by E. M. Moore
“Let me guess,” she says. “You never got your spot at the salon.”
I want to roll my eyes, but I settle for shaking my head instead. “I didn’t even realize there was such a place until Kinsey came here.”
Ebon’s gaze narrows. If she has an opinion on that topic, she doesn’t share it. I can’t get a handle on whether she’s a friend or not. “I can get the hairdresser if you want.”
My fingers flex against the boxes. I have a suspicion that if she knew what I wanted to do to my hair, she wouldn’t approve. “It’s okay. I’m used to doing it myself. I did back home.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“You sure the academy would want to waste more money on someone who has a time clock above their head?”
Ms. Ebon clicks her tongue. “I understand your mistrust, Miss Adams, but I really am trying to help you. I met with Lydia Greystone today. She approved the return of the Daybreak Pack to their territory for the festivities.”
I blink in surprise. “All of us? Nathan too?”
“If he’s in Daybreak, he’s allowed to attend, yes.”
My heart pangs against my chest. I’ve tried to put him out of my mind. It’s hard to think about him and Sean being in the same place together without guilt settling over me like thick cobwebs.
As if on cue, determination sets in next. It’s not fair that I should feel guilty for what I did when Sean has more than likely been doing the same the whole time I’ve been here.
“I am glad I saw you slip inside,” Ms. Ebon says, smoothing down her narrow skirt. “I was wondering if you were serious about the accusation you placed against your mate yesterday?”
My mouth dries instantly. My tongue is so thick in my mouth that it feels as if I swallowed a bunch of cotton balls. I want to say yes, but dammit, the mistaken loyalty I feel to that asshole shifter keeps me quiet. For the most part. “They dated before we were mated during our first shift. His girlfriend also rejected her mate. Nathan.”
Ms. Ebon nods slowly. She moves her arms up to cross them in front of her. She’s a serious looking woman, but I’m beginning to think more and more that she has a softer side. “I’m not as familiar with your pack laws as I am with my own, Miss Adams. But if they are at all the same, if you find out that they are together, active non-compliance with mate laws would be a major offense in Lunar Pack. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I take a deep breath and let go of the claw-like grip I have on the boxes of hair dye in my hand. This is the first time someone in charge has hinted that I have to look out for my own interest instead of saying that my one and only duty is to get my mate back.
I bite my lip, trying to keep my emotion in check when she ruins it. “I am sure when you return to Daybreak and have more than the short minutes together that are available at the academy that you’ll be able to find common ground. Shifters can’t resist the pull of their mate, Miss Adams. It’s fate. Undeniable attraction.”
“Do you have a mate, Ms. Ebon?”
All color drains from her face. Sharp cheekbones stick out on her pale-as-death skin. “No,” she states in a way that’s both lifeless and angry.
Sounds like I’ve struck a nerve.
Part of me wants to high-five myself. I’ve been digging up my emotions in this place for a year, and all for nothing. It’s about time someone else was in the hot seat instead of my ass being judged as to why Nathan—
I mean Sean.
Sean.
Fuck. Of course I meant Sean. Why I’ve made no progress with my mate, Sean.
The door opens behind Ms. Ebon, and the both of us freeze. She recuperates quicker than I do. “Oh, Grace. I’m glad you’re here. I have a student that would like her hair colored.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Miss Adams, sit down,” Ebon demands.
I lick my lips, smirking a little. The hairdresser gazes between the two of us like we’re in a battle of wills, but honestly, my argument isn’t with her. I turn, placing my boxes on the counter, color side out, and then sit in the salon chair.
“Ooh, fun,” Grace says. She comes over, maneuvering her black waves over her shoulder. She grabs my hair and runs her fingers through it. “What were you thinking?”
I explain my idea: Instead of coloring my whole head purple, I imagined black hair underneath with the purple sitting like a crowned layer on top.
She nods, her smile growing wider as I explain it to her. “That’s going to look so awesome! What a change!” She takes the boxes to a ledge on the right and starts working. “So, what’s your name?”
