soon felt drained. The power surged out of me even as I tried to rein it in. The ball flew around the room, ricocheting off the walls and ceiling. I held the power back enough to keep it centered on the ball, rather than flowing freely wherever it liked, but even doing that felt beyond my capabilities, like any moment I’d lose control.

Even though all my focus was on the ball, I still heard Hannah scream. It took me a moment to register what that meant, but once I did, the power easily furled back up inside of me as if it had never been.

Nikolai was staring at Hannah in horror where she lay curled up into a little ball with her hands over her ears.

“Hey,” I said, crawling over to her. I wasn’t sure if I should touch her or not. She was obviously freaked out, and I didn’t want to make things worse. “What should I do?” I asked Nikolai.

He shook himself slightly, then got out his phone. “Okay, Google says to first ask if it’s okay to touch her.”

“Hannah?” I said softly, not wanting to spook her. “I’m just going to put my hand on your shoulder. Is that okay?”

Because she had her hands over her ears, I couldn’t be sure she heard me. She looked up at me, her face streaked with tears, but there was no recognition in her eyes.

“Then what?” I asked Nikolai.

“Don’t slap or shake her,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “As if I would. I need something practical here, Nikolai. What if she tries to swallow her tongue or something?”

“She’s not having a seizure,” he said. “It’s obviously some sort of PTSD flashback that your magic brought on. It says to keep talking to her calmly, ask if she knows where she is, offer her a glass of water.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to think of something I could talk about that would calm her down. What did Hannah like? Oh, yeah, I got it. “Once upon a time, there was a boy. But he wasn’t an ordinary boy. He had a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt.” I kept talking, telling her stuff about Harry Potter, but that didn’t seem to be doing anything. She wasn’t getting worse, but she definitely wasn’t getting any better. I looked at Nikolai desperately. “You try something!”

He looked so panicked at the idea that I thought for a moment maybe he’d run away. Then he squared his shoulders and came over to sit beside her. I backed away to give them some space.

He spoke quietly to her, too quietly for me to even make out what he was saying, though I tried not to listen. Whatever he said, it seemed to be working. Slowly, she began to uncurl from her little ball. She sat up, staring at Nikolai. It took a while for her to come back to herself, but he never stopped talking, trying to calm her down. It made my heart ache a little to see them so wrapped up in a private world together that it seemed nothing else existed. But even though it hurt, even though it was a reminder of what I’d lost, I couldn’t help but be pleased that maybe they’d found each other.

CHAPTER 13

Nothing changed outwardly for Nikolai and Hannah after that, but they did seem more relaxed around each other. A couple of times, I caught Nikolai reading up on PTSD, and sometimes she awkwardly tried to get information from me about him.

“You can talk to me about anything, you know?” I said to her, but she just shrugged.

“I’m okay,” she said, but this time it seemed more believable, and I wondered if she’d found someone else to talk to. Nikolai hadn’t been the only one reading up on things, and it was important that she could talk about her experiences, so I figured it didn’t matter who she was talking to, as long as it helped. None of us said it aloud, but we put the Wicca club on hold for a while, and I practiced magic alone, with nobody around to get hurt. I started to build up the time I could keep enough focus to let my power trickle out, to hover the tennis ball in midair without it going crazy. I wasn’t very good at it, but I was improving.

But, unlike Hannah, unlike my control, the situation with Tennyson wasn’t getting any better. The closer it got to the double date, the worse I felt. Tennyson and I hadn’t spoken again. Sometimes he ate with Milo, sometimes with the Golden. I started arriving late for meals so I could see where he was before I decided what to do. If he was with the Golden, I left and found an empty classroom to eat in, then told Henry I’d had to study. He was easily fooled because he didn’t really care that much. I’d glanced through Henry’s notes just in case he decided to grill me on them, and I’d realized it was an entire script of how our date would go, everything I should say, with Tennyson giving convenient responses that led into me giving a five-page speech on righteousness and something about cutting out dead wood. The whole thing read like some sort of precursor to conversion therapy. Henry was such a creep.

I tried not to think about Tennyson, I really did. I concentrated on my studies and controlling my magic. I pretended that was enough to fill the empty space inside my chest where our bond had been, but sometimes that empty space felt like a bottomless pit of lava, burning away everything else until I couldn’t feel anything but the pain. No distraction could overcome that, so at those times, I let myself wallow.

On the day of the date, Sam came to meet me outside the Red House.

“You look nice,” he said.

I smiled at him. I had taken extra special care when I was getting ready. Not for any particular reason, simply because that was what people did when they got ready for dates, right? I was wearing my nicest dress, another one that Althea had given me. It was some fancy label, but it looked cute. It was black with pink and green flowers on it, with a swishy skirt and a Peter Pan collar. I’d even watched a YouTube tutorial on how to put on makeup so I wouldn’t end up looking like a clown doing it myself. Everything still went a bit streaky and weird, and I couldn’t do that blending thing very well. I’d needed to wash everything off and restart a few times, but I figured the YouTube girl had probably been practicing for years, whereas I was a beginner, so I was happy enough with my efforts. I’d left my hair down, because after redoing my makeup so many times, I was running late.

“Of course, it’s not as if I remember how you normally look, since I haven’t seen you in so long,” Sam continued.

“I’ve been busy,” I told him, though I didn’t really think he had a leg to stand on, Mr. Absent and Distant.

He didn’t call me on the lie, which I appreciated. We both knew why I’d been avoiding everyone, and it did nobody any good to talk about it.

“What are we doing tonight?” I asked him. As far as I knew, we were limited in our dating options on an island in the middle of nowhere, but for Henry’s sake, it should be something at least semi-public.

“Milo mentioned something about the yachting club having a party,” Sam said.

I had to physically force myself not to turn around and head back to my room. I had purposely avoided anything and everything to do with the yachting club during my time at school, so maybe I hadn’t given them a fair chance, but it seemed like anyone who went yachting for a hobby was probably not my type of person. They seemed like the type of people who would sip champagne out of crystal flutes and laugh through their nose at you if you tripped over.

“It’ll be fine,” Sam said. “We just need to stay long enough to be seen, and for it to get back to Henry.”

That was all well and good for him to say. He wasn’t estranged from the person he had a soul bond with and forced to spend the evening with them. Though it would probably be weird for him to see Milo dating someone else.

“How are things going with Milo?” I asked. I tried waggling my eyebrows, but my heart wasn’t in it.

He shrugged. “We haven’t spent a lot of time together. We didn’t want to make Henry suspicious.”

“That sucks,” I said.

He didn’t look overly concerned. “I don’t think either of us is overly invested, anyway.”

I wondered if that was really true for them both, or just for Sam. I knew Sam was trying to figure things out, but that seemed a bit harsh on Milo if he really liked Sam, even if Sam had been up front about everything.

But when we met up with Milo and Sam at the Golden House gate, Milo definitely didn’t seem worried about Sam. He hung on to Tennyson’s arm and gazed at him all starry-eyed. Either he was a fantastic actor, or this whole business was going to go south really fast when he realized that Tennyson wasn’t interested. Unless Tennyson was interested in him. He’d never exactly cared much about girls.

I put the thought out of my mind. Whether Tennyson liked Milo or someone else or nobody made no difference to me. It wasn’t as if we’d broken up, because there had never been an up to break, but the two of us were over. Kaput. Done. All but dead to each other. He could go on dates with Assistant Head Noel and I wouldn’t even care.

The four of us nodded to each other and then headed down the path toward the yacht club. Tennyson and Milo walked ahead of Sam and me, arm in arm. I grabbed Sam’s hand so we wouldn’t be outdone.

“Ease up a bit,” Sam said. “You’re cutting off my circulation.”

I released my death grip on his hand, but I couldn’t so easily let go of the tension in my body.

The yacht club was all lit up with twinkling lights that reflected off the water. As we got closer to them, I realized something terrible.

“Sam,” I hissed. “This party is on a boat! You know what that means? We’re going to go out on that water, and we’ll be stuck out there with all those people! There’ll be no leaving early!”

I could turn around and leave now. I had no obligation to go to this party, I knew that. If I left, I’d only be hurting myself. But I’d be hurting myself in the worst way possible. It had been bad enough when my father severed my pack bond, as bad as it got, but at least I still had the pack in my life. If I didn’t force myself to go to this party, I wouldn’t even have that. Now that my bond with Tennyson was all but gone, the pack was the only thing I had left.

I forced myself to keep walking.

Music pulsated out from the boat, the bass thumping so loud that the ground almost shook. The deck was packed full with people dancing. It was like I was about to walk into Lucy hell.

By the time we got onto the boat, the music was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything other than the boom-boom of the bass. Sometimes, having super-senses wasn’t actually all that super. We pushed through the crowds of people, and as we moved across the deck, the boat jolted. Everyone let out a cheer. We’d set sail. There was no backing out now.

Milo handed me a drink in a shot glass and I gulped it down, more for something to do than because I wanted it. It tasted minty and vaguely alcoholic.

“Let’s dance!” Milo yelled over the music, then grabbed Tennyson by the hand and led him into the crowd.

Tennyson followed him without looking back.

Sam and I stood awkwardly still in the pulsating crowd. I grabbed another shot from a guy passing by with a tray of them. I knew I couldn’t get drunk because of something in the lycanthropy metabolism, but it gave me something to do with my hands and made me feel a bit less like a sore thumb.

“Do you want to dance?” asked Sam.

I gave him a pretty harsh side-eye. “Do you?”

He shrugged. “Not a lot else to do.”

I grabbed another one of those tasty shots and followed him through the crowd. I wasn’t sure exactly where he was going; it wasn’t as if there was a dance floor. I stumbled a little as I walked. I clearly didn’t have my sea legs yet. Somehow, Sam found Tennyson and Milo amongst all the people. Milo was holding Tennyson by the hips and moving their bodies in a way that made me blush. I looked away, searching for the guy with those tasty shots. There was definitely something addictive in those little guys, because I couldn’t get enough of them.

Sam put his hand on my shoulder and started to bob his head in time with the music like a massive dork. He really wasn’t a natural dancer, but then neither was I. We danced a bit, and after a while I started getting into the music.

“Hold up,” I told him, reaching out to grab a couple more shots from a tray as the guy walked past. I offered one to Sam, but he shook his head. Well, if he didn’t want it, I’d have them both.

“You should ease up on those things,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I told him, getting used to shouting over the music. “I can’t get drunk. I’m a werewolf!”

Of course, as I said it, the music changed, and in the lull between songs my voice carried, right as I said the word “werewolf.”

People stared at me, so I made claw hands at them and snarled. I snarled particularly viciously at Tennyson because I knew how much he hated the w-word.

Come to think of it, I was feeling a little light-headed. At least my hands weren’t actually claws. That was a bonus. Wow, I thought. Seasickness really does a number on you!

