“He's on probation from the family,” she tells me in a bored voice, sounding like that should have been obvious.
By family she doesn't mean his parents and sister. It's what the leopards call their community. Just one of the ways the group is like the mafia.
“Why?”
Sam squints at me, then remembers I was born human. “He's challenged his alpha. Until that's resolved, he isn't part of the group anymore.”
Oh. Okay... “But what does that have to do with school?”
“Seth doesn't have any money,” Sam tells me. “The car belongs to the family, the same people who've been paying his tuition. If he stays, he'll have to be on scholarship like you.”
Scholarship? That must be what Mr. Atherton meant when I said I was here courtesy of a trust.
“So why's he doing this now? Why not wait?”
The vixen on my bed gives me a lopsided look. “You tell me.”
Her meaning is pretty clear to me. “I didn't have anything to do with it.”
Her smile mocks me. “Of course you didn't.”
It's a subject that keeps me up most of the night.
The reason he had that last big fight with Simone was because of me. If it hadn't been for that argument, wouldn't he have continued to put off breaking his engagement?
And it's not just the sudden lack of money he has to deal with. There's the pesky little issue of upcoming mortal combat.
He'd have to do it anyway, even if he'd never met me. But would he have waited until later?
I hide in my room the next day, crawling deep under the covers and whimpering in answer to Sam coming in to invite me to go to Anchorage with her and Bryce. I stay there until I'm hungry for lunch, then make myself a sandwich in the student kitchen before heading to the library.
When I leave a few hours later, a half-read novel in my hand, piano notes welcome me to the hallway.
It's a familiar tune. The one Seth was playing last time I heard him.
Standing in the doorway, I wait until he's done. Just like last time. Then I clap, grinning as he looks over at me. He doesn't act half as startled this time though.
“Good to see you.” I walk into the room, my eyes surveying Seth's face. He's more relaxed than he ever has been before, though his answering smile is tired.
“Good to be seen.”
Timidly, I sit down beside him, touching a few keys with my finger tips. “I was pretty worried about you, you know.”
“Sorry.” He looks down at the keyboard. “I needed to clear my head space.”
“So I heard.”
His fingers dust along the keys. “Rumor has it, there's a new girl.”
“Yes,” I answer slowly, not pleased with the direction he moves the conversation, although the beautiful dance of amusement in his eyes in response to my tone makes up for a lot.
“Rumor also has it you don't get a long with her too well.”
“You could say that,” I acknowledge. “Lyly adores her though. And I suspect Simone will think she's just awesome.”
A dramatic shudder follows this. “So, was it hate at first sight or do you know each other from before?” Yeah, I knew he'd ignore the opportunity to shift the subject to Simone.
“We've known each other since third grade.” I sigh.“And we've been fighting since sixth, when her dog bit me and had to be put to sleep. As if I'd wanted the dog to die. Or to bite me. Or for people to see it happen. It's not like I ran crying to the adults about it or anything.”
"Hmm." He tilts his head, his hair swaying softly with the motion. “Does this mean she's a dramatic clue to deciphering your past? Since she was there through it all?”
“Deciphering my past?” I chortle. “She was a part of my pre-Alaska life, if that's what you mean.”
A lazy smile plays on his lips, lights his perfect eyes. “What was your life like before here?”
“Boring.”
“Boring?” He leans backwards, folding his arms as he gives me a crooked look. “That's it? Just boring?”
I shrug. “Yeah, pretty much. I went to school, spent way too much time in the mall, and hung out with people who I thought were my friends, but who probably weren't.” The black keys dance together, blurring to cover up much of the white as I stare at them. I spread my fingers out, letting them blend into the pattern. “I mean, I've had exactly one phone call and maybe a dozen emails from them since I left. They don't seem to have noticed I'm gone, and I don't miss them much either. I've only been here three weeks, but there are already so many people I'd miss if I left...”
My eyes drift to Seth, and I'm hyper-aware of the heat he gives off beside me. He's looking at my hands, his breath paused.
“Yes, you're one of them.” I smile.
His eyes slides up to mine. “My insecurities are that obvious?”
“Sometimes.”
He looks down again, saddened for some reason.
I lean toward him. And I kiss him.
Pulling back in surprise, he blinks at me. Then he pulls me forward, and he kisses me.
Our mouths come together, lightly then more firmly. His tongue brushes against my lips and they part so my tongue can reach out to meet it. My hands grasp his shoulders and his hands run along my hips. Then something shifts...
