Inside Warren's gloves, my fingers wiggle. They aren't quite warm enough to make me not relate to Kim's complaints. It's one of the coldest days we've had since I've been here. I'm not altogether certain it's safe to be outside.
I wonder, if I were to bat my eyes at Warren like Kim is doing, would he put his arm around me?
More likely he'd just laugh. I'm sure I'd look like a wounded bird, or possibly a deranged otter.
“Is that what we're looking for?” I ask, pointing a finger of Warren's glove at some markings near a fallen tree.
He smiles proudly. “Yes.”
“Those gloves are way too big for you,” Kim sneers.
“I know.” I smile sweetly. “That's what I like about them.”
Warren chuckles and moves closer to the tree. “These-” he starts, only to be cut off by a loud burst of harsh, antagonistic, laughter.
“You're growing fur, Mike!”
Forgetting about the animal tracks, Warren whips around to face me. “And ears,” he says with as much awe as Kim's taunt contained disgust. “You must be shifting to try to keep warm.”
Wincing, I guide my hands to my head.
Sure enough, inside the hood of my parka, big, fuzzy ears sprout from my hair. Hair which has a completely different length and thickness than usual.
“That is so hideous!”
“Actually...” Warren inches towards me with an intensity sharpening his gaze. “They're beautiful ears.” His eyes meet mine. “Wolf ears.”
“Wolf ears?”
The panic must have come through in my voice, because Warren's face shuts down and he turns to start stomping back towards the school.
“Warren!”
He stops, looks back over his shoulder, and raises his eyebrows.
“It's not that I wouldn't like to be a wolf. I'm just...” Turning all the way around, he watches me closely. “I'm just afraid of the pack. Silly, right?”
With a deep sigh, he shakes his head. “Not really. They aren't exactly the sort of family you're used to.” He takes a step back towards me, but is stopped by Kim's body as she flings herself in his path.
“But you'll keep them from hurting me, won't you?” she simpers.
Warren's lip curls back. “Why should I?”
Kim gasps at the effrontery, and I'm certain my eyes are about to pop out of my head.
The wind shifts, a new blast of cold causing my fur to spread further over my exposed skin.
Sweet Jesus, I must look like a complete freak.
Warren frowns. “What's that scent?”
Kim screams and bolts towards the buildings.
I look after her in confusion, then turn back to my remaining companion. “I don't look that bad, do I?”
Warren narrows his eyes at me. “You look fine. It's impressive you can do that already. Most of us who were born weres can't.” But his attention isn't on me, his eyes are roaming around the forest and his nose is actively sniffing.
Taking a deep breath, I try to figure out what he's concerned about. I turn. I sniff the air. And I know what has Warren on edge. My knees weaken, and it's suddenly hard to breathe.
“Male,” I whisper. Forcing a swallow, I move closer to Warren. “It's a male whatever I am.”
Warren starts to curse.
Nausea sweeps over me, and I bend over by a tree, supporting myself with a hand against its trunk while I lose lunch.
“Michaela?”
Why am I always puking in front of him?
“I'm fine,” I gasp. “Just a really strong scent.”
Except I realize it isn't that strong. It's just that permeating. It reaches straight into the core of me, clenches its fist, and twists.
“Come on,” Warren urges, putting an arm around me and turning me back toward school. His walk increases in pace until we're jogging through the snow.
Without stopping for longer than it takes to open a door, we go straight to Mr. Atherton's office.
The principal smiles at me. “Nice ears.”
“There's an intruder,” Warren jumps to the point. “And he doesn't smell like anything I've ever smelled.”
Mr. Atherton's face stills. “What do you mean?”
“She's says it's a male...” He trails off, not knowing a word to use.
“He's whatever I am,” I finish weakly, moving away from Warren to lean against the back of one of the chairs.
“Where is he?” Mr. Atherton asks swiftly, on his feet.
“We caught the scent about half a mile south,” Warren responds.
“Take me.”
They're heading out the door before I can turn around.
“Not you,” Warren snaps as I try to fall in with them.
“Excuse me?”
With an aggrieved sigh, he looks to Mr. Atherton, who backs him up, “Stay here. We don't know how dangerous he is yet.”
Dangerous?
My stomach heaves again. “If he's dangerous, why are you going?” My eyes are on Warren.
“Because he might be dangerous,” the wolf replies, with a bit too much amusement.
Mr. Atherton rolls his eyes. “Please, Michaela. Just stay here until we know what's going on.”
Not liking it, I nod.
Then they're gone.
With an aggrieved sigh, I retreat to my room to brush my teeth and start a shower. Scalding water and several little bottles of body wash try valiantly to get the scent of the male out of my nose, off of my skin. They fail.
