by Jayme Morse
“I don’t know. I need to think about it,” I replied, just as more students began filtering into the room.
“Well, are you athletic? Artsy?” Vince pressed.
“I don’t know. I don’t really think I’m talented at anything,” I replied with a shrug.
“Don’t say that, Raven. I’m sure you’re talented at something, even if you haven’t figured out what it is yet.”
“Thanks,” I replied with a smile.
A moment later, Theo strolled into the room. I stared at him. Sometime since breakfast, he had changed into a dark gray suit with a light blue undershirt and matching tie. He looked hot as hell. I tried not to swoon too hard. I wished that making out with him could have counted as an extracurricular activity.
He glanced over in my direction with a smirk at that moment, and I knew that he must have been listening in on my thoughts.
I realized then that I felt… better. That withdrawal I had felt for him—that craving—immediately seemed to subside the moment he had walked into the room. We hadn’t even spoken to each other or touched or anything, but it had all seemed to just fade away. I had even had a headache for the past half hour or so, and that was gone, too. What. The. Hell. How was that even possible?
Theo’s light blue eyes met mine. It looked like he wanted to say something to me, but he couldn’t in front of all the other students.
“Welcome to Taming Your Dark Wolf, everyone,” Theo said as he stood in front of the classroom. “As you already have probably figured out, there’s a reason you’re here. This course is only available to the Crescents. The whole purpose of this course is to help you tame the darkness inside of you. The interesting thing about being a Crescent is that each of you has both darkness and light—good and bad—within you. We refer to this as your two wolves: the dark wolf and the light wolf. This class is about embracing your inner light wolf and bringing it to the surface, while burying the dark wolf inside of you.”
I frowned. That sounded great and all, but…
What if you didn’t even really know, for sure, if you had a dark inner wolf?
Chapter Eight
I had a feeling of disappointment when I left Theo’s class, even though I was really looking forward to my next class.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Weaponry, but it sounded like the perfect class for someone who wanted revenge.
I had never been a violent person before. Actually, I still didn’t consider myself violent. But knowing that Milos was out there and that he wanted to get to me so bad, I really wanted to learn more about what weapons I could use to defend myself from him—or from anyone else who may have wanted to hurt me.
I couldn’t allow myself to lose sight of the fact that my parents had been murdered. If I wasn’t careful, the same thing could happen to me. Sure, I may have been safe for now, but what would happen once I left Werewolf Academy in four years and went back to the real world? Would I have to deal with Milos then? Would he wait for me that long? Maybe he’d forget all about me and move on, the same way I’d be trying—but failing—to forget about him.
There were so many uncertainties. The only thing I did know was that I wanted to be prepared in whatever ways I could. If that meant I needed to learn how to use a gun, then so freaking be it.
When I walked into the classroom, I was surprised to find that it didn’t look like any of the other classrooms I had been in so far. This one was different.
It looked like a shooting range.
The stone walls at the far end of the room had targets on them. Some of the targets were shaped to look like wolves, while others were designed to look like human bodies.
There were twelve booths with glass dividers so that each person—err, wolf—could practice separately.
Just… wow. Mind freaking blown. I definitely hadn’t been expecting this, but I wasn’t entirely sure what I had been expecting.
Colton was standing at one far corner of the room, typing something onto a computer. As my heels clacked against the stone floor as I stepped further into the room, he glanced up at me.
His lips curved upwards into a smile. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.” My eyes scanned his body. He wasn’t wearing a suit and tie. Instead, he had on a pair of jeans and a light blue polo shirt, which showed off his muscular arms. He had his longish blonde hair gelled back, but a few pieces in the front still fell into his forehead a bit.
God, he was freaking hot.
I watched his face to try to determine if he had been listening to my thoughts, but if he had been, he definitely didn’t let it show on his face. He just looked happy to see me.
A thought crossed my mind then, something I hadn’t ever considered until this very moment.
Why did it seem like Theo was the only one who could hear me?
I wondered if it might have had something to do with him being Alpha of their pack. Maybe only he could hear me because he was the strongest?
Pushing the thought to the back of my mind, I took a few steps closer to Colton. “So, are we going to have to, like, shoot guns?”
“Yup. And other weapons.”
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t realized that we would actually be shooting these weapons in this classroom. I had figured that we would be learning about them and how to use them, but I hadn’t expected there to be a place here for us to actually practice using them.
It kind of surprised me, considering I was in the Crescents’ House. Not only was I going to be using real-life, actual weapons, but I was going to learn how to use them with bad wolves.
Why would you teach a bad wolf how to use a weapon?
“So, is this… dangerous?” I asked Colton. “Learning how to shoot guns and stuff with…”—I glanced around, to make sure that no one was within earshot—“the Crescents?”
He smiled amusedly—a smile that reached his gray eyes. “You do realize you’re one of them, right?”
