by Hettie Ivers
“Sloane is not Maribel.” I could feel the shift ever so gradually approaching, despite the chokehold I had on my wolf.
It was Mike’s turn to huff. “Really?” He paused to stare at me a beat, his forehead creasing. “You’re serious? I don’t get it. Why continue to deny what I know you know is true? I felt it when we were at Round Rock—the very moment you realized Sloane was your deceased former mate. It was the same moment I sensed that Alcaeus and Alessandra knew it for certain: when Sloane’s eyes glowed the color of Maribel’s wolf—Sloane’s former self—and she sucked the life and power from Gabriel Salvatella without so much as an uptick in her pulse rate.”
Fucking empaths. I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the veins and muscles in my face pulse and roll beneath my skin as I insisted, “Sloane is not the reincarnation of my mate.”
“Fine. Fine.” He raised his hand in supplication, a genuine grin of amusement splitting his face. “You may not want to accept that she’s the re-embodiment of your dearly departed Maribel, but guess who does want to believe it? Emil. Which means that Emil and his pack have been aligned with our Salvatella pack ever since Round Rock. Emil is beyond desperate to see Sloane. He’s only glimpsed her through his father’s memories of events at Round Rock, and Raul continues to deny him access to her.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So every now and then Raul makes a responsible decision. What’s your point?”
Despite my display of flippancy, I couldn’t deny I was relieved to hear Raul was refusing Emil access to the little girl. I told myself it was because the Rogue didn’t need to be exposed to someone who would only be a terrible influence on her, but I knew it was more than that. Because for the first time, I also felt relief—gratitude even—that Alcaeus was Sloane’s stepdad. Al had never trusted Emil or his pack. Should Raul ever cave and think to give in to Emil’s demands to see the Rogue, I knew Alcaeus would forever stand between Emil and Sloane. If the way Alcaeus had parented his ward Jussara was any indication, Sloane might be thirty before she had her first date.
Why did I care?
“My point is I have valuable leverage, Kai. You seem to think my powers are lacking, so I thought you’d be comforted to know I have other means of protecting Lauren from Emil. I’ll make certain he knows that should he harm the seer in any way, he’ll never gain access to Sloane. However, with you leaving, it shouldn’t even come to that. Absent your presence to incite his ire, what Alpha would be idiot enough to want to kill the first seer we’ve had in a decade?”
I gave him a withering look. “I hope that wasn’t meant to be rhetorical, because I can name at least three off the top of my head who would if they thought Lauren’s visions might be a threat to their own agenda: your Alpha, Raul; my own former Alpha, Alex; and of course, Alpha Emil. What’s more, as you well know, Emil tends to view seers as expendable, given the fact that he has killed more of them than any other werelock.”
“Well”—Mike cough-cleared his throat—“with the exception of your dearly departed Maribel, of course, who single-handedly wiped every seer off the face of the earth a decade ago.”
A muscle in my left eye began to twitch. “We don’t know that Maribel wiped out the seers.”
“No?” He squinted one eye and sucked air through this teeth. “Huh.” He pretended to contemplate it while reveling in my mounting fury and discomfort. “Pretty sure Maribel claimed credit for that to both Raul and Milena when they saw her for the last time in the ether. Their recollections of her undead spirit may differ somewhat, but I believe that fact was the same.”
“We will never know for certain!”
He laughed outright. “Shall we ask Lauren to confirm it? I believe her grandmother was among those seers Maribel executed. Speaking of … I wonder how that will impact Lauren’s view of you when she learns that the mysterious campus stalker who kissed her so ardently this afternoon was the reason for her grandmother’s untimely death.”
“I am not responsible for the deaths of those seers.” Not directly, I wasn’t. But that hadn’t stopped me from feeling crushed by the weight of the guilt I’d harbored over it for the past ten years, ever since learning of Maribel’s mass carnage in the ether. All of the slaughtering Maribel had done from the ether over the course of nearly a century had been to save me. She’d stolen the lives of innocents out of love for me—in order to prevent me from following after her in death—making the blood on her hands as good as my own.
