by E. M. Moore
She shrugs. “Your mate has to officially fill out a form that states there’s no hope for your pairing. He hasn’t done that yet. Trying to ‘spare me’.”
“Fuck him,” I growl.
“Cheers to that.” She holds up half a Snickers bar, and I toast her with my Dove chocolate.
A warmth spreads through my belly and over my limbs. My wolf sits up—as interested in this new friendship with Mia as I am. I never let her have the chance of bonding with others back in Lunar, so she’s already anticipating running free in the forest with Mia, jumping over tree branches and wrestling in fields. Hunting down prey. You know, wolf stuff.
Me? I’d love to just sit and watch a movie with someone. Talk boys, maybe. A big part of my life was taken away when no one wanted anything to do with me. A smile forms on my lips as I realize I am talking boys with someone. Sure, we’re discussing how they dissed us, but it still counts.
“Your advisor probably told you to read that whole Greystone Academy manual, and you should. Just in case you were thinking of bailing on it like I did. It’s actually pretty informative.” She crumples up the Snickers wrapper after she finishes the last bite. “No one ever thinks they’re going to be in here long, but….” She shrugs.
“Well, I was thinking of skimming it, but if you say so.”
She smirks and shimmies toward the edge of the bed. “Tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to a few people. It’s not all bad.” She reaches inside the basket she made me and pulls out the tissues. “Looks like I need these more than you, though.” A sad smile tugs at her lips while she moves toward the open door, clutching the tissue box in her fist. “I’ll stop by before breakfast, and we’ll go down together. Yes, you have to wear the uniform. Roll up the hem a couple of times.”
She winks, and I nod. “Night, Mia.”
“Goodnight, new friend. I’m at the end of the hall if you need me.”
I wave to her, and she disappears behind the closing door. With a groan, I collapse on my pillows, kicking the basket of chocolate off the bed in the process. I glance out the unopened window to my left. Hundreds of twinkling stars dot the night sky, and a blanket of clouds roll in, partially obscuring the moon. On days when it felt like I was kicked by everybody, I’d enjoy a night of dumb comedies on TV with my parents in our small, rundown house. Everything on the outside wouldn’t matter because at least we had each other.
Loneliness creeps in, seeping to my very core. I sit up to sift through my bag and find my cell phone. A couple of texts in the group chat I have with my parents wait for me. Be strong, Kinsey, my father writes. My mother responds with, I love you.
I take a deep breath, willing myself not to cry. I love you both, I text back. I’m settled in my room for the night.
After I hit send, I shut my phone off. I don’t want to be disturbed by sad messages the whole night which might make me want to march down to Mia’s room and take back those tissues. I’ve been dealing with shit my entire life, so I can take this, too.
As soon as it’s quiet, however, pain sinks in. My brain replays the absolute elation filling my very being upon realizing I had a fated mate. It’s natural, I tell myself as I bask in the warmth of the memory. But afterward, when the rejection plays out over and over again, it rips my heart in half. It’s so cutting that I’m thrust out of my own body. Mate rejection is abnormal. It’s wrong.
Well, if Jonah Livestrong can fight off his own instincts, so can I. The thing is, giving in to my stubbornness will ruin me. I’ll be relinquishing my family, my life. Can I really do all that to get back at my supposed mate?
Christ, I’m only nineteen years old. This is some heavy shit to unpack.
Despite trying not to, I fall asleep to Jonah’s handsome face. Each time I attempt to wipe it away, it reappears. Memories stick out in my mind of Lunar High: Jonah the big jock; Jonah in the inner circle with the future alpha; Jonah never looking at me twice until we shifted for the first time.
I hope his head is as filled with me as mine is with him. That should teach him a lesson.
Ignoring all rational thought, I burrow down into the shirt he gave me. His scent helps me drift into a dreamless sleep.
5
“Knock, knock, Newbie,” Mia calls through my closed door.
