by Jayme Morse
“Dear Darken pack, it has been brought to the attention of our coven that you have been harboring the long-lost Princess Fallyn,” I began. “It was of our understanding that Princess Fallyn died during the war between the ancients and the werewolves. Now that we know this isn’t true, we would like to offer you a reward in exchange for Fallyn. We are willing to offer your pack three million dollars. If you are unwilling to accept the money, then please know that we will do whatever we have to do in order to get to her. You should know that we will stop at nothing until Princess Fallyn is dead. She is the first biologically born werewolf, and therefore, we believe that she is capable of many evils.”
I glanced up at my pack members. “Wait, what? I’m the first ‘biologically born werewolf’? What does that even mean?” I asked them.
“All of the residents of Nocturne Island became werewolves because of a curse. The King and Queen of the ancient werewolves were the first werewolves to ever have a child,” Aiden explained. “Therefore, you’re the first werewolf who was ever born a Descendant. You’re the first Descendant ever.”
“Wow.” I wasn’t sure why no one had ever mentioned this about me before. It seemed like a really important fact to leave out about me.
I glanced back down at the letter and continued to read aloud. “We also would like access to her blood.” I paused and then read who had signed the letter. “Sincerely, the Winston Coven.”
“The Winston Coven is the vampire coven that waged the war against the vampires during the ancient times,” Aiden explained. “I’m not surprised that this letter is from them.”
“They are very upfront about their intentions,” Rhys noted.
“Very upfront,” Theo agreed. “Almost to the point of oversharing.”
It was all too much for me to take in. They wanted to get their hands on me and my blood. They wanted to get rid of me. And they would stop at nothing until I was dead.
I glanced around at my pack members. “Three million dollars is a lot of money. You guys would be crazy not to hand me over to them for that amount of money.”
“You realize that we already have way more money than that, right, Raven?” Colton asked, raising his eyebrow at me. “Three million dollars is nothing.”
“We would never hand you over to them, Raven. Not for any dollar amount,” Rhys replied, shaking his head. “They’d have to get through me in order to get to you.”
“And me,” Aiden agreed.
“And me,” Colton said with a nod.
“And me.” Theo met my eyes.
“How can the five of us take on an entire coven of vampires?” I asked.
“Easy,” Aiden replied. “Love is stronger than any weapon you could ever get your hands on.”
“We will fight and protect what’s ours,” Colton added.
Theo met my eyes. “We will fight for you, Raven.”
“Even if it means we have to die for you,” Rhys added.
They all nodded their heads in agreement.
I knew in that moment just how loved—and how safe—I was with them as my mates.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The letter from Javier came during the first week of February.
Dear Raven,
By now, you surely know what a blood mate is. You are mine. What this means is that we now rely on each other to stay alive. You see, without your blood I will die. But the catch-22 is that if I die, you die, too. Neither of us wants that.
In order for this arrangement to work, I need to drink your blood at least once per month. I will require your blood until if and when I should die.
I’m not stupid, Raven. I do know that you and the Darken pack would probably try to kill me if you had the chance. I can’t risk facing you knowing that you’ll try to kill me. So, here’s what I’m proposing instead.
Leave your blood in the backyard of the Darken house for me. You can put it in a bottle or a jar. You can leave it there on the first of each month. I will come to collect it. This way, we won’t actually have to interact with each other, and we will still get to live.
“So, what do you think?” I asked Aiden as his eyes poured over the letter.
He sighed. “I don’t really like this arrangement, but I don’t think it would actually harm anyone. The important thing is you can still live. It will buy us some time until we can figure out what to do about him.”
“It could work out perfectly,” I said. “We can use this as a way to lure him here. Then once we’re ready, we can kill him.”
Aiden’s brown eyes met mine. “I see we’ve taught you well.”
***
The next few months, my life seemed to revolve around the vampires.
On the 1st of every month, I would slice my own arm open and drain some of my blood into a jar for Javier. Since I was a werewolf, I would heal back up right away, but it wasn’t the most fun or pleasant thing. Most of all, it annoyed me. It annoyed me that I had to cut myself open every month because of his own selfishness. It annoyed me that I had to do this every month to keep both of us alive. It sucked that my own life relied on this.
Then there were the other vampires that I needed to worry about. I just kept waiting for the Winston Coven to show up. I thought that, at some point, they would make their appearance at the Darken house or when I was at school.
But to my surprise, they didn’t show up in either of those places.
It made me wonder if they were going to show up at all, or if they were just all talk.
I knew that they were probably just waiting for the perfect moment. That they were just waiting for us to let our guards down and that was when they would show up.
I still kept wondering who had tipped the vampires off. Aiden was convinced that Javier was the whistleblower, but I wasn’t so sure about that. If Javier was the one who had told them, he was a fool.
When it came down to it, I was Javier’s lifeline. He had to have known that the Winston Coven wanted me dead, considering they had apparently tried to kill me years ago. If I died, that meant Javier would die, too, since I was his blood mate.