I gaze up to see that Ebon is gone. Relief flows through me, though it sucks that I missed her face when she saw the purple dye. “Mia Adams. Daybreak,” I tell her.
The sound of stirring stops, and Grace turns, regarding me.
“What?” I ask her. It’s as if she knows me or something.
“Sorry, that was rude.” She moves over to me, setting the plastic bowl filled with black dye on the countertop. “I recognize your name. Since I’m staff here, we get periodic emails about who’s enrolled. I learn the names in case they come by my salon.”
I’ve already guessed it before she can finish talking. She’s seen my name for a long damn time. “Yeah,” I say, my voice hoarser than I mean it to be.
“Well, I have one rule in my shop, Mia: We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.” She flashes me a pleasant smile, and I instantly like her. I’m used to people forcing the subject of mates on me, so to have a mate-free conversation would be amazing.
She sections off my hair and gets to work. Honestly, I always did okay with my hair, but it’s nice to have someone else do it. I’m hoping it will make the statement that I want it to. My mom will be the only one who’ll have a coronary about it; especially since I’ll be sporting it during the Winter Solstice festivities.
Grace and I have an easy conversation moving forward, despite the fact that everything I’ve known for the past year is wrapped up in Greystone. I’m so out of it when it comes to popular songs and trends, but she never makes me feel like I’ve been living under a rock. By the time she’s washed both the bleach and the black out of my hair, we’re laughing together like old friends.
My gaze widens as I peer at the blonde strands rimming the crown of my head. “I know,” she says. “I’ll hurry up and put the purple in it.”
She sections off my hair, then twists it on top of my head with a clip while she retreats to the counter to mix the dye. We go back and forth on the color until it’s the perfect shade of bright purple. “You know,” I tell her. “I hope this doesn’t offend you, but I didn’t even know Greystone had a salon in it until my friend Kinsey told me.”
Her face puckers. “I’ve noticed some of the advisors don’t bring their students here. It’s sad. It’s not supposed to be a beauty contest or anything, but you know when you go to get your hair done, and maybe put on a little makeup, and you just feel amazing? That’s what the intention of this was.” She lowers her voice. “Some of the advisors have petitioned to cut this from the school’s offerings, but I’ve been trying my hardest to keep it here.”
“Could guys come, too?”
“Yeah, I can cut men’s hair. Hell, I’ll even put eyeliner on a guy.” She nibbles her lip. “That can be hot.”
A picture of Nathan sneaks into my head with eyeliner rimming his gorgeous, dark lashes, and I get what she’s saying. That could look amazing on the right guy.
It would look horrendous on Sean. Absolutely awful.
The hairdresser clears her throat and starts to shift from foot to foot. The agitation coming off her unnerves even me. I’m about to ask her what’s wrong when she lets out a full-body sigh that sounds as if it came not just from her toes but the roots in the ground underneath the cement at our feet. She talks to herself briefly, murmuring unintelligible words, before she meets my gaze in the mirror with a frown. “I lied to you about where I saw your name.” She drops
her voice to a whisper. “I mean, I have seen it on the roster for a long time, but I was accidentally cc’d on an email from Lydia to the pack advisors. It was in regard to you.”
Okay. Color me intrigued. Grace never misses a beat as she paints the purple on my strands, making sure they’re drowning in dye.
“I saw that you were being given a time limit, and my heart just broke,” she says, glassy eyes greeting mine as she moves in front of me. Even though we’re in the room alone, her voice is barely audible, and she shifts her gaze from side to side like she expects someone to be listening in on us. “Ever since I got that email, I’ve been thinking about you and this rumor I heard.” She fiddles with the bracelets at her wrist. “I heard there’s an area just outside of Twilight Pack where people are more friendly to rejected mates—Ferals,” she says, lowering her voice even more like she’s cursing in a preschool. “That’s all I know about it. But when I read that email, I thought that if I were you, I’d want information like that. Just in case.”
