Moon Kissed (Corvin Academy #1)

Chapter Six

N ia was waiting for me outside my room the next morning. Her nails were long and painted. Her hair styled into a bun. Her cardigan and matching skirt washed and smelling strongly of jasmine, and her expression bland. You wouldn’t have known anything happened to her the night before, which is what she said she wanted, so I got the hint, and didn’t bring it up.

“All I’m going to say is this,” I told her, shutting my door closed behind me. “I don’t know how much in my control this will be, but as much as I can... I’ll stay out of detention.”

Something flickered in Nia’s eyes so fast, I almost missed it. Clearing her throat, she simply replied, “Thank you. I would appreciate that.”

With that, we set off for the mess hall. Stepping inside the loud, bustling cafeteria, it struck me how normal it was. No one had any idea that they were laughing, joking, flirting, and tossing the ball back and forth on top of a crime scene.

And they’ll never know. Orion burned him up and flushed him down the drain. Not a lot of things can beat a wolf’s nose, but fire is one of them.

“Ugh, this is disgusting. What the hell’s in this?”

Badr’s voice stole my wolf’s attention, as it always would until the blasted bond died. She turned my head toward him against my will.

“It’s corn beef and cabbage,” Paxton said. Seemed he had recovered from his impromptu floor nap the night before. “It’s what you said you wanted.”

“I was wrong.” Badr shoved his plate at him. “Get me the chocolate chip pancakes instead. Thanks, man.”

Paxton took it and went off without a word. I muttered as he brushed past me.

“You must be so tired of that.”

Paxton stopped dead. “What? Were you talking to me?”

“Someone should,” I said softly, drawing closer. “Someone should actually talk to you like an equal instead of barking orders at you like a servant. Aren’t you tired of that? Aren’t you tired of him , and his Paxton, get that, Paxton, fetch this bullshit? And for all your loyalty to him, what does it get you?” I laughed. “Oh, yeah. Punched in the face.”

His jaw clenched as hard as his grip cracking the plate.

“You should stand up for yourself, Paxxy.” I trailed a finger up his thigh, making his limbs wind tighter than a bowstring. “Use your voice. You’re the most famous omega in Wolf Nation history. You were chosen by Luame herself to be the father of the greatest generation of shifter wolves. Stand up for yourself. Tell these assholes how you’re going to be treated.”

Paxton cut me a sideways look.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think you’ve been locked away in your ivory temple too long, Princess Priestess. Only reason you can say all that bullshit with a straight face.”

My smirk froze on my lips. “What?”

Paxton laughed in my face. “Stand up for myself? Use my voice? Condescending bullshit that only an epsilon would say.”

“Mmmhhm,” Nia sounded, earning a glare from me. She shuffled off whistling like she didn’t say anything.

“Let me tell you what it’s like in the real world, Volana. Take you on a little tour in the life of an omega,” Paxton hissed, dropping his voice. “In the real world, an omega who says no to an alpha is punished— hard. They’re made an example of so that they never get it into their heads to say no again.

“When I was eight, I refused to do Liam Maddox’s homework, so he commanded me to jump off the top of the jungle gym.”

My eyes popped. The little sadist made him do what!?

“I broke both legs,” Paxton dropped without inflection. “They healed too fast and not properly, so the nurse had to break them again. And before you ask, no, she didn’t give me pain meds.”

I winced. Just because wolves healed fast didn’t mean we didn’t feel pain. To have both your legs broken twice in the same day, I couldn’t imagine going through that at only eight years old.

“Afterward I complained to the teacher, and you want to know what the bastard did? He punished me for disrespecting an alpha, and made me stay late every day cleaning the school with the janitor for the rest of the year.”

“Paxton, I—”

“When I was ten,” he gritted, plowing on. “Stacy Franklin had a crush on me and decided I was her boyfriend. She stole my first kiss under command, but when her daddy found out she was kissing an omega boy, she got scared and said I forced myself on her .

“I was kicked out of school the next day.”

My stomach churned. I thought I heard every variation of every horrible confession from my time in the temple, but sexually assaulted and falsely accused before your eleventh birthday? That was a new level of awful.

“When I was eighteen, a couple of alpha boys stole a rich guy’s car and crashed it. I saw the accident and ran to help them. I pulled them out of the twisted fucking heap and dragged them clear before it blew up.

“And how did they thank me?” he spat. “They forced me to walk into the police station and say I stole the car of a man I’ve never met in my life. With the car burned up and their bruises and bones all healed, it was my word against theirs. Guess who the cops believed?”

I didn’t have to guess.