I may have been wrong, but I was pretty sure that Javier wasn’t the one who had let them know I was still alive.
No, I was pretty sure that it was someone else. I just wasn’t sure who.
***
I was in the backyard at the Darken house, shooting my enchanted bow and arrow. I felt like the arrows shot more swiftly, more pointedly, at my target.
I already had no doubt that this magical weapon would go on to save my life eventually.
As I shot another bow, I watched as it whooshed in front of me, hitting my target exactly where I had wanted it to—but faster and more graceful than usual.
I smiled to myself. I could get used to this whole enchanted weapon thing.
I heard a voice from behind me. “Nice shot.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I found Theo walking over in my direction.
“Thanks.” I smiled at him.
“Listen, we need to talk,” he said as he approached me.
I lowered my bow. “What is it?”
“I just wanted to apologize. With everything that’s been going on lately, I just want you to know the truth. And the truth is that I love you, Raven. That’s the reason I’ve been so jealous and the reason I reacted the way I did. I wasn’t saying that what happened on Christmas night between us was a mistake or anything of that nature. Christmas night was… amazing.” His blue eyes locked on mine. “Even if you don’t end up choosing me, it’s a memory that I’ll forever cherish. But I do hope you’ll pick me.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but he put his hand in the air, gesturing me not to speak.
“You don’t have to tell me what you’re thinking or who you’re picking. I don’t know if you’ve even made a decision or not, but just hear me out,” Theo said, running a hand through his black hair. “I understand why you said what you did when I was in a coma. I’m not mad about it. You were afraid of losin
g me. I understand that so well because I’m afraid of losing you now. I don’t know what you’ll decide, but I do know that there’s going to be a one out of four chance that you won’t pick me. Those aren’t the greatest odds.”
“I’m afraid of losing you, too,” I replied quietly. And I meant it. I didn’t know who I would end up choosing in the end. With everything that had been going on, I’d barely even gotten to think more about it. The only thing I did know was that I was going to end up losing three of them… and that scared me.
“Well. I just wanted to tell you that because, you know. Life is short. I’m being reminded every day just how precious it is and that I could lose you at any moment.”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders then, hugging him.
The thing about Theo was that apologies didn’t come easily for him. In fact, he rarely, if ever, apologized to anyone at all. So, this was pretty huge.
It also told me something else. Theo was just as afraid as I was about everything going on: Milos, Javier, the Winston Coven.
We both knew that we needed to make up now because, at any second, my life could be ripped away from me.
Chapter Thirty
One morning, Maddie, Iris, and I were already at our usual table in the Dining Hall when Vince came strolling into the cafeteria with a girl. They were deep in conversation and holding hands.
“Julie must have finally transferred from Lupin Academy,” Maddie commented.
“I don’t know why she bothered to transfer here. The school year is already almost over,” Iris commented. There was an obvious bitterness to her tone. I realized that she was still jealous about being the only one in our friend group without a mate.
My heart broke a little for her. I hoped that she would find her mate really soon.
As Vince came over to our table, he said, “You guys, I’m so excited for you to meet my mate, Julie. She completely surprised me this morning.”
“Hey, Julie,” I said with a smile as she sat down across from me.
Her dark brown hair was cut in a short undercut. She had tattoos everywhere. I couldn’t make them all out from where I was sitting, but I noticed a rose vine that climbed its way up her arm, a cluster of stars on her wrist, and a scorpion on her neck.
She was definitely the yin to Vince’s yang.
“Hey. You must be Raven,” she said with a smile. Then turning to my friends, she said, “And Maddie and Iris. Vince has shown me a ton of pictures of you guys.”
“Only flattering ones, I hope,” Maddie said, only half-jokingly.
“Why did you choose to come to Werewolf Academy instead of Lupin Academy? I’ve heard Lupin Academy is better,” Iris said.
“To be with Vinny, of course.” Julie reached out and grabbed Vince’s hand. “But actually, I like Werewolf Academy better so far. Lupin Academy has so many more rules and restrictions.”
“Sometimes, rules are in place for a reason,” Iris commented.
Julie shrugged. “I guess, but I like that we don’t have to wear uniforms here. I hate feeling like my creativity has been taken away from me.” She paused. “There is one thing that I don’t like better about Werewolf Academy, though.”
“What’s that?” I asked her.
She pointed her chin a few tables ahead of us and then whispered, “Jessica Davis.”
My eyes widened. “Really? You know her?”
I mean, Jessica Davis wasn’t just Milos Santorini’s daughter. She was also the Alpha of the She-Wolves, and they were a pretty notorious pack in the werewolf world. I guessed that it shouldn’t have surprised me that Julie knew her.
“Oh, yeah. She was my neighbor back home. She’s a total bitch,” Julie replied. “I also don’t trust the girl, either. She murdered someone once, you know?”
“Really? I didn’t know that,” I replied, shaking my head.
“Yeah, there was this kid who we went to high school with. I don’t know all of the details, but rumor has it that he wouldn’t give Jessica what she wanted, so she killed him.”