I woke an hour ago, unable to sleep any longer with the weight of today sitting heavy on my shoulders. The first thing I did was tear Jonah’s damn shirt off, hating that I used it as a lifeline last night. I threw it in the back of the closet and slammed the door shut, hoping I’d forget about it.
However, a half an hour later when I went to dress, I saw it all crumpled up and decided to pull it out, fold it, and sit it on an interior shelf. The good news is, my closet smells delicious. The bad news is that it’s Jonah’s scent. And right now, I can’t stand him.
I rise from the bed and slip my phone into my bag. When I peer down, I don’t even recognize myself. I woke so early, I had time to blow-dry my hair until it landed in auburn waves over my shoulders. I’m in a pleated, midnight-blue skirt, a tucked-in, black polo shirt, and sensible flats. I feel so bleh. I’m more of a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl. I can’t even remember the last time I wore a skirt.
Pulling the door open, my new friend Mia waits on the other side. She studies me, starting at my feet and working her way to the crown of my head. “Did you roll it twice?” she asks.
“I’m kind of tall. I only rolled it once.”
She shakes her head. “Roll it again. This isn’t a convent.”
I smirk. “Won’t Ms. Ebon yell at me if I screw with the school’s uniform?”
Mia widens her eyes. “Shit, I forgot you had Ebon. You should probably lower it, actually.”
I scoff. “Yeah, I’m not that much of a rule follower, I just don’t want my ass hanging out. Who invented this outfit? The director of Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time video?”
“We could be so lucky.” Mia holds out her elbow. She chuckles when I hesitate. “Come on, girl. Bring it in. This is normal.”
I laugh at myself for being weird. Who would’ve thought I’d have to meet a girl outside my pack to show me what it means to actually have friends? “Like this?” I slip my arm through hers.
She pats my hand playfully. “I’m about to introduce you to the other misfits. Everyone likes to talk about how this place is all fucked up, but the people are nice. I mean, we all have something very important in common. The hard days are when your friends get to leave and you’re stuck here. They don’t let you keep in touch.”
I kind of expected that, but a twang hits my gut anyway. Mia and I are very new friends, but I’m already hoping she doesn’t get to leave, which is horrible. If she leaves with her fated, she gets to go back to society instead of becoming Feral, so I should be hoping she does.
While we walk to breakfast, Mia gives me the real lowdown on Greystone Academy. “Daybreak and Lunar are in this wing, second floor.” When we get to the first floor, she points down a hallway identical to the one we came from. “Horizon and Eclipse Packs are that way. The opposite wing accommodates the other packs. Moonstruck and Twilight on the first floor. Galaxy and Sunflare on the second.”
More voices echo through the cavernous halls. The closer we get to a place with activity, the more my stomach clenches. I tell myself that Mia’s right: we’re all here for the same reason. We’re all outcasts here.
We round the corner, entering the cafeteria. My short peek into this room last night didn’t do it justice. Rays of sun shine through an enormous glass room, illuminating everything in a halo of light. Stone columns run up the walls, anchoring huge plates of glass that continue up and into a vaulted ceiling. Decorative ironwork melds the plates together. It’s absolutely breathtaking. And in my opinion would make a way better greenhouse than a cafeteria.
My gaze drifts to our right where I take in a buffet line filled with steaming food, and a kitchen just beyond that. How is this Greystone Academy? It seems way too fancy for rejected sh
ifters.
A squeal pulls my attention away from the room itself and finally settles to the people scattered about the tables. I stop, making Mia grind to a halt as well. I blink at the scene before me, taking in the other students dressed like me. “How many people go to Greystone Academy?”
Mia peers out over the semi-filled tables. “About fifty at capacity. Our numbers start to dwindle as the year progresses.”
Fifty fucking rejected mates. That seems impossible. How many people are willing to do this to someone else?
“Some wolves don’t stay very long. Rejections can be caught up in pack politics or power plays.” She leans over and lowers her voice. “You should hear the dumbass reasons some of us are here. The dumber the rationale, the sooner they get to go back. There are a lot of faces here now, but a third might return within a month.”