“And then when I was twenty-three,” Paxton whispered, leaning in close, “I was beaten within an inch of my life and thrown out of my pack because Luame gave me an honor that a worthless fish like me didn’t deserve —my pack alpha’s words, not mine.

“So don’t walk in here, looking down on me, and saying I need to stand up for myself. Omegas learn early when to fight, and when to survive, and Badr’s not the fight I’m gearing up for.” He jerked his chin at the guy. “Believe it or not, he’s one of the rare good ones. He’s never forced me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“No, he just knocks you out and leaves you drooling on the floor,” I shot back.

“Oh?” He arched a brow. “Oh, I see what’s going on.” Inexplicably, a smirk spread across his lips.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You were worried about me. You got yourself all twisted up in knots last night, stressing and worried and wondering if I was okay. Aww.” He cuffed my chin. “How cute.”

“Excuse— I—I didn’t—!” Outrage strangled my tongue tighter than arousal. Blast my fucking wolf! She liked him smirking at me with that wicked, wolfish grin. She liked it a lot. “I didn’t say any of that!”

“Look, yummy, you don’t have to worry about me.”

I gaped at him. Yummy? Did he just call me yummy? If I thought my wolf liked the smirk, it was nothing compared to her reaction to that nickname. My body flooded with such heat, my core melted and dampened my panties.

“I can take care of myself, and I can damn sure take a little punch,” he said, erasing so much distance between us a gnat didn’t have space to shift into a grain of sand between our chests. “But if it’s that important to you that I tell people what I want, then let me tell you, and make this very clear, I am more than interested in those sexual benefits”—Paxton kissed the shell of my ear, making me whimper shamefully—“so I’ll take that truce and I’ll take you—I mean, it hard.”

My jaw cracked, hanging open as a reply stuttered through my brain before making it to my mouth. Since when did men talk like this? Had I missed the entire era of men getting sexy as hell while I was locked away playing princess priestess?!

“B-b-but—” I felt my badass status burning up and flushing down the drain, never to be found or scented again. “But what about Castor?” I blurted. “All of a sudden you’re okay with porking your homicidal fiancée?”

Paxton chuckled. “Twelve hours ago I wasn’t. I was fighting my wolf harder than I ever have in my life, but that was before it spread through the omega wing that you saved Nia from an alpha.”

I stilled, sliding a sideways glance to Nia, who was in a corner talking with her friends. “What do you know about that?”

“Not much,” he admitted. “Only that after I was forced to take my nap, they got tired of torturing you, and decided to torment the fish, and even though you were hurt and messed up, you came to Nia’s rescue.”

I just nodded. If that’s all Nia chose to share, I wasn’t going to fill in the blanks.

“Not the first time they’ve treated omegas like party favors,” Paxton growled. “But it is the first I’ve ever heard of an epsilon risking herself to save one of us. And of all the epsilons in Wolf Nation... it was you.”

Still, I said nothing as his gaze turned assessing.

“I don’t know why you killed Castor, but it occurs to me that an evil, twisted sociopath with a crater where her soul should be, doesn’t go around saving omega girls she barely knows.” The finger sending shivers up someone’s thigh was his, and the odd sensations it was causing in my stomach was all me. “You had a reason for killing Castor. I’m sure of that now. I’m also sure I can wait until you’re ready to tell me. But I’m not so sure I can wait another second to bend you over and take you like a wild animal.”

I’d never been happier to be Black than I was right then. No one could see me blushing.

“Truce,” he whispered into my ear. “We’ll seal it with a kiss.”

Unbidden, my lips puckered and my eyes fluttered closed.

Something bonked me on the nose. I opened and saw it falling. Quick reflexes snatched it out of the air as Paxton strolled off laughing. Lying on my palm was a Hershey’s chocolate caramel kiss.

“Soooo...”

I wiped away the smile that snuck onto my lips. “What?” I snapped at an approaching Nia. Her knowing grin pissed me off even more.

“Did that go the way you thought it would?”

I flashed her an obscene gesture and walked off to the tune of her howling laugh. As good as it was to hear her laughing after her ordeal, I wanted to kick her in the throat for doing it at my expense.

The answer was no, that did not go the way I thought it would, but whose fault was that? I picked Paxton out as the weak one. The one I could exploit. And part of that, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, was due to my own prejudices about omegas. Of course the omega had to be the weak one in a group of alphas. Of course he was eager for any crumbs of affection, because he wasn’t going to get it anywhere else.

Well, that shockingly slick, seductive wolf just threw my stereotypes back in my face hard , and it was... sexy.

Yes, okay! It was fucking sexy, and not just my horndog wolf thought so. That kind of in-your-face, take-charge confidence was my weakness all day, which was not good.

