Bitten
Author: Jordan Stephanie Gray
Date: 2025-10-02 00:00:00+00:00
Description: "A deliciously dark and viciously sexy romance. You will want to devour Jordan Gray's stunning paranormal debut. But beware, this book bites back." –Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Once Upon a Broken Heart Crescent City meets Fourth Wing in this fast-paced and romantic debut, in which a teenage girl must survive ruthless werewolves, a glittering court, and deadly politics to exact revenge on the monsters who destroyed her. After a vicious werewolf attack on the night of her seventeenth birthday party, Vanessa Hart loses everything she loves in a split second. Her best
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2025 by Jordan Stephanie Gray

Family tree copyright © 2025 by Virginia Allyn

First edition sprayed edges and case art copyright © 2025 by Abigail Larson

Endpapers copyright © 2025 by Abigail Larson

Ornament copyright © by Rashoo Moon/Shutterstock.com.

Brush stroke copyright © by Art Kovalenco/Shutterstock.com.

Additional ornaments copyright © by NATALIA-P/Shutterstock.com.

Border frames copyright © by PolinaTIn/Shutterstock.com.

Cover art copyright © 2025 by Katt Phatt. Cover design by Sasha Illingworth.

Cover copyright © 2025 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Interior design by Carla Weise.

Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

Visit us at LBYR.com

First Edition: September 2025

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are registered trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

Little, Brown and Company books may be purchased in bulk for business, educational, or promotional use. For information, please contact your local bookseller or the Hachette Book Group Special Markets Department at special.markets@hbgusa.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gray, Jordan, 1994- author.

Title: Bitten / Jordan Stephanie Gray.

Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Little, Brown and Company, 2025. | Audience term: Teenagers | Audience: Ages 14 & up. | Summary: After losing her best friend and being bitten in a werewolf attack, seventeen-year-old Vanessa, now a newly turned werewolf, seeks vengeance on the Wolf Queen’s Court, where she becomes mesmerized by a prince who is promised to another.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024044894 | ISBN 9780316584548 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316588430 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316584562 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Werewolves—Fiction. | Revenge—Fiction. | Courts and courtiers—Fiction. | Fantasy. | LCGFT: Werewolf fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Romance fiction. | Novels.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G7338 Bi 2025 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024044894

ISBNs: 978-0-316-58454-8 (deluxe hardcover), 978-0-316-58843-0 (standard hardcover), 978-0-316-59715-9 (int’l paperback), 978-0-316-59847-7 (Target exclusive edition), 978-0-316-58456-2 (ebook)

E3-20250909-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Copyright
4. Dedication
5. Family Trees
6. The Hierarchy of the Seven Werewolf Courts
7. Prologue

8. I: The Curse of the Moon

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6

9. II: The Punishment of Stars

1. 7
2. 8
3. 9
4. 10
5. 11
6. 12
7. 13
8. 14
9. 15
10. 16
11. 17
12. 18
13. 19
14. 20
15. 21
16. 22
17. 23
18. 24
19. 25
20. 26
21. 27
22. 28
23. 29
24. 30
25. 31
26. 32
27. 33
28. 34
29. 35

10. III: The Retribution of the Sun

1. 36
2. 37
3. 38
4. 39
5. 40
6. 41
7. 42
8. 43
9. 44
10. 45
11. 46

11. Acknowledgments
12. Discover More
13. About the Author
14. Praise for "Bitten"

1. Cover

2. Table of Contents

Page List
i
ii
vi
vii
viii
ix
x
xi
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372

To London:

I love you infinitely.

Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

Tap here to learn more.

THE HIERARCHY OF THE SEVEN WEREWOLF COURTS

REGENT(S) OF THE WOLF COURT
rules over entire continent and all werewolves within it

DUKES AND DUCHESSES OF THE WOLF COURT
rule over a singular country or territory and report directly to the regent

EARLS AND COUNTESSES OF THE WOLF COURT
rule over a state or province and report directly to the duke and/or duchess of their individual countries

BARONS AND BARONESSES OF THE WOLF COURT
rule over a county or city and report directly to the earl and/or countess of their individual states or provinces

LESSER PACKS OF THE WOLF COURT
all packs who live under the jurisdiction of the barons and/or baronesses of their individual counties or cities

PROLOGUE

The Seven Werewolf Courts enforce few laws.