The fact that anyone would use fate as a power play boggles my mind. I knew I hated people. I swallow at the new information. “How many wolves from Lunar are here?” I quickly scan the tables for anyone I recognize but come up empty.
“One.”
Okay. One. Let’s see.... I start to scan again but stop. “Wait,”—I turn toward my new friend—“I’m the only one?”
“Your advisor’s kind of a freak.” Mia presses her lips together. “She has a very good reputation.”
A warning tingle shoots up my spine even though that could mean good things for me. My wolf doesn’t like it either. Her ears perk up, paying as much attention to what’s going on as I am. Let’s hope Ms. Ebon’s only an overzealous advisor with an uncanny ability to bond mated pairs back together and not the kind that likes to send wolves Feral.
“This way,” Mia says as a guy stands from a table in the middle of the room and waves at her.
She waves back but leads me toward the buffet line, which has so much more food than I ever dreamed of eating for breakfast. I’m usually a cereal-in-the-morning kind of girl, but there are so many choices. Eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, yogurt, fruit, and an entire cereal section. Determined to get something out of my stay here, I load up on bacon and pancakes, then grab some fruit, too. Our last stop is the drink counter where I’m bombarded with a bunch of juice choices along with milk, chocolate milk, and strawberry milk. I opt for chocolate and then follow Mia further into the glass room.
I get caught up into peering at the clouds hovering in the sky that I almost walk right into a table. “Woah there,” a masculine voice calls out. I glance over at him, and he grins at me. “New here?”
“Very.”
Mia nods toward the oblong, wooden piece of furniture that almost made me a klutz. It’s massive and must be at least ten feet in length. Benches run up and down the sides, so I take a seat across from Mia and the guy who stopped me from making an ass out of myself. “This is Nathan,” Mia tells me. “The other shifter in my fucked-up love quartet.”
I grimace. “That sounds like a nightmare. Sorry guys.” They watch me as I pick up my fork, and it’s as if I’m on display in a store window. I’ve never eaten breakfast with anyone but my parents. Hell, I’ve never eaten inside a cafeteria with anyone before. During lunch at Lunar High, I took my food outside and ate by myself.
“What are you in for?” Nathan asks.
He’s a handsome guy with dark hair and a line of stubble down his cheeks and across his jaw. He’s not as built as Jonah, but no one is. Just looking at him, I can’t imagine why no one would want to snatch him up. The same goes for Mia, too.
When I tell them as much, they laugh.
Mia clutches her stomach. “That made my whole week. My whole month. I’m going to tell my little sweetie pie asshole that the next time I see him.”
Nathan chuckles and rolls his eyes. “You do that.” He bites into an apple and peers back at me. “So?”
Oh, right. Me. I blush. I’m really screwing up this friend thing. “I’m Kinsey. Rejected for not fitting in, I guess.”
Mia helpfully supplies the true answer. “Her mate said she didn’t ever try to fit in with the pack.”
“And he thought that sending you to the place for the ultimate castoffs would change that?” Nathan squeezes the apple in his hand until it splits in half with a crunch. Mia pats his shoulder while he drops the remnants of it right onto the table and glances away.
Behind us, someone sniffles. We all turn to find a girl with blonde hair entering the room. Complete despair mars her face as she peers around, wide-eyed. We instantly sober. My wolf mirrors the girl’s emotions, mewling inside me. I rub my chest, and Mia frowns. “It’ll get better.”
“Sometimes worse,” Nathan adds unhelpfully.
Mia hits him. “Don’t tell the newbie all the bad things.”
He doesn’t listen. His face sours as he watches the blonde girl. “Wait until the first counseling meeting when you see him for the first time since the rejection.”
He’s not kidding about that. Last night in the hall, the same horrible despair ripped through me. “I already saw him again.” I place a sliver of pancake in my mouth and start to chew. It takes a moment for me to notice that they’re staring at me slack-jawed. I hurry and swallow. “What?”
“You saw him already?”
I shrug. “During my meeting with Ebon, I kind of shifted. Accidentally, of course. I ran out into the hall, and he was there.”
