Chapter Three
I flipped through my textbook resting on my whole desk while reclining back in my upright desk chair. Third class of the day and the guys already gave up on their making-me-sit-on-the-floor game. Bullying is a lot less satisfying when the target doesn’t give a shit.
It also helped that Nyx wasn’t in this class with me. We all had the same schedule, but split up across different blocks. Paxton and Badr were gone too, leaving me with Orion and Edric on either side of me.
I wasn’t sure why these guys were crowding me. The hatred wafting off them was thick and heavy. You’d think they’d want some distance, but class after class, they shoved others out of the way to claim the seats closest to me.
The result was my wolf had been going out of her mind for the last four hours straight.
Orion’s pen rolled off his desk. He stood, rounded the desk, and bent over to pick it up—flashing me a devastatingly nice ass.
“Mmm,” I moaned, and my eyes bugged.
His wolf picked it up and spun on me, but I was already laser-focused back on my textbook, reading the same sentence for the tenth time.
Orion chuckled. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him kick his feet up on his desk and hang his head back. He looked like he was getting comfy for his nap.
With him heading off to sleepland, I glanced at Edric.
These two were definitely the most enigmatic of my fates. I knew what Badr was thinking when he looked at me—homicidal rage tinged with grief. Paxton—lust and confusion. Nyx—resentment and disgust. But Orion and Edric... I didn’t know.
I mean, sure, I sensed they were just as disgusted with me, their psychopath fated mate, as everyone else. Plus, Edric didn’t waste a second giving me up to the mob, and telling them the truth about my pointless, one-sided conversation with Sunella.
But when you’re a priestess wolf, especially the priestess wolf, you spend a lot of time listening to people’s problems.
All day long, I’d stay shut up in my father’s home under heavy guard. The only times I was allowed out was to venture across the town square to the temple. There I would sit on a hard, concrete throne under a thick veil of gauzy curtains while wolves from all over Wolf Nation came to pour their hearts out to Luame’s chosen—the child born from the goddess herself.
I sat on that stone throne and heard things the average person couldn’t imagine. Heartbreaking things, joyous things, shameful things, and vile things. I heard things that made me stumble out of the temple, wishing I could take a rock and bash the memory out of my head.
After a decade of hearing everything wonderful and terrible someone can do, people were pretty easy for me to figure out.
Beyond what I did to Castor, Edric hated me because I got him ripped away from his mother’s side during her final moments. Orion hated me because his clan exiled him and told him he either regained his honor by graduating top of the academy, or he took his disgrace out the fucking door with his cut ears and new, forced life hiding among the mundanes.
I glanced back at Orion. I knew from years of listening to unwanted confessions that an enemy was never more dangerous than when the motive was personal.
And that’s not you , I thought, studying the coldly handsome man relaxed and sleeping in my presence. Your clan will accept you back if you crush it at the academy, so that’s all you have to do.
I damn sure wasn’t interested in getting in his way, so other than the natural repulsion every decent person has against a murderer, Orion didn’t have any extra personal hatreds stoking his fire.
But with Edric—
I flicked to the tall, terra-cotta-skinned wolf, and found him glaring right back at me.
—it’s personal as hell.
He blames me for being ripped away from his sick mother’s side. Blames me that her final days were riddled with worry and loss from being cut off from her son. All of that pain he laid at my feet... and I only had to look in his eyes to know it.
Paxton wouldn’t bother me. Orion only wanted me to not bother him. Nyx would torment me as long as I made it fun for him. But as for Badr and Edric, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have time for their distractions. They were coming after me, and they weren’t going to stop until they made me feel the maximum amount of pain a person can feel.
Oh yes, I was sure of this... because the same look reflected in my eyes every time I looked in a mirror.
“Let us jump right in it,” Miss Raza announced, shaking me out of my thoughts and forcing Edric to break his unsettling eye contact. “Now, your homeroom teachers should’ve informed you of the curriculum changes. We’re starting everyone at the beginning with a clean slate, so let’s get clear on what that starting point is,” she said. “Who can tell me about the birth of the five dominions?”
Miss Raza—no other name given—was a short, dainty woman with flowers on her skirt, laurel clips woven through her hair, and bright, red lipstick on her thin slash of a mouth.