“Agree to disagree,” Mike concluded cheerily. “On both counts. Care to wager on whether Lauren will disagree with your convenient denial of the situation as well?”
13
Lauren
“What the hell’s going on? How long has she been unconscious? Who are you guys?”
I recognized Jeff’s voice next to me—freaking out. As I inhaled, I noted that my nose and mouth were pressed up against a soft, pleasant-smelling fabric that definitely wasn’t my bedding. Why were my eyes closed? Had I passed out at the coffee shop during my shift? Why was there an echo?
“Jeff, calm down,” Kendall’s voice said. “This is my friend, Emil. And you must be—?”
“Michael. Michael Fulton.” My body weight shifted as Michael spoke. “Pleasure to meet you, Kendall.” When I felt and heard the reverberation of Michael’s words through his chest, the awful realization hit me that my charming new British classmate seemed to actually be … holding me … in his arms.
Oh, shit.
“Is she breathing?”
Jeff’s anxious words cinched my worst fear. Holy mother of all embarrassing moments! Yes, that had to be an arm muscle I felt flexing beneath the backs of my thighs. Michael was indeed holding me—bridal-style.
“Has anyone checked her pulse?”
“Mind your own business, boy.”
Emil’s nasty response to Jeff’s concerned inquiry caused an unwelcome sense of dread to sweep though me as my recent interaction in the basement with the scary German came rushing back. I must still be in the basement.
I fought to open my eyes.
“She is my business,” Jeff returned defensively. “We work together. I’m her manager and her friend.”
Someone please knock me out again.
“Quit being such a spaz,” Kendall intervened. “She had a little absinthe—on top of whiskey. She’s not used to drinking on a school night, and she hasn’t been sleeping well lately.”
God bless Ken for making lame but semi-plausible excuses for me.
“I assure you she’s breathing and she has a steady pulse,” Michael chimed in good-naturedly as I worked to blink my heavy eyelids open. “I suspect it’s exhaustion-related more so than alcohol-induced.”
Wow. So chivalry wasn’t dead; it’d just been living in England?
As my eyes fluttered open and I gained the strength to shift my face from its nesting place against the breast of Michael’s coat, I found something new to be mortified about: the fact that I’d been slobbering on Michael in my sleep—as evidenced by the big ’ole wet mark I’d left on his lapel.
And yet a part of me was also instantly and forever grateful that I hadn’t left a different kind of wet mark on my new classmate—because I still very much needed to pee.
The walk back to my dorm with Jeff was strained, to say the least.
I’d turned ten shades of red upon waking up in Michael’s arms, and had proceeded to apologize profusely, both for falling asleep on him as well as for drooling on him. He’d laughed it off, saying something adorably ludicrous—and flirtatious—about it being entirely his pleasure, and for one glorious moment I’d felt like the dotty, uncouth American girl who’d been dropped into a romantic British comedy. But then, as Michael had set me down on my feet and I’d excused myself to use the bathroom, Jeff had mumbled something under his breath about how I should really be going to the school’s after-hours clinic to have my urine tested for Rohypnol—the date-rape drug.
Things had gotten super-awkward fast as K
endall had lashed out at Jeff, Michael had proceeded to politely but firmly defend his own honor, and Emil had made the seemingly serious—albeit violently psychotic—suggestion that Michael should disembowel Jeff right there in the hallway for such an “egregious slur.”
After quickly relieving my bladder, I’d emerged from the bathroom in time to settle a budding argument over who was going to see me home safely. I’d insisted that Jeff should take me. Not because I felt safer from a mugger with Jeff at my side over Michael, but because Jeff would be safer from Emil the sooner I got him out of the German’s sight.