I wanted my fates under control, but I could not go to bed with them. I couldn’t complete the bonds. Every woman knows you have all the power in a relationship when he’s chasing you. You have none once you’re caught.

I went straight to the window to put in my order. Just to give me something to do other than sit around listening to everyone whisper about me, and they were whispering. I heard comments about my stolen angora sweater dress, and matching blue boots. I heard them whisper about Hall, if I killed him, and who’d I go after next. I heard Castor on a hundred lips.

But what I didn’t hear was a single word about Mason, Nia, or what my fates and I interrupted the night before. Even though the omegas knew about it, they weren’t uttering a word in this room full of alphas.

Interesting.

I wasn’t used to this as an epsilon. There wasn’t much sisterhood, community, or all-in-it-together among the epsilons. We were the definition of every woman for herself. But for omegas, they appeared to have their own rules, their own bonds, and their secrets among themselves.

It was weird to only be learning this now. Weirder still to realize how little I knew about my people. But it wasn’t a surprise.

My fists balled at my sides. As I learned harshly, brutally, and violently only a short time before, I didn’t know anything about Wolf Nation.

Not a fucking thing.

“How come you’re not afraid?”

I pulled out of my thoughts. “What?”

Nia studied me with a strangely intense expression. “I... I... I lived my whole life thinking no one could hurt me, and then...” She looked away. “But people can hurt you, Daze. People want to hurt you. I know what that feels like now and it’s the worst ,” she hissed. “Is this what people feel like all the time?”

I met her gaze steadily. “It’s how women feel.”

She flinched. “How do you do it? How... do I do it?”

I didn’t need to ask what she meant. “It’s simple, Nia.” I reached out and accepted my pancakes. “You get stronger, and then you get even.”

I turned, and came face to face with Badr.

My hand was already inching toward my knife, ready for—

“Nia,” he said, dismissing me completely. “Sit with us.”

The guy said her name and Nia still looked around like he could be talking to someone else. “What? Me? Why?”

“Because what happened shouldn’t have happened. We should’ve looked out for you. From now on, we will.” A smile completely foreign to his face appeared on his lips. “From now on, you’re with us.”

All the whispering about me stopped, because everyone was too busy gaping at Nia.

A personal invitation from one of the most popular, and handsome, alphas in the school to sit at a table everyone else isn’t even allowed to look at too hard? It was unheard of.

“But— But, uh—” She flicked to me. “I’m not allowed to leave her side.”

Holly placed Nia’s lemon blueberry scones at the window. Badr picked it up before she could move. “Volana comes too,” he tossed over his shoulder, walking off.

“Um.” Nia rubbed her arms, looking from her watching audience to me. “Is this cool with you?”

“That’s for you to say,” I replied, expressionless. “I understand if you’re not interested in being surrounded by alphas, but for what it’s worth. I think they’ve already proven they’ve got your back.”

Her grip tightened on her shoulders, as if she was trying to keep herself together. “Maybe no one will—again if I’m close to the Chosen Five.” She ripped a word out of that sentence, but I filled in the blanks just fine. “Don’t you think?”

Something approaching pity filled my chest. The woman didn’t trust her wolf anymore. She didn’t trust her to protect her, so now she was relying on her enemy to be an internal compass. If I was the best Nia could do, then Luame help that girl.

“Solid logic,” I said simply.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, okay.”

Nia psyched herself up, slowly setting off for the dais. I followed at a sedate, but determined pace. In many ways she was walking into the belly of the beast, but not in any of the ways I was.

It wasn’t her Nyx, Orion, Edric, and Badr wanted to torture, blackmail, then lock up and throw away the key.

Ava gave me the mother of all filthy looks when I sat down across from her.

“I don’t get this,” she snapped at Badr. “A fish and a psycho are sitting with us now? I don’t know which is worse.”

My mouth opened to say something scathing.

“If you’ve got a problem with it,” Edric sliced in, “sit somewhere else. And while you’re packing your shit, you can stop calling her fish.”

Ava tensed, face purpling. She definitely had a problem with it, but if she moved to another table, everyone would see the queen get dethroned, while a fish claimed her place.

She sat up, nose lifting. “I don’t have a problem with it, but Badr does. He doesn’t want her anywhere near him, and we have to respect that.” Ava looked right at me. “The f— The omega can stay. You leave.”

“Mmm, these pancakes are delicious.” I chomped down, moaning pornographically. “Nia, you’re going to kick yourself for passing on these— Actually, no you’re not. Try them.”

She frowned at me, no doubt wondering why I was being so buddy-buddy, then her brows smoothed out. I knew understanding dawned when a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Please, don’t tempt me. I’m supposed to be on a diet. I shouldn’t even be eating these scones.”

