28 #2
I salivate at the sight, and the rest of my thoughts promptly vanish from my tongue. I haven’t seen food—real, human junk food—in months . “Where did you get that?”
“Please. You think I’ve forgotten how to walk to the grocery store?
If I didn’t leave for lunch every day and gorge on sweets, I think I’d die.
” She throws an orange gummy bear into her mouth and chews.
I take the next one she holds out. Green.
Tart lime. I savor it as if it’s a thousand-dollar plate of gold-foil tiramisu.
“I forgot how good processed foods are.”
“Wait until you’re allowed to sneak out for some McDonald’s.” She sighs wistfully. “There’s nothing like your first fry after shifting.”
And there it is—a way into a real conversation. “Speaking of,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. “How was that for you? Your transition?”
She tosses a sour worm at my face. “If you’re going to sleuth, at least be subtle about it.” Her big doe eyes flutter closed. She soaks in sunlight—absorbs it—like a sponge. “Evelyn will kill me if I tell you about it.”
“And you don’t have autonomy over your own choices?”
Her eyes pop open, and she glares at me. “You don’t have to be such a bitch all the time. Evelyn is my best friend.”
I flinch, startled at her accusation. “She—she stabbed me, Antionette.”
“ You hugged her intended fiancé in the middle of a werewolf funeral. She has a reputation to protect. You can’t even imagine the pressure she’s under.
” Antionette sucks the sour sugar from a worm, and at least five of the soldiers around us watch the movement with burning yellow and brown gazes.
“The thing with Evie is that she’s loyal.
She didn’t have many friends growing up and…
well, friendship means a lot to her now.
You threaten that—you threaten her —and she’ll pop out your eyeballs with her claws. ”
“Lovely.”
“Yeah, well. Werewolves.” She shrugs. “I’m only telling you this because I wasn’t raised here.
Not like the Born werewolves. I can’t handle the constant brawling.
The whole point of this is that we’re supposed to be on each other’s side.
We’re supposed to be a pack. And we were—until you came in and started to wreck Evelyn’s entire future. ”
I hold up my hand. “Stabbed, Antionette. Scarred.”
“She is Prince Sinclair’s intended mate. Imagine if you were supposed to be mating… I don’t know… Calix , and I was throwing myself at him all day, every day. You would hate it.”
My nose scrunches. Even the image of dazzling Nettie holding hands with the guard churns the gummies in my stomach into a vile sort of acid.
“ Ha ,” Nettie says. “That’s my point. It’s not fair to her.”
I turn around to shoot Oona a glare—to tell her this was a dumb idea—but she pretends not to see me.
Instead, she’s sunbathing near the shore, her freckles darkening by the second.
I huff, uncomfortable and itching to join her, to flee this conversation in any way possible.
Nettie is right. Even if Sin and Evie don’t romantically like each other, they’re meant to be mates.
And I—I’m wrecking that. Just as Sin said.
You have made my life so much harder than it needs to be. You have wrecked everything.
I wave away the memory, skin blushing furiously under Antionette’s knowing stare. “Listen, Nettie, I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want or need any more enemies. I just… I just wanted to talk. It doesn’t have to be about Evelyn.”
“Ah, see. You asked about my transition, which means you do want to talk about Evelyn.” She smiles, but the pull of her lips doesn’t reach her eyes. “There is no me without Evie.”
“But—”
“Come on.” She stands and holds out a hand. I stare at it for a minute, waiting for it to stab me in the chest. “I’m not going to hurt you, Vanessa.”
A truth.
Thank god. I accept her hand and let her pull me to my feet. We stroll along the remainder of the seawall, and so long as I stick by Nettie, the guards don’t encroach on us. They let us roam the edge of the water.
“Evelyn Lee has been trained for regency since her birth just three short months after Sinclair Severi’s,” Nettie starts.
“Their fates are entwined together like… like Romeo and Juliet. Hopefully less tragic, anyway. Her family—the King and Queen of the Asian Court—sent her with their ambassador to be raised amongst as many foreign territories as possible. She was meant to have a vast and cultured upbringing. I’m sure you can imagine that it was a very lonely, very isolating way to grow up.
She moved through countries and cities like a wraith.