Her voice was a little too chirpy—like she just transferred to the academy after working with kindergarteners for the last ten years.
Raza nodded at a raised hand at the front row.
“The five dominions were a fae creation— No, a fae mandate,” they said. “The fae divvied up the different territories, and the fae demanded that no one from another dominion cross those territories without permission and approval. It was also the fucking fae who decided that us wolves have to live out in secret communities deep in the woods, and never let the mundanes discover the existence of shifter wolves, vampires, demigods, or any of it. Fucking fae,” he spat.
The sentiment was mutual. Fae weren’t spoken of kindly except for within their own dominion, and in the mundane dominion where they had some strange, lust-filled fantasy that fae were all these gorgeous, sensual creatures that couldn’t stop falling in love with teenage mundanes.
“It’s undeniably true. The fae forced us into hiding and gave control of this world to our inferiors. Because of them, we’re no better than those skulking rats. Vampires. ” Raza’s venom came through clear—chirpy voice or no. “But why?” she asked. “Why did they do this, and how did that history bring us to where we are today?”
“It all started with the demigods,” said a bespectacled girl sitting on the other side of Orion. “After their gods shoved a piece of their souls down their throats and created them, vampires sensed the divinity in their blood and... attacked.”
“Vampires smell blood,” Raza continued. “One sniff and they knew instantly that demigods were special. Mundane blood has an amazing restorative and drug-like effect on them. Werewolf blood is poisonous to them, but demigod blood...” She whistled low. “It was like drinking watered-down grape juice your whole life and then discovering fine wine. Why keep wasting time with the inferior version? They couldn’t get enough, so everywhere in the world they lived, whole covens hunted down demigods.”
She paced the length of her desk, caught my eye, and looked away just as quickly. So far, most of my instructors were dealing with me by pretending I didn’t exist. Seemed Raza was adopting the same approach. “Vampires were hunting demigods to extinction. Out of desperation for survival, they came together from all over the world to fight and live as one. Thus began the First Vampire-Demigod War.”
Nods abound. Of course, we knew all of this and more, but what even I didn’t know was, “Why did werewolves join the war?” I asked. “It had nothing to do with us, but—”
“You will raise your hand and be called upon in my class,” Raza snapped with her back to me.
I raised my hand, but she didn’t turn around to look.
“I’d like an answer to that actually,” Orion remarked. His eyes were still closed and his arms crossed over his stomach. “Why did we get involved with their war?”
“Same reason all allies do,” Raza replied. It didn’t surprise me in the least that she didn’t get on him for not raising his hand. “There was something in it for us.”
“Which was?”
“Can anyone answer that?” Raza asked, sweeping the room.
The girl with the glasses shot her hand into the air. The studious geeky girl revealed herself quick. Every boarding school had to have one. Raza pointed at her and asked her name.
“Imani.” She sat up straight, clearing her throat. “We didn’t join until the Third Vampire-Demigod War. By then, it was clear that the demigods were becoming strong enough to hold their own. They were even doling out brutal attacks on the vampires, and thinning out their numbers.
“We lent our strength to the fight, but not only because we believed that together with the demigods we could wipe the vampires out for good, but also because they paid us. In gold.”
Orion’s brows shot up—along with his eyelids. “Damn. They left that out of my history book. They used to hand out gold for killing vamps, and all this time we’ve been doing it for free? Fuck it, sign me up. I was born for that gig.”
“Very funny, Orion,” Raza said. “But you know as well as I that the wars are long over. Demigods claimed their piece of land, erected their barriers around it, and the vampire threat against them all but vanished.
“Luame knows they tried, but vampires can’t cross the barrier to get to them, so they hardly need to pay us to help kill them. Besides, when the fae forced us into separate corners of the world, what other terms were we forced to accept under threat of death?”
Imani punched the air. Raza called on her again.
“The destruction the wars caused left devastating consequences for the mundanes in North America and South America that remain to this day. Then there were two more wars in Europe. Three in Africa, and then another two in Asia. If vampires could control their vile bloodlust, they would’ve given up the fight, but it just kept going and going, on and on.
“Werewolves and vampires are mostly evenly matched in terms of superhuman strength and sense. But werewolves and demigods had an edge. Our fight doesn’t stop when the sun comes up.