Mia grabs Nathan’s arm. “You fucking shifted in the academy?”
Heat blooms on my cheeks. I peer around to make sure no one’s listening to us, then turn back. “Yeah, it was an accident. I got mad.”
Nathan watches me quizzically as if he can’t figure me out. Mia picks up on his face and says, “I know, right? I dropped by her room yesterday. No tears.”
“You have a heart of steel.” He studies me even further before staring right into my eyes. “Even I shed a few tears on my first night.”
“Please, you were a wreck,” Mia points out, poking him playfully.
I glance down at my plate. “Just used to people not liking me, I guess.”
Nathan groans. “Sorry, Kinsey. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m shocked is all. I’m sure your mate is an asshole.”
“Aren’t they all?” Mia muses.
“Yep,” Nathan sighs, popping the p. “Perfect, hot assholes with an ass that just, mmm,” he bites down on his knuckle while his eyes seem so far away. “I could sink my teeth into it.”
I guess his response answers one of the questions I woke up with. Judging by the looks of longing on Mia’s and Nathan’s faces, it doesn’t get any easier to think about your fated mate. “This isn’t fair,” I grumble.
“Aww, you already figured out Greystone’s true motto.”
The corner of Nathan’s lip curves up and then flattens. “The fucked-up part is, if she walked through those doors right now, I’d be on my knees in front of her, begging.”
His words cast a somber feeling over the whole table. Eventually, he demolishes the rest of his food and gets up. He doesn’t even utter a goodbye, but both Mia and I watch him leave. My heart feels like an anchor in my chest as he walks past the crying girl at a table all by herself, grabs strawberries from the buffet, and drops them next to her. She peeks up at him gratefully, and all he does is smile and nod before leaving the room.
“He goes through mood swings,” Mia informs me. “We all do. One day we’ll want to rip their throats out and roll around in their blood. The next, we just want to jump them.”
I spin back toward her. “Is there anything you guys can do about your situation?”
Mia heaves a sigh. “We’ve tried, but nothing yet. We’re the ones who ended up here, so we’re supposedly the less trustworthy ones. We literally have no sway here. No rights. We’re at the mercy of our mate. I hear that’s a thing that happens now. Newly fated wolves write up a Mate Rejection Slip so the other can’t do it to them first. Then, they sort everything out during the initial meet and greet.”
“You’re kidding.”
Mia shakes
her head. “Happens a lot in families who’ve had a sibling end up here. Think about it, your brother or sister is banished to Greystone and then goes home to tell you how awful it is. To save your ass, you fill out the form so it can’t be done to you.”
Fear trickles in. Rejected mates is a much bigger problem than I ever expected. “It can’t be that hard for someone to watch your two mates back at Daybreak and figure out the truth, though.”
Mia’s face falls. “You’re forgetting the other part to the bond, Kinsey. If we do that to them, and they’re cast out, made to go Feral, what will that do to us? Sure, we might be leaving here, but only to face a life without the one thing that’s supposed to hold us together.” She shivers.
I blink at her. I never thought of that. We really are fucked here.
Mia lets out a breath. “I know. Heavy shit. It’s always heavy shit. I hope you brought Xanax.”
We eat in silence until a woman in a business suit approaches our table. Mia gazes up first, and when the woman clears her throat, I peer up, too. “Miss Walker, Ms. Ebon would like to see you in her office when you’re done with breakfast.”
My heart sinks. “Thank you,” I tell the woman.
Her friendly smile unnerves me. I watch her leave, and Mia informs me it’s the academy’s secretary. She works for all eight advisors, and of course, the head of Greystone.
“Who’s the head of the academy?” I ask, kicking myself for falling asleep instead of reading the manual.
“Sister to your alpha.” Her lips thin. “She hates all of us.”
My stomach plummets, and everything I just ate threatens to come right back up. That would be Lydia Greystone—the worst accuser of my parents’ relationship.
That’s fantastic. The woman is already predisposed to hate me, so this should end well.
6