Do not expose your wolf to humans.

Do not speak court secrets to outside ears.

Do not bite humans without direct permission of the regent.

Under no circumstance will you ever kill a fellow wolf.

Breaking such laws does not incur punishments like imprisonment or maiming. The dungeon beneath Castle Severi has remained empty for centuries for a reason. When one breaks a law as a werewolf, the only true consequence is death.

Not imminent death, of course, but the excruciating burn of isolation.

Lone Wolves do not survive once cut from their pack. Lone Wolves lose themselves, slowly, painfully, the way humans lose limbs to frostbite.

Queen Sybil Severi knew this. It was why, when she found her sister, Cora, in bed with a human, she didn’t hesitate in dragging her sister out by her hair and flinging her before the feral members of court. The human man waited in the wings of their most sacred castle, half-dressed, shivering, grotesque. The Bite of the Wolf marked his ribs, and a fever touched his feeble brow.

“Traitor,” Queen Sybil growled. And that was enough to condemn Cora in the eyes of the court.

Cora transformed, a moon-white wolf with glowing red eyes, fighting the nobility with snarling teeth and dripping fangs. The first three laws had already been broken, but the fourth was broken here. Now. As Cora ripped out the throat of a Wolf General and spat the bleeding flesh onto the pristine marbled floor. Some of the nobility backed down. Bowed in lieu of a fight. Others fought harder. The walls splattered red—all with their own blood. Cora seemed victorious, but her power diminished the moment Queen Sybil said, “You are hereby removed from court and pack forever.”

The cleaving happened instantly, like invisible hands wrenching the sisters apart. Throwing them on opposing sides of the room. The Wolf Queen’s eyes blackened, darker still as she watched her sister crumple to the ground with a piercing howl.

“You will leave Castle Severi at once and never again step foot on our hallowed grounds.” Queen Sybil approached, and her footsteps trailed scarlet across the floor. “You are banished, Cora Severi, and should your human turn, he too will die.”

Cora shifted from wolf to woman with a sickening snap of bones breaking. She lay on the floor in a pool of the court’s blood, her body glistening like that of a fallen star in a midnight sky. “You can’t,” she hissed. “If he turns—”

“He is a traitor to the crown, and thus he will be made a Lone Wolf. Same as you.”

“But… but…” Cora searched for words, her red eyes dimming to a bitter auburn.

“There is nothing left for you to say.” Queen Sybil picked up her sister’s limp arm and began to tear her away from the throne room, out of the castle, and toward the woods where she would wander until her soul turned to ash and dust. Until she herself became ash and dust.

But Cora would not go so easily. She said, with as strong a voice as ever, “And what of my child?”

One by one, the court shifted. From wolves to men in a shattering second of pain. The Wolf Queen stared down in fury, ignoring the gasps of those surrounding her. More gasps over a single child than the dismembered royalty at her feet.

“You are banished,” Queen Sybil repeated, claws slipping forth from her fingers as easily as knives through a corpse. “You are a traitor.”

Her sister sat up, chin raised. Eyes narrowed. “The laws of court say nothing for the sons of traitors.”

Queen Sybil knelt, tucking a claw beneath her sister’s chin. Drawing blood. Cora did not flinch. “What would you have me do?”

“Let him be born.”

“You will die before then.”

“You know I won’t,” Cora snapped. Rage surged in her gaze. “I will birth him, and I will bring him to the castle’s entrance. You must take him.”

The nobility began to whisper, but Queen Sybil silenced them with a single look. Her claw dug deeper into her sister’s flesh. “I am queen. I do not have to do anything.”

“Take him, and I will go quietly.” Her sister sucked in a sharp breath. “Take him, and I will dispose of my lover myself.”

