by Jayme Morse
“Milos might,” Rhys insisted, dangling the ring over his head.
He had known the right thing to say to make the anger flood through my veins. Suddenly, I pictured Milos’s face in place of Rhys, dangling my pendant above me.
All I could see was red.
Leaping on top of him, I wrapped my legs around his back and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling myself up.
He fought back then, which surprised me. Rhys was such a nice guy. It wasn’t like him to tease me like this. This was more Aiden’s style.
I tried to climb up his body and grab the ring from him, but I knew getting it out of his grasp wouldn’t be easy. Rhys was a guy; I was a girl. Male werewolves were biologically stronger than female wolves. But I struggled against him. I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
Continuing to picture Milos’s face in my mind, the anger began to build up within me.
Without even thinking twice about what I was doing, I gave Rhys a hard shove; the strength of my shove shocked us both. It was just enough to catch him off-guard—and enough for me to leap on top of him, causing him to go tumbling to the ground.
I pinned him to the ground, grabbing the ring from him.
Rhys stared up with his dark blue eyes. “Wow. You’re feisty. That was hot.”
I grinned down at him.
Before I even knew what was happening, Rhys was pulling me closer to him, and his lips were on mine.
Our bodies were both wet from the pool water, and his skin felt slippery against mine; his lips felt perfectly wet. They weren’t the only thing…
“Ahem.”
I glanced over my shoulder to find Theo standing behind us, his arms folded across his chest.
“Lunch is ready.” His bright blue eyes locked on mine.
Peeling myself off of Rhys’s rock-hard body, I grabbed my towel from the lounge chair.
“We were just working on her training,” Rhys explained.
“Yeah, that’s what it looked like to me,” Theo said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Rhys shot me a look. He was clearly feeling just as awkward about this as I did.
The thing was, we had all agreed to this. It wasn’t supposed to be awkward. But for some reason, Theo was making it weird.
As Rhys went inside, I closed the sliding glass door and then turned to Theo.
“Why are you being so weird about all of this?” I found myself asking him.
“Really, Raven? You haven’t figured it out by now?”
“Not really,” I replied, shaking my head. “I mean, it seems like you’re kind of jealous.”
“Jealous?” Theo shook his head. “Jealous. That’s what you think?”
“A little.”
“I’m more than just jealous, Raven. I wish you never kissed any of the others. I wish you never mated to anyone except for me.” His blue eyes locked on mine, and then he brought his lips down on mine.
Theo’s kiss was intense; it was full of passion and tension. It was the type of kiss authors wrote novels about, the type of kiss you saw in movies.
His kiss was everything and more. For a moment, I forgot where we were or that the other guys were right inside the house. For a moment in time, it was just me and Theo out there.
When we both pulled away from one another, we were breathless.
Theo’s eyes pierced through me. “I can still taste him on you. That’s not what I want, Raven. I want to be the only guy you kiss.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t put two and two together before now. How hadn’t I realized that this whole arrangement was hurting him? That it had been hurting all of them?
I made a decision then. I was going to give myself a deadline.
I was going to decide, by the end of the school year, who I wanted to spend forever with.
But in the meantime, I was going to make some rules for myself. Rules that I needed to follow in order to make my decision… and also to prevent any hearts from getting broken more than they needed to in the process.
Rule #1: Don’t tell any of them you’re in love with them until and unless you’re positive you’re going to pick them.
Rule #2: Don’t fall in love with all of the Darken.
Rule #3: When it comes time to make the final decision, listen to your heart—not your head.
Chapter Sixteen
Rhys took me out to dinner that night. It was sort of… perfect. That may have seemed like a funny way to describe a dinner date, but everything about it just felt so ordinary… so completely human.
The next night, I didn’t think my date with Colton would be able to compare. I figured he would do something crazy and outrageous to try to impress me, but then he ended up taking me to see the live-action Aladdin movie. I was relieved that there were no jet planes or any other crazy fun dates happening. It was nice to see what ordinary life could be like with each of them.
The annoying part about my dates with them was that I just couldn’t seem to get Theo off my mind. I just wished that he would speak to me again, but there was one thing I had learned since living with him this summer.
That boy could really hold a grudge.
***
Monday after school, I headed to the Werewolf Academy library to meet Aiden. To be honest, I was really excited about our library date. Not only would I get to spend some time alone with him, but I also hoped that our research would take us in the right direction.
I wanted—no, needed—to know what the Triangle my parents had warned me about meant. My mind kept going back to the possibility of it being three people who I needed to fear, but what if I was wrong? Whatever it was, it must have been scary if my parents thought it was potentially more dangerous than Milos.
Assuming that my dream about my parents had been real. But it had felt so real that I was unwilling to believe it hadn’t been.
As I entered the library, I glanced around at the tables. Aiden wasn’t there yet.
I made my way towards the back of the library, nearly colliding with a guy who was rounding the corner of one of the rows of bookshelves.