“A word, please.” Tennyson grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me off through the crowd before I even knew what was happening.

I tripped along after him. I was definitely feeling weird and not myself, but what else could it be but seasickness? I definitely remembered Tennyson saying werewolves couldn’t get drunk. That wasn’t just something from TV, right? Maybe it was from being out on the water, now that I was all magical. That made total sense. Crossing water was bad for magic, and I was like a magical bomb. I was the total bomb. I giggled to myself. I was pretty funny.

Tennyson stopped walking abruptly, and I slammed into his back. We were standing at the prow of the ship, the endless dark of night and the sea in front of us. He turned to face me, and I grinned up at him, pleased to have solved the mystery of why I felt weird. Had he always been so tall? It felt like maybe he hadn’t always been quite so tall. It was stupid of him to grow more before I could catch up. He should wait for me.

“Stupid,” I told him.

“Yes,” he said, glowering at me. “You’re being exceedingly stupid.”

“Like your face!” I told him. I tried to poke him in the chest to emphasize my point, but he had hold of both my wrists now. When had that happened? “Stupid face,” I said because I couldn’t poke him.

He kept talking, but somebody cranked up the music and I couldn’t hear what he said. But I didn’t need to hear him to know. It would be all blah blah, Lucy is dumb, blah blah blah, go away dumb Lucy. Even if I could hear him, I didn’t want to, so I ignored him and did a little dance instead. Who was I trying to kid? I was an awesome dancer, way better than Sam. I had all the sweet moves.

He tightened his hold on me and pulled me closer so that I had to stop dancing. I struggled against him, but he held me even tighter, so tight I couldn’t move at all.

“Let me go!” I said, but I couldn’t even hear myself over the music now, it was so loud. No matter what I said, nobody would hear me. I could say whatever I liked. I looked up at Tennyson, at his stupidly long eyelashes and his stupid full lips, and that stupid lock of hair curling around his ear. Stupid Tennyson. I could say anything to him, right to his face, and he’d never know what it was. So I let everything that I’d been holding on to come rushing out.

“I thought we were friends!” I told him. “Even if you didn’t like me, I thought we were in this together, that I could trust you. I thought you were the one person I could count on, no matter what! Our brains mashed together like potatoes, and I thought…” I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t even upset. I was totally fine. I was the bomb. “I thought you’d always be there and now you’re not and I hate it! I hate that you’re not there! You’re just gone, and I hate it! I miss you and I hate it! Stupid Tennyson!”

I don’t know if he let me go or if I found the strength to pull away, but suddenly he was no longer holding on to me, and I missed the warmth of him against my body in the same way I missed his presence inside my mind.

“Stupid Tennyson!” I told him again, but that wasn’t what I meant at all. I meant a million other things.

And then he was gone. I didn’t see him leave, but everything had started to get fuzzy, sort of blurry around the edges. I should’ve asked Tennyson while he was still there about the getting drunk thing, but I was pretty sure it was facts. Still, this was definitely not a normal feeling. I gripped the railing so I wouldn’t fall and then I remembered the thing about magic and water and whatnot. That was right – that had been smart of me. The best thing to do would be to get off this ship as soon as possible.

Even though things were blurry, I could see that farther down the deck, past where Charlotte Du Pont was making out with one of the polo team members, there were lifeboats. All I needed to do was get into one of those lifeboats and then I could go back to school and have a nap. That sounded like a most excellent plan. The one flaw in it was that I’d have to let go of the railing.

Before I could work up the nerve, two girls were standing in front of me. They looked vaguely familiar. I thought maybe they were seniors, but I didn’t even know which house they were in. They started saying something, but I had no hope of hearing them, so I nodded sagely. I thought that maybe if I agreed with them, they’d go about their business. I was wrong. One of them gave me a shove.

“Hey!” I said.

The shoving one yelled something back to me. I only caught some random syllables, but it seemed that she definitely didn’t like me. She shoved me again, harder, and I stumbled backwards, losing my balance. I reached out to grab hold of shovey girl so I wouldn’t fall, but she stepped away, and that sent me toppling.

Backwards. Over the rail. Down into the sea.

Down, down I fell, into the darkness, until I landed in the cold water. If everything hadn’t been so fuzzy, it might have seemed bad, but instead the water seemed cool and refreshing. And suddenly everything made sense.

I was a mermaid!

Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

I bobbed up and down in the water, very pleased with my deductive reasoning. I was a mermaid, and everything made sense.

Everything made sense, then everything went black. Again.

CHAPTER 14

“You are not a mermaid.”

The voice sounded harsh and definitely not mermish.

“Althea?” I croaked. I sounded more like a frog than a mermaid.

“Don’t even try to talk,” she said. “But do try to open your eyes. The room is dark, so it shouldn’t hurt too badly.”

I cracked one eye open to look at her, but that made the night before come rushing back, so I closed it again quickly. Maybe if I hid, I could pretend none of that had happened. Life was way better when I was a mermaid. At least at the bottom of the sea, there wouldn’t be videos of my drunken dancing on social media. Oh, man, I really hoped there weren’t videos.

“I thought we couldn’t get drunk,” I whispered. Whispering hurt just as badly as croaking.

“You weren’t drunk. You were poisoned,” Althea said. “Those shots you were apparently guzzling were laced with wolfsbane. Now, sit up and drink this.”

That news was definitely enough to make me open my eyes. I was in a bed in the Golden House. From what I could tell, it was Althea’s room. I had a vague recollection of waking up one other time after being poisoned with her looking after me, but I couldn’t stretch my brain that far without it hurting.

“Wolfsbane?” I mouthed. A terrible thought occurred to me. I didn’t want to think it, didn’t want to say it, but I had to put it out there. “Hannah?” I asked. It was maybe unfair to blame her first every time something happened, but she was the most logical option.

Althea shook her head and handed me a glass full of gray sludge. “She had no opportunity, and Nikolai’s been watching her pretty closely, so he’d know.”

I took a sip of the sludge and thought I’d throw up. I tried to hand the glass back to Althea, but she glared at me until I drank it all.

“Henry seems the most likely culprit, though I’m not clear on what motive he might have had.”

I felt too rotten to care much about who had done it. The fact was, I’d acted like a total idiot, and in front of Tennyson, no less. I couldn’t even think about it. The things I’d said. The dancing. I shuffled back down in the bed and pulled the covers over my head.

“I’m a mermaid,” I said.

“You’re a meridiot,” said Nikolai.

I groaned. That was the last thing I needed.

“Leave her alone, Nikolai,” said Althea, but I could hear in her voice that she was trying not to laugh, the traitor.

“Also, you’ve gone viral. Get up and come watch this. It’s amazing.”

I could hear the tinny music from the party playing out of Nikolai’s phone.

“They should’ve let me drown.”

“Nonsense!”

I felt the bed beside me dip as Nikolai settled in.

“Life would be so dull without you around to mix things up.” There was silence for a moment, and then the music started to play again. “No, seriously, though: where did you learn to dance like that?”

“I hate you,” I told him. “When I get my strength back, I’m going to use my awesome magical powers to zap you into a bug.”

“And, anyway,” Nikolai continued, “what sort of way would that be to thank the person who so heroically saved you from the murky depths?”

Even though I was a mermaid at the bottom of the sea and nothing on dry land could affect me, I couldn’t help but be a little curious. I peeked out from under my blanket to look at Nikolai. “Person?”

He turned his phone screen toward me, and I got a flash of myself at the party before I ducked back under the blanket.

He chuckled, then the video cut out. “Yes. Apparently, you were dramatically rescued by the object of your affections. That’s a whole other video. Not to mention the one of the girl pushing you overboard for being a two-timing… very bad word.”

“Ah,” I said. “That’s what that was about?” I had a vague recollection of an angry person, but it was hard to separate things out from each other. “So, who rescued me?”

The blanket was suddenly and harshly ripped away from me. “Who do you think?” Althea was glaring at me again. I really wished she’d stop. “You should go find him and talk to him. The antidote will be working by now, and the rest of us are sick of you two mooning around. It’s bad enough with Henry here, let alone the two of you bringing us down.”

I really wanted to ask her for clarification. Had Tennyson been mooning? Wait, she meant Tennyson, right? I wanted to double-check, but she folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows, which made her look so much like her mother that I had to stop wishing I was a mermaid and get back to the real world quick smart.

“I still feel very weak,” I told her.

“That’s because you’re acting like a coward, and cowards are weak.”

Nikolai snorted, then stood up and pulled me to my feet. “I’ll help you find him,” he said. “She’s scary when she’s like this. I don’t want to be alone with her.”

“Oh, your time is coming, Nikolai,” she said as we left the room.

I was still wearing my party clothes, and although they’d dried, they felt disgusting and smelled of seaweed. As much as I wanted to change my clothes and maybe shower for a year, the thought of walking through Red House on a Saturday afternoon with everyone hanging around and staring at me and laughing wasn’t at all appealing.

“He’s in the topiary garden,” Nikolai said. “If you like, I’ll go find Hannah and see if the two of us can clear out the house for you to go back in peace.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s awfully nice of you,” I said suspiciously.

“I’m well-known for my philanthropy,” he told me. “It’s second only to my good looks.”

“Okay,” I said. I still thought he was up to something, but I really didn’t want to be around people, so whatever. It was a bit weird that he’d known how I felt, even without the pack bond, but we’d shared the bond for a year, so I guessed he probably knew me well enough by now. “Thanks.”

“Just be sure to mention to Hannah how kind and thoughtful I am,” he said. “Which is very.”

I nodded. “And handsome and philanthropic.”

He shot me with his finger guns. “That’s right.” We’d reached the topiary garden, and he gave me a little nudge toward it. “Now, go fix this and don’t come home until you have.”

I rolled my eyes at him, and he turned away and kept walking down the path.

I took a deep breath. I could do this.

I got two steps into the garden and then stopped. I definitely could not do this. Flashes of the night before, the things I’d said, came back to me. I felt my cheeks heat up. Even if he hadn’t been able to hear what I’d said, I’d still said those things. I couldn’t even bring myself to think of what I’d actually said – it was too much. Why hadn’t I just ripped my heart out and waved it around in his face? It would’ve been less obvious. Drunk me was such an idiot. When I found the person who’d laced my drink, I was going to end them.

Tennyson was sitting in his favorite spot, in the wing of the topiary dragon. He glanced up as I approached, and for a second I was terrified that he’d get up and leave. I stopped a few paces away from him, not sure how welcome I was.

