by Jayme Morse
Then, without saying another word, he turned away from me and headed down the hallway, in the direction of his room.
I stood there in the kitchen. I felt the tears stab at my eyes, threatening to spill over.
I tried to blink them away, but it was no use. Theo and I had never fought like this before. And the idea of having none of him… Well, it was too much. But even worse was the fact that he actually wanted me to choose between them. The thought of not being mated to all of them was painful. I loved, and needed, them all.
“Theo’s right, you know,” Aiden said from behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder to find not just him, but Rhys and Colton standing in the doorway, nodding.
“So, you all agree?” I asked with raised eyebrows. I knew that Rhys agreed, but it surprised me to learn that Aiden and Colton agreed, too.
“This situation isn’t going to work out long-term,” Colton said. “We’re all too jealous. It’s already started to interfere with the pack.”
That had been my fear all along—that I would get between them. That was the absolute last thing I wanted.
“I didn’t know you guys were all jealous,” I replied quietly.
“Of course, we are. All werewolves get jealous when it comes to their mates,” Rhys said, his dark blue eyes meeting mine.
“But what about the curse?” I asked. “You’re not attracted to anyone but ancients.”
“Well, actually, we’ve been talking,” Colton replied. “We might try to figure out a way to get the curse lifted.”
My eyebrows shot up questioningly. “Curses can be lifted?”
“Well, the spell can be,” Colton explained. “We just have to find a magic user who’s more powerful than the one who performed the original spell.”
“And we think that magic user could be you,” Aiden added, his honey brown eyes meeting mine.
“I’m not that powerful,” I replied quietly.
“Nonsense. You’re the most powerful wolf who goes to the Academy right now. Professor Lee thinks you may graduate as one of the most powerful magic users in history,” Aiden said.
“No pressure.” I was just expected to become a powerful magic user and lift this spell so that they had a chance of being attracted to other wolves.
I wasn’t going to lie. The idea sort of made me sick to my stomach. The truth was that I didn’t want them to be attracted to other wolves. I wanted them all to myself. The idea of choosing just one felt… impossible.
“You should take some time to figure out who you want to choose, Raven. There’s no rush. We realize this is a big decision,” Colton went on. “You’re going to essentially be deciding who you want to spend forever with. The rest of your life.”
“This isn’t a decision you should take lightly,” Rhys agreed. “We know you need to get to know all of us better before you can make a decision.”
“You should give yourself as much time as you need,” Aiden added.
“Okay. That seems… fair.” Sort of. Truthfully, I didn’t think it was fair that they wanted me to pick just one of them—not when they were all my mates. But it also didn’t look like I was going to be able to find a way out of this, either. Clearly, none of them were happy. I didn’t know if I would be happier with only one mate, but maybe things would be less complicated. It just hurt to think about who I would choose—and, more importantly, who I wouldn’t.
“Anyway, we have more pressing matters to deal with right now,” Aiden said, changing the subject finally.
“Milos,” I said, realizing that we hadn’t discussed him yet. “Did you find him?”
“We didn’t find him. But we can confirm that Milos was on the Werewolf Academy campus at some point tonight.”
I swallowed hard. So, I hadn’t been imagining it. Milos really had been there, in the flesh. We had stood just one hundred feet away from one another. He had stared at me and then disappeared into thin air.
“How do you even know this?” I questioned. “Did someone see him?”
“Well… sort of,” Aiden replied. “But we didn’t see him face-to-face. We saw him because we used a spell.”
My eyebrows shot up questioningly. “What type of spell?”
“A revealing spell,” Colton explained.
I recalled from Lunar Magic class that a revealing spell could tap into the past or the future. It worked like a movie or a projector, showing you what you wanted to see.
“Milos apparently used a spell so that we wouldn’t be able to retrace his steps with a revealing spell on campus. But he didn’t extend the border of his spell far enough,” Colton explained. “On the outskirts of campus, the revealing spell showed us that he was leaving.”
“Wow.” I was beginning to feel sick. The fact that Milos really had been here, that he had been just one-hundred feet away from me… Well, it made me feel really on edge.
“So, now what?” I asked. “He’s been here at least once now… probably twice. So, it seems safe to say that he’ll come back again.”
“So, we’ve been talking, and we would prefer it if you didn’t go anywhere alone,” Rhys told me. “We’re going to be your guards. One of us will go everywhere with you at all times.”
“You’re joking… right?” I glanced around at them, not entirely sure how I felt about this idea. Even though they were my pack, my mates, I also needed time away from them sometimes, too. I needed space… and some sense of independence.
One look at their faces told me they weren’t joking. Not even the slightest bit.
“At least on campus,” Aiden said. “We don’t think you should be walking to and from your dorm room alone. If you go anywhere else on—or off—campus, one of us should accompany you.”
“I don’t understand.” I shook my head in frustration. “We did so much training this summer. I could hit him straight through the heart with a silver bullet… or an arrow. I know how to throw knives and axes. I know how to use my magic against him. If Milos got close enough to me, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. I’m determined to. I want him dead.”