“Leave,” Ava barked. “Bitch, get up and go!”

“You won’t regret breaking your diet for these,” I replied, ignoring Ava completely, knowing she hated that more than sitting with a hundred fishes. Paxton chose that moment to return with Badr’s food. He tossed me a wink as he set it down, and I forced myself to ignore that too.

“I wouldn’t be worried about breaking my diet for them during the omega mealtime,” Nia said. “They’re only serving us this stuff because we’re all mixed now.”

“What do they usually serve you?” Nyx asked the window.

Strong assumption he was talking to Nia, but he wasn’t looking at her. Nyx was flexing and fixing his reflection’s hair—preening like a red-bottomed baboon.

Nia answered back, telling him they get nothing more than cereal, oatmeal, and toast, while I scanned the row of handsome faces—all so different.

It was hard to get to know my fates, because they were too busy bullying and sneering at me for proper conversation, but pictures of the five of them were beginning to clear.

Nyx was the vain, clownish one. Edric was the silent, but deadly one. Orion was the misunderstood bad boy who beneath it all, just wants a hug. Paxton was the arrogant, confident one. And Badr was the angry one.

I told them as much over Ava’s continued bleating for me to go away. Except for Badr. There was no reason to antagonize the guy when I knew why he was angry. Seeing your brother slaughtered right in front of you will do that to a person.

Edric’s brow twitched. “Did you just compare me to a fart?”

I shrugged, stifling a laugh. “Fitting for a wind wolf, wouldn’t you say? Especially one that slips out of cracks and stinks up the place with his lies.”

“What’s she talking about?” Orion pounced. “What lies?”

“Why are you asking me what the hell she’s raving about?” Edric leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. “She’s finally got our attention, so she’s using it to stir up shit. Don’t fall for it.”

Oooh, he’s good. Expert deflection if I do say so myself.

“We’re not falling for it,” Nyx said, turning to Nia. “So, Nia, what else is different on the omega side? Do you have the same basic classes? Were you able to get set design back on the—? What the fuck do you mean vain!” Nyx spun on me, popping my brows up. “You don’t even know me. Where the hell do you get off calling me a vain clown?”

“And Paxton’s the confident one?” Orion blurted. “ Paxton? ”

“Real nice with the tone of surprise,” Paxton shot back.

“What are you basing these conclusions on?” Orion went on. “Your shroom-induced fever dreams?”

I laughed. “Glad you guys aren’t letting me get to you, or I’d be having too much fun right now.”

Nyx and Orion bared their canines at me—stuck between wanting an answer, and not wanting to play my game.

“What about me?” Badr’s hate-burnt eyes wiped away my grin. “Which am I?”

The reply came to my lips unbidden. There was only ever one answer. “You’re the one who’ll trick me into watching my back, because you’ll be coming from the front.”

For the second time on so early and dreary a morning, Badr smiled. “You’re good, Volana.

“You got it in one.”

THE REST OF THE DAY was like a scene from someone else’s life.

My fates were so kind and considerate to Nia, it bordered on surreal. They held open doors for her, pulled out her chair, shouted down anyone who called her fish, and didn’t land her in detention by way of sabotaging me.

All the thoughtfulness heaped on her only further chilled the freezing winds blasting in my direction.

After rising to my bait about how I saw them, the guys didn’t make the same mistake again. Instead, they flat-out wiped me from existence. They didn’t look at me. They didn’t speak to me. They didn’t breathe in my direction. Whenever we were around them, it was all Nia, Nia, Nia—

—and I hated it.

No, not me! Her!

My wolf hated it. She was filled with such hate and jealousy for all the attention and care they were showering on another woman, that she had my hand twitching for a weapon whenever Nia was within two feet of me—which was all the time.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was all a part of their plan to torture me, and even though I didn’t believe they’d sink that low as to use Nia again after what she’d been through, it was still working!

I hated it. I hated them. I hated Nia. I hated my petty-ass wolf. And I hated myself because all the insecure pettiness was all me, no matter how much I wanted to blame it on my furry other half.

“—and Nyx said the funniest thing the other day,” Nia was blathering on, unaware of the hole my glare was drilling in the back of her head. “We were sitting on the bleachers, talking about the monsters in the demigod dominion and he said— Well, you were there,” she said, laughing again. “You know.”

My brow twitched. I was there in the physical sense of the word, but I didn’t know what he said because Ava was sitting on Nyx’s lap at the time, howling like a hyena at everything he said, and drowning out even my wolf hearing. Easy to do since I long since stopped acting like a fucking barnacle on Nia’s hull, and went back to sitting at my own table and keeping my distance.