It was strange, looking at him without the filter of the bond. Sometimes I thought maybe my feelings for him were a little narcissistic. If you were in love with someone who was so much a part of yourself, wasn’t that weird? Normally, even with the wall in our bond, there was always that constant flow between us, that connection. Sometimes it was hard to tell which thoughts were mine, which feelings were his. But looking at him now, I knew I’d love him no matter what. It was impossible for me not to. It wasn’t only his physical beauty, though that was part of it, if only because it was so much a part of him. It was more the way that all those inner things that I loved about him were visible from the outside, if you knew where to look. That crease between his eyebrows that showed when he was worried about someone important to him. The straight set of his shoulders that said how rigid his upbringing had been. The spark in his eyes because he found so much humor in the world, even if he hated to show it. He left it to Althea to give orders and boss people around because it made him uncomfortable, but he only had to turn those bright eyes on you, and you’d do anything he asked. No, I’d never really had a choice about loving him; it was something inevitable, something I was always going to do. I’d been lost the first moment I saw him, even when he’d driven me crazy and I’d thought I hated him. And even if he hated me now, I couldn’t change anything.

“Hi,” I said.

“You seem to have recovered.”

“Althea made me drink sludge.”

He didn’t quite smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

“I’m told I have you to thank for saving my life.”

He raised his eyebrows. “No. That was Sam and Milo.”

Althea and Nikolai, those jerks! They’d totally set me up. As if going viral in a drunken video wasn’t bad enough.

“Oh,” I said, not sure what else to say.

“You were never in any danger,” he said. “Apparently, you were just floating in the water, singing songs about being under the sea. I didn’t see it. Nikolai showed me a video, but it’s impossible to make anything out. Well, except the singing.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s good, then.” I scuffed my toe in the dirt. “I should probably just go, then. Shower and… you know.”

I was about to turn away and leave when Tennyson jumped up and grabbed me by the arm.

“Wait,” he said. “I miss you too!”

I froze in place, not even daring to breathe. He missed me! That meant he didn’t hate me after all, surely. That meant he hated the impenetrable wall between us as much as I did.

But he missed me too. Too! That meant he’d heard all those things I’d said, the things that I wouldn’t even let echo in my brain because they felt so raw.

I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed by the conflicted emotions swirling around inside of me. Humiliation was warring with euphoria, and I couldn’t be sure which would win.

Tennyson stood behind me, holding my hand to stop me leaving. There was no way I could turn around and face him. I waited to see what he’d do.

“This whole time,” he said quietly after I didn’t reply. “I thought you intended to build that wall, to shut me out, but you didn’t, did you?”

I shook my head, the tiniest fraction of a movement.

“I was so angry with you that I didn’t ask for an explanation. I apologize for treating you unfairly.”

I wanted to reply to him, but I couldn’t speak. I felt as if I was feeling warmth for the first time after living a lifetime in the cold, and I had no words for that.

“If you’d like to try, I think perhaps with the two of us together, we could try to breach the wall. Just a little, just enough to reach one another.” He pulled me around to face him. “Lucy, say something.”

He stared down at me with those bright eyes, and I knew I’d been right. Even if I’d wanted to, there was no way I could say no to him.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try.”

We sat down in the wing of the dragon, holding onto each other tightly. We closed our eyes and tried to break down the wall. I had a dim awareness of him on the other side of the wall, as if someone was knocking on a very thick door, far away. But no matter how I tried, how much of my power I put into it, I couldn’t make the smallest crack.

Eventually, we fell back, exhausted and breathing deeply. We stared at each other with horrified eyes, and I knew he was as worried as I was that there was no way through this wall. And although the thought of it was awful, it still felt good to sit there with him, to share that feeling.

From somewhere else in the garden, we heard voices, the sound of laughter. Both of us jumped to our feet.

“I should go,” I said. “Henry… His spies…”

He nodded. “You’re right. But, Lucy, we’ll find a way to fix this.”

And because he sounded so certain, I was sure we would.

CHAPTER 15

Things were okay with Tennyson, but Sam had started acting weird again. Or weird still. Weirder. For two days, I tried to find him to thank him for fishing me out of the ocean, but eventually I had no choice but to come to the conclusion that he was avoiding me. For all I knew, he had good reason. I didn’t even want to know what drunk Lucy might have done to offend him, but sober Lucy wanted to make up for it.

On the other hand, I really wanted to avoid Henry, but that was impossible when he was one of my teachers. He kept me after class on Monday to ask me how the date had gone. I couldn’t lie; the answer was all over the internet.

“It could have gone better, but you already knew that, didn’t you?” I said, sick of holding myself back. It wasn’t as if he’d ever had any intention of taking my side when he reported back to Alpha Wilde, anyway. “I mean, I’m pretty sure nobody on the polo team or in the yacht club had the know-how or access to spike my drink with wolfsbane.”

Henry turned pale. He glanced around to make sure nobody could overhear and went over to shut the door. “Tell me exactly what happened,” he said in a hushed voice.

I didn’t know Henry that well, but what I did know of him said he wasn’t that great of an actor. He indicated for me to sit, and he perched on the edge of the teacher’s desk.

“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “On account of how somebody spiked my drink with wolfsbane.”

He nodded. “This is not good, not good at all. I’ll have a word with my eyes and ears on the inside. None of my spies have said anything, but if somebody is targeting our kind, I will find them. Rest assured, your attacker will not go unpunished.” He stood up to leave.

“Thank you?” I said, feeling like I’d stumbled into Bizarro World.

He turned on his heel and exited the room. He was one weird xenophobic guy, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t the one who’d drugged me. Somehow, that wasn’t reassuring.

But at least if Henry was trying to track down the wolfsbane culprit, it would get him off our backs for a while. I couldn’t fake-date Sam if I couldn’t find him, so I decided to go back to the Red House to do my homework before dinner, read the latest report on my magic sword, and maybe have a nap. Even with the antidote Althea had given me, the after-effects of the wolfsbane were taking a while to wear off. When I got back to my room, I was shocked and a little freaked out to see Hannah and Tennyson sitting on the sofa together, chatting quite amiably.

“Hey, you guys,” I said, setting my bag down by the door. “What’s up?”

Hannah gave me a little wave, and Tennyson got to his feet.

“I like your wall art,” he said, indicating toward the space above my bed where Nikolai had stuck a life-sized poster of my drunk dance.

I didn’t know what he’d stuck it with, but it wouldn’t come off. I suspected he’d used dark magic. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him when he’d been acting all nicey.

“You’re just jealous of my sweet moves,” I said, turning away so he couldn’t see how embarrassed I was.

“Quite,” he said, sounding amused.

“Tennyson had an idea,” said Hannah. “A not terrible idea.”

I went to put my books away at my desk. I really wanted to change out of my uniform, but I couldn’t with Tennyson standing there.

“Oh?” I said. “What sort of idea?”

“I’m going to join your magic club!” he said. He sounded positively delighted by the idea.

“What about polo?” I asked.

“I can be in two clubs,” he said. “And, anyway, we’re getting closer to achieving our aims when it comes to polo.” He glanced at Hannah, then wiggled his eyebrows at me in a really unsubtle way.

“Cool,” I said. “But why do you want to join magic club? I thought you hated magic.”

“Tennyson thought we could solve your problem with control by using it to solve your problem with your mental block thing,” Hannah said. “And how could you not tell me you guys have a creepy soul bond thing?”

“You know, the creepy soul bond thing is totally your fault,” I told her, feeling weirdly defensive.

For some reason, that made her perk right up. “Really?” she asked. “Tennyson didn’t tell me that! That’s super advanced magic. Wow, I was more powerful than I thought!”

Since when were Hannah and Tennyson on a first-name basis? Last I’d heard, she didn’t even like him one bit. Since when did they hang out and talk about my incredibly private business together? When I looked at Tennyson, he wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I bet he’d been having Hannah check up on me when he and I weren’t speaking. The big dork.

“So, you’re okay with this?” I asked Hannah. “With the… magic and everything? And don’t just say you’re fine, or I’m not going along with it.”

She huffed and screwed up her face at me. “I am fine,” she said. “Nikolai made me go and see someone – someone who knows about trauma but also our kind of lifestyle. It’s been quite helpful and she thinks I’m ready to be active in Wicca club again. Well, not active, but, you know, present.”

I nodded. “That’s really great, Hannah.” I was pleased she was getting actual help. I hoped she knew I was always there if she needed someone, and she had Nikolai as well, and Fatima and Milo, but we weren’t professionals, and it was obvious from when she’d had her episode that that was what she needed. “If she has any info that would be helpful for your roomie, tell her to send it on through.”

“Actually, she did say that I’d get way worse if you hog the bathroom of a morning,” Hannah said.

I wrinkled up my nose at her. “When do you want to start?” I asked Hannah, though it was Tennyson who answered.

“I see no reason not to begin immediately,” he said. “If you’re both agreeable?”

The Wicca club room seemed the best place to do it. It was the usual place for our club meetings, so it wasn’t weird for us to be there. No one would report it to Henry, plus there was plenty of space. I didn’t have all that much faith that we’d be able to do anything, but it made me happy that Tennyson wanted to try, and that Hannah felt like she was able to. So, even if I wasn’t expecting awesome results from the spell when I sat down amid all the chalk lines, I was optimistic enough about life in general.

“Remember the exercise with the tennis ball,” Hannah said. “Try to let the power flow out at a steady trickle. If you can, try to use the ley lines like pipes — imagine they’re thin pipes that only allow a tiny amount of power inside at a time. Trickle the power through the pipes.”

That was all well and good for her to say, but it was hard to concentrate with Tennyson holding my hand. His skin was so soft and smooth. I worried that my palms were getting sweaty, but the more I worried, the more likely that was to happen. His fingers were threaded between mine, and he held on with a firm grip, whereas Hannah held my hand loosely and just palm to palm. It made me feel unbalanced. I liked the way Tennyson’s hand interlocked with my own and didn’t want to change it, but it felt too intimate to hold Hannah’s hand like that.

“Just relax,” Hannah said.

I closed my eyes and tried to block out everything except for the power. It wanted to surge. It wanted to break out of those thin pipes and swirl freely around in the air, and part of me wanted to let it. I knew that this was as much about mastering that part of myself, the part that wanted to see what would happen, the part that wanted to cause pain and get revenge, as it was about forcing the magic to my will. If I let that part of me have its way, that was how I’d end up going dark side and turning into an Other. So I focused on trickling the magic into the pipes, on not letting out any more than I intended. It felt like I was trying to keep my feet while being swept away by a tsunami, but somehow I managed to hold on.

I was vaguely aware of Tennyson and Hannah and my power flowing through them. Even though my eyes were closed, it was as if I could see them — not their physical selves, but a representation of them as energy forms. I could see my power trickling into them, through them, and as the circle of power between us closed, I could see the wall between Tennyson and me almost as if it were a solid thing. It seemed to stretch on and on, without a top or bottom, without any edges. It shimmered with a menace that I knew was imagined because of what the wall represented for me — the barrier in my relationship with Tennyson. Even though I knew some sort of wall was necessary, that we’d cease to exist as individuals without it, I hated how he could hold himself back from me. It wasn’t as if I needed any further evidence that he wasn’t as invested as I was, and definitely not in the same way. It wasn’t something I could control with logic, but maybe it was something I could control with force.