“We were bringing those bloodsuckers to the edge of extinction, so they turned on the mundanes. They weren’t just food anymore, they were brand-new, ravenous soldiers just waiting to be born. So they wiped out entire villages and turned them all. When they did, the fae couldn’t ignore the fight any longer.
“They blew in, joined the side of the mundanes, and ended the fighting in two weeks. They were strong,” Imani gritted, “stronger than anyone at the time had known was possible. We couldn’t fight the fae. We couldn’t even dream about fighting the fae, so the very first alpha council had no choice but to sign the treaty they forced on us, and swear to uphold it on Luame’s name.
“The law against turning mundanes—the fae. The law against attacking a vampire in anything other than self-defense—the fae,” Imani continued. “The law that forces us to hide our people in the middle of nowhere and never let the mundanes discover the truth about werewolves—all of that was the fae.”
“That is correct, Imani,” Raza said. “Well done.”
“Wolf’s teeth,” Orion cried. “The fae have a real fucking hard-on for the mundanes.”
“The fae think we’re disgusting,” Raza dropped, expression serious. “Werewolves, vampires, and demigods. We’re all twisted, filthy abominations that used to be human until spells, curses, magic, and gods changed us. So it’s not that they care about mundanes. They’ve certainly never stepped in when the mundanes were destroying and killing themselves.
“It’s simply that they see us as cockroaches, and the last thing you want is for one roach to turn into an infestation.”
I cringed at the comparison, but at least that explained a lot about the laws we were made to obey. During the full moon, a bite from our wolves could turn a regular, mundane human into one of us. But that was against the law. Werewolves were only allowed to be born, not made.
Same thing for vampires. They were only allowed to turn mundanes who were already dying, and only with their consent. I didn’t for a second believe the vampires were sticking to that rule, but we did.
I was ten years old when I watched my father execute a man and the wife he tried to hide. The guy had fallen in love with a mundane and turned her. Father bit both their heads off in front of me.
Then there was the only-in-self-defense law. We hadn’t gone to war with vampires since the treaty, but there was no question they were killing us, and we were killing them. We’d just gotten smarter about it. No vampire bites on us, no claw marks on them.
No way to know if the fae were aware we were breaking the treaty, but if Raza was right, they couldn’t care less if we killed each other. They only cared that we didn’t bring the mundanes into it.
And the last all-important Law of Three was why I was sitting pretty in Corvin Academy on a sunny day, instead of wallowing in the deepest hole the council could put me in.
So maybe the laws weren’t that bad.
Seven forty that night, I rolled into detention still huffing and panting.
I didn’t know what Athletics meant when I read it on the schedule, but now I did—big-time. It was football. And not that wimpy, cutesy mundane football my dad would make fun of most Sundays. It was werewolf football.
No padding. No referees. No timeouts. No mercy.
Want to see a werewolf unleash his killer instinct? Give him a stupid, worthless ball and tell him to run it across a field, mowing down everyone in his way. There’ll be a river of blood and broken bones in his wake before the hour’s up.
I plopped down in my seat, cursing Nia who came up to me in the middle of the game with a note saying I had to report directly to the detention room. If I was late, I’d receive another demerit. Which meant stopping to change, drink water, or have dinner was out.
“Miserable sadist,” I muttered, kicking my feet up on the desk. Of course that jerk Hall had to deny me a hot shower and a meal on top of everything else.
Kicking off my shoes, I rubbed my arches. They were sore from getting stepped on, but thankfully, that was the worst of the damage done. Even though everyone, even members of my own team, kept trying to tackle, maim, and flatten me, it wasn’t a full-moon night. My phase power worked just fine, and those fools just flew through me and tackled a face full of dirt.
I gave the detention room a glance. Yes, Corvin Academy had so much money and space, they had a room specifically for detention. Posters of the school rules covered the walls, drilling in the info us delinquents clearly needed to remember. Gone were the fancy desks and plushy chairs. I sat on hard plastic, and my desk was a simple wooden square with metal legs. Beside me, a wall of windows looked out over the athletic field.
Bright stadium lights illuminated every rock, twig, and blade of grass—making it easy to see the groups gathering on the lawn, chatting before dinner.