“Now?” the Wolf Queen asked.

“Now.”

Queen Sybil straightened. She surveyed the remaining members of her court. Still plenty in number, even more plenty in strength. She had no worry of the child’s future betrayal—especially if the Oracle read his prophecy upon his birth and found him worthy—but she did have worry for the safety of her own child.

The boy had been born a fortnight ago, sickly and small. The court did not trust him as a leader, though he’d yet grown beyond a newborn babe. He would be strong one day. The Oracle predicted as much. He just needed to get there. He just needed to complete his ascension into wolf and become the crown prince she knew he could be.

And so the Wolf Queen decided, with the eyes of those she most trusted and most doubted observing her every move, that she would call forth the powers of the Cassiopeia constellation and enact a powerful blood bargain.

“Should you kill your lover on this day and birth your child on the grounds near the castle’s gate, I will raise him as my own. But your blood will protect my heir with all his might, and should my heir’s life come to an end, his will as well.” Queen Sybil outstretched her hand. One more second of contemplation, and she would revoke the bargain. Her sister knew this and grabbed the queen’s claws. Squeezed. Her blood dripped onto the Wolf Queen’s flesh and sizzled between them. Before their eyes, the blood absorbed into the Wolf Queen’s skin, and then vanished.

The blood bargain had been struck.

Queen Sybil stood with a smile as haunting as the castle itself. She rolled her shoulders back and straightened the crown of stars atop her black hair. “It is done, then. Kill your lover and be gone, sister. Should you survive long enough to birth your child, deliver him to us. Then die.”

Cora stumbled to her feet and found her human lover still shivering in the wings. The Wolf Queen’s Court watched as Cora ripped the man’s head from his neck, tendons snapping as easily as vines. Humans. Queen Sybil sniffed and turned away. “Clean this,” she ordered. Then, “Chase her out.”

Without hesitation—or ability to do otherwise—her court obeyed her every command. And, a Lone Wolf sure to die, Cora fled the soldiers who hunted her. She ran, and she ran—until one day, weak and dying, she gave birth to a boy and placed him on the grounds of the castle’s gate.

The guardian returned to the prince who awaited his protection, and both were raised as brothers. Never apart. Only together.

But this is not the story of the prince and his guard. This is the story of a human girl, and how the prince and his guard destroyed her.

1

There is a full moon tonight.

It hangs in the blackened sky like a mermaid’s scale, glowing bright as candlelight against the darkness. I stare up at it, wiping the sweat from my brow with an already sticky forearm. The early September heat of St. Augustine is killer. Enough to make you feel as if you’re drowning on dry land. Humidity fills my lungs with each breath, and even the spectral moon can’t make me forget that I’m slowly boiling alive.

I’m going to kill Celeste.

My butt aches under the knife-sharp edge of her front porch step while she runs behind her house to retrieve some sort of surprise. I have no idea what it is, or why we she’d need it when we’re supposed to be driving to the movies already. Dad dropped me off on his way to work, giving us barely enough time to order popcorn before the trailers.

“Can I at least help you?” I call after her in frustration, but I’m left with only the sound of her parents’ television blaring a sitcom laugh track through half-open windows. “I’m getting eaten alive,” I say, swatting at a pair of overeager mosquitoes.

They drift away in the warm breeze, and I hunch, wrapping my arms around my knees while I wait. Crickets chirp. A distant car horn blares. Though I pull out my phone to scroll for a moment, I put it away just as quickly with an impatient sigh. Whatever surprise she has planned, it’s taking forever, and we’re definitely going to be late to—

A branch snaps beside me.

Frowning, I turn toward the sound, but only a solitary lemon tree stands in that part of the yard. The moon casts long shadows behind it. “Hello?” I whisper, eyes narrowing on those shadows. No one answers me. Of course they don’t. Squirrels can’t talk.