“Things could have gone so much differently than they did tonight, Raven,” Theo spoke for the first time since we’d begun this pack meeting. “We’re lucky that nothing happened to you. We just want to exercise every bit of caution so that you don’t end up in a worse situation. If something were to happen to you that we could have prevented…” He shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
His blue eyes locked on mine then, and I knew that he’d meant every word. Even if he’d barely spoken to me in a week, Theo still cared… and that meant everything.
“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “You guys can babysit me.”
“It won’t be forever, Raven,” Colton said. “Just until we figure out what Milos is up to.”
“Or until we take him down,” Aiden added, his own honey brown eyes mirroring my own determination to get rid of Milos forever.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, my friends and I sat around the kitchen table eating breakfast while we waited for Maddie to arrive. I wasn’t sure how much Vince and Iris had heard last night—if anything—but I hadn’t gotten to ask them, since Colton, Aiden, and Rhys had been hanging out with us all morning.
Theo sauntered into the kitchen. He headed straight for the coffee maker, not making eye contact with me.
As the coffee maker roared to life, I said, “Good morning.”
“Mornin’,” Theo mumbled, but he didn’t look at me.
Without saying another word, he grabbed his coffee mug and then headed out onto the patio, by the pool.
“Someone seems grumpy,” Vince commented.
That was one way to put it.
“So, I guess you’re mad at me,” I said privately to Theo through mind-speak.
He didn’t answer me.
Yup. He was definitely mad at me.
At that moment, the doorbell rang. “Maddie’s here,” I said, jumping up to my feet.
When I swung the door open, my best friend was standing on the other side. She was donning leggings and a light pink t-shirt with a flamingo on it. Oddly enough, I had on the same exact style of shirt, except mine was yellow with a sloth.
“We’re practically twins!” Maddie commented, noticing our matching outfits. “Have you ever been to the mall here?”
I nodded. “Yeah, we went a few times over summer. It’s… interesting.”
“Interesting?” Her eyebrows lifted.
“It resembles a human mall, but there’s a lot of werewolf stores,” I explained.
“We should go. Like right now. We have nothing else to do today, right?” Maddie asked.
Theo and I were supposed to go out today. But now that he wasn’t even speaking to me, it looked like I was free.
“Sounds good to me. Let’s see what the others think.” I headed into the kitchen, where Iris and Vince were still sitting. “Do you guys want to go to the mall today?”
“Do I ever not want to go to the mall?” Vince asked with a grin.
“I guess,” Iris replied with a shrug. She didn’t sound too enthusiastic about it. But I figured it was three against one. Plus, the last thing I wanted to do was spend another day doing nothing in my dorm suite or here at the house with Theo.
“Just a minute, Raven,” Colton said from where he was sitting in the living room. “You can’t go to the mall by yourself. Remember our agreement?”
“Oh. Right.” The whole needing protection from the Darken 24/7 thing had completely slipped my mind. He didn’t say it, but I knew that he thought my friends weren’t capable of protecting me.
I glanced over at my friends. “Milos was on the Werewolf Academy campus last night.”
“He was?” Iris looked surprised.
I nodded. “Yeah. So, we decided that one of my mates should be with me at all times now. Just to be on the safe side. Since, you know, Milos could show up literally anywhere now.”
“So, then, do you want to go to the mall with us?” Maddie asked Colton.
“Alright,” he agreed with a shrug.
***
An hour later, we were walking around Wolf Brick Mall.
“Wolf Scents?” Maddie asked as we walked by a store.
“Yeah. It’s sort of like Bath and Body Works, except, instead of Warm Vanilla Sugar, you’re more likely to find scents like Damp Forest Night or Roll in the Mud,” Vince explained. “They also have a lot of sensual scents. Like, if you really want to get your mate in the mood, you could try She-Wolf in Heat.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Maddie wrinkled her nose at him.
“Nope. Natural freakin’ instincts, baby,” Vince replied.
“Wow.” She shook her head.
“So, you haven’t mentioned. How did your night with Brad go?” I asked Maddie.
“It was… fun,” she replied, “but he’s not my mate.”
“How do you know that for sure?” I asked.
“Well, we made out last night, and nothing happened,” she explained.
“Not everyone faints like Raven does,” Vince pointed out.
“No, I know that. But we kissed and nothing happened—no spark or anything. And we can’t hear each other’s thoughts,” Maddie explained. “I was just really bummed. I was hoping he would be my mate.”
“I guess you’re not that lucky,” Iris said, her light eyes sliding over to meet Maddie’s.
And that was when I saw it.
The look in Iris’s eyes.
I was pretty sure Maddie was right. Iris didn’t like her.
The only thing I couldn’t seem to figure out was why.
We had just set foot in Paws and Lace, a clothing store, when I spotted a flash of auburn hair out of the corner of my eye.
Caroline Wickburn.
And she wasn’t alone. Javier Rodriguez was walking alongside her… holding her hand.
What. The. Fuck?