But not too much distance because I promised Nia I wouldn’t do anything to get her in trouble, and leave her vulnerable to Dagem or the alphas again. So in the end, I lurked on the fringes of their little popular group like a creepy, jerking-off-in-the-bushes stalker.

“And Edric,” she went on. We had just left History of the Dominions and were headed to the mess hall for lunch. “He comes off so hard and closed off, but when you get to know him, he’s actually quite sweet.”

Oh, yeah, he was real sweet when he was threatening me into scamming the alpha council out of millions, right after he tried to pressure Orion out of being my alibi.

“Orion too.” Nia sighed. “He opened up to me about his dad. Can you imagine waking up one day and realizing everything you know is a lie? His mom took off when he was little, and now he’s questioning that too. Did his mom leave because she suspected something or knew about his dad? Did she abandon him to be raised by a monster? Or did she not leave at all and... his father did something to her?”

Nia clasped her hands tight over her heart, eyes pained. “He’s in so much pain all the time, and no one else sees it. They don’t care because they’re too busy blaming him.” She shook her head. “I wish there was something I could do to help him. Be there for him like he’s been there for me in the past—”

“MINE!”

Nia jumped out of her skin. Spinning around, she shot back against the wall—chest heaving as she gaped bug-eyed at me.

The sudden hot flush of wolf-induced jealousy left as fast as it came. Clearing my throat, I raised my chin. “Apologies,” I said lightly. “My wolf isn’t a fan of how close you’re becoming to my fates. Not your fault of course, but it might be best to change the subject.”

“Oh... right.” Nia slowly peeled herself off the wall, maintaining the distance between us. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s cool. No one wishes my wolf would get over those alphaholes more than me.”

“Sure, but still.” She edged to the side, keeping me in her sights. “I could’ve been more sensitive. Especially because they’re only being so protective of me because of my wolf too.”

“Let’s go.”

We continued on to the mess hall, turning the conversation to our assignments. The alpha track workload was as punishing as it promised to be. Luckily for Nia, she was passing with flying colors and parades. Unlucky for me, I was failing everything.

“Are you going to do the essay?” Nia asked me. “I saw the one Raza handed back to you, and there was more red ink than black on that paper.”

I heaved a sigh. “She has it out for me, because she thinks I’m the one who slipped laxatives in her tea that night. Writing that essay is a massive waste of time, but if I don’t, she’s got an excuse to put me in detention.”

Nia dropped her gaze.

I thought she might say something, but then we joined the flow of students headed into the mess, and the conversation dropped.

When we went inside, Nia veered off to the dais and I dropped my stuff on an empty seat close to the front doors. Holly was by my side by the time I sat down, carrying a pot of that staff-only coffee.

She had to know who I was by then, but for some reason, she treated me as friendly as I treated her.

“Afternoon, Daze.”

“Afternoon.”

“How’d you sleep last night? That storm seemed to rage on forever.”

“I didn’t get any sleep, but that’s because I was enjoying it.” A true smile tugged at my lips. “I curled up against the window, drank chamomile tea, and watched the lightning race across the sky. That’s my kind of night.”

“You’re an old soul, Daze.” She poured me a mug while handing over the menu. “People your age won’t appreciate that now, but one day, you’ll find your kindred spirits.” Holly patted my shoulder walking away.

Even the lunch lady can tell I’m friendless, and she pities me. Is this rock bottom? Or will I know it by the bus I can’t catch?

“Mind if I move this?”

I raised my head at the voice. Nia placed my bag on the floor and sat down.

“What’s this? Why aren’t you sitting with the asshole, the other asshole, the flatulent asshole, the smelly asshole, and the smirky one?”

“Hmm. Is that Badr, Nyx, Edric, Orion, and Paxton in that order?”

“Couldn’t be anyone else.”

Nia laughed. “I’m not sitting with them because it’s time everyone went back to their own lives and stopped worrying about me.” Her smile dimmed, hardening around the edges. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I don’t need protectors. I never did, and I won’t start now.”

I hesitated. “Nia, if this is because of what I said—”

“It is,” she sliced in. “Get stronger, and then get even. Isn’t that right.” It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t.

Looking her in the eyes, I tipped my chin. “You’re right.”

“Good.” She straightened in her seat, steeling herself as she patted her rainbow butterfly clips. “I told the guys, and now I’m telling you that I want everything to go back to how it was. Number one: Don’t take bullshit from Raza because of me.” Her voice was hard. “You wouldn’t have done that before. Don’t do it now.”

“You asked me to stop landing you in detention before,” I reminded her.

“I know, but this is different. Raza is abusing her power and”—golden eyes flashed the power and fury of a wolf—“I’m getting real fucking sick of people doing that.”