“Hey, I’m only half-Crescent.” I didn’t actually know if that’s what my being Sorted into two Houses meant, but I was just rolling with that. “And I would never hurt someone.”
“Are you sure about that?” Colton asked. “Because there’s something no one’s told you about werewolves yet—about all wolves, not only the Crescents.” His gray eyes locked on mine. “We all have the desire to kill. It’s one of our natural instincts.”
“I don’t.”
Well, except for Milos. I would have killed him if I could. I had a strong desire to kill him.
“You’re still new at this. You’ll have the desire to kill at some point,” Colton said. “Anyway, there are safeguards in place in this room to make sure that no one kills one another, be it by accident or on purpose.”
“What type of safeguards?” I asked.
“Like this, for example.” He reached into a bin and pulled out an arrow. Standing behind me, he wrapped his arms around me and showed me the tip of it. “See this?”
I nodded, even though I was mostly focused on the fact that Colton’s chin was pressed against my shoulder and I could feel his hot breath against my neck.
It made something stir inside of me…
“That’s brass,” Colton explained. “Normally, arrows—the ones that are actually intended to kill werewolves—have sterling silver at the end of them. We don’t use any sterling silver in this classroom or anywhere else on campus because it can kill one of the students. So, what I’m saying is that there’s minimal risk here. Even if you were to get hurt in this classroom, it would only be a temporary injury. Your body would heal itself.”
“That’s relieving to know,” I murmured. He still had his arms wrapped around me, and truthfully?
I liked his embrace. There was something about Colton that was just so comfortable. So protective. I could have stayed in his arms forever if I let myself.
At that moment, I heard the sound of footsteps. Colton untangled himself from me as another student walked into the room.
As the classro
om began to fill up with other wolves, I was glad we’d had this moment. It was my first sign that Colton may have been just as attracted to me as I was to him.
I just wasn’t sure what to do with that information.
I wasn’t going to lie. I had the urge to kiss him. But he wasn’t the only Darken I wanted to kiss. I wanted to kiss them all.
I just didn’t want to destroy their pack.
Chapter Nine
As I headed towards the Dining Hall, I nearly collided with Theo.
His bright blue eyes locked on mine. “So, you and Colton got all touchy and feely during Weaponry, huh?”
He seemed jealous.
“Seriously? You were listening to my thoughts as that happened?” It was sort of annoying that I couldn’t so much as think about one of his pack members without him listening in on what I was thinking. I had no privacy.
“I’m always listening to your thoughts.” He shrugged.
“You’re a Professor! Don’t you have anything better to do with your time? Like, you know, teach, instead of listening to my every thought?”
He looked mildly apologetic. “Honestly, Raven? I would rather not hear your thoughts. They’re kind of…” He trailed off.
“Kind of what?” I narrowed my eyes at him as I waited for his answer.
“Hard to listen to.” He sighed and then he pulled something shiny and gold out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Put this on.”
I glanced down at the necklace in my hand. The pendant was oval shaped and looked like a locket. “What is this?”
“The locket is filled with an herbal concoction that will keep me from listening to you,” Theo explained. “Just put it on if you don’t want me listening to you. Which I’m sure will be most of the time.”
Then, without saying another word, he walked away from me. I got the feeling he was mad at me.
Sighing, I pulled the necklace on over my neck as I headed to the front of the Dining Hall, where I had agreed to meet Iris for lunch.
“Do you want to eat outside?” Iris asked me as I approached her.
“We’re allowed to do that?” I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. I had just figured we had to eat in the Dining Hall.
“Yeah, it says in our student handbook that we can eat outside, we just can’t take the trays with us.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Truthfully, I could have used the fresh air.
We went into the Dining Hall and grabbed our food: a turkey sandwich and French fries for me, and a chicken Caesar salad for Iris.
We found a bench on the courtyard and sat down.
“Can I ask you a question?” Iris asked as she carefully took the plastic lid off her salad.
“Sure,” I replied as I unscrewed the cap on my iced tea.
“Well, I saw you eating breakfast with the Darken pack.”
That wasn’t exactly a question, but okay.
“Yeah, we’re sort of… friends.” If you could even call it that. Theo was the type of friend who I made out on kitchen countertops with, who I fully intended to do more with when the time was right. And I was attracted to Rhys, Colton, and Aiden, too. Were you supposed to be that attracted to your friends?
“I just noticed the way they all look at you. I’m pretty sure all of them want you,” Iris said.
“Really?” I was sort of surprised at her words. Was it really that obvious that there was something there between me and them? Well, between me and Theo, anyway?
She nodded. “Yeah. And I’m not sure if you really know this, since you’re new to the werewolf life and everything, but the Darken are actually pretty… significant.”
“I can tell they’re popular with the ladies,” I replied, trying not to feel bitter over it. I could fully admit that they were serious eye candy, so it was only to be expected that most of the other girls in school—and probably the professors, too—found them attractive. I didn’t even want to think about how much competition I had, though.