Shaking my head, I ignore the prickling feeling at my nape. “Celeste, we really need to get—”

She returns in a rush, hiding the surprise beneath an old beach towel. Her cobalt-blue curls blow like ribbons in the breeze. “I know you have the whole control-freak thing going on, but try to be patient. I’m almost done.” She charges up the steps past me and into her house. Her parents yell at her for slamming the door, but she doesn’t bother apologizing. Once Celeste Ward puts her mind to something, she becomes unstoppable.

I should know. That’s how our friendship started, after all—she marched up to me in first grade, tugged on the messy braids my father had clumsily thrown together that morning, and told me we were going to be sisters whether I liked it or not.

I don’t know why she picked me, but before that day I hadn’t known what true friendship meant. Celeste’s love is unconditional-and-all-consuming. And it’s worth sitting alone under a full moon while she does whatever it is she’s doing.

“Almost done!” she shouts through the door.

I bite back my retort. Because Celeste never cares that my father considers dinner to be a plate of hastily microwaved nachos served with a very loud side of police reports screaming through his radio, and I never care that she went through a minor shoplifting phase in middle school. She brings me her mom’s leftovers for lunch, and I make sure she steers clear of every Target within a thirty-mile radius of us. She sits front row at all my volleyball games wearing my number in bright red on her cheek, and I put on black lipstick and ripped tights for her favorite concerts.

So—while I’d like to whip around, kick down the door, and pull her to the car by her electric-colored hair—I force myself to sweetly and not at all aggressively say, “I already ordered our movie tickets.”

She doesn’t answer, and silence falls around me again. Weird. The crickets have stopped chirping. I resist the urge to glance back at the lemon tree. It’s a squirrel. Only a squirrel. But my nape still prickles as if I’m being watched.

Just as I’ve worked up the nerve to go investigate, however, Celeste finally returns. She helps me to my feet with a giant grin on her lips, giving me an up-close view of the massive purple hickey on her neck and banishing all thoughts of vicious, man-eating squirrels.

“Here.” She lifts a tiny porcelain plate, pretty and pink with bows trimming the edge and the most hideous, quickly made mud pie slopped atop it. A single lit candle sticks out from the pile of dirt, grass, and acorns. “Happy birthday, Vanessa.”

I stare at it with furrowed brows. Surprisingly, it’s not the earthly mess that confuses me. It’s the date. “My birthday isn’t until Tuesday. You’re early.”

“I know,” she sings. “But we have to celebrate now! It’s Friday, and there just so happens to be a big beach party tonight. What are the chances?” Her long lashes flutter in an elaborate show of innocence, as if this hasn’t been planned since she called me and begged to hang out tonight. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d peel off the tank top she let me borrow and strangle her with it.

“No.”

She lowers the plate a little and pouts her lip. “Vanessa Hart—”

“No.”

“—you only turn seventeen once. You have to celebrate it. What better way than drinking warm booze on the beach with sixty of your closest friends?”

My lips twitch. “I don’t even have five friends.”

“All the more reason!” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “But we were invited, Vanessa, and what is an invitation if not a promise for the best night of your goddamned life?”

The candle burns longer, brighter, between us. Purple wax drips onto a halo of dandelions. The same color purple as the streaks in my hair. She really makes it impossible to hate her. “Last time we went out, you drank almost an entire bottle of tequila yourself and came home missing your underwear.”

“That was years ago!” she says with a laugh. The sound is feather soft with a sharp bite at the core, and so inherently Celeste—so familiar—that I think I could trace it in the stars.

“That was two nights ago,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m not being wrenched into any more of your salacious affairs.”

“You sound a lot like Brenda right now, Vanessa.” Her manicured nail points to her front door, midnight blue and threatening. “As in my mother, whose favorite hobby is church followed by shopping at Costco. This is your seventeenth birthday. Don’t you want to live a little?”

I take the plate from her, but she won’t let me blow out my candle. Instead, she covers it with her hand.

“I know you hated the last party we went to, and socializing basically turns you into an extreme-risk analyst, albeit one with a nice ass, but listen to me.” She grabs my chin with her free hand and angles it down until she has my full attention. “One day, you’re going to work in a beautiful office overlooking the ocean and you’re going to have the world’s hottest husband and two adorable kids. You’ll spend your weekends taking cooking classes and critiquing the latest movies in between his shifts at the hospital—”

“Just to be clear,” I say, “my future husband is a doctor?”