Nia and Paxton were in the stands with their omega friends. No doubt Paxton was eager to catch up after a year in hiding.
I lingered on him for only a few seconds as my gaze inevitably drew down to the group laughing it up in the middle of the field.
Edric, Badr, and Nyx entertained a group of epsilon girls with Ava front and center. The three of them were all shirtless and wearing shorts made of leaves. Ripping through your normal clothes is what happens when you shift on the field, snap your maw on a guy’s arm as he was about to throw, and fling him clear across the field.
Which is exactly what Badr did. I could still hear the guy’s screams as the nurses carried him to the infirmary, but Badr didn’t get in trouble of course.
No rules means no rules.
But there should be a rule about walking around half fucking naked!
My body wound up tighter than a bowstring as I raked my fates up and down. They were standing there all handsome and glistening like Tarzan and his damn triplet brothers. I didn’t even know I had a jungle-man kink until my wolf went wild—panting and howling at the sight of them.
Badr threw up his bicep, mimicking how he nearly ripped that poor guy’s arm off, and Ava felt him up—giggling as she stroked his rippling muscle.
I growled, bolting up off the seat. “Mine,” I roared. “Mine!”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I whipped around, fangs erupted from my jaw. Orion blew inside and shut the door.
“Those windows are reinforced. That’s why not even our ears can hear anything out there,” he said. “You try to jump through them, you’ll break your skull, your neck, or both.” Orion hummed. “On second thought, go ahead.”
“Haha.” His logic penetrated the bond-induced rage that clouded my mind. Calming myself down, I reclaimed my seat. “What are you doing here?”
He flung his bag down and gave me a look. “I’ll give you three guesses.”
I focused on him to stop me turning around to see Nyx, Badr, and Edric holding court. Some guys didn’t need to try to become kings of the school. They just walked in the door and everyone begged and pleaded for them to take the crown.
Studying Orion, I could tell he wasn’t one of those guys.
Not that he wasn’t as drop-dead, bust-through-a-window gorgeous as my other fates. Because he was that and more. Orion had a wild, scruffy, roguish air about him that screamed bad boy so loud, he wore the ripped leather jacket, tatty jeans, and beat-up boots to match. Underneath that was nothing at all. He was also shirtless with the only cover on his bare, ripped chest being a multitude of indecipherable tattoos.
No, Orion wasn’t a golden boy. He was a dark prince. King of the outcasts, and every good girl’s secret fantasy. The one they’d throw it all away for the minute he smirks and crooks his finger.
“You’re here for the misunderstood loner’s club?”
He pulled a face. “What?”
“You said I had three guesses. That’s my first.”
Orion just rolled his eyes and dug in his backpack.
“You ran in here to cut one, but I was in here, so you’re playing it cool.”
More silence. More riffling. More pretending I didn’t exist.
“Hall isn’t here yet,” I mused. “I bet he’s kicking back, scarfing down his dinner while we choose between dying of boredom or starvation.”
Nothing.
“Oh, wait, I know. You’re here to fuck Hall up the bum.”
“What?” he cried, head flying up.
“Aha!” I snapped my fingers. “That’s it. You were hoping he’d be here alone, so you could have your secret hookup. Knew I’d get it.”
“No, you didn’t!” His eyes narrowed to slits. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you genuinely crazy?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t everyone?”
“No,” he gritted. “They’re not.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” I cocked my head, smiling at him. “Some would say it’s genuinely crazy to make trouble on the first day and get yourself thrown in detention when you need to graduate top of the class if you want to get your life back.”
His eyes went blank behind his glasses—dead. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So explain it to me.”
Orion turned his attention back on his bag, and off me.
“Seriously,” I pressed. “You’re not the first person to get a fate they didn’t want. Why in the world would your clan blame you? Going so far as to throw you out and threaten to cut your ears? That’s more than extreme.”
Orion finally found what he was looking for.
“Don’t,” I said.
Fishing out the pack, he tipped out a cigarette and lit up right in the middle of the detention hall.
“I said don’t! You know that smell is hell on a wolf’s nose.” I went straight to the windows and opened them. There was no one on the field anymore, including Nyx, Edric, and Badr. No doubt they were all enjoying a delicious dinner. “I know you can’t stand it either, so put it out.”