“More than that. They’re one of the most powerful werewolf packs in the entire world—definitely within the top three. They aren’t brothers, but they’re all super tight. They have each other’s backs, and let me just put it this way. Anyone who knows what’s good for themselves doesn’t mess with them because pissing off one Darken means pissing all of them off. They are Ancients, after all.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Ancients?”
“Of course you’ve never heard of the Ancients,” she realized aloud. “You’ll learn all about them in the History of Werewolves. The Ancients were the first werewolves to ever walk this earth.”
“Like the ancient wolves who lived on that island?” I recalled from Aiden’s History of Werewolves lecture. “Nocturne Island?”
“Yes, those are the ones. A lot about how the Ancients came to be remains a mystery, but it is known that all other werewolves probably descended from them. Not many of us who are Descendants have as much Ancient blood as they do. We might have just a drop or two of the Ancients’ bloodline. But the Darken are really Ancients. Although Theo and Aiden are full-blooded Ancients, Colton and Rhys are almost entirely Ancients in their genetic makeup, too.”
“Are there many other Ancients at Werewolf Academy?”
She shook her head. “No. The Darken are the only full-blooded—or mostly-blooded—Ancients in existence.”
“Wow,” I murmured as I bit into my sandwich.
“The thing is… you should be careful with them. If you get romantically involved with any of them, I mean.” Iris’s eyes locked on mine, and I realized then that this must have been why she had brought this up at all.
“I’m sure that it’s probably not that acceptable for a student to date a professor,” I said with a sigh. I hadn’t given much thought to how practical it would be for me to actually get romantically involved with one—or more than one—of the Darken.
Then again, we couldn’t get in trouble if we didn’t get caught. I was willing to keep it a secret if they were.
“Well, that actually wasn’t where I was going with this,” Iris replied as she stabbed a piece of lettuce with her fork. “I was talking about the myths about falling in love with a Darken.”
“Myths?” My eyebrows lifted questioningly.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “For starters, it’s said that once you fall in love with an Ancient, you can never fall out of it.”
“Well, I definitely don’t plan to fall in love,” I replied as I popped a French fry into my mouth. I’d been there and done that back in the human world. It wasn’t exactly at the top of my to-do list to fall in love—or have my heart broken—again.
“Another myth is that there’s a really high risk of getting pregnant if you have sex with an Ancient,” she said. “Regular werewolf sperm is already more powerful than human sperm, but the Ancients’ sperm is said to be like werewolf sperm on steroids.”
“Well, I am not going to get pregnant by any of the Ancients, believe me.”
“You never know,” Iris replied with a shrug. “They’re all so freaking attractive. If they looked at me like they look at you, I’d probably jump their Ancient bones and have a million Ancient babies.”
I laughed. “Well, I don’t think we have to worry about that. Theo actually pulled away from me last night when we were making out.”
I lightly touched the necklace he had just given me, relieved that he wasn’t able to listen in on my thoughts right now.
“Really? Just out of nowhere?” She stared at me like someone who was watching a soap opera, waiting to see what was going to come next. The only thing that was missing was the popcorn.
“Well, no. Not completely out of nowhere. I was having… mixed feelings… about going further with him,” I admitted. Except, now, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the real reason Theo had stopped us from going any further. I’d thought it was because he’d overheard my thoughts, but maybe it was because he didn’t want to knock me up.
“Maybe he was afraid because of
the myths,” Iris read my mind.
“Maybe.” I paused for a moment. “Though I do have one question about all of these myths. If the Darken are the only full-blooded Ancients in existence, how do people even know if these myths are true? Do they have a lot of babies or people who are in love with them?”
The idea that the Darken may have been major manwhores wasn’t really that outlandish. They were hot as fuck, after all. They probably all had multiple kids—and girls in love with them—running around.
“No. As far as I know, none of them have any Pups—that’s what we call werewolf babies around here, by the way—and I hear they’re all bachelors. Theo, especially, is known for never having been in love,” Iris replied.
“Really? But how can that be? They’ve been alive for hundreds of years.” I couldn’t help but be skeptical.
“I know. It’s crazy, but that’s what the rumor is.” She shrugged. “And as for the accuracy of the myths, the Darken are the only known Ancients who are in existence today, but there were many Ancients hundreds of years ago, but they were all killed off.”
“Killed how? I thought they were supposed to be so powerful,” I commented.
“They are, but a silver bullet is still a silver bullet,” she said sadly. “There was also a disease that was killing off Ancients, but the Darkens survived it. That’s just one example of how strong they are. There is only wolf who’s known to be stronger than them.”
“Who is it?” I asked with wide eyes.
Her eyes met mine. “Milos Santorini.”
The werewolf who had killed my parents.
Chapter Ten