My part smile blew into a real one. “Agreed.”

A chime drew my attention to my pocket. I was keeping my phone on me at all times now after discovering the day before that my room had been searched again. I knew because the stranger’s scent was heavy in the air, and the note I had taped to the vanity was removed and put back half an inch higher than where I put it.

I stared at that note enough times to notice that detail. I only wondered how long the intruder studied the note trying to crack it. However long was a waste of time because they never would. It was a code I invented based on a forgotten line in a book no one’s read, and then I translated said code into a dead language.

I had no fear that someone would discover what it said, and what drove my ultimate endgame. But I was a tad worried someone—Edric—would crack my second phone and discover a few too many secrets waiting for their big reveal—like the list.

I had gotten rid of the paper trail and now kept the hitlist on my phone. Can’t have that found, or chance Edric cracking the encrypted texts between me and Lucia.

There’s so much subterfuge in world domination, I mused, clicking the notification that appeared from my Loop-Garou app. Who knew? The app opened up, going straight to the video tagged on my profile.

The phone shot out of my clenched grip.

All around me, chimes, rings, beeps, and song clips tickled my ear as everyone in the frickin’ mess hall opened Loop-Garou, and got an eye full of my naked, bleeding ass dangling from the ceiling. Nyx even gave the video a name.

Pinata de Bitch

Laughs went up so loud and punishing, it flattened my ears against my head.

“Oh, gods,” Nia breathed, cringing. I knew she got to the point when Orion set my feet on fire, because my head-splitting screams burst out of the speakers.

“Look at that,” someone taunted. “Volana barks like a bitch, but squeals like a pig.”

“Attention, attention, everyone.” Nyx was standing on top of the table. “I hope you’re enjoying another NyxNight Production, but show a little support for the creator and buy the merchandise.”

I didn’t have a clue what the asshole was talking about until Edric, Orion, Badr, Ava, Elizabella, Melisent, Tulisa, and the rest of Ava’s epsilon crew opened their backpacks, dumped out the contents, and held them up for all to see.

Pictures of me hanging from the ceiling titled Pinata de Bitch stamped on every shirt, sweater, baseball cap, bandana, and even some earrings. The only one who didn’t have a backpack full of that fuckery, was Paxton.

“Guys!” he shouted. “Nyx, what the hell! I told you to delete that video!”

Nyx grinned down at him. “You did tell me that, brother, but you forgot one thing: you don’t give me orders.”

Paxton’s hands flew up. Clapping his palms together, he yanked them apart and a swirling torrent of water appeared above his head—summoning in the time it took me to blink. He swept the wave down the table, collecting most of the clothes within the shifting, writing orb of—

“ Get out! ”

Paxton bolted out of the mess hall so fast, he blew my hair back running past.

The waterball splashed on the table, soaking Ava, the epsilons, and my other fates. The hollow victory he won me ended with a single sound.

Nyx laughed out loud. “Sorry for the interruption, guys, but it looks like we’ve got an upgrade. Wet t-shirt contest!”

I roared up on them, shoving through the crowd of people that ran up on the dais. “What the fucking hell!” I shrieked. “I thought this was over. I thought we had a truce!”

“We did,” Orion replied, smirking away. “Nia just ended it.”

“What?” Nia cried from across the room.

“We were good with you as long as we were good with her,” Orion explained. “We weren’t about to cause trouble for you if it’d cause problems for Nia. But now that she’s ready to move on and deal with her business, the five of us are going to deal with ours.”

“What does that even mean!” Anger true and burning clenched my throat. “We don’t have any business. We don’t have anything! If you hate me so much, why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone!”

Badr pushed between me and Orion, crowding my personal space. “You want us to leave you alone? It’s simple, Volana. Confess,” he hissed. “Confess to killing Hall. Confess the reason you killed my brother. And cough up the location of that girl on the other end of the phone.

“Do that, and we’ll never bother you again, because you’ll be buried too deep for us to find.”

“I didn’t kill Hall! I was standing right next to Orion when it happened. What more do you want?”

“I just told you,” he blared right back. “Give up that traitor, or get used to us showing the world what a pathetic, weak-ass psycho you really are!”

Frustration choked me. “You know what? Fine. Fine!” I shoved back, throwing up my hands. “You want to know where Lucia is? I’ll tell you. I’ll even give you her address right now.”

Surprise flickered in his eyes when I snatched a pen and notebook from Ava’s bag, and scrawled the address. Badr obviously didn’t think I’d give her up no matter what he did. But Lucia never needed protection from me.

I wrote the last letter, then flung it at him.