“A heart surgeon, and part-time male model,” she explains, before continuing. “You’ll have the life of your dreams, and it’ll be a goddamned nightmare for me to lose you to suburbia. For now, however—for tonight—you are young and hot and basically seventeen. We are not wasting this Friday on extra-buttered popcorn. We are going to Max Cayden’s party, and you are going to ram your tongue down his throat.”

Oh god. A shiver runs through me, and I bite my lip. “You didn’t say it was Max’s party.”

She grins wickedly. “Got your attention now, huh, bitch?”

I blush, remembering the time he’d helped me up off the floor in the middle of a volleyball game. I’d slipped on the hardwood after a bad serve—the other team’s fault—and he’d been on the sidelines. It was divine destiny that he’d offered me a hand, and traitorous hormones that made me not score a single point for the rest of the stupid game. It wasn’t fair that his eyes were so blue. In fact, it was supremely distracting.

I pull the plate away from Celeste and back up until I hit her car. Leaning against it for support, I shut my eyes and sigh. There’s no way I can go to a party hosted by Max. I’ll make a complete ass out of myself. Even if I’m confident in front of Celeste—particular, stubborn, often controlling, and wholly myself—I can’t be that way in front of a boy I hardly know. I can’t be that way in front of Max.

Celeste rests against the yellow hood of her ancient Volkswagen Beetle. “I can’t live with another year of you being too afraid to chase after what you really want. You are so… full of life, Vanessa. If only you’d let anyone aside from me and the girls on your volleyball team see it.” Then, less gentle, she says, “You’re getting laid if it’s the last thing I do, and if your wish is for that to be with Max, so be it.”

I turn toward her with a scowl. “Grant—”

“Grant Austin does not count, and I don’t need to remind you why. Or maybe I do, and it starts with, just the ti—”

“Okay!” I blurt, lifting the plate of mud to my face to hide my ever-reddening cheeks. “Okay, I will go to Max’s stupid party if you promise to never say those words again.”

“Ha! I win.” She beams at me and flicks the purple in my hair. “Make your wish so we can get this show on the road. I heard Max’s big sister is home from college and she’s supplying the liquor.”

My stomach flips anxiously. Liquor. Max. A party. Three things at which I’ve never been adept. I swallow roughly and wish I could wipe my clammy palms on my skirt. “Are you sure this isn’t a stupid idea?”

“Would I ever lead you down a bad path?” she says.

I raise my brows and say, “Missing underwear and a whole bottle of tequila? Your mom almost locking you out?”

She laughs as if she doesn’t have a single care in the world. “And wasn’t that the best time we’ve had recently? Come on. No take backs. I promise not to lose my panties.”

Her brown eyes meet mine, and they’re so full of hope that I can’t bring myself to say no. Even though I want to. Even though I’m not sure I should want to. In the end, it doesn’t matter anyway. Celeste is like my North Star. Or maybe we’re more like the Gemini constellation—twins. Where she goes, I go, and where I go, she goes. Always.

I glance at the burning candle. The flame has nearly run halfway down the wax, purple speckling the dirt cake and painting a much nicer picture than before. Every year since first grade—when my father was called into his station on my birthday and there were no cake and presents, just a very annoyed babysitter who immediately sent me to bed—Celeste has made me a birthday cake of mud and sticks and twigs and whatever else she can find in her backyard. She used to walk it to my house after school.

This year is different, though, and all of a sudden, with the candle casting shadows between us, I feel different. Older, maybe. Taller. As if I can almost see over the fence of childhood and into the future. Celeste might not want the same, but normalcy—two parents and a house with a white picket fence and a schedule that’s reliable and unchanging—it’s all I want. My mom left when I was so little, I can’t remember a time when I had more than just my father. My father and Celeste. The other officers at his precinct. A few girls on my volleyball team. Grant Austin last summer for a month.