And now we're still trying to kiss, but we're laughing too hard.
“We should have done that as soon as we met,” Seth says.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Then we would have known it wasn't going anywhere.”
We grin at each other.
“At least we can say we tried,” he tells me, sweeping a chunk of my hair back behind my ear.
Turning, I fold my legs on the bench and just look at him for a while.
He's still beautiful beyond words. So why wasn't I more into kissing him?
“Can I ask you a question?”
He plays a quick series of notes. “Shoot.”
“What's with your hair?”
Slowly, he turns his head to stare at me.
I shrug apologetically. “I was scared to ask before.”
“And now you're not?”
“Nope.” It's hard to explain why, but I guess it boils down to me figuring that if we can get past me throwing myself at him, we can get past just about anything.
He looks at me for a few seconds before asking, “What about my hair?”
Without me telling them they have permission to do it, my fingers reach over and stroke through the hair in question, which is so, so soft. “I love your hair,” I whisper.
Clearing my throat, I force my hand to my lap. “But everyone else thinks it's...”
“Weird?” he suggests. “Disgusting? Repulsive?”
“They're not that upset by it.” I take a breath. “But, yeah, they think there's something wrong with the coloring. Which has always made me wonder why you flaunt it.” My fingers jerk as I struggle to hold them still. “You're not the kind of guy to be telling them to take their prejudices and screw themselves with them. So what are you saying?”
“Maybe I just don't care what they think.”
“Maybe.” Biting my lip, I tilt my head and watch him look back at me. “Except you're awfully insecure about it.”
He plays a few moments worth of music while he thinks about his answer. “I don't want to be insecure about it. I'd like to learn not to be.” He smiles faintly. “But, really, if I'm telling anyone anything, I'm talking to my sister.”
“Amber?” I haven't picked up on any sibling rivalry between them. “She harasses you about it?”
“She harasses herself about it.” He gives me shrug. “Her hair's exactly the same as mine. She dyes hers.”
Oh. “So you grew yours to tell her there's nothing wrong with her being the way she is?”
“In a nutshell.”
Something inside me goes all squishy, and I suddenly want to cry. “That's so sweet, Seth.”
He shakes his head. “If I'd really been looking out for her, I'd h
ave gotten rid of Simone a long time ago.”
“Hey,” I reach out to grab his hand. “As I heard it, it took a lot of guts to do it now. You wouldn't have stood a chance when you first realized you needed free of her.”
His laugh is self-deprecatory. “True.” He takes a deep breath. “Of course, I'm not sure how much of a chance I stand now.”
Shivering, I swallow and try not to feel all the fear that statement summons. “Can you back out?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then you can't think like that, or you'll poison yourself.”
His mouth twists. “Are you telling me to believe in myself?”
I smack his shoulder. “Yes.”
He sighs dramatically. “Alright then. I'll keep a positive outlook.”
“You do that.”
I stand, stretching a little.
Something catches the corner of my eye, and I turn toward the door, running several feet forward in alarm as the scent of what I'm seeing hits me.
“Seth!”
“What?”
Quickly, he's behind me.
My arm reaches out to point. “Please tell me that isn't blood.”
He lets out a breath and when he walks around me, there's no hint of tension in him. “Yeah, it looks like blood.”
The fact there is a pool of blood laying in the doorway doesn't bother him in the slightest.
With a light hop, he moves over it and into the hallway, his nostrils moving as he smells the passage. “Can't tell who it was,” he says. “Too many people come through here, and I don't think this person stayed very long.”
“Seth!” I protest his easy tone. “Someone's hurt.”
“Not very hurt.” He shrugs and frowns thoughtfully at the blood. “Probably a small cut. Maybe a shallow stab wound.”
I gape at him. How can he be so uncaring that one of our classmates is injured?
“If they needed help, they would have made noise,” he tells me.
Well... I guess that's true. Whoever it was just stood calmly bleeding well within earshot of us. Sure, we were distracted, which would be why we didn't notice this person anyway, but we would have noticed someone saying, “Excuse me, I appear to be bleeding. Could you help?”
“I'll go get something to clean it,” Seth offers, still completely nonchalant.
“I'll help,” I tell him, even though looking at the spill is making my stomach do all sorts of unpleasant things.
The leopard shrugs and walks to the nearest bathroom to grab a spray bottle of lavender-scented cleaner, a sponge, and a bunch of paper towels.