Caroline Wickburn’s words from our private chat in her office echoed through my mind. “And I’ve met someone else.”
I totally hadn’t expected that someone else to be Professor Rodriguez.
A part of me felt… relief. I knew she hadn’t been completely honest with me because there was no way she could have fallen out of love with Theo, not with him being an ancient and all. But she had obviously been telling the truth about there being someone else in her life. Someone who seemed to make her hate me less than she had before.
But there was just one problem.
Professor Rodriguez had seemed determined to try to get me to kiss him. I wasn’t sure why he had been so pushy with me, but I had a feeling that, whatever it had been, he wasn’t about to give up any time soon.
And that was the problem.
It was bad enough that the guy who Caroline Wickburn had been in love with was mated to me. But the guy who she had moved onto wanted me, too.
I just needed to keep her from finding that out.
I had already been planning to shut Professor Rodriguez down if he tried with me again when we were in school. But I was going to try even harder to shut it down now that I knew he was seeing her.
I wondered what he even saw in her.
Don’t get me wrong. Caroline Wickburn was absolutely gorgeous. In fact, she might have been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in real life. Her looks only compared to movie stars like Mila Kunis and Jennifer Aniston.
Her personality was an entirely different story, though.
I was pretty sure Caroline Wickburn was crazy. Like an actual, full-blown psychopath. The last thing I wanted was to be the center of her hatred for another school year in a row.
Chapter Fifteen
The idea of me going back to my dorm suite seemed too risky, knowing that Milos had probably already been in it once this year, now that we knew he had really been on campus.
Aiden got permission from Headmaster Black for me to spend the rest of the school year at the Darken house, but I could use the dorm suite as I wished, like if I needed a private spot to study. I didn’t see myself using it much, though.
I was relieved that I would get to be around my mates more often now. It would be healthier for us to not have to go through withdrawals from being apart.
It would also make it more difficult once my bonds with some of them were broken…
That thought kept reemerging for me. What did it feel like to break the mate bond? I imagined that it would be painful, considering we had spent so much time wanting each other, craving each other.
I imagined that it would feel… empty. Lonely, even. Though three of them were more likely to experience those feelings than me, considering I would still be mated to one of them in the end.
But who would I choose?
In a lot of ways, I felt the most drawn to Theo. I wondered if it was because he had been my first mate. Our bond had lasted the longest, so maybe I felt the most drawn to him?
But I believed it was more than that. We had this connection that I didn’t have with my other mates. I just wasn’t sure what it was or why.
Other times, I was more drawn to Aiden. He felt like the most masculine of the pack. He also knew how to turn the worst moments into a joke. He could make me laugh, even when I was crying—which had happened a lot during the Darken boot camp over the summer. I often got frustrated about not meeting my fitness or weaponry goals, and Aiden was always there to make me laugh.
And then there was Colton. At times, he made me feel the most secure. I just knew I could count on him to protect me. But my feelings for him went way deeper than that. At times, I felt like he was my best friend in the pack. He was the one who I could tell anything to. But don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like a brother/sister type of friendship. No, I still totally wanted to jump his bones.
And last, but certainly not least, there was Rhys. I didn’t ever have to worry about his moods changing, or him getting too angry with me. He was always so chill and went with the flo
w. He was the sweetest of the four. The one whose heart I would hate to break the most if I didn’t end up choosing him. He was loyal to a fault. And that wasn’t even to mention the new side of himself he’d shown me the other night, the side that I wanted to explore more…
How would I ever be able to decide between the four of them?
***
Theo being mad at me was the elephant in the room all day. He didn’t speak to me, didn’t look at me, and didn’t even seem to want to be in the same room as me.
I thought about telling the others that I wanted to postpone our dates until the following weekend, but honestly? I thought that would be like caving into what Theo wanted. He had signed up for this. We all had.
So, on Sunday, Rhys and I ended up going out, just like we had planned.
“See you love birds later,” Aiden said jokingly, even though I knew he was secretly jealous.
They really were all so jealous. I wasn’t entirely sure how I hadn’t picked up on this before now, but thinking back, the signs had been there all along. My mind drifted back to summer…
The others had gone inside to make lunch one Saturday afternoon, leaving me and a shirtless Rhys in the pool. We were both goofing off, playing with one of the pool toys.
Then suddenly, Rhys jumped out of the pool. “I bet you can’t get this toy from me.”
“I bet I can.” I climbed out of the pool after him. I playfully grabbed his arm, trying to get the toy away from him. “Give me it!”
“You need to learn how to get things that are out of reach to you,” he said, continuing to hold the toy above his head—and far above me.
“I don’t know how this is a necessary wolf skill,” I protested, continuing to stand on my tiptoes and attempting to grab the ring from him.
“What if someone ever had something you needed? Your moonstone pendant, for example?” Rhys questioned, his eyes falling on the round pendant that I always wore around my neck.
“They wouldn’t dare,” I insisted. I needed the moonstone pendant to travel the portals connecting the paranormal realm and to return to the human realm. Without it, I would be lost.