Still feeling somehow dirtied, I leave the bathroom to pull on a pair of freshly cleaned sweats. The fabric softener's gentle aroma should make me feel better, but it doesn't. I retrieve Warren's gloves from out of my coat pocket, sticking my nose inside one in an attempt to catch his scent. Finding it comforts me some, so I lay on the bed and concentrate on allowing the wolf scent to remove the memory of the other's smell.
Someone knocks on my door, and I pull my nose out of the glove to tell them to enter. Feeling silly and probably blushing, I stuff the gloves under my pillow.
Tod, Aliah, and Sam slide into the room. “You alright?” Sam asks. “Warren said you were totally freaked.”
Aliah pours me a cup of the tea they brought with them. “Another of Emma's?” I guess.
“Chamomile.” Tod holds his head to the side as he studies me. “Calms the nerves.”
I take a sip of it. My nerves do not instantly calm. In fact, they're getting worse. Trying not to get more upset, I put the cup on the bedside table. At that point I lose the battle to act like a sane person, and I rush forward to fling my arms around Tod as I bury my face against his chest.
“Mike?” He wraps an arm loosely around me, his other bring his hand to stroke my wet hair.
“I can't get the smell of him out of my head.” The statement is a whimper.
“He smelled like a normal fox to me.” Sam puts a hand on my shoulder, brushes her fingers against my neck.
“No,” I sigh. “He smells like... like everything and nothing.”
I feel Tod nod. “That's a good way of phrasing it.”
“That's what you smell like, Mike,” comes Aliah's soft voice. “Pretty much?”
I whimper. “How can you stand me?”
Tod pulls away so he can look down at my face. “They're not saying it's a bad smell. Just unusual.”
Aliah puts her hand on my shoulder. “It's like a blended perfume to someone who's only smelled flowers.”
My whole body starts to shake. “No. It clings and ravishes. I feel violated just having smelled it.”
Very still, Tod searches my eyes. “Almost like being raped by a scent?”
“Yes!”
Tod moves away completely, giving me over to Aliah so he can go to the door and call for Warren and Bryce. Aliah wraps her arm around my waist, letting me lean against her shoulder while Sam reaches out to hold my hand.
The boys whisper quickly to each other at the door, then Warren starts swearing and walks into the room, Bryce fol
lowing him with a bemused expression.
“What?” Sam asks, not patiently.
Bryce shakes his head and answers slowly, “If this guy were a she, I would say it sounds like she's in heat.”
“Males don't go into heat?” Aliah states.
“No,” Warren agrees.
“But that's exactly what it sounds like,” Tod finishes unhappily.
Chapter Seventeen
My evening is spent curled beside Bryce in front of the television in the lounge. The smell of polar bear is much more to my liking than the scent that continues to plague me when left on my own.
Warren went into town to fill the pack in on what's happened, and Tod likewise journeyed to his grandmother's house. Bryce's clan is based too far north to be involved in anything as local as our mystery beast.
It seems unfair for me to cuddle up to Bryce when I'd really be happier next to one of the others, but he doesn't seem to mind being used as an olfactory distraction. And Sam doesn't even act like she minds sharing him, watching me with huge, worried eyes right up until the time I close my door on her to try to sleep.
My dreams aren't exactly untroubled. I stumble through snow-coated forests, freezing while I try to avoid being tracked by creatures I can't identify. Bad things are happening, just outside my field of vision. I hear the attacks, know what the sounds mean. Warren... Tod... Seth... Bryce... One by one, all die trying to keep me safe.
It's a relief when the clock finally tells me it's late enough to get up.
I make it downstairs before the dining hall opens and go into the student kitchen. My fingers gradually shred the donut I pick up without putting any of it into my mouth. I got it out of habit, not because I'm actually hungry.
“You don't look so good,” Warren tells me, going straight for the coffee on arrival and for once ignoring food.
“Thanks,” I mutter. “You have such a way with compliments.”
The smile he gives me in return is small and exhausted.
“You learn anything last night?” I ask.
Leaning against the counter, he stretches his feet in front of him and stares down at his boots. “Nope.” He shakes his head. “No one's ever heard of anything like this.”
“Like me, you mean.”
He sighs. “Yeah.”
“Has anyone talked to Kim?” I ask.
“Atherton did. She says she doesn't know anything.”
Which doesn't mean she doesn't know what's going on, just that she doesn't want to tell an authority figure about it. “Maybe you should try.”
His eyes slide up. They're tinted with red, implying he slept even less well than I did. If he slept at all.
“She likes you,” I justify.