Taking some of the paper towels, I blot at the floor, feeling my face go pale as I watch the dark liquid spread across the towel. Some of the warmth touches my hand, and I nearly gag.
“You okay?” Seth squints at me in concern while he presses down with his own handful of towels.
“I've never cleaned blood before.”
He smiles softly. “Whoever it belonged to is okay,” he assures me. “People are just weird this close to the moon.”
Weird enough to bleed in strange places? Or to make other people do it? In silence?
Tossing his towels into a plastic bag, he leans over and pries mine from my hand. “You're not ready for this, kit.”
“No,” I admit, wondering if I ever will be. Or if I would want to be.
Standing quickly enough to send little light bursts across my vision, I take several steps backward, trying not to look at the reddish pool despite the fact that my eyes keep going back to it. “I'll see you later,” I blurt, turning and literally running away.
Good grief. Seth must think I'm a complete wuss.
I don't stop running until I get to my room, though.
There's a gift bag sitting in front of the door, and I laugh at it, thinking someone has picked up where Simone has left off. There's no way that sort of thing is going to get to me right now.
But when I bend over to pick it up, I realize the bag doesn't smell like Kim or Lyly like I thought it would. It smells like wolf.
There's no card, but when I move aside the tissue paper and see my gift, there's no doubt in my mind who left it. Even without his scent, it could only have been him.
I was wrong about whatever was in the bag not being able to get to me. This reaches deep inside of me and squeezes something, bringing tears to my eyes.
“Thank you, Warren,” I whisper, pulling the plush wolf free of the bag and pressing it tightly against me.
Chapter Eighteen
Monday is decisively lacking in Warren.
Sunday was too, but it didn't click in my head he had disappeared because I expected him to be with his parents in the day.
But then he's not at breakfast or lunch Monday.
Still, I don't get seriously concerned until he fails to turn up for class in the afternoon. “Where's Warren?” I ask one of the freshman wolves.
The kid shrugs stupidly, shaggy brown hair falling into his face. “Dunno.”
None of the others are any more informative.
I go by Warren's room after class, but he doesn't answer when I knock. His scent isn't terribly fresh in the hallway either.
“Mr. Atherton?” The principal looks up from his desk as I stick my head around his door. “Do you know where Warren is?”
I don't want to snitch on him for ditching class or anything, but a lot of people are seriously worried about the prowling whatever-we-are, so now isn't exactly an auspicious time to be disappearing.
“Yes.”
Blinking several times, I wait.
“Is that all, Michaela?”
I stare at him. “Where is Warren, Mr. Atherton?”
The older wolf gives me a steady look. “I'm not at liberty to say.”
Not at liberty to say? What, is he on a secret mission?
“He's safe, though,” he assures me. “You don't need to worry about him.”
You know what would get me to worry less? Knowing where he is.
But no one I corner has any clue where Warren has gotten off to. “It's nearly the full moon,” Bryce soothes at dinner. “This is not the first time someone has had to run away for a few days during a moon and been perfectly fine.”
Staring at Warren's usual table, I poke at food I have no appetite for. No one else is worried. Maybe I shouldn't be. But how do I stop?
The worry coats my waking thoughts, keeps me from being able to finish the simplest of my assignments. It keeps me up for hours, then gives me new nightmares where I'm hunting a wolf, but can't find it anywhere.
My eyes go straight to Warren's table at breakfast Tuesday, but it's just as empty as it was on Monday.
My friends trade concerned looks and talk gently around me, although no one says anything directly about my mood or about Warren's continued absence.
I'm not the only person in a strange funk this morning, but we're outnumbered by people who thrum with new energy. Tonight is the moon.
The schedule is different on days of the full moon. It's only at night that young shifters are forced to change. Older weres generally do, but can usually control it if changing form would be inconvenient. If they put enough effort into it, mature weres can go for as long as a year without succumbing to the need to change, which is the only way a female were can hope to carry a child to term. However, tensions are usually high and people tend to be tired. So there are no classes for the next three days.
There is a ski trip this morning though, and I trudge from breakfast to the bus.
It isn't until after Kim and Lyly file on board, glaring towards me with all of their might, that my thoughts take a break from obsessing over Warren to let me realize today is Tuesday. Or, more specifically, that yesterday was Monday. Or, even more to the point, that something important was supposed to happen on Monday.
“Tod?”
“Yeah?” The fox looks up from from his tablet, which he's using to play a game with his sister, who sits beside him.
“Today's
Tuesday, right?”
Of Fur and Ice Page 18