That’s it. That’s been my whole circle my entire life.

A car barrels down the street, flooding the lemon tree with light. Nothing is there. Of course nothing is there. This tight, jittery feeling in my stomach is for another reason entirely, and perhaps Celeste is right. Perhaps I’m ready for something else now. Something new.

Celeste grabs my hand and squeezes. “Make a wish, Vanessa.”

When I close my eyes and blow out the candle, I do.

I wish for more.

2

Celeste drives us to the party in her car. The yellow paint is mostly rusted on the outside, making us a bronze blur in the night as we race over the Bridge of Lions, toward Anastasia Island.

St. Augustine is made up of two parts, each as historical and haunted as the other. There’s downtown, on the mainland, with closely huddled cobbled streets hosting ghost tours, pirate museums, and a castle abandoned long ago. In sunshine, it looks like the perfect vacation spot. Pastel flowers peek over the edges of pink walls, and Spanish-style tiled roofs shade most of the square. At night, however, that’s when you can feel its age. It’s the oldest occupied European settlement in the United States—of course, that doesn’t count for much when all the land in the US was already settled by the people who lived here first—but I do think it explains the magnitude of hauntings. Before Plymouth, before Jamestown, the Spanish colonized this coast. This city.

St. Augustine is a land of bloodshed like any other, and there are more than enough ghost-tour companies waiting to snatch your money and tell you all about it.

Anastasia Island is across the bridge, and it’s less well known. Sure, tourists will visit, and the ghost tours won’t exclude it from their stops. But when you think St. Augustine, you don’t think about the island or the red-tipped lighthouse, or the refurbished mansions that pop up after every hurricane, standing proud and modern on an ancient beach, almost as if challenging the next storm to come and do its worst.

Celeste and I never visit the island. It’s where the rich kids live—the ones who drive luxury cars paid for by their parents and go to school in fancy universities along the coast. They don’t really waste time talking to us townies.

Celeste knocks on her steering wheel three times as we cross the river and make it onto the island. A superstition that she’ll no doubt take to her grave. “Five minutes,” she says, popping in a different CD without even bothering to glance at the stereo system. The music blares, too loud and far too bass heavy for the heart already thumping painfully between my ribs. “You ready?”

“To pee my pants? Sure thing.” I lean my head against the half-open window, wishing her air-conditioning did more than just blow warm air at us through dusty old vents.

“It’s just a party, Ness.”

“To you,” I say. “You excel at parties. You’re funny and charming, and everybody loves you. I just… I always end up standing there and babbling until people leave.”

She slams on the car’s feeble brakes as we run into a red light. Whipping her head around, smacking me in the face with her hair in the process, she glares at me. “You do not make people leave.”

“I wasn’t saying—”

“I don’t care what you were saying. I have a very close relationship with your subconscious, and she can be a mega bitch sometimes. You do not make people leave.” The light turns green, but she doesn’t hit the gas pedal. Even when the car behind us honks, she continues staring at me. Her brow crinkles, and a droplet of sweat slides over her nose, down to her petal-pink lips. “I love you, Vanessa.”

“I love you too,” I say easily. Because it is. Easy. The easiest thing I’ve ever said in the world. I love Celeste as if she’s my own flesh and blood, or maybe even more than that.

“Good. Promise me you’ll try to have a good time. Let loose. Be fun.”

“Saying be fun implies that I am not already fun.”

“Well, if the gigantic shoe fits.” She throws her head back with one of her tinkling laughs as I smack her in the arm. Finally, she presses down on the gas pedal.

“A size ten is not gigantic. You’re just a pixie.”

“I’d rather be a pixie than Bigfoot.”

I yank my purse onto my lap and stick out my tongue. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

I do. But it’s not necessary to say it again, and even if I did, she wouldn’t hear me. She cranks up the music until we’re in definite risk of noise pollution, screaming along to lyrics that don’t match the ribbons in her hair or the glitter on her cheeks. That’s Celeste, though. She contains multitudes. And I contain—“Two lip glosses, a pack of gum, a can of mace, and one sterling silver Swiss Army knife courtesy of one very worried father,” I yell, listing out the contents of my purse until she lowers the music. “Oh, and a granola bar. Do you think we need anything else?” I hold up the snack by the edge of its crinkled packaging. Celeste glances at it as she takes the wrong turn.

