15
I stare at my chest. At the words inked across my chemise in big, bold, bloody letters, positioned just so I can read them clearly.
GET OUT BITCH
My hands shake. My bones tremble. I don’t move.
It’s not the message; it’s the red. It’s the thick scent of copper and death choking me. It’s the flash of Celeste I see when I close my eyes. What do I do? It’s on me. It’s all over me. It’s—
My door squeaks open, and my gaze snaps to the entryway.
Sin.
He stands in the threshold, hanging on to the frame as he pokes his blond head inside.
I bare my teeth as he raises a brow. “Wanted to see if you were awake,” he drawls lazily.
“Might want to get dressed, though, or we’ll be late.
You don’t want to know what they do when we’re late.
” With that, he shuts my door, making no mention of the blood on my clothes or the scent of gore that smothers the room.
I don’t care about punishments. About tardiness. Not when I’m covered in… in… I glance down, but my stomach drops. I throw myself off the floor and rush to the mirror standing against the wall. Ashen hair. Purple eyes. White chemise. My reflection is exactly as expected, except—
There’s no blood. No message.
Nothing.
I grab the mirror’s elaborate gilded edges and force it to tilt downward. There’s not a single fleck of red on me. I blink rapidly. Does that mean I was hallucinating again? I stagger away from the mirror, knock into the bed, and tug on my braids.
What is wrong with me?
I don’t have time to wonder, though. Not really. Sin knocks on my door again and again, and I know that if I don’t dress now, he’ll probably drag me to class in my nightgown.
Slowly, shakily, I pull on the wispy violet dress Oona left for me and open my door. But the sight waiting for me isn’t one I could have ever expected. Anger unfurls its wings like a moth inside me. Instinctively, my hands ball into fists.
Sin isn’t the only one here.
Calix frowns at me, staring at my hastily tied corset-style bodice, frizzy braids, and the two bare feet that peek out from the bottom of my dress.
As I growl, “Why is he here?” Sin says, “Calix mentioned you’d need these.” He pulls a delicate pair of satin slippers from his back pocket, handing them to me with a smirk. “I didn’t realize humans have such incendiary tendencies.”
I rip them from his grasp and stomp my feet into them.
But my heart rate hasn’t eased, and my finger bones feel like taffy as they lengthen into misshapen claws.
I don’t know why the presence of Calix does this to me, erases my nerves and replaces with them a vicious bloodlust. Maybe it’s that he stole me from my dad.
Or maybe it’s that he threw me into a pool without telling me I was about to drown.
Either way, I don’t feel bad for glaring at him now.
I made it through the worst of middle school bullies without ever dealing with someone as hateful as Calix.
“What’s the matter, Bitten one?” Sin says, looping a lock of my hair around his finger. “Wolf got your tongue?”
I wave away his hand and march down the hall, shaking my head until my venomous thoughts of Calix turn back into questions about vanishing blood. If it was a hallucination, how do I know anything else is real? Am I even a werewolf? What if I died beside Celeste and this is hell?
I turn around, eyes narrowed, and pinch Sin. He hisses and rubs his side. “ Ow ,” he says. “What was that for?”
“I needed to see if you were real.”
Still rubbing his side, he cocks a brow and says, “If you’re referring to my Superior beauty, I can assure you, I am very real.”
“I’m not.” I pinch myself, and the sharp jolt of pain does nothing— nothing —to wake me from my potential stupor.
I glance around the hall of small but moving statues, focusing on one of a wyvern.
Its stone wings flutter slowly. I walk up to it.
Poke it. And though it turns its head to snarl at me, it does not stop moving.
I stumble backward, away from the castle’s enchantments.
Sin lifts a hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes and squinting as though I’m the sun. “Did you sustain brain damage from the First Rite?”
“Who’s to say she didn’t already have brain damage?” Calix mutters behind him.
“I’m trying to wake myself up,” I say sharply, apathetic to their banter and insults. I’m desperate to know the truth. The truth. That’s it. My gaze snaps to Sin.
“Lie to me,” I demand.
“You can’t compel an Alpha,” Sin says, “ especially not the Crown Prince of the Wolf Queen’s Court.
The hierarchy has already dictated that I am above you.
And you certainly can’t wake yourself from a dream by pinching yourself—or by pinching me, for that matter.
The only way to rouse from a dream is to notice everything wrong within it. Does anything appear wrong here?”
I point to a naked man roaming through the hall, securing a gold crest around his neck as the rest of him swings a little too enthusiastically with his every step, then rip my gaze away quickly. “Yes.”