I may as well have been the wind for all the attention he paid me.
“Ugh. I knew I had it right the first time.” I sat on the windowsill, letting the fresh air wash over me. “You are here for the misunderstood bad boy’s loner club. You and your buddies were hoping to bond over how cool you are for blatantly breaking the rules.” I pointed to a poster behind him. “Smoking in the academy is grounds for a demerit. Five of them will get you expelled. Seems crazy to waste a demerit on a cigarette that’s burning the hairs out of your nostrils.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” he murmured, blowing out a languid stream of smoke.
“Naturally. I have to sleep too.”
If I thought that would get a chuckle or quirk of the lips, it did neither.
“Tell me why you’re blowing your chances of getting your life back. You guys made such a show last night—bawling and whining about me stealing a year of your life.”
His brow twitched in irritation.
“Now you’ve got a chance to go back to the way things were, and instead of taking advantage, you’re sitting in the timeout room with me. Why?”
Orion grabbed a marker out of his bag and started drawing on his palm.
My brow twitched in irritation. “Fine. If that’s how you want to play it.” Grabbing the hem of my top, I tugged it over my head and tossed it at him.
The cigarette fell out of his mouth.
“Shit!” Jumping up, Orion slapped his jeans—swiping off and then stomping the nasty thing. “What the fuck are you doing!”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I hopped on the desk in nothing but my bra, skirt, and faux fur-lined boots. I changed out of my Jane dress during lunchtime. “I will strip off an article of clothing for every question you answer honestly. And then when I run out of clothes...” I winked. “I’m sure we can think of something else for me to do.”
“Put your shirt back on.”
“Nope.”
“Do it now,” he roared, panting like he ran a marathon.
Orion wasn’t ignoring me anymore. Pinpoint pupils were raking me up and down, and they knew exactly where to linger. Balled fists held tight to his side.
Snap!
He broke the marker clean in two.
“I will if you really want me to,” I purred, fingers skating the soft, tickling lace of my bra. “Just pick up my shirt and give it to me. I’ll put it on and we forget this ever happened.”
Orion didn’t move.
“Well?” I taunted, smug as shit. “Do you want me to put it on or not?”
The veins were popping out of his forehead. “Y-you come over here and get it.”
“Why?” I cocked my head. “Is it because you don’t want me to see how hard that cock is?”
“That’s my wolf, not me! I don’t— I’d never—”
“Then, leave,” I whispered. “Walk out the door right now oorrrrrr....” He tensed tighter and tighter as I drew the word out. “Tell me why you’re blowing your only chance at getting your life back.”
“Because it’s not real!” he burst out. The poor man looked physically ill–—shaking, sweating, and clutching the desk so tight the wood protested. “It’s a test I’m meant to fail. A test my alpha wants me to fail. I could graduate with the highest scores in history and become head of the alpha council, and it won’t matter. She’ll never let me back into the clan.”
“Hmm. Intriguing. But if it’s a test you’re meant to fail, why—?”
“Off.”
“What was that?” I sang, making a show of turning my ear to him. Oh yeah, I was enjoying myself immensely.
“Take. It. Off.” Never had a man so infused lust with rage. The desire to kill me and have me battled for dominance in his eyes.
I decided the winner for him and drew my skirt zipper down. It pooled at my feet, leaving me nothing but my bra and thong.
Orion drew in a hard, shuddering breath. His wolf had to be losing his mind. Orion’s control over him was more than impressive. Turning around, I bent over and gave my ass a little wiggle.
Orion whimpered.
No other sound that sharp cry could be. The man whimpered because revenge was sweet. He made me whimper like a fool. It was only right that I return the favor.
“Why give you a test you’re meant to fail?” I asked again.
Orion openly stared at my ass like a starving man eyes a buffet. I wasn’t sure he even heard me.
“Come on,” I teased, hooking my finger around my thong strap. “You want me to take this off, don’t you? Tell me why—”
“Because Mara hates me,” he rushed out. “She’s always hated me. Being chosen as your fated mate gave her the excuse she’d been waiting for to kick me out of the clan.” He was talking so fast I was barely keeping up. “But then the alpha council finally allowed us to enroll in the academy, and they went to her for the recommendation.