“Sooo … turns out I’m not cool enough to party post-impressionist style, huh?” I finally joked to break the uncomfortable silence as our feet crunched through the snow. “Definitely a dagger to my ego that I’ll never hang with the Van Gogh crowd, but I’m thinking maybe I should lay off the absinthe for the rest of my life after tonight.”
Jeff nodded. “Probably not a bad call. So, how do you know those guys?”
Ugh. I should’ve embraced the uncomfortable silence a little longer. It was getting old having to answer to all the men who weren’t in my life. I wanted to tell Jeff it was none of his business, but he was still technically my manager. Plus, I felt bad for worrying him—and subjecting him to Emil.
“I don’t. Michael and I share a class. We just met today.”
Frowning, he nodded again. “And Kendall is dating that German douchebag?”
I snickered. “I suspect the douchebag part might be accurate. Not sure about the rest. She only met him tonight. Don’t know how long he’s even in town for. Or what his official nationality is.”
A puff of smoke blew from Jeff’s lips as his hot disdain met the freezing night air. “Must be nice.”
Annnd not gonna ask. Not gonna …
“To be so good-looking you can get away with being an asshole and girls still want to date you,” Jeff expounded nonetheless.
Le sigh. I eyed my dormitory building in the distance. Only two more dorm-lengths to go of this self-righteous-meets-pity-party discourse.
“Well, Jeff, it’s really none of my business who Kendall dates.” Subtext: Therefore, one hundred percent none of yours, either. “Kendall’s a smart, grown woman who can take care of herself.” I hoped.
Jeff gave another stiff nod, and we walked several paces in silence before he asked, “And what about you?”
“What about me what?”
“You and that British guy.”
I took a breath and tried to keep the irritation from my voice. “You mean Michael?”
“He was holding you,” Jeff stated the obvious.
“Um … yeah—because I passed out like some freshman amateur at her first kegger. Thanks for refreshing my sense of embarrassment that was beginning to wane.”
“Like he minded it,” Jeff grumbled. “I saw the way he was looking at you. If I hadn’t shown up, who knows what might’ve happened.”
“I might’ve soaked the entire front of his coat with my drool would be my top guess.” Maybe peed on him. I slowed my pace as I turned to face Jeff. “Listen, I appreciate your big brotherly concern for me.” That’s right, I’m skipping straight past friend-zoning and brother-zoning your ass. Please take note. “But who I date is none of your business.”
His cheeks colored as he bit the insides of them and nodded swiftly, and I almost allowed myself to feel bad. “Got it,” he said. “My apologies for prying into your business.”
We barely spoke another word as we walked the final stretch of snow-covered earth to my dorm, and our goodbye was even more painful. I dreaded having to see him at work tomorrow afternoon.
The fourth floor hallway lights flickered excitedly as I approached my front door. “Not in the mood, Casper.” When the lightshow continued inside my suite, I began to question my judgment in initiating the yes/no light-blinking game with Casper earlier.
The battery on my phone had died halfway through the night, so I plugged it into the cord by my nightstand before heading to the bathroom to wash up and change for bed. As I was brushing my teeth, I heard my phone vibrating continuously with new messages from the other room as the battery charged to life.
Great. I’d missed a call from Babs. Or twenty, as it turned out.
She answered on the first ring. “Where have you been?”
“Out.”
“It’s one-thirty in the morning.”
“I’m twenty-one and in college, Ma. Good night. I only called you back to let you know I got in saf—”
“Did you walk home alone? You’d better not have. Please tell me you still follow the buddy system they talked about during our first visit to the campus?”
“You mean the college tour we took my junior year of high school? Yeah. I still follow all the advice the tour guide doled out that day, and my college experience has been exactly as they said it would be.”
“Don’t get smart with me after you’ve kept me up half the night.”
“It’s barely after one.”
“You know I go to bed at nine. I can’t believe you walked home alone. And with your phone off! Lauren, it’s not safe. Promise me you’ll never do that again.”
“I didn’t. A friend walked me home.”
“Who?”