Sin tilts his head, studying me before sighing and saying, “Fine. My favorite food is rhubarb pie.”
Flames rupture in my chest.
Lie.
He must know I’ve already deduced the answer because he adds, “In actuality, if the kitchen ever serves rhubarb pie, don’t eat it. It made Lady Chawla sick for a week. Even with our Superior healing, we can’t outrun Chef’s shoddy pastries.” He lowers his voice. “You are not in a dream, Vanessa.”
I loathe the safety that sweeps through me and tells me he’s being honest.
This is real. And that threat… the blood…
When I don’t laugh, smile, or even speak, Sin says, “What’s wrong?”
I don’t want to answer him. Not at all, but especially not around Calix.
I trust him least of all. However, I don’t see Oona, and there’s no one else to ask.
So I pull Sin into an alcove near the stairs, beneath a banner of pastel moon cycles.
Calix, thankfully, understands that he isn’t wanted and stays far enough behind that he shouldn’t be able to hear us.
“And here I was thinking we wouldn’t be this friendly this fast,” Sin quips, smoothing out his old-fashioned tunic where I’ve wrinkled it. I shove my claw at his chest, and his attention snags on the crooked nail. “Shit,” he murmurs.
“I—I need to know… when the first transformation is finished, do you maintain your hallucinations?” I haven’t seen Celeste’s phantom since that night, but it doesn’t mean I won’t see it again. Not if I’m seeing other things.
“No.” Sin leans a hand against the wall, crossing his legs at the ankles. “The hallucinations and pain finish once the wolf emerges. Why?”
“Before you so rudely opened my door without knocking, I could’ve sworn I…” I cross my arms. “There was blood. On me. On my chest.”
He straightens abruptly. “I didn’t see any.”
“I know. When I checked the mirror afterward, it was gone. Like it was some kind of dream… but I saw it. I smelled it, and f-felt it.”
“Brain damage could very well be a possibility, then,” he says, but his voice isn’t light or airy anymore.
His brows tighten. He glances back down the hallway, and I turn.
Calix is waiting where we left him, but from his darkening gaze it’s obvious that he heard.
Of course. I no longer feel angry enough to care, however.
Sin runs a hand through his hair. “Empaths?” he says. “Alchemists?”
I don’t understand the meaning, but then I hear Calix as though he’s standing right beside me. “Could be either.”
“Well, fuck.” Sin takes my hand and drags me into the stairwell. Calix’s hard and heavy steps echo behind me until he joins us. The two of them crowd around me, pushing me into the wall.
“Repeat what happened,” Sin says.
“Don’t leave anything out,” Calix adds.
I share it all, down to the message and placement and the moment it disappeared.
Calix grunts. “Empaths would be able to make her think she saw it, but they would have to be close to do that convincing of a job. All the Empaths at court were having breakfast at that time.”
“And the Alchemists”—Sin looks to me for a brief second and explains—“werewolves skilled with magically manipulating and crafting materials of any kind—could have created a dissolving liquid that appears as blood and later vanishes, but they would’ve broken in long before you woke to place it,” Sin says.
“So—” Calix starts.
“It could be either, or it could be neither,” Sin finishes.
I glance between them. Not feeling entirely amicable, or even entirely myself, I mutter under my breath, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of werewolves.”
“I hope I’m Dee,” Sin says, surprising me with his casual reply.
Calix doesn’t laugh. I don’t either. Sin sighs again, aggrieved by our lack of humor. “There won’t be a way for us to figure out what happened unless it occurs a second time. And if it were real… I suspect that could happen sooner than we think.”
“It was a warning,” Calix agrees. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t stop until you’re dead.”
I glower at him, baring a single fang. I will not apologize for hating this man. “Charming.”
Oona said it wouldn’t be safe for me here, but I thought there would be time to learn.
To train. I pick at my nails, anxiety pummeling through me with heavy fists.
Stupid heightened werewolf emotions. Stupid castle.
Stupid everything. “I should go back to my room,” I say before my fangs can descend in another rush of emotions that I just can’t seem to control. “I shouldn’t be out here in the open.”
“Absolutely not,” Sin says. “We have lessons, and I told you, we’ll be late if we don’t hurry. Punishment is a morbid affair.”
“Are they going to write bitch in blood across my chest?” I ask.
Sin winces, starting up the stairs. “Maybe not that morbid.” I follow him because I don’t want to be left alone, and Calix follows me. I chew on the corner of my nail.