Shit. Twilight Pack. Their alpha heir is the most notable shifter to have ever been rejected. In fact, there was a rumor that his brother made the heir’s mate reject him just so he could take over their pack.
Pretty fucked up if you ask me, but I wouldn’t put anything past anybody at this point.
“I don’t know how true it is,” Grace says. “You know, forget I said anything.” She raises a shaking hand to put the last of the purple dye on my hair.
“Thank you.” I lock gazes with her in the mirror and smile. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
She shakes off the awkwardness. “It won’t, because you’re going to look like a hot rock star as soon as you walk out of this salon.”
7
“Ugh, I can’t believe you guys get to leave,” Nadia complains, then snaps her mouth shut a second later. An immediate blush colors her cheeks. “Sorry, I know that sounds petty coming from me.”
I give her a small smile. After she gushed about my hair, I told her why I had decided on a change. “Trust me, I think we all want to leave here as soon as we arrive.”
I push some eggs around my plate. People are staring, and I assume it’s because of the hair, but a little part of me believes they all know I’m thirteen days away from going Feral.
Thirteen-motherfucking-days. Fuck me.
Nadia bites her lip—a sure sign that she wants to ask a question but doesn’t know how to pose it. “Spit it out,” I tell her. Love the girl, but she’s too sweet for her own good.
“Well, I was just wondering if you think you can do it? Get Sean, I mean.” She shakes her head. “It’s stupid that he rejected you in the first place, so I think you can. As soon as he spends time with you, he’s going to come to his senses. I know it.”
I wish I lived in her world where it’s all sunshine, rainbows, and positive outlook. Literally the worst thing that’s happened to her is being sent here. Admittedly, that is a pretty shitty thing, so I’m not knocking her on it. If I could carry her positivity around with me wherever I go, I’d be set for life. “Fingers crossed,” I tell her. It’s an odd thing to aspire to. Aside from the Nathan stuff, my heart keeps holding on to the betrayal and the abandonment. I have to find a way to let all of that go before I walk back onto Daybreak soil or this trip is doomed. “Any news on your front?”
“I think we’re getting somewhere,” she says, cheeks blushing again.
I try to read between the lines, but the problem with talking to a positive person is that I’m never entirely sure whether she’s just looking at the world through rose-colored glasses or if what she’s saying is actually happening. “I hope so,” I tell her, reaching out to pat her hand. “You deserve it, girl.”
If she had to stay here the same length of time I had, she’d be a freaking mess right now. Greystone Academy isn’t for people like her. She’s too damn good.
Nadia smiles at me and then peers over my head. She chuckles. “Nathan doesn’t know it’s you.”
As if on cue, he sidles up to the table, his bored face on full display. He never gives me that look. It’s reserved for other people and conversations he doesn’t give a fuck about. When he sees me, he does a double take. “Jesus, Mia.”
My mind short circuits. It’s the same damn thing he said to me when he was still between my legs, my juices still glistening on his full lips.
Oh for fuck’s sake. I need to get my head out of the gutter.
I cross my legs, trying to stop the furnace from starting before it gets blazing down there. “You like?”
As I wait for him to answer, I dissect the way I asked him that question. Did I say it in a friend way? Or in the girl-who-has-a-crush-on-a-guy kind of way?
This is going to be awful. Here I am, thirteen fucking days away from going Feral, and I’m obsessing over something that could send me there quicker. Especially in Rejected Mate Academy.
My skin blazes from my thoughts, and I peer up at Nathan for his reaction. “You look like the old you.”
“You’ve had your hair like this before?” Nadia asks.
“Not exactly like this,” I say.
“She used to do it to piss her mom off.” Nathan chuckles as he finds his seat and turns his attention to me. “Have you sent a picture to her yet?”
I shake my head. “I thought I’d leave it as a surprise.”
“I hope I’m there for that one.”