“Wow.”
“Yup. She’s pretty freaking ruthless,” Julie said.
Well, I couldn’t say that surprised me.
Like father, like daughter.
***
That night, I went to hang out with Maddie in her dorm room. We decided to watch the show Reign.
The interior of the castle in the show reminded me a lot of the castle I had grown up in, the castle on Nocturne Island.
As we were watching, I suddenly found myself getting lost in a flashback.
“Fallyn, I would like you to go downstairs,” my mother said as she came into my bedroom quarters. I was sitting in an armchair, reading from a book.
I glanced up at her. “What for?”
I knew my mother. She wouldn’t have wanted me to come downstairs unless it was for a reason. She preferred to keep me locked, hidden away at all times.
“I would like for you to meet a potential suitor,” she replied.
“Oh? Who is it?” I asked. Not that it mattered. I already had my eyes on a servant. As far as I was concerned, no one would ever compare to Nicholas. If only Nicholas wasn’t off-limits to me, but he was as forbidden as they came.
“Lord Santorini,” my mother replied.
“Milos Santorini?” I asked with wide eyes.
My mother nodded. “He will be here within the hour, so please put on one of your finest dresses. The red velvet one would be appropriate.”
Then, without saying another word, she left the room.
Sarah, my lady’s maid, hurried to get my dress for me.
“Lord Santorini, eh? That’s exciting,” she said.
“Exciting is one word for it,” I muttered under my breath as she tightened my corset. “Personally, I would rather marry no one. Why do my parents find it necessary to marry me off the moment I turn eighteen?”
“That’s just the way it goes for royals,” Sarah replied with a shrug. “I figured you would have come to accept that by now.”
“I accept nothing about this unfortunate life I was born into,” I replied with a sigh. “I have heard horrible things about Lord Santorini. I hear he’s ruthless.”
“Most werewolves are,” Sarah replied, nervously tucking a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear.
“But he’s more ruthless than most. According to the rumors, he had his own sister murdered because she disobeyed him. That seems a little harsh, doesn’t it?”
“I guess it depends on what she was disobeying him about,” Sarah said with a shrug.
I just eyed her in the mirror. She couldn’t be serious. Nothing about that sounded okay to me. “That’s certainly not the type of man I’d want to marry.”
“There aren’t many more royals for you to choose from, Fallyn. You’ve rejected nearly every one of them,” Sarah said.
“I suppose.” I glanced over at her as I stepped into the red velvet dress. “Can I trust you to keep a secret for me?”
“Of course you can. I’m your best friend,” she replied.
“I am considering the possibility of running away with Nicholas,” I whispered, not wanting the guards or anyone else to overhear me.
“Princess Fallyn! Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Sarah looked completely horrified by the idea.
“To run away and be with the one I love? Of course I think it’s a good idea.”
“That isn’t what I mean,” she replied as she zipped my dress up from behind. “Where would you even go? How would you survive? Running away would mean leaving your kingdom behind.”
“I am entirely aware of all that. It’s a risk that I consider worth taking,” I replied. “We have talked about it, and we plan to go to Wolflandia.”
“Wolflandia?” Sarah’s eyes widened. “That’s where they have relocated a lot of the prisoners from Nocturne Island. There are bad wolves there. Do you really think you would fit in?”
“I am sure that I would fit in better there than I would he
re,” I replied with a sigh.
“I would keep an open mind to Lord Santorini. Who knows? You might actually like him.”
“Doubtful. Highly doubtful.” I glanced at myself in the mirror. I looked more elegant than I did on a normal day, which made me wish I was going to be seeing Nicholas instead of Milos. Maybe I could sneak off to see Nicholas once I had finished my meeting with Milos.
Excuse me… Lord Santorini. I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to call him by his first name.
“I should probably go get this meeting over with.” I glanced over at Sarah. “I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck, Fallyn. I mean that. I hope this does work out.”
I rolled my eyes as I walked away from her, knowing that it wouldn’t.
***
“Would you like sugar with your tea, my Lord?” My mother asked as we all sat in the tea room.
“No, thank you, Lydia. I prefer my tea black.”
Personally, I didn’t even like tea at all. Already something the two of us didn’t have in common.
“We should probably cut straight to the issues at hand,” my father said.
“Right. Of course.” Milos leaned in closer to me, meeting my eyes.
I would have been lying if I said there wasn’t something attractive about him. He was the most attractive suitor the King and Queen had sprung on me so far.
Too bad his heart was as black as those pretty eyes. Or so I’d heard, anyway.
“So, Princess Fallyn, there are things I would like to discuss with you before we consider this marriage with seriousness.” He paused. “There are several things I value in a potential wife.”
“Oh? And what would those things be?” I asked, somewhat amused by this admission. Most of the suitors who had come my way were simply concerned about becoming the next King of the Werewolves. The fact that he had requirements of his own definitely piqued my interest.
“For starters, I wish to be bear many, many children,” Milos began, his eyes studying mine for a reaction.