“She refused of course. Said she’d rather die than write a good word about me, but when they wouldn’t let up and demanded she either write the rec or give a good reason for why she wouldn’t...” He scoffed. “Let’s just say, they didn’t think it was a good reason. Sunella wrote the rec herself, and ordered Mara to welcome me back into the clan. Mara said she would if—”
“—you graduated top of the class,” I finished. “Something she doesn’t expect you to do, so she gets to look fair and just while really she’s a petty bitch.”
He just nodded, looking hard at my bra. It was clear what he wanted me to do.
I took a step toward him. Orion shot back like I was strapped with a bomb.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t? But why not?” I hooked my straps and pulled them out, jiggling my boobs in their lace hammocks. “Don’t you want a closer look?”
His eyes flashed, turning bright amber. A wolf’s eyes. Baring his teeth, vicious fangs glinted under the fluorescents. “If you come any closer, I won’t be able to control myself, and I am not fucking you. It’ll solidify the bond. I’ll be your mate ,” he spat.
“Would that really be so bad?” I stripped my bra off in one swift move.
Orion caught himself mid-leap and crashed at my feet, groaning like a dying man.
“You might like being my mate,” I said, putting one finger under his chin and drawing him up on his knees. “You might like fucking me even more.”
“You’re a killer,” he hissed. Orion inhaled my scent deep into his lungs. Right there in the middle of the detention room, the glow emanated from his skin. Brillant and warm, it enveloped me—sinking way down where the pieces of my broken heart had become infected sores oozing hatred. The bond wanted to be consummated.
Now.
“And you’re not?” I forced calm into my voice. “How many vampires have you killed, wolf boy?”
“That’s different!” He grabbed my hips and snapped me closer. I let out a small eep when he shredded my thong with his teeth. “They’re already dead!”
“Point t-to y-you.” I was trying desperately to appear unaffected, but the horny animal that was my better half was going out of her mind. My senses were heightened like they’d never been before. Strong, calloused hands on my thighs. His warm breath tickling my stomach. Deep, rough growls scrambling my head. All of him consumed all of me. “So I guess my last question is... what are you going to do now?”
Hooded, glazed eyes beheld me. “No,” he murmured, nuzzling my stomach. “That’s not your last question.” Orion swiped a tongue past my folds, catching my breath on a moan. “Your last question is why does Mara hate me?
“She hates me, Volana, because my father was a serial killer. And he murdered her sister.”
My moans stopped. My breaths stopped. My heart stopped.
Orion stopped.
“When he was finally caught and the truth came out, my life imploded.” Orion rose to his feet and I saw those beautiful eyes weren’t glazed with lust. They were cold and dead. “I had no idea who he really was, or what he’d done, but no one looked at me the same again. They’ve all been looking, watching, and waiting for me to become a monster too.” His grin didn’t meet his eyes. “And then, who should Luame choose as the woman I was fated to be with but a fucking sociopathic killer?”
“But I—”
“That was all the proof Mara needed,” he hissed, backing away from me. To say the mood was dead was an understatement. “So no, Volana, I won’t mate with you, and I won’t give in to your lies and manipulations. Not again. Never again. This disgusting, cursed bond between us will die if I have to reach into my chest and rip it out! I’ll see your ass punished for everything you’ve done, even if I have to do it myself.” Orion snatched up my clothes and threw them at me. “Got any more questions, or are we clear?”
No. I most certainly did not have any more questions.
I was wrong to think I understood people. I was even wronger deluding myself into believing I understood Orion. His war against me was personal. It might even be more personal than Badr’s. Badr had someone to avenge. But Orion had something to prove.
Stiffly, I turned my back on him and redressed.
“Let’s forget this—”
“Already forgotten,” Orion sliced in. “But you won’t forget that there are no weak links in our group, so stop trying to pick us off one by one.”
I clenched my jaw, stopping me from saying something stupid. Orion was smarter than I gave him credit for. That was a problem. “Paranoid much?” I said when I found the words. “I just wanted some red-hot detention sex. Maybe the next—”
“Ahhh!”
A scream ripped through my sentence.
We spun toward the window where something large fell and landed with a thud that resounded through my chest.
We didn’t hesitate.
Leaping over the chairs, we raced to the windows and stuck our heads out.