The trickle of power became a flow as I urged it toward the wall.

“Be careful, Lucy,” Hannah said, sounding far away. “Remember, this is more about control than anything.”

She was wrong. It was about breaking through to Tennyson, but still, her voice called me back. Last time, I’d lost control, and it had hurt her. Maybe not physically, but that was worse. I didn’t want to hurt people, didn’t want to give in to the part of me that craved chaos. As much as I wanted to reach Tennyson, there was no point if I became someone who didn’t deserve him in the process. Tennyson was steadfast, pristine in his moral integrity, and if I wanted to share the bond with him, I had to be the same.

The surge of power dwindled down to nothing, not even a trickle, barely a steady drip.

“You’ll need more power than that,” Hannah said. She sounded closer now, and the world felt more real. I could hear external sounds again, people outside playing sports, the three of us breathing. I could feel the floor beneath me. “Even I can feel the size of this block in your bond. To make even a small break in it, you’ll need to apply a steady stream of power with a laser-like focus. None of this wishy-washy ebb and flow.”

I pulled the power back completely. “I’m doing my best!” I said with a sigh, then I stopped short.

Tennyson’s grip on my hand tightened as he noticed the same thing I had.

Henry. He was standing just outside our circle, sneering down at us and looking pleased with himself. Tennyson jumped to his feet, pulling Hannah and me up with him.

“It was only a matter of time before you gave me something I could use,” he said. “I knew all along that you five were hiding something from me, but I’d never even hoped it would be something that would give me such a decisive win. You all thought you were being so clever fooling me, too! As if I’d care that you were some little gay freak! That would only ever work in my favor. And this is so much worse! Oh, Tenny, a soul bond? With a halfie? Not even a halfie. What is she? Not one of our kind, at any rate. No wonder my aunt, the alpha, doesn’t want our pack to be sullied with her presence. It’s one thing if she’s paired up with the mongrel to keep them both occupied, but you can’t think she’d ever allow this. To dilute your royal lineage with that? Oh, ho ho ho.” He held his belly as he fake-laughed.

Tennyson lunged for him, but I tightened my grip on his hand, holding him back. There was still a way out of this, I was sure of it, but if Tennyson attacked him, no way would we be able to find it.

“A soul bond!” Henry said again, still laughing. “Of all the antiquated, provincial things. It’s just so you. I’ll bet you envision yourself as the noble knight saving the humble peasant girl, don’t you?” He chuckled again. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the alpha were to arrange a way to sever the bond completely, if you know what I mean.” He drew a finger across his neck. “There are ways to do it that wouldn’t affect you permanently, Tenny. Don’t worry.”

Tennyson wasn’t the type of person to lose his cool, but he snarled at Henry, trying to break away from me and swiping at him with elongated claws.

“Calm down, little cousin,” said Henry. “I’m open to negotiation. Here’s my offer. Renounce your claim to alpha. Get your sister to do the same. Do it in front of everyone at your father’s birthday party next week. Do that, and I’ll tell your mother that I couldn’t find anything on any of you, that you’re all squeaky clean. Well, maybe that you had a dalliance with a boy, because you played that one so convincingly, but that your peasant girl, here, is all that she appears to be. The choice is yours: the girl or the throne.”

He chuckled again and then turned away.

I dropped Tennyson’s hand, and we were left in silence.

CHAPTER 16

“Are those diamond chandeliers?” Hannah asked. She’d been hauled along to the emergency pack meeting but was a little too much in awe over being inside the Golden House for the first time to contribute much.

“He actually said that?” Nikolai asked, screwing up his face in distaste. “The girl or the throne, for real? What a dick.”

“Well, that’s not exactly new information,” said Althea. “So, what are our options?”

“We could discredit him,” said Sam. “So that the alpha has no reason to believe him.”

Althea shook her head. “Even if she didn’t believe him, it would give her cause to check, and after a few simple tests she’d know how strong the bond was.”

“But there’s the wall,” I said. “It’s impenetrable. It’s as if there’s no bond at all.”

Althea gave me a smile that bordered on pitying. “That’s not going to matter to anyone but you and Tennyson. Not to mention the fact that the whole basis for your being in the pack is your relationship with Sam, and that won’t hold up to any sort of scrutiny.”

“I can’t do magic anymore,” Hannah said. “But I know people who do. Powerful people. I know he’s your cousin, but if you wanted him to disappear…”

Nikolai’s eyes turned into actual love hearts. I tried not to think about how terrifying it would be if the two of them ever paired up and decided to turn evil. There were enough things to worry about.

“We’re actually trying to avoid murder, here,” Tennyson said. His voice was cold, but I knew that wasn’t because of Hannah’s suggestion. It was because of the other implied murder — mine. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d tried to kill Henry himself.

“Look,” I said. “Why don’t we just go to her and tell her the truth, before Henry has a chance to? It will sound better coming from us, and surely we’ll get points for honesty.”

All four pack members gave me a flat look. True, I didn’t know Alpha Wilde that well, and what I did know of her was that she was cold and hard, but she couldn’t be that bad.

“But if being with Sam was enough to keep her in the pack, isn’t having a bond with Tennyson, like, a step up from that?” Hannah asked.

I joined the others turning the flat look on her. Alpha Wilde would never accept me having a connection with Tennyson. In fact, she’d do anything to break it. If it wasn’t murder, it would be something else. My father had known ways, so surely she would too, and then I’d be out of the pack and lucky to still be functioning if the things I’d heard about breaking a bond were true.

I had one other suggestion, but I was scared to say it aloud. I could leave the pack. I could go to Alpha Wilde and tell her the truth and that Henry had threatened Tennyson and Althea, and leave the pack in exchange for Henry never being alpha. From everything I knew about her, how much she hated me, I was sure she’d take the deal. But I’d have to keep up my end of the bargain. It would mean no more Sam or Althea or Nikolai. No more Tennyson.

I couldn’t bring it up. I didn’t even want to think about it. What if they agreed? I’d made the offer before, when there had seemed like no other way out, and they’d been appalled by the idea, but now that we didn’t have the pack bond tying us together, I wondered if they felt the same way. I definitely did, more than ever. It was only after the bond with them had been severed that I’d realized how much it had meant to me, and now I wanted to hold on to whatever was left as tightly as I could, with both hands. We were more than family, more than friends, and I couldn’t lose them. No, it was better to keep my mouth shut. We’d find another way.

“If we can’t get rid of him completely,” said Hannah, giving Tennyson a disdainful look, like she thought he was weak for not taking up her offer, “then maybe we can get rid of the part of him that’s causing us trouble. His memories.”

That perked everyone up.

“You can do that?” Althea asked. “Wipe his memory?”

She shook her head. “I can’t, but if we can arrange for a few of my family members to come visit, they can.”

It seemed like the perfect solution. Nobody would get hurt, and everything would work out perfectly.

While we were waiting for Hannah’s witchy relatives, Sam and I staged an awesomely public breakup in the dining hall. Normally, I hated anything that called attention to myself, but this was different.

“I can’t believe you’d accuse me of cheating on you with Tennyson Wilde when you were the cheater all along!” I said in my loudest, clearest voice, standing right in the middle of the dining hall during the busiest part of lunch.

“You call that cheating?” Sam yelled, looking around uncomfortably. “No wonder we’re having relationship trouble when you clearly have intimacy issues!”

To be honest, his performance sounded a bit stilted. I needed to find some way to loosen him up.

“You want to know why I run away every time you try to kiss me?” I shouted. “It’s because your breath smells like horseradish!” I picked up something from the closest table — someone’s green smoothie. Perfect. “Maybe this will freshen your breath!” I said, flinging the smoothie all over him.

It dripped down his face, the pureed kale and mint clumping into streaks that made him look like some sort of swamp monster.

“Yeah, well this might make you a bit sweeter!” Sam picked up a really delicious-looking cream cake.

“Don’t you dare!” I said, turning to run, but he was too fast for me.

He grinned at me and then smashed that cake right into my face, taking care to smear the cream into my hair. I poked out my tongue to try to get a taste. That was some good cake, and it was a shame to be wasteful.

“Food fight!” someone yelled from the back of the dining hall, who I strongly suspected was Nikolai.

A few girls dashed for the exits, but they weren’t fast enough. Food of every sort went flying through the air, projectile muffins and sandwiches and salads. Anything that could fly, did. Girls who were normally coiffed to perfection became snarling soup-covered beasts. Boys who were just as coiffed were worse. The dining hall became a war zone, and nobody was safe.

“There was absolutely no point to this, you know,” Sam said as we ducked under a table to hide.

“No point but hilarity,” I said. “Look at Britt Pendlebury. She has pie in her ear!” I fumbled around, trying to get my phone out of my pocket so I could take photos, but my hands were too slippery with cream. Oh, well. Nikolai probably had it covered, anyway. “So, you and Milo are free to date as you please now.”

Sam shrugged. “We didn’t really seem to click, after all,” he said. “I think maybe dating isn’t for me.”

“Well, there’s no reason you need to force it,” I told him. “Why go to all that bother unless you really like someone? That’s just dumb.”

“Dumb is throwing a kale smoothie in someone’s face when they’re bigger and stronger than you,” Sam said. He had an evil glint in his eye, and I scrambled to get out from under the table and away from him, but he caught me by the ankle.

“Smoked salmon?” I shrieked as he rubbed it on my face. “You jerk!”

The dining hall was closed for two days after that and we had to eat in our houses, but I thought it was worth it. Someone (Nikolai) had posted photos all over social media, and it was glorious.

By the time we were allowed to eat together again, Hannah’s family had arrived. She didn’t introduce them to us; she said it was better to keep our distance, and she didn’t need to tell me twice. If they’d raised Hannah to believe it was okay to curse anyone who annoyed her, I didn’t want to risk getting on their bad side. But I saw her walking around the campus with them, both with Hannah’s curly hair, though one was even shorter than Hannah and the other much taller. They were plump and kindly-faced, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t make you wear your entrails on your head.

It was tempting to follow them around and watch them curse Henry, but I forced myself to stay away. I didn’t want to hang out with the others; it was too depressing. Deep down in my heart, it felt like one way or another, I’d be leaving the pack. I didn’t want to – more than anything, I didn’t want to – and I’d fight as hard as I could to stay, but still it seemed like the inevitable conclusion. Henry couldn’t be the alpha. It just couldn’t happen. It was too awful to think about. And if by some quirk of circumstance it did happen, I’d be out of the pack anyway, because he’d made his feelings about me quite clear. Part of me wanted to spend every moment possible with them, to appreciate being part of the pack while I could, but I was in a glum mood and wanted to be alone, so I locked myself in my room and tried to study.

I’d nearly caught up with my history reading when Hannah burst through the door. She was red in the face, and her curls waved around wildly.