The stack of books he had been carrying went crashing to the floor.
“I’m so sorry!” I apologized, dropping to my knees in front of him.
“It’s okay,” the guy replied.
I picked up his books, noticing the unusual titles.
Werewolves and Dark Magic.
Using Magic to Land Your Mate.
The Internal Flame: When the Werewolf Mate Bond Goes Awry.
As I handed the books back to him, I glanced into his face for the first time.
I recognized something about his light blue eyes, freckled nose, and strawberry blonde hair.
“You look so familiar,” I found myself saying. “Do we have a class together?”
“No, but I’ve seen you hanging out with my sister, Iris.”
“You’re Eric?” I asked as I rose to my feet.
He rose to his feet, too. “Yeah. I’m her twin brother.”
Iris had mentioned Eric on occasion, but even though he had been going to Werewolf Academy just as long as we had, this was my first time actually meeting—or even seeing—him. Since Iris didn’t talk about him much and also never seemed to spend any time with them, I’d gotten the impression the two of them weren’t close.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I told him.
“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you, too, Raven.”
Eric’s use of my first name didn’t even surprise me. It seemed like everyone around here knew who I was because my adoptive parents were such popular wolves.
If only everyone knew that I was actually Princess Fallyn. That was a secret my pack and I had chosen to keep between us for the time being. If other wolves found out the truth, my life would only be in more danger.
Eric looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. “Well, I should really get going.”
As he hurried away from me, I noticed Aiden walking over in my d
irection.
Once Eric was out of earshot, Aiden asked, “Who was that?”
“Iris’s brother. Her twin,” I explained.
Aiden frowned. “I didn’t even know that Iris had a twin.”
“He seems a little… strange.” I wasn’t sure what exactly it was that made me think that, but something about Iris’s brother just seemed… off.
“Maybe he’s just shy,” Aiden replied. “Who can blame him? I would feel shy in your presence, too. You are gorgeous, after all.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“Just telling the truth.” His honey brown eyes darted around the nearly empty library. The librarian was nowhere in sight, and there were only a few kids studying towards the front of the library.
Aiden leaned in closer to me then; he pressed me up against the bookshelf, his body rock hard against mine. He lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me.
His lips were hard, his kiss driven by a sense of urgency. Of desperation.
As he pulled away from me, he stared down into my eyes. The lust, the desire, I felt was mirrored by his gaze.
“God, I want to just throw you down on one of those tables and make love to you,” he whispered into my ear.
Then he turned away from me and headed to one of the tables to put his stuff down.
My heart was pounding against my chest, from the kiss, from his words.
Welp, that kiss was going to make it really hard to focus on all the researching we needed to do. To say the least.
***
“This is so frustrating,” I commented after we’d been in the library for hours, looking through books upon books and not coming up with a single hint of what “The Triangle” could have been.
“I know.” Aiden sighed. “Is there anything else you remember from Nocturne Island or your former life? Anything you haven’t told me yet?”
I thought about it for a long moment… and then something dawned on me, something I hadn’t told him about before. Something I hadn’t even thought of since our field trip to Nocturne Island last year.
I pulled out my cell phone.
“Do you recognize this cottage?” I opened a picture I had taken on Nocturne Island.
Aiden glanced down at the photo, and then his honey brown eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Where did you get this photo, Raven?”
“I took it when we were on Nocturne Island,” I replied. “I saw the cottage and got this feeling about it. It just seemed… familiar. I can’t really explain it, but it felt like I had been there before.” I glanced over at him. “Do you know who it belonged to?”
“Yeah. It belonged to the fifth member of the Darken pack,” Aiden replied. “Our former Alpha.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Wait, what?” I just stared back at Aiden with wide eyes. “There are five of you?”
This was news to me. How were there five members of the Darken pack, but no one had ever mentioned this to me before? I was one of them now. This seemed like a really big secret to keep from me.
“No, there were five of us,” Aiden corrected. “Kane died from the virus that killed off the majority of the ancients.”
“Wow,” I whispered. “I had no idea. How come no one has ever mentioned him to me before?”
I had spent so much time with the Darken by now that I would have thought that one of them would have mentioned Kane at some point. But no one had ever said a word.
“Honestly, we don’t like to talk about him,” Aiden replied. “It’s all pretty complicated. The truth is that the Darken went through a very dark time when Kane was our Alpha.”
“Dark time, how?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“It all started out great,” he began. “We all got along, and he was a best friend to us, just like the rest of us are. He was an only child, too, just like the rest of us, so it felt like we were meant to be brothers. He was family. Fate chose him as our Alpha when we went through the pack bonding ritual.”
We had learned about that in class. It was basically a “blood brothers” sort of ritual that new packs had to go to in order to form. Fate then chose the pack’s Alpha. In the event that the Alpha left the pack or died, fate would choose a new Alpha.