Badr snatched it out of the air, reading it eagerly. His triumphant grin quickly morphed into a scowl. “Wait— This town... Incepe Din. That’s— That’s a—”

“Vampire village! Ding, ding, ding,” I crowed, clenching his jaw. “There you have it, asshole. Lucia is a vampire living deep in vampire territory. Feel free to break the treaty and kick off a war just to go after her, but when I told Edric this information”— my fates, and my smirk, shone the spotlight on the tall, tense werewolf—“he thought better of that plan. I assume you will too.”

“It’s a lie!” Badr crumpled the note and threw it in my face. “No werewolf, not even one as vile as you, would ally with a vampire! More than that, no vampire would ally with a werewolf. They hate us. They hate our tainted blood. The leech would’ve killed you on sight!”

I snorted. “She tried, believe me. Lucia took quite a while to warm up to me. So long, it still hasn’t happened. But...” I shrugged. “In the end, there’s no such thing as enemies when there’s a bargain to be struck. I have something she wants. She has something I want. It’s a dysfunctional relationship but it work—”

Badr’s hand flashed out, throttling my throat. “Enough,” he gritted. “Fucking enough of your lies!”

I blinked lazily under his spittle.

“Tell me who and where she really is! Tell me now!”

All around us, our audience watched in stunned disbelief. No one was going to step in and stop this.

But one fucking should. My eyes narrowed on Edric. “This is the part where you open your mouth,” I rasped through my clenched throat. “Edric found out everything on Lucia a long time ago. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want me to tell everyone he breaks into girls’ rooms at night and sniffs their panties.”

“That’s not why!” Edric shouted.

“But you did know?” Orion shot back. “You knew about this chick the whole time and didn’t say anything?”

“Because I didn’t know if it was true, and I wasn’t about to go there to prove it,” he cried. “She’s got our balls in a vise, and she knows it. This Lucia is untouchable. There’s nothing we can do.” Edric turned hateful eyes on me. “We can’t stop the video... so we can’t stop her.”

“Finally,” I said, peeling Badr’s fingers off my neck one by one. “You’re getting it.”

“It’s not true!”

Badr really wouldn’t let a single damn thing go.

“Allying with a vampire is worse than the worst offense against Wolf Nation,” he carried on. “She’d be an outcast. She’d have her ears cut and be thrown out. She wouldn’t go that far, and if she did, she wouldn’t come right out and admit it!”

“Ugh, I didn’t come right out with anything,” I reminded. “Edric was the one creeping on my sim card, and you were the one shouting and bawling for me to tell you where Lucia is. I give you what you want, and now you’re mad and calling me a liar.” I heaved a sigh. “Some people are never pleased no matter what you do.”

His snarl raised my wolf’s hackles. It was taking too long, but I think she was finally starting to see Badr for what he was.

A threat.

“Besides,” I went on, not afraid of him in the slightest. “All the no-good, naughty things I’ve done over the past year and a half would get my ears cut. What’s a vampire friend on top of that?”

Badr’s face changed. He looked at me with such seething hatred, I swore he was going to do it. He was going to leap across and rip my throat out.

Stepping out from behind the table, Badr planted himself in front of me. “Why?” His voice shook as hard as his body. “Just tell me... why.”

I faced him head-on. “I already told you.” My voice was soft, but serious. “I told everyone.”

“That wasn’t the reason.”

“It was—”

“No, it wasn’t! You didn’t kill my brother because you didn’t want to be forced to be the mother wolf, or you would’ve killed us all!”

The barest flicker of surprise popped my brow. Badr picked up on that, did he? Well, I guess someone eventually had to probe that obvious hole in my motive.

“You want something.” His words were arrows through my chest. “You have some kind of plan, and you’re holding the fate of Wolf Nation hostage to get it, and you know what, it’s working!” Emotion bled into his voice. “No one can touch you. No one can kill you. No one can stop you.

“So just tell me.” He flashed out, grasping my shoulders—shaking me. “Tell me why you killed him.”

I didn’t speak for a long spell. No one did. A heavy, smothering hush filled the room as they all waited to hear my response. The truth of what happened that day.

My lips parted.

Crash!

We spun around, all eyes flying to Holly and the plate of steak and pineapple salsa she dumped at Nia’s feet.

Gasping, Holly’s hands flew to her neck as she dropped on her knees—bulging eyes pleading what her cracked jaw and closing throat couldn’t.

“What the hell?”

“She’s choking!” Nia jumped up. “Someone do something. Get help!”

Holly flopped face-first on the floor before Nia finished the sentence. One deep gurgling noise erupted from her body, and then nothing.

Not a word. Not a blink. Not a breath.