“That’s not import—”
“I need a name or I won’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s great. Now I’m a liar?”
“Name!”
“Jeff. My friend Jeff walked me home, all right?” Jesus, how did she do that?
Her gasp of surprise burst through the line. “A boy?”
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“Don’t talk back.”
“I wasn’t. I was being sincere. I’m sure there are plenty of girls named Jeff.”
“Is he good-looking? Where’d you meet him? You’ve never mentioned him before.”
“I don’t mention a lot of people.” Especially not to my mother. “He’s average, Ma. Nice guy, but I’m not into him. Plus, he’s sort of my manager at The Screamin’ Beans. So don’t get any ideas about me dating him.”
“Average good-looking? Or just average? How tall is he? Is he unusually built and muscular?”
What the—? “Just average, Ma. Not exceptionally tall or muscular.”
She exhaled a sigh of relief. “Thank heavens.”
O-kay then. I was too tired to analyze where her brain might be with that last sentiment. “I’m gonna go to bed now. You should too.”
“Wait! I called to tell you that you have a date next Friday night with Yonatan.”
“Who?”
“With pre-med. Yonatan.”
“Jonathan?”
“No. It’s Yonatan. With a Y and no H. He’ll pick you up outside your dorm. Friday.”
“Ugh. That’s not much more than a week away,” I complained, already regretting this deal with my mother.
“Wear something nice. I sent you an email with outfit suggestions.”
Oh, hell no. “I’ll dress myself, thank you. Now keep your end of the bargain and put Granny Nina’s journal in the mail tomorrow.”
“After the date.”
“Babs!”
“That was the deal.”
She hung up on me before I could argue it further. Which was fine by me. I’d had more than enough for one day. I climbed into my bed unable to remember the last time I’d felt so dead tired.
As I ran my tongue over the cut Kai had made in my bottom lip, I recalled the sensation of his hands squeezing my ass, of his hard body pressing me up against my door. But I fell asleep haunted by the angry, accusing look in his pale blue eyes and the dazed, destroyed expression that had been etched in his beautiful face right before he’d walked away and left me.
I regained consciousness to the steady sound of banging on my wall. And Kendall’s sex noises. But it was her anxious pleas for respite that jolted me fully awake.
“I can’t … I can’t. Please. No more … can’t come again �
�� please don’t …”
“You can,” Emil growled back. “You will.”
Shit. What was happening in there? I shot upright and threw the covers aside, fearing I was overhearing more than just kinky-rough sex. I scrambled out of bed and bolted blindly toward my closed bedroom door, intent on rescuing Kendall from Theo James’s Viking doppelganger.
“That’s not a good idea,” a male voice cautioned quietly as I crashed straight into a warm wall of muscle blocking my path.
Firm hands landed on my shoulders, steadying me. I blinked the sleep from my eyes to find Michael standing in front of me, his handsome face partially illuminated by the moonlight.
What the—? I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing in my bedroom—how on earth he’d gotten into my suite. But my mouth refused to work.
Clearly, I was still drunk. And hallucinating. Perhaps still sleeping?
My mind felt like it was growing foggier by the second—my thoughts jumbling and crashing into one another. I stood stock-still and wide-eyed as one of Michael’s hands lifted from my shoulder to casually brush my hair out of my eyes.
“I’m your friend, remember?” His deep voice was gentle and soothing. Confident. And no longer accented. “You trust me.”
Did I? We’d only met this afternoon. Where had his British accent gone?
“Let me help you, Lauren.”
Help me with what? Why was he in my bedroom?
Why couldn’t I think straight?
He was slowly walking me backward, away from the door to my bedroom and my mission to rescue Kendall, and leading me back into bed.
And I just let him. I didn’t scream—didn’t even want to. It made no sense.
I was on my back in bed and Michael was pulling the covers up over me as the sounds coming through the wall of flesh smacking against flesh grew louder, harsher, and inhumanly fast. Kendall’s moaning and begging escalated to new heights.