“It didn’t work!” she wailed, throwing herself across the end of my bed dramatically. “He’s warded somehow, and their spells bounced right off him! My aunts said they’ve never seen anything like it. Normally, they can crack right through a ward, but this one, they couldn’t even read the magic signature.”

“Magic signature?” I asked. That seemed like something that might be useful to know about.

“You know, like a trace of whoever cast a spell. A trace of their energy. You have to be pretty advanced to be able to read it, but my aunts are about as advanced as you can get, and they found nothing.”

My first instinct was to tell Tennyson.

Did you know… I thought before remembering I was alone in my head. Sometimes it was easy to forget. Other times, it was impossible.

“They were pretty angry about it,” Hannah said. “But worried too. They hadn’t asked too many questions beforehand. They trusted that I needed a favor, but after that, they wanted to know all the details.”

“What did you tell them?”

She shrugged. “Not the truth, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve got enough on my plate without dealing with a witch-versus-werewolf showdown. If anything, I was trying to talk you guys up. It doesn’t make any sense to be at odds all the time when we have a common enemy.”

“Plus, you want permission to date Nikolai,” I said, wondering how she’d react.

She ignored me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. “I told her he was my trigonometry teacher and I wasn’t doing so well. I wanted him to forget he’d failed me on the last test. They knew I was lying, I’m sure of it, but they didn’t push it.”

I rolled off the bed with a sigh. “I should go tell the others, see if they know anything about the warding. Ugh, it seemed like such a perfect plan, too. Have your aunts gone home?”

“Yeah, they went off in a rush. They wanted to discuss it with the High Council. They got a sample of Henry’s hair, though, to analyze and see if they can find out more about the warding.”

“Will they tell you if they find anything?”

She shrugged. “I can ask, but everyone’s still a bit on eggshells around me. If I make out like it would help my recovery, they might. Especially if it has something to do with, you know, what happened to me.”

I hoped that whatever it was, it wasn’t something to do with either my father’s bunch or the Others, but I didn’t know anyone else with the kind of power it seemed like that warding would take. Though, to be fair, there was a whole world of things I didn’t know about.

“Before you go rushing off again, wanna watch a movie?” Hannah asked. “Something without magic or monsters? I’m not so into that anymore, but maybe a rom-com would be okay. It’s not like a few more hours will make a difference, right? Henry gave you guys until the weekend.”

She was right, and I really didn’t want to have to put on outside clothes, so a movie sounded good. Plus, I thought, I should get used to doing things without the pack around. Soon, I’d be on my own.

CHAPTER 17

When I told the others about Henry’s warding, they didn’t know anything more than I did. In fact, they seemed very bothered by it.

“That’s not possible,” Tennyson said, pacing around the Golden common room. “We have had every protection known placed on us, and we were still attacked both physically and magically. Why would Henry have a more secure protection on him than we do when he’s only third in line?”

Althea was already flicking through books. “She said there was no magic signature? I’ve never even heard of that being possible. Even when Hannah was attacking us, she left a signature. We just couldn’t trace it. Who or what could do such a thing?”

Sam had turned pale, which I took as a bad sign.

“Sam?” I asked. “Have you ever heard of this sort of thing before?”

He shook his head, but too fast, more like he was panicked than giving an answer. I didn’t want to push it and trigger something in him after what I’d done to Hannah, but he definitely knew something. I glanced at Tennyson to catch his eye, then nodded toward Sam. At least they still had the pack connection, so Tennyson could sense if Sam was okay.

“Sam?” Tennyson asked.

“I’m okay,” Sam said. “I really don’t know anything.”

Tennyson looked at me and shrugged, so Sam was obviously telling the truth. I wondered what was really going on with him, if it was more than just the Milo thing, the dating thing.

“I’ve messaged a few people to ask if they’ve heard of anything like this before,” Nikolai said. “But we’ve still got a bigger problem. If we can’t wipe Henry’s memory, what are we going to do about him?”

Tennyson looked about to argue, then he sighed and sat down. “Is there something we can do to stop him from going to the party? If we can delay him, buy some more time, maybe we’ll find something.”

“I could break his legs,” I offered.

“He has super-healing,” said Tennyson.

I shrugged. “I’d do it just for fun.”

“Actually, we were talking earlier,” Althea said, setting her books aside and looking deep into my eyes. I knew I wouldn’t like whatever it was she was about to say, so I braced myself. “We could do what he asks.”

I jumped to my feet. “Are you crazy?” Of all the possible solutions, that was the one thing I’d never considered. Nothing was worth that. I couldn’t ask that of them, not ever.

She put up a hand to stop my rant before I could get started on it. “Just saying it won’t make it so. If we renounced the alphahood and let it fall to Henry, we’d have time — years — to come up with a plan to take it back. There are a million ways, a million things we could do to ensure he is never alpha. And even if it never falls to either of us, who’s fourth in line?”

Nikolai raised his hand. “My older brothers were disqualified in that liquid nitrogen incident, so I’m next.”

Althea’s face fell. “Well, still better than Henry.” She turned to me. “See? So, even if we have to go through with his plan, it’s not the end. There are volumes and volumes dedicated to pack law and alpha ascendency, and as much as he wants to be alpha, I’m sure Henry hasn’t read them. There will be loopholes. There’s a lot of tradition and ceremony tied up in everything to do with how a pack functions. You can’t just make a claim at a party and that’s it forever. I think we’re better off doing that than concocting some scheme that may strip us of our right to be alpha anyway.”

“Like breaking his legs?” I asked.

She smiled. “No, that’s probably okay.”

“I think we should keep that as a last resort,” Tennyson said. “It’s better if he never thinks he’s in the running at all than to give him what he wants and then take it away again. You know how nasty he can be. If something happened to keep him at school and away from the party, if he had no way of getting off the island, that might be the best thing for now. Then, if I can find a chance to talk to Mother and convince her that Henry is trying to sabotage us, that he’s exploited his position as her spy to steal our birthright, perhaps then she wouldn’t even give him the chance to tell her his story.”

Althea shrugged, which I took to mean she thought her plan was better but not enough to argue about it. I didn’t want to add that I’d been keeping Alpha Wilde well-informed in my reports and she’d never once responded.

Even though I felt like a coward, I couldn’t bring up the other option. I just couldn’t do it. The girl or the throne, Henry had said, but if there was no girl in the equation, it wasn’t a choice. I hated myself for putting everyone in this position. I felt like the more I wanted to be in the pack, the less I deserved to be.

I’d assumed I wasn’t invited to the party. I’d never even seen Tennyson and Althea’s father — the duke, as he was commonly known, but when I said goodbye to Althea and Tennyson on Friday after school, they both looked at me as if I was crazy.

“But I have to…” We’d laid so many plans to waylay Henry, and I’d thought I’d be there to put them in motion.

“Hannah and Milo have it all under control,” said Tennyson, dragging me along the path. “They’ve convinced Assistant Head Noel to call an emergency staff meeting about drug use on campus. If Henry worms his way out of that, Nikolai has cut holes in all of Henry’s clothes. We’ve talked to the helicopter pilot and he’s coming an hour earlier than what Henry thinks, so as long as the helicopter leaves without him in it, we’re home free, so hurry up.”

We didn’t even go back to change; we went straight to the helipad. Nikolai met us there, but Sam was nowhere to be seen.

“He knows how important this is,” Tennyson said. “Where is he?”

“Let’s just leave without him,” said Nikolai. “He’ll understand.”

“We’ll give him three more minutes,” said Althea.

We sat in the helicopter, hearts pounding, as we watched the path, not sure if Sam would appear, or Henry. Althea gave us a countdown. Two minutes. One. Thirty seconds. With only twelve seconds left, Sam appeared, sprinting down the path toward us.

“Go!” Nikolai told the pilot.

Sam climbed in just as the helicopter began to rise. “Sorry!” he said. “Henry caught up with me. He didn’t go to the meeting, and he’s ready to kill Nikolai about his clothes. I had to knock him out to get away!”

The five of us stared at each other, dismayed. He knew what we were up to. He always knew.

“Does he have us bugged?” asked Tennyson. “He said he had spies, but we were alone when we planned most of this.”

It was possible, even likely. We’d been pretty naive not to think of it before, now that he’d said it. But that wasn’t the only thing.

“Milo and Hannah both knew. Maybe not all the specifics, but that we didn’t want him coming to the party,” I said. Once I’d thought it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. “And Milo was on the boat the night my drink was spiked. The party was his idea, even. He would’ve been the perfect spy because he was in on the plan.”

The others nodded. It did make sense. Only Sam didn’t agree.

“I don’t think he’d do that,” Sam said. “But Hannah knew just as much as Milo. We asked her to be Tennyson’s girlfriend first, and she might have gotten her aunt to lie about the warding on Henry. It’s not as if she hasn’t been against us before.”

I didn’t want to admit he might be right, but he wasn’t wrong. As much as I wanted to trust Hannah, history was against her. Nikolai scowled at him and looked about to argue, but something suddenly occurred to me. I was such an idiot.

“Wait!” I said, reaching under my seat to pull out my bag. I fumbled around until I found what I was looking for, then pulled out the envelope Henry had given me with his stupid script for the double date. He’d known all along that Tennyson and Milo weren’t dating, so why go to all that trouble? I’d never gotten the whole way through the script because it was ridiculous, and when I pulled out all the pages, there it was, stuck to the very last page. It was as thin as the paper, a tiny silver square. I’d never have noticed it if I hadn’t thought to look.

I handed the piece of paper to Tennyson. “I was the spy,” I said, feeling stupid. I should’ve known that something was weird about the whole date thing. Henry had overplayed it, but he was such a crazed bigot about everything else that I hadn’t thought about it.

“It makes no difference now,” said Althea. “We knew he was there as a spy. We just didn’t expect him to be any good at it. We’ve just got to get through tonight. We’ll deal with Henry tomorrow.”

There was one thing I hadn’t thought about when I was being dragged off to the party — well, three things, really — and they came racing toward me as soon as I jumped out of the helicopter.

“You jerknerds!” I said, trying to hug all three of my brothers at once. Hamish was trapped in the middle and kept trying to wiggle away, but I got a firm grip on him.

“We don’t have to go to the party!” Fletcher said, sounding relieved. “But we can hang out in the kitchen and eat leftovers if we’re good!”

“There’s twelve kinds of cake,” Hamish said, his voice muffled. He pushed his way out of the hug and then launched himself at Tennyson, jibbering on about his bike and how awesome he was now at riding.

As a group, we turned to walk toward the main house, and the brief sense of calm that had washed over me from seeing my brothers disappeared.

“How are things?” I asked, falling into step beside Liam.

He shrugged. “I haven’t heard from Dad, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think he’d dare. They have some pretty serious security around here.”

“How’s everything else? Home schooling? Mother?”