There's a ghost of a smile. “No. She's just under the mistaken impression you do.”
Mistaken impression? Awfully early in the day to be starting a fight, isn't it? Or am I supposed to flatter him at this point? It's too early for that, too.
“That's ridiculous,” claims a new voice, insanely chipper for the time of day. “You're completely unlikeable, wolf.”
Warren's mouth twists into an approximation of a smile for Sam as she breezes into the room. The vixen instantly takes command of our attention with her typical dramatic flair.
“Why are you eating in here?” my friend asks me. “You aren't hiding, are you?”
“Dining hall's not open yet,” I point out, earning myself a confused look. My eyes go to the clock on the wall. “Oh. Guess I've been here longer than I thought.”
Sam grunts, her eyes focusing on Warren for a second, as if she's blaming him for me loosing track of time. “Well, come on,” she urges me. “I haven't grilled Tod about last night yet.”
Standing up, I look at Warren, but since he pushes himself away from the counter like he's coming with us, I don't don't bother to say goodbye to him.
Without a word, the wolf follows us to the dining room, grabbing the extra chair without anyone commenting on it.
“So...” Sam waves a hand at her brother, then grabs a handful of bacon off of his plate.
“So, get your own food,” he tells her.
Sam rolls her eyes. “What happened last night?”
“Nothing.” Glaring down in annoyance, he jabs his fork into the pile of eggs in front of him. “No one has a clue.” He glances at Warren. “Wolves?”
Lips pressed tightly together, our token wolf shakes his head.
In the doorway, I see Kim hesitate on entry. With her hair untidy, her face lined from lack of sleep, and her complexion pale with exhaustion and worry, she looks almost like the little girl I used to know. The one I was friends with. My hand starts to rise, to wave her over to my group.
Then her eyes see me watching and her expression changes, a bitter hatred tightening her features. Lyly can pull off looking beautiful through an expression like that, but Kim can't. On her, it's just ugly.
“Do you think she knows something?” Sam asks me.
“I don't know.” I sigh. “It's not like she'd tell me if she did.”
And she doesn't tell anyone else either, or the grapevine would be on it in a heartbeat as rumors fly all day.
We have something new to talk about by nightfall though.
Shortly after dinner, Aliah and I stop on our way from the rec room to upstairs to watch one of the most sophisticated women I have ever seen waltz into the building. Without so much as blinking in our direction, she approaches Mr. Atherton's door with the practiced ease of a runway model, not bothering with knocking before she enters the room and closes the door behind her.
“Who was that?” I ask, awestruck.
“Seth and Amber's mom?” my companion offers.
My eyes snap to her, then back toward the principal's office.
It takes self-control to walk up the stairs instead of placing my ear to the door, but I manage.
Aliah leaves me alone, citing an essay she needs to write. If she were Sam, I'd tease her about doing homework on a Friday afternoon, but if she were Sam, she wouldn't be doing it.
Trying not to obsess over Seth, I sit down and type an email to my dad. It feels absolutely fake. There's just so much of my life I can't share. Not that I ever told him all that much before I became a were, or anything. It's just I used to keep things private out of choice. Being literally unable to tell Dad about vast and important chunks of my life feels unnatural and restrictive.
There's a pounding on my door just before I hit send, preceding Sam running into the room by about two seconds.
“Guess what happened to Seth?”
Images from my dreams flash through my thoughts, but I shake them off. They were just dreams. Seth wasn't ripped apart by a wild animal. Not in real life. “What?”
“He's challenged Simone's dad! I always thought he would, since the alternative's marrying Simone, but-”
“What?” I blurt over her story.
“They were betrothed when she was born. You didn't know?”
Uh... No! He described her as a foster sister, not a fiancée!
I shake my head and motion for her to go on.
“Anyway, the only way out of it would be to challenge her father to combat. Which could be lethal, but being dead is better than being married to Simone. I always figured he'd wait longer though. Gain more experience. Let the guy get old and frail. Simone's dad is supposed to be the most powerful leader the leopards have had since moving to this country.”
Ice terror clutches at me. “Is he alright?”
“Well, yeah, they haven't fought yet. Simone's parents are in Europe right now, and it can only be done under one of the spring moons anyway.” She plops onto my bed as my heartbeat starts to return to normal. “But he made a formal declaration when he was gone.”
“He's back?” I ask.
“Almost. His mom was here to make sure he's allowed to come back.”
She seems oblivious to how annoying her incomplete answers are.
“Why wouldn't he be
allowed back?” I prompt. No one has said anything to imply he could be expelled for running off like he did. The general attitude appears to be that it's better to let people get away when they need to than to trap them here until they explode into violence.
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