Beneath her body, the hardwood started blackening and rotting. Amid the chaos, the words formed.

Destiny is Known. Destiny is Dead. Two Down. Six to Go.

Slowly, I turned back to Badr, Orion, Nyx, Edric, and their wide, bugged eyes.

“I think it’s time for you to accept,” I whispered, speaking too low for everyone else’s wolf ears to pick up over the screams, cries, and clamoring for Holly. But not so low they couldn’t hear. “Accept that I do everything for a reason, and when I dole out my will...” I stepped back, smirking right into their eyes. “I’m giving them exactly what they asked for.”

Twisting on my stolen pumps, I sashayed out the door—leaving that nasty, rotted bitch Holly dead in a pool of her own vomit where she belonged.

THAT NIGHT, I TRUDGED into my bedroom, and nearly broke the doorknob strangling it.

It was a wreck.

Mattress overturned and thrown against the opposite wall. Wardrobe on its sides with all my clothes spilling out. Rug torn up. Vanity in pieces. Mirror broken. And all of my books and textbooks ripped to shreds.

I was sure this mess was the result of another search, and not simple vandalism, but no doubt whoever blew their hurricane through my room had a lot of fun doing it.

“Was it you?”

The whisper turned my head to the hallway. Nia stood there—head lowered and back pressed against a laughing mermaid.

“Did you kill Holly?”

I sighed. “Come on, Nia. Not you too.” I knelt down and began the slow work of returning my room to rights. “Dagem questioned me for six hours. How many times and how many ways do I have to say it? I didn’t kill Holly. You know I didn’t kill Holly. You were sitting right there, Nia. I never came within ten feet of her.”

“But you were talking to her before I joined you at the table.”

“And every wolf in the room heard what we said,” I rebounded. “It was nothing. Just polite conversation between me and the only person in the school who knew what I did, and was still nice to me.” I heaved the wardrobe off the floor, muscles straining. “Why would I hurt the one person in this school who treats me like a human being?”

“I... I don’t know.”

It’s because she fucking deserved it, and my only regret is that I can’t kill her twice.

“But Orion...” Nia slowly edged inside, keeping one foot outside over the threshold. “Orion said you told them something strange after she died. And that you were smiling.”

Oh, yeah. Orion The Snitch said that to Nia, Dagem, the vice headmaster, the head of security, and everyone loitering in the halls when they hauled me out of Economics and dragged me back to the headmistress’s office for another useless interrogation.

“I was just messing with their heads because they won’t stop messing with me. All I want is to graduate from the academy and move on with my life.” I faced her. “Look, if there really is a killer in this school, and all signs point to yes on that one, then everyone should be asking themselves why they’d go after an alpha teacher, and a sweet omega lunch lady.

“What did those two have to do with each other besides working in the same place? And who’d hate them so much that they’d kill them in such awful ways? If everyone stopped obsessing over me and actually spent some time answering those questions, Hall and Holly might get the justice they deserve.”

She was quiet studying me. I wasn’t sure if she was buying it. Dagem and my fates sure didn’t. Dagem called Sunella two minutes after dragging me into her office, and demanded the Wind alpha take me away.

Sunella demanded to know what her proof was that I was responsible for the murders. When Dagem gave her a fat load of nothing in response, the woman straight hung up on her. No doubt the ransacking of my room was to find proof, but again, no luck there.

“I should go,” Nia said, then took off without another word.

She was grateful to me for saving her, but the girl didn’t trust me worth a damn.

Good. I’ll need people with sound judgment around after the revolution.

As expected, it took forever to clean my room and put everything back where it belonged. I video-called Lucia during my forced spring cleaning, and propped her against the armchair.

The lovely, pale-skinned, beautiful vicious killer smiled at me with too sharp teeth. “What happened there?” she asked, observing the state of my room. “Failed assassination attempt? Pity.”

“Give it up, bitch. I’m never gonna die.”

She laughed, and the red-dyed tips of her bob brushed the corners of her ruby-red lips. “So what do you want?”

“Just doing my nightly check-in. Am I too late?”

“You almost were, but we’ve got some time.”

“Good. Then, I’m done with you.”

Lucia ducked out of frame, but not before flipping me off. I stayed on a little longer, chattering away, before the abrupt Call End told me she hung up on me.

“Personalities even more rotten than their desiccated souls,” I muttered. “That’s the real reason everyone wants to kill vampires.”

Soon I finished up, changed into my jammies, turned out the lights, and climbed into bed.

My lids fluttered closed.

Bang!

The windows on either side of my bed burst open. Freezing, chilling, whipping, howling winds tore through the space—destroying and upending everything it took me two hours to put right.

“Dammit, Edric!”