“Home school is so boring. The only people I see all day, every day, are these clowns. It’s the worst! I wish Dad had tried to come here so they’d catch him and I could get back to my friends and my real life!” He poked out his bottom lip in a pout, and I couldn’t help myself but grab him in a headlock and ruffle his hair. He sounded like such a normal, whiny kid, and that was great. That was what he should be.

“Get off,” he said, pushing me away, but he seemed kind of pleased. “And Mom’s…”

“Is she okay?”

He paused before answering and gave me a strange look. “She’s okay. I mean actually okay. Some days, she can even get up and walk around. There’s been a few different doctors to see her, so I guess whatever they’ve done is working, because she’s starting to seem like her old self. At least some of the time, anyway.”

I nodded slowly, taking in what he’d said. Whatever they were doing, I knew it was probably not purely medical. The Wilde family would have access to all sorts of magical treatments and whatnot that we’d never have been able to afford or access otherwise. Still, it made me a bit uncomfortable not to know exactly what they were doing to her.

“Do me a favor. Keep track of what they’re doing, as much as you can find out,” I said to Liam. “And keep me posted on her progress.”

If Liam thought I was asking something weird, he didn’t show it.

We rounded a corner past a row of trees, and the main house came into view. I’d hardly been near it over the summer, and it still struck me as imposing — a massive manor house of gray stone. As we got closer, my apprehension grew.

“Listen,” I said to Liam quietly. “You know Tennyson’s cousin, Henry?”

Liam nodded.

“If he shows up, and hopefully he won’t, but if he does, can you try to hold him up? Don’t do anything to get in trouble, but stop him from getting to the party if you can. And come find me if you see him.”

“Sure,” said Liam. “Why? Does he owe you money or something?”

“Or something,” I said.

As we got to the house, the boys ducked off to enter through the kitchen. I really wanted to go with them, or not go to the party at all, but I couldn’t exactly get out of it. We were greeted by a butler who seemed genuinely happy to see Tennyson and Althea (not so much Nikolai), then Althea whisked me up one side of the grand staircase and down a hallway so we could get ready for the party. Even though I was around fancy stuff all the time these days, it didn’t stop me from being impressed by Wilde Manor. In fact, now that I’d been around it more, I actually knew how insanely lavish everything was, the priceless artwork and the antique furniture. It really was a whole different world from the one I belonged in. I was only a visitor here, and I needed to be ready to leave.

Althea not only had a full suite of rooms, but staff to help her get ready — people to dress her, do her hair and makeup.

“Just relax and let them do their job,” she told me, holding out a hand for a girl to do her nails. “You’ll only get in their way trying to be helpful.”

It was worse than the time Althea had got me ready for the dance, being poked and prodded, but the end result made my work with the YouTube tutorials look beyond lacking. I could study for a hundred years and I’d never be able to apply eyeliner like that or twist my hair in that way. These people were a whole different sort of magic.

“You look like a princess,” Althea told me once we were finished. I couldn’t disagree, though I wasn’t sure it was really me.

I was wearing a floaty pale blue dress, and my hair was heaped onto my head in a zillion tiny coils, pinned with what I suspected were actual diamonds.

“They do know that the last time I wore a nice dress, I fell into the ocean and ruined it, right?”

Althea only laughed and led me out. “We need to be in place to greet the guests,” she said. “You don’t need to say anything to them. Just smile and shake their hands.”

I wasn’t sure why I had to greet anyone. I wasn’t family. I wasn’t even officially pack, but Althea had rushed ahead to catch up to Tennyson, so I couldn’t ask her.

The three of us hurried toward the ballroom to take our places. Tennyson caught me by the elbow as I tripped on the last few stairs of the marble staircase.

“Darn shoes,” I said.

He smiled at me in a way that made me believe everything was going to work out, that we’d get away with this and everything would be fine. But as we walked through the doors to the ballroom, it was obvious that that was a lie. Nothing would be okay at all.

There, at the head of the greeting party, right next to the alpha, dressed in a tux and looking completely unruffled, stood Henry.

CHAPTER 18

Henry smirked at us and then turned away to speak to someone who could only be Tennyson’s father — he looked like an older, more built version of Tennyson.

From the corner of my eye, I could see someone waving at me, trying to get my attention. Then a bell rang and I realized who it was. Hamish was crouched under a table in the entranceway, obviously thinking he was super sneaky. I tapped Althea on the shoulder to let her know I’d be back in a moment. She hardly even seemed to notice, she was so shocked to see Henry there.

“Get out from there,” I hissed at Hamish. “You’ll break something!”

“You look like a giant meringue,” he said, sticking out his bottom lip and sitting down. “Liam told me to come find you, but he didn’t say you’d be a meringue.”

“Well, I found you,” I said, grabbing him by the foot and dragging him out. “Now, tell me what’s up.”

There were a bunch of people coming in the front door, so I ushered him back behind the grand staircase, through a doorway that led to a less busy area.

“Okay, he said number one.” Hamish held up one finger to show me. “Scary Henry is already here. Two.” He held up a second finger. “He was talking to that big, bald security guy and gave him a fat envelope. Three.” He couldn’t get his three middle fingers to stay up without his pinky flicking out, so he gave up and dropped his arm. “You’d better watch out, because that guy Henry is crazy. Lizzie from the kitchens said one time his soup was too hot, so he came back there and tipped it over the cook’s head! That’s crazy, Lucy. Don’t you go messin’ with some crazy guy who might smash up my bike!”

I nodded. “Nobody’s going to hurt your bike,” I told him, and I hoped it was true. “Tell Liam thanks and that I’ll be careful.”

“I’ll tell him you look like a meringue,” he said, darting off.

I made my way back to the ballroom, thinking about what Hamish had said. It definitely didn’t mean anything good for us.

It was impossible to sneak in gracefully when you were wearing a meringue dress, but I managed to squeeze my way into the greeting line next to Sam. We were right near the end of the line, which started in the foyer and stretched right through the ballroom, almost to the massive doors at the end, which opened out to a patio filled with sparkling lights. Only a few kids were after us, a boy and two girls roughly the same age as Fletcher. The ballroom was decorated in mauve and gold, with massive bouquets of flowers and fluttering ribbons. There was one long table along the wall to the left of the room, and smaller tables dotted around the outside, with enough room left for dancing in the middle. If this was the place that my doom would come, at least it was pretty.

But for the time being, I turned my attention to the line of people making their way toward us. An old guy adorned with military medals and a hunched lady with a walking stick were first, way back near the start. The man was telling Althea some story and she was laughing politely, though her head kept turning back toward Henry.

“Who are all these people?” I whispered to Sam. “And why do we have to greet them?”

“The guests are mostly business associates of the duke,” Sam whispered back. “Or family friends, some minor royalty, that kind of thing. People you’d expect at the birthday of someone like him. As pack, we’re all expected to welcome them.”

Well, that raised more questions than it answered.

“Do they know?” I asked. “Also, why am I greeting people? I’m technically not even pack.”

“For this kind of thing, you are. You still haven’t read the books, have you?”

I hadn’t exactly had time, plus the books were boring.

“It’s a technical thing, kind of,” he explained. “For some things, the pack need to show a united front. It strengthens the magic that unites us, among other things.”

I couldn’t ask him anything more, because the old military guy was approaching us. He’d moved fast once he got past Althea. I did as Althea had said and shook his hand and didn’t talk. The next half an hour went like that. A few people asked me questions, but I just smiled and nodded. Nobody really cared who I was or why I was there. As rich as they were, I was sure 99% of them were there for the free food. I mean, who doesn’t love free food?

When everyone was finally inside and the ballroom had filled up, the duke and the alpha led the pack in, toward the main table. Althea and Tennyson came next, then Henry, then everyone sort of dispersed in general. Most of the pack were people I’d never seen before. As we followed them into the crowd, I whispered to Sam, “You need to keep Tennyson and Althea away from the alpha so they don’t go along with Henry’s plan.”

“And what are you going to do?” he asked.

“What I should’ve done from the start,” I said.

I slipped away from him and tried to reach the alpha amid all the people. It wasn’t easy. People were milling around everywhere, chit-chatting and asking after people’s relations and all that other small-talky stuff that always gave me a headache. It was hard to push through them in my meringue, but I was determined to get to the alpha before Tennyson and Althea could give up their alphahood. It was like trying to swim in quicksand, but I couldn’t just give up.

Finally, I caught sight of her square shoulders and perfectly styled hair. How could someone look so haughty, even from the back? But before I could get her attention, she started to speak.

“If everyone could please take their seats, I’d like to say a few words before we begin with the festivities.”

With a minimal amount of fuss, everyone was seated. I was so confused, I’d have been left standing alone in the middle of the ballroom if Sam hadn’t grabbed my hand and dragged me into a chair.

The alpha was standing at the center position of the long table, the duke on her right and Tennyson on her left. Althea was sitting beside Tennyson, then Nikolai, and Henry was beside the duke. I assumed it was Henry’s parents on his other side. I wasn’t sure why he was sitting closer to the center than they were, or why his parents were sitting by the duke when they were from the alpha’s side of the family, but then I wasn’t sure why the duke wasn’t in line to be alpha, and a million other things about how the whole pack thing worked. Maybe Sam was right and I should’ve read the books, but it hadn’t seemed so important back then. Now, I’d probably never get the chance.

“We’re here tonight to celebrate a humble man,” the alpha said.

A few people laughed and the duke puffed out his chest, so I took it to mean he wasn’t actually humble at all. It would’ve surprised me if he was. He was the richest guy on the planet, practically.

The alpha banged on a bit about how awesome the duke was, all his philanthropic endeavors and business breakthroughs and whatever. I kind of tuned her out after a bit. I couldn’t exactly interrupt her, but I really wanted to do what I had to do. The longer I sat there, the worse I felt. Beads of sweat were breaking out on my forehead, but I couldn’t wipe them away because the makeup people had gone to so much effort to make me look nice and I didn’t want smear it all off. At least I was able to control my magic enough to know that I wasn’t glowing, so I was definitely growing as a human being, if nothing else. Growing, not glowing, I thought, and let out a little snort. A few people gave me shocked looks, so I figured that Alpha Wilde probably wasn’t up to the funny part in her speech. Her incredibly long speech.

“And, so, let’s all raise our glasses…”

“Finally,” I said, preparing to jump to my feet and rush her.

“To the most amazing man in the world!”

The duke gazed up at her starry-eyed, and for a moment I stared at the two of them. He was smitten with her, that terrifying woman. He clearly thought the world of her. And she had sounded pretty sincere in her very long-winded praise of him, too. If I’d ever given their relationship any thought, I’d have figured it was little more than a business deal, and as creepy as it was to realize they were obviously in love, it was also kind of nice.

“And now, I think my son would like to say a few words,” she said when the toast was over.

I could tell from the very slight widening of his eyes that Tennyson was surprised by this, but he got to his feet and opened his mouth to speak. But before he could say anything, Henry cut him off.