A tiny, frail, pale thing who saw more gore in her first five years of life than anyone else I’ve had the misfortune of meeting. ”
I grimace. “If you’re attempting to force my sympathy—”
“Me? I wouldn’t dare.” Nettie winks with a tinkling laugh.
“I’m merely showing you how the future came to form before Evelyn could make the decision herself.
She spent her thirteenth year traveling through the North American region with Ambassador Wuhao, stopping at each of the different manors along the way.
The manors,” Nettie explains, “are where the countesses and earls reside. They own the nicest homes in big cities and small towns. The mansions with ever-burning flames—glowing orange embers—in the windows. The homes that bustle with decadence and life in equal measure. I never realized before,” she says, “that they were as exceptional inside as they are outside.
“So, they reached Virginia, and Evelyn went off for an evening run as a wolf, but she hadn’t accounted for the small town having any life after dark.
Why would she? The bigger cities on her journeys were always bustling, but she hadn’t stopped anywhere that minuscule and unimportant before.
” Antionette bites down on a grin, trying to hide the flush in her cheeks behind a lightly tanned hand.
“I had a habit of sneaking out. My parents hated me for it, but I loved the night life. True night life. Crickets and owls. Dewy grass and swaying fields of corn. It felt magical.”
“You found her,” I say, understanding instantly.
“Rumors say that, yes.” Antionette tiptoes across the seawall, arms stretched wide. As if she’s flying. Soaring. “Rumors say I found her and watched her transform from wolf into girl. Rumors say it was breathtaking.” She glances back at me. “There’s no proof to those rumors, of course.”
“Right,” I agree. “No proof, no conviction.”
“Exactly.”
“So she bit you—”
“Absolutely not!” Her arms slam into her sides, and she stills on the ledge.
With a scoff, she flicks her hair behind her shoulder.
“We were friends first. It took a lot to get her to open up, to let me run alongside her. But after days, I wore her down.” Her face falls.
“I don’t think anyone tried with Evie before.
I don’t think anyone put in the effort that she deserved.
Her brother… Eric had to stay behind. He has been raised to lead Gyeongbokgung Palace—or Castle Lee, if you prefer it in our terms. Evelyn didn’t have anyone else .
“When Ambassador Wuhao was busy, we’d sneak off. Frolic through cornfields and pastures. Torment the cows and pigs on my family’s farm. We were girls, Vanessa. We would just… play.”
I gnaw on my lower lip. We were girls.
She was just a girl.
The words are so familiar, my chest aches, and I hate it. That I can feel this way for a girl who could’ve torn apart my best friend. But I know intimately how horrendous it was to grow up before Celeste, with no mother and a father who lived for his job. Evelyn had been alone. For so long.
“You can’t hide your humanity,” Nettie whispers. “I can’t either. I think the human parts of our hearts remain whole no matter how much time passes.”
“That is… not as uplifting as it should be.”
“Yes,” Nettie agrees. “You can imagine how I felt, then, when Evelyn came to me one evening and told me she had to leave. She was crying, face red and swollen, snot dripping from her nose. I’d never seen her like that before. She was always bright as a star. Always burning and shining.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“Ambassador Wuhao needed to move on.” She shrugs.
“They were working their way south, toward the Wolf Queen’s Court of North America.
” She gestures to the hulking castle behind us.
“Evelyn, though… She didn’t adapt this time.
She screamed and cried and begged to stay.
It made Ambassador Wuhao stricter. She was not behaving as a princess—as a future Wolf Queen.
She had no choice—” Nettie’s voice breaks.
She drags her foot through pebbles and small gemstones, almost dreamily. But…
A bitter taste floods my mouth. “Evie wanted to keep you like a toy.”
“The line between people and possessions blurs when you have power.” Nettie wrings her hands.
“Evie didn’t think about it beforehand. I really don’t think it was premeditated.
She just showed up to say goodbye, and she couldn’t help herself.
She bit me. Allegedly ,” Nettie adds, “she turned into a wolf, leapt atop me, and ripped into my neck like a rabid, wild animal.” She tugs the high neckline of her shirt lower, exposing the scarred webbing that spirals from her throat. Purple and red, like veins.
“My scar… It’s different,” I say quietly, touching my hip. “It’s fainter.”
“That’s because you were meant to survive it.”
“And you weren’t?”