“When we first formed the Darken, Kane seemed like an obvious choice for Alpha,” Aiden continued. “He was headstrong and a natural leader. He was the type of guy who fought for the things he believed in. He was a real fighter. But as time went on, Kane became power-hungry and bossy—and not just bossy, but controlling and manipulative. He was the worst kind of Alpha there is. He always had to have things his way. He acted like it was the Kane Show, and the rest of us were just his puppets. He always expected us to do things however he wanted. But then we all got sick with the virus. It was a horrible disease, one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. It was like the flu on steroids. The hallucinations were the absolute worst.” He shook his head at the memory. “All five of us ended up catching it, but only four of us survived.”
“It must have been so hard for you guys to lose him,” I sympathized. Even though it sounded like Kane had turned into a nightmare, the Darken had still, at some point, considered him family. I was sure it hadn’t been an easy loss.
“The hardest part was trying to make sense of why we had all survived it, but Kane hadn’t,” Aiden explained. “Even today, we feel some survivor’s guilt from time to time.” He paused. “This is probably going to sound horrible of me, especially considering he was like a brother to us. Don’t get me wrong because we really do miss him now at times, but when Kane died, we all felt some sort of… relief. It was like we were free again—free to live however we wanted. Free to our own opinions, to our own choices. There was no one there to control us anymore, no one there to manipulate us.”
“That doesn’t sound horrible. It makes sense that you would have felt that way,” I replied. “So, I’m guessing that’s when Theo became Alpha? When Kane died?”
“Yeah,” Aiden replied with a nod. “We had all started to recover from the virus, but Kane’s condition only seemed to worsen. He just seemed to be getting sicker and sicker. We had him moved to one of the hospitals on the island, in hopes that the doctors might be able to figure out some sort of herbal concoction to help him recover. But the very next morning, Theo’s tattoo changed. He said it felt really painful, and then the paw print started to glow. It looked like fire on his skin. It eventually faded out, and his tattoo went back to normal. But, later that day, we received word that Kane had died, and we just knew that he was our Alpha.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
“The part that just doesn’t add up is that I’d never heard of Kane having any sort of involvement with Princess Fallyn,” Aiden explained. “This was my pack member. We spent a lot of time together. If you spent any time at that cottage, we would have heard about it at some point. But it’s not even just that. The King and Queen didn’t exactly like the Darken pack.”
“Really?” My eyebrows rose, and I smiled. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“Hey, Missy. Why aren’t you surprised? What’s not to like about us?” Aiden sounded only like he was half-joking.
“It’s just that I like you. I’ve only had a couple of memories of the Queen, but from what I know about her so far, she seems pretty awful,” I replied with a shrug. “So, why didn’t they like you?”
“Well, this might surprise you, but we’re a lot different now than we were back then,” Aiden replied.
My eyebrows rose. “Different how?”
“We were outlaws,” he replied. “Of course, that was mostly Kane’s doing. He was always making us break the law. I’m pretty sure he wanted to see how much he could get away with before the King and Queen kicked us off the island completely.”
“Did they?” I asked, remembering that Aiden had mentioned that the Darken pack hadn’t been on Nocturne Island when the vampires and werewolves had gone to war.
“No, but at one point, we did leave. This was rig
ht before the war, and long before the virus.”
“Why did you leave?” I asked.
“There was a girl who Kane had his eyes on—a girl who had no interest in him,” he explained. “He had us follow her back to the human world where he tried to claim her as his own. But she still wanted no part of him, so Kane did what he often did when he couldn’t get his way with other wolves—girls, especially.”
“Which was what?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“He killed her.”
I swallowed hard. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”
“I just wish we could figure out why the cottage seems so familiar to you.”
“I think we need to go back to Nocturne Island,” I told him. “My memories of the island only seemed to happen while I was there. I think I need to go back to the island. To this cottage and to the castle.”
Aiden studied my face for a long moment before nodding. “I agree.”
“Really?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, it seems like the most logical thing at this point. We need answers, and this just might be the only way to get them. And I think we’re better off going alone this time—just our pack. It will give us more time to explore the island, instead of going on another field trip.”
“We’ll take the jet plane.” He paused. “Are you free this weekend?”
“Yeah.” I thought about asking if my friends could come, but honestly?
I wanted some time alone with my mates.
***
The Darken and I climbed aboard their private jet plane bright and early on Saturday morning. We were hoping to learn everything we could on Saturday, but there was a chance that we would camp out inside the plane into Sunday if we had to.
Either way, we really needed to make sure that we were back to Werewolf Academy by Monday so that none of us would miss any of our classes.
I wasn’t going to lie. I felt slightly relieved that we were going to get away from Wolflandia—and, I hoped, Milos—for a while. It still unnerved me to know that he had gotten into my dorm suite and had shown up at Branden Mitchell’s party when I was there. I was excited to get away from it all and, hopefully, unlock some of my own suppressed memories in the meantime.