“A moment, please, Tenny,” he said, raising a finger, as if that was enough to silence Tennyson and put him in his place. He rested his hand on the alpha’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear.

She glanced over at Sam and me, then at Tennyson. She gave Henry a sharp nod, dismissing him.

“Would everybody please welcome the band!” she said, reaching a hand up toward the mezzanine level where the “band” were set up, and they started to play. I’d have called it a full orchestra, but I wasn’t exactly going to question her on it.

Nobody seemed to think it was weird that Tennyson hadn’t made a speech. Probably, they were sick of listening to people bang on by then and just wanted the free food. A few couples got up to dance, some champagne corks popped and Alpha Wilde walked away from the table, signaling for us to follow her. I really didn’t want to do this with everyone watching, but at least I had her attention now.

We followed her outside to the twinkly patio. By the time we got out there, it wasn’t just Sam and me and the alpha; it was what seemed like the entire pack. Tennyson, Althea and Nikolai came to stand beside Sam and me, with Henry and the alpha facing us. Tennyson’s dad was still inside. I supposed the birthday boy couldn’t exactly bail on his party first thing, but there were at least ten of the other adult pack members, with a few others joining them in dribs and drabs. This was going to suck.

“Henry, please share what you just told me.” The alpha glared at me with cold eyes.

“Sam and Lucy aren’t a couple,” he said, his eyes shining with malice. “Sam is some sort of asexual freak, and Lucy has a soul bond with Tennyson.” He said “Tennyson” in an annoying sing-song voice.

“What do you have to say in response to this?” the alpha asked me.

Before I could say anything, Tennyson stepped in front of me. “Henry is saying these things because he wants my claim to alpha. He threatened both Althea and me with exactly this if we didn’t renounce our claim.”

A murmur ran through the ever-growing crowd. I assumed there was someone standing guard to make sure no humans overheard all this.

“And if you wish to become alpha, you will need to handle this kind of situation before it becomes an issue,” Alpha Wilde said. “At the moment, Henry’s show of strength, however distasteful, is far outweighing yours.”

The murmur got louder. I hoped it was more of a “wow, that’s harsh” kind of murmur, rather than a murmur of agreement, but I wasn’t terribly hopeful.

“Is it true that the two of you share a bond?”

“We do, but it is blocked by an impenetrable wall,” he told her.

Her face was unreadable. “That type of magic can have an adverse effect on a soul bond. You will both need to be examined thoroughly.”

Wow, that sounded awful.

“I am very disappointed by these findings. You know that I find deceit a weak and cowardly vice. As things stand, I would be very hesitant to leave the pack in your hands.”

Even with the bond blocked, I could feel how the words struck Tennyson like a blow to the face. For a moment, it was as if he had been knocked out cold by it. This was my chance. I had to take it.

I stepped around Tennyson and faced the alpha.

“This isn’t Tennyson’s fault,” I said. “The whole thing is my fault.”

“That much is obvious,” she said.

“I know that we should’ve told the truth right from the start. Sam and I, we shouldn’t have pretended to still be a couple after we broke up. Tennyson and I should’ve told you about the bond.”

She nodded. “Go on.”

“They all did it for me. So I could stay in the pack. We knew you didn’t like me and didn’t want me in the pack, so we had to make up a reason for you to let me stay.” I looked up at the night sky, blinking. I had these fake eyelashes on, and the guy who’d done them had said I couldn’t cry or it would ruin them, and he’d worked really hard. Everyone had worked so hard to help me, and I’d messed everything up. “They weren’t being weak or cowardly at all. They were doing their best to protect me, even though they knew you’d be angry, because they know how much I love this pack,” I said, my voice breaking. I was still looking up at the sky, not anyone’s face. “All these awful things kept happening to me, and they’ve always been there for me, helping me through it. Even before the bond, even when he hated me, Tennyson always helped me when I was in trouble. He’s always done the right thing and tried to protect the pack. He’s the bravest and most honest person I’ve ever met.

“When my lycanthropy first started up, Sam did his best to teach me to control it. Althea works day and night to make sure everyone’s problems are fixed. She knows everything you could imagine about pack lore and magic and everything, and she never loses her head in a crisis. And Nikolai… He’s always there, too. The four of them are always there, no matter what, and I know it was selfish, but I didn’t want to lose that.” I drew in a shaky breath. “They knew that, so they did everything they could to help me. They were even willing to give in to Henry for me when he threatened them. But don’t blame them for that, blame me. Don’t take the alphahood away from Tennyson or Althea because Henry’s played some dirty trick. He’s not strong, he’s mean. He blackmailed us. He’s been paying off Jerome — have you even received any of my reports, or did he steal them?” Man, I’d worked hard on those reports. “He’s tried every dirty trick in the book, but that’s not strength. Strength is standing up for your friends, even when you know you’ll lose everything.”

I stopped looking at the sky. I had to do this properly. I had to be strong, so I looked the alpha in the eye. “I’ll leave the pack. That’s what you wanted, so I’ll do it. Just don’t let that jerk Henry be the alpha. Don’t take it away from someone who deserves it.”

The expression on her face didn’t change as I turned away. I saw Tennyson rush to her, grab her and speak frantically in her ear, but it was no use. Nothing he could say would change things.

I was on my own.

CHAPTER 19

I had no way of getting back to school, but maybe that was for the best. I headed toward our safe house. I knew my brothers would stick around the party until the kitchens were empty, so I’d be free to start packing up our stuff. We could go back to our old house, our old life. Maybe, if I wasn’t in the pack, my father wouldn’t even bother me. At least he’d have nothing to threaten me with. At any rate, we’d muddle through, like we always had.

The grounds were dark, not like at school, where the paths were lit up, so I lost my way a few times. Even with super-senses, it’s hard to find something if you’re not sure where you are or where you’re going and your eyes keep blurring with tears, but eventually I found the little cottage where I’d spent the summer. Had it really only been a few weeks since I’d left? Since those gold-tinted days? It seemed so long ago.

Because I’d lost my way, there was already someone waiting for me on the swing seat, but it wasn’t who I’d expected, not at all.

“That was quite a speech,” said the alpha.

“It was from the heart,” I said, walking up the steps to the patio.

“I hope you appreciate that I’m missing my husband’s birthday for this.” She got to her feet. In the moonlight, she was more imposing than ever, and for the first time I really got what Tennyson had meant when he said they got their strength from the moon. She shone like a satellite.

“For what?” I asked her warily. Had she come to personally see me off the property? She couldn’t plan to make my family stay without me, could she? Not if I wasn’t in the pack, if I’d given her what she wanted. She couldn’t keep them hostage.

“You were right,” she said.

I nearly fell over. She certainly was full of surprises. “Right about what?”

“Henry would make a terrible alpha. He only wishes for power over others, but not to take responsibility for them.”

I waited for what she’d say next. I had no idea where this was going, so I figured it was best to let it run its course.

“I admit that I’m hard on my children. I expect a lot from them. They will inherit that responsibility, not to mention the responsibility of their father’s empire as well. They need to be prepared for it.”

She began to walk toward me. I still had no clue what her game was, and it made me want to run from her, but I held my ground.

“The events of tonight have given me cause to believe that they will be ready when the time comes.” She stopped right in front of me, so close that I had to tilt my head back to look at her. I knew it was a tactic to intimidate me, but it still worked. Her eyes glowed, and somehow I felt it in the part of me where the pack bond used to exist. “I’ve seen no real evidence that you’re holding my children under a spell, though from all reports you have the power to do so if you wished it. I no longer believe that you would work against this pack, or work in league with your father and his colleagues.”

I shrugged. That seemed pretty obvious, but I guessed I could understand being a little paranoid. “Has there been any word on whether they’re close to finding him?” I asked. Even with everything else going on, having him on the loose was like a constant gnawing at the back of my mind.

She shook her head. “Only whispers. We know he’s trying to rebuild after what happened. We know he has spies, informants.”

“That’s why you didn’t trust me.”

It was obvious, so she didn’t bother to answer me.

“You know what it is that I am?” I asked her. She had said as much when she’d come to tell me about my father’s escape. “What I’ll become?”

Her eyes glowed a little brighter, and I wondered if she was reading my mind somehow. “I know what they did to you, but what you become is entirely your own choice.”

The glow faded, and I felt, somehow, as I had the very first time I saw Tennyson — as if I’d been weighed up and judged. Only this time, I couldn’t tell what the result was. She had seemed so convinced about me before. It seemed strange that it had taken only a passionate speech to win her over. There was definitely more to her change of heart than what she was saying.

“I am willing to officially accept you into this pack,” she said finally. “I am convinced of your loyalty, and my son assures me you can control your powers and will become an asset to us in the future. It’s unlikely you’ll ever feel the pack bond again after what was done to you, but I believe you can be of value in other ways. Your healing ability, for example, is something that I believe should be cultivated. We will perform the ceremony on the next full moon.”

Without another word, she turned and headed back to the party.

I trailed along after her, feeling more stunned than anything. I wasn’t sure what had happened after I left the party to change her mind. Maybe she just hated Henry. I could understand that. But whatever it was, I was finally going to be in the pack for real.

I could hardly believe it. All this time, I’d thought she was horrible and cold, but maybe she wasn’t that bad after all. Could it really be that simple? I mean, she was horrible and cold and super harsh, but she was like that because she had to protect everyone, so I could understand it.

She also walked super fast, and after a while I couldn’t keep up and lost sight of her. The house was so lit up that the glow of it was a beacon to guide me in the right direction, so I didn’t get lost on my way back, and when I was almost there, I heard shouting.

“Lucy!” someone yelled out of the darkness. Several someones.

The four of them emerged out of the night, gamboling toward me. Nikolai held a bottle of champagne up in the air, and Althea was actually skipping.

“Let’s have our own party!” Nikolai called out. “One that’s not lame and full of my aunties!”

I laughed and ran to join them, my meringue dress rustling with every step. We settled on the ground in a copse of trees.

“So, how did you do it?” I asked. “How did you win her over?”

Tennyson and Althea exchanged a look.

“With logic and reasoning, of course,” Tennyson said.

That made me even more suspicious. The way they normally reacted to her definitely didn’t imply she’d be swayed by logic and reasoning. They’d been practically convinced she’d murder me in order to sever the bond, but instead she’d welcomed me into the pack. I knew I should question it more, that every hunch I’d had lately had been on point, but I was finally getting everything I wanted, and it felt ungrateful to ask why.

Nikolai passed me the champagne bottle, and I passed it straight back to him. “So you’ll have more material for your ‘dumb stuff Lucy does’ YouTube channel? No, thanks.”

“It’s not laced,” he said, taking a swig. “Oh, well, more for me.”

Sam smiled at me but didn’t say anything.