Nadia pouts again, and I try to steer the conversation away from the fact that we’ll be leaving her here for a couple of weeks.
I’m dying to tell Nathan what the hairdresser told me. We’ve talked about the subject of how to live Feral at length. Not at first, but as the months went by, it became a real possibility that deserved attention. We assumed that we would both be going at the same time. Now that my ass is on the line first, I’m starting to freak out a little.
I saw Kinsey’s face after she watched the Feral video for the first time, and believe me, those images are fresh in my mind, too. Being in a pack has been drilled into our brains since we were pups. There’s no chance of survival otherwise. That’s why we have the pack system. That’s why there are mate laws. Shifters breed other shifters to make sure we have a nice, healthy pack.
Nathan hits his shoulder against mine. “Hey, you okay?” He doesn’t share my all-consuming fear of going Feral. Nathan is a firm believer that he could last on his own for a little while, even though conventional wisdom suggests otherwise.
I glance up from the volcano of mashed potatoes that I’ve been building. Nadia is staring at me with a frown, too, so I must’ve been out of it for a little while. “Good,” I tell him.
He starts his gaze at the crown of my head. My purple and black hair shifts in front of my face as I move. Suddenly, I’m all too aware of the makeup I have on. It’s a little heavier than normal. It’s not as if I dress to impress here at Greystone. I usually only put it on when Sean is coming in for a session. Theoretically, he’s the only one I should want to impress.
My mind snags on the thought that’s been bothering me: Why was oral so amazing with Nathan when he’s not my fated one? If Sean and Gayle are going behind our backs, this could be one of the reasons why. They had feelings for each other before fate decided to pair them with someone else. I’m not immune to their original position in all of this, but I am calling bullshit since nature is telling them to do something else. It’s undeniable. I’ve felt those feelings with Sean. They’re there. He can’t refuse to feel them.
That’s why uncertainty over what I did with Nathan is digging into me tightly. It felt good—amazing, actually—but it shouldn’t have.
I peer outside to stop myself from staring at Nathan. The surrounding glass walls and ceilings let in the natural light, reminding me of a fancier version of Kinsey’s greenhouse. This is one of my favorite places in the whole gothic building. Especially when they serve chocolate pudding.
Heels click against the tile, echoing around the huge cafeteria. The hairs
on the back of my neck rise when the clicking stops next to me. They used to stop here for Kinsey, so I’m not surprised when I spot Ms. Ebon at the edge of our table. “Miss Adams, Mr. Greene, I’m here to inform you that a car will be waiting for you two tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp to return you to Daybreak Pack for the Winter Solstice. You’ll return here in ten days.”
Her presence usually silences the room, and today is no different. I clear my throat, realizing we’re the center of attention. If the whole academy didn’t know already that Daybreak was leaving, they do now. “Thank you, Ms. Ebon. We’ll be ready.”
Whispers rise up as soon as she moves on to the next table where more students are sitting with purple and yellow. A few people close by groan, wondering how come they’re not allowed to return home. I feel like telling them all to shut the hell up. I’m the only one with a fuse tied to me, counting down the days.
After that, I’m not particularly hungry. I go through the motions of someone who’s about to miss ten days of classes and stop by my professor’s offices to see how I can keep on top of things. Each of them is surprised to see me. No doubt, they know about the timeline. Some of them tell me not to bother, even though I insist. Nathan is right. It’s time to fight, and I’m going to do just that.
With a folder filled with work, I find myself in the library. I smell Nathan before he sits across from me. He’s always smelled a little like an impending rainstorm to me. Lately, he’s been feeling that way, too.
“Why are you bothering?” he asks when he sees what I’m doing.
It’s always been that way with us. We don’t need pleasantries. We gave that up a while ago.
“When Sean realizes he’s a dumbass, you won’t be coming back here.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“You still won’t be coming back here.”
My stomach knots. I know he’s right, but it’s just the fact that he’s saying it that pulls at my heartstrings and twists my insides into something almost unrecognizable.