As I sat there with the four of them, the power inside me rose to the surface. Maybe it was conditioned now, and any time I sat in a circle, it would want to come out to play. Maybe we were on a ley line. Maybe it was simply because this was the most relaxed I’d been in as long as I could remember, sitting there with the four people I trusted more than anything. I had no idea why, but it gave me an idea.

“I want to try something,” I told them. Then I turned to Tennyson. “What we did in magic club – I think it will work here. Now.”

He nodded and took my hand. “Let’s try.” He glanced around at the others. “Hold hands.”

Nikolai sighed and set down his bottle. “Because this always goes so well,” he said, but he grabbed hold of Sam’s and Tennyson’s hands.

“What are we doing?” Althea asked, holding my hand.

“I want to try to break the wall in my bond with Tennyson. Not completely; just enough for the bond to function. The alpha said such a complete wall was unhealthy, and it doesn’t feel right either. It feels…”

I searched for a way to explain it that wouldn’t give away my feelings completely. It felt like being held under water. It felt like being exhausted but unable to sleep. And a dozen other things that meant I couldn’t have the thing I wanted the most.

“It feels wrong,” Tennyson said. “I agree, we should try to create a door of some sort.”

I let my eyes fall closed. The power seemed easy to control with the five of us. It felt balanced. I didn’t need to think about ley lines or trickling the power out or anything. I knew the exact amount of power I needed for the task and where to apply it. It flowed evenly through us, perfectly distributed. It was a sensation I’d never felt before, this absolute control. I knew I could do anything I wanted to. The way was already carved out before me, and all I needed to do was move into it. Everything was simple, easy. Nothing could happen unless I willed it.

The wall appeared before me. It had been impenetrable before, but now it would bend before me. I envisioned a door in the wall, a door that could open and close at any time, whenever we wanted. I’d done something similar once before, I remembered, during the Becoming, when my power had been out of control and was unleashed on Tennyson. This was similar, but so very different. This time, I knew what I was doing.

I acted with intent, with purpose. The barrier in our bond in the past had been temporary, amateurish, but what I created now was forever. This barrier would stand as the one thing between us, to stop us from sinking into each other completely and vanishing as separate people, but the door was just as permanent. And this door made us equals. I could close it from my side as easily as he could from his. We both had control.

Open the door, I told Tennyson.

The door opened, and I could see him, the energy of him, on the other side.

You did it.

I could hear him again, sense him. I felt his relief at feeling the bond again, the strength of our connection.

If I wanted to, I could let my power get out of control. I could punish Henry. I could make everyone forget the humiliating scene at the party. I could make everyone forget everything ever, if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I’d never forget the feeling after I’d healed Tennyson’s horse. That was how I wanted to use this power. If I was going to use it, it would be to protect people, to help them. Otherwise, I would be no better than Henry.

I pulled the power back and felt it swirl through the others, Sam and Althea and Nikolai. It lingered on Tennyson, more familiar with him, but then I shut it off.

“That’s not what you do in magic club,” Nikolai said.

“It’s because it’s the five of us,” I said, somehow knowing it was the truth but not why.

“Well, whatever it is, it was amazing,” said Althea.

“We should get back to the party,” said Sam. “People will be missing us.”

Nikolai wrinkled up his nose and Althea raised her eyebrows, but he was probably right, at least for Althea and Tennyson. I didn’t want them getting into trouble again, not when everything was finally working out.

“You three go ahead,” Tennyson said, not standing up when the others did. “We’ll be along in a moment.”

My heart pounded in my chest as the other three left. I didn’t want to read too much into it, but I’d thought for the tiniest moment when he’d opened that door that I’d felt something from his side, the smallest flicker of a feeling that matched the way I felt about him. It was enough to give me hope. It seemed crazy that he could ever feel that way about me. He was Tennyson Wilde, and he was beautiful and strong and the best person I knew. He deserved someone equally amazing, not ordinary old me, but I’d done my selfless thing for the day when I left the pack, and there was no way I could ever say no to him.

“Lucy,” he said, his voice deep and throaty as he took my hands, moving so that he was sitting opposite me. The moonlight reflected in his eyes, and I thought he’d never looked so beautiful as in that moment.

Was he about to kiss me? I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. Not that I didn’t want him to. I definitely wanted him to, but maybe my brain would implode. How could you prepare for something like that?

And plus, if he kissed me, what then? Would we start dating? Wouldn’t that get complicated? It was hard enough to draw the line anyway. We’d need some definite rules from the outset. Wow, dating Tennyson Wilde was going to be weird.

Lucy!

“Present,” I said.

“I never thought I’d say this,” he began.

I could barely breathe.

“I’m pleased we have our bond back.” He traced a pattern on the back of my hand with his thumb, and it sent shivers all through me.

“Me too,” I said, my voice barely a breath. This was really happening. Wasn’t it? I hadn’t been slipped some sort of hallucinogen at the party, right?

“Lucy, I know you have feelings for me.”

My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. This was really about to happen. For real.

“And I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to encourage that. I know things get complicated with the bond.”

“Sorry, what?” I asked. I was clearly a step behind, here. Or maybe five steps ahead of myself. I felt as if I’d been doused in cold water.

“I’ve grown to rely on our connection, to depend on having you in my life. You’re an invaluable presence to me, but I’m sorry, I just don’t feel that way about you.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. They echoed in my head, over and over, until I started to make sense of them.

I was such an idiot.

I snatched my hand out of his. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I don’t have any feelings. Don’t be so full of yourself, Tennyson Wilde. Come on, let’s get back to the party. They’ll be expecting you.”

Without waiting for him, I fled back toward the house, and it felt as if I was leaving my heart back there behind me, in that copse of trees.

CHAPTER 20

In the week before the full moon, I barely saw Tennyson. It wasn’t like I was avoiding him; I was just very busy. I had a lot of schoolwork to catch up on, and Hannah and I had agreed that after such a breakthrough in my magic, I should practice as much as possible. I still saw him in class and at mealtimes, so it wasn’t like there was any weirdness. At least, if there was, it wasn’t from my side.

So, maybe I’d briefly thought he could return my feelings, but I’d been mistaken. That didn’t have to make things weird. It had just been one moment of poor judgment, while I was high on magic, and I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life embarrassed about it. I had to share a bond with him, so I’d have to lock those feelings away and never let him sense them again. With our new and improved barrier, that would be easy-peasy. Things would go back to normal soon enough. But as the week passed, it seemed as if it was getting harder to be around each other, not easier.

“Lucy, are you okay?” Althea asked me.

We were standing to the side of a massive bonfire with all the other females of the pack. Tennyson, Sam and Nikolai were standing on the other side with all the males. The flames from the fire made Tennyson’s skin glow, and their reflection flickered in his eyes. Try as I might to lock my feelings away, I couldn’t ignore them completely. Not with him right there in front of me. But as long as I kept them safely on my side of the barrier, that was my business.

He glanced up and caught my eye. For a moment, it seemed as if only the two of us existed, entwined with the warmth of that fire. Then he turned away.

“Lucy?”

“It’s not going to hurt, right?” I asked Althea, forcing a smile.

She frowned at me. “You know that Tennyson would do anything for you, right? Anything.”

I nodded. “Of course.” He’d proven it over and over. He’d do that for any of the pack, but our bond made it even more true with regards to me. Just because it wasn’t romantic didn’t mean our bond wasn’t special. It was something amazing, and I appreciated that I got to be close to him in a way that nobody else could be. Even though I wanted something different from him, that didn’t mean what we had wasn’t enough.

“It won’t hurt,” Althea said, giving me a small smile, like she was sad about something.

“So, why the gender segregation?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

“In the past, the ceremony was performed naked,” she said. “It was okay for married couples to mingle, but they liked to keep the singles apart. Especially after the transformation, things could get a little heated.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at my thin white robe. “The current outfits don’t leave a lot to the imagination, anyway, to be honest.”

The boys were wearing the same robes we were, but I was trying to ignore that. Althea had pinned flowers in my hair, different flowers to represent different things — she’d explained it all to me, but it had been a lot of information to retain, and I’d been busy trying not to watch Tennyson. I supposed I’d have to get around to reading those books now.

“It’s almost time,” Althea said, taking my hand.

She led me to a ring of stones at the front of the bonfire, where the alpha was standing, then stepped behind me. I faced the alpha, as I had the week before. She said words over me in a language that I didn’t know but somehow understood, and drew marks on me with a mix of ground herbs and bodily fluids that I didn’t want to think too much about. Her gaze was impersonal as she did it, but it didn’t feel unkind, and I knew she wouldn’t be accepting me into the pack if she had any doubts about me.

When all of the herb mixture was gone, she took me by the hand, and Althea did the same on my other side. All around the bonfire, everyone linked hands. The moon rose in the sky, and everyone began to move, dancing in a circle around the bonfire. The power rose inside me and flooded through them all, the entire pack, but it wasn’t just my power. I understood now what Hannah had meant about the different types of magic, because the magic I was feeling now wasn’t the usual magic I felt. It was lycanthropy. It flowed through us all, uniting us.

My father thought lycanthropy was a disease, something that could be scientifically explained, but he was wrong. This energy came from the earth, from the moon, from something greater than all of us. It was a part of us all, but also greater than the whole.

The more we danced under that moon, the more united we became. I knew in that hollow part inside me that my father had severed that if I could feel the pack bond, the feeling would be even more intense, more complete.

Once again, Tennyson’s gaze caught mine from across the fire. This time, he didn’t look away. He opened the door, and through him, I could feel everything he felt, the entire pack bond, united. It was like a lock sliding into place, and in that moment, I became part of the pack.

As one, we stopped dancing and dropped hands, and when I turned my head, the alpha had transformed into the biggest black wolf I’d ever seen. She let out a howl that shook the air, and the rest of us transformed as well. Even Tennyson transformed, and I had never seen him do that voluntarily before. We ran through the night as a single entity, but as we grew tired, the bonfire called us back. We huddled in together as wolves, the five of us closer to each other than to the rest of them, our own unit within the larger pack.

I lay awake, looking up at the stars as the others dropped off to sleep.

Welcome to the pack, Tennyson said.

And I knew that even though he didn’t love me, I was his forever.

END BOOK 7

Werewolf High #8 will be out in 2018

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to Kathryn for sharing your wealth of knowledge.

Thanks to Carol Davis for editing.

Deranged Doctor Designs, my cover is awesome.

Hannah, Liam and Morgan, thank you for letting me steal your names.

Sandy and Laurie, thank you for all your help, support and advice.

Thank you to everyone who has continued to read and support this series. You guys are the best!

About the author

Anita lives in Melbourne, where she is a full-time servant to her dog. When the dog gives her a break, she writes books. Anita likes books about kick-ass girls and hot boys who fall in love while defeating evil.

Anita's favourite things include: cake, coffee and karaoke. Her special skills are sleeping and marathoning TV shows.

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