“I think we sound prepared for the apocalypse rather than a casual chill hang.”

“Hey, watch the road. The public beach is way farther down.”

She flashes me a devious grin. “Who said anything about a public beach?” We continue down a skinny road shaded by tall oak trees and turn into the unlit parking lot of a black-and-white-striped lighthouse.

“Celeste,” I warn, a bad feeling rotting in my gut.

She turns off the engine. “You wouldn’t have said yes if I’d told you.”

“What happened to ‘casual chill hang’? We can’t party at the lighthouse! There will be alarms and cops, and we’ll be thrown in jail before our top schools can even reject us.”

“Says the girl fondling the knife.”

I throw the knife in my purse and sit up straight, refusing to undo my seat belt even as Celeste opens her door. I thought last Wednesday when we went to Brooklyn Davies’s house—a boy Celeste swears she’s in no way into—was as wild as we’d ever get. She drank, she smoked, she went missing for an hour in a sea of people.… That was supposed to be the apex.

“I’m pretty sure this is a felony.”

“First of all,” Celeste begins, “we aren’t partying in the lighthouse, just out back on the boat ramp. Brooklyn’s dad works here. It’s totally legal.”

“Oh, and there’s that name again. Are we stalking Brooklyn now? I thought Max was throwing the party.”

“He is. With Brooklyn.”

“They don’t even share a class.”

“So you’ve memorized Max’s schedule already? I knew you could use your powers for evil. Think of everything we might accomplish if you grew a pair.” She steals my purse and leaps out of the car with a yelp. Slamming the door shut, her pale frame fades out of view as soon as she takes a few steps. I clamber after her.

“This is not what I consider a good birthday!”

“I want to live, Vanessa. I want to be free!” She twirls in a circle, arms thrown wide. “Are you going to join me or what?”

I hesitate. One foot planted ahead of me and the other behind me. It’d be so easy to turn around and sit in the car until the cops come. She’d be busted, but it wouldn’t be for anything she doesn’t deserve. On the other hand… I think of Max and blowing out my candle.

I wanted more. I wished for more.

“Live,” she demands. “You’re only seventeen once.”

“Fine.” I step forward. “But I’m blaming you if any bad shit goes down.”

With a squeal of delight, she pulls me past the lighthouse, down the block, and through a tangle of bramble before we find the ramp on the shore. Our arms intertwined, she shoves my purse into my chest, and I take it greedily with my free hand. Cling to it like a life raft as we step over uneasy terrain.

Being here reminds me of falling asleep. That space between nothing and dreams, when you go from deep silence to an explosion of imagination, thoughts, and feelings without ever realizing it’s happening.

The creaky wooden bridge is abandoned, hidden beneath overarching trees whose swaying limbs and rattling branches disguise the sound of the Atlantic. And then, the bridge ends.

The party begins, and that bad feeling in my gut stays.

Sweaty bodies fill every crevice of the open space. Sand shuffles between our toes, invading our shoes and grating against our skin. The salty air feels heavier at night, like a blanket drawing closer. Tempting under the moonlight with rays of gold glittering atop an endless ocean of black. Phones illuminate what the moon can’t, set up on coolers and kegs and rainbow beach chairs that all look more like a kaleidoscope of shadows.

I don’t know where to go at first, so I continue clinging to Celeste as she parts the crowd of our classmates and heads straight for the coolers near the shore. She doesn’t stare at the ground when she walks, doesn’t falter as we hit a dip in the sand. Just marches with her back straight and her chin tipped up, her face bathing in moonlight. I wish I could say the same for me.

I’ve been to parties before—bonfires on the beach and house parties—but nothing like this. Not at a party this large and loud that it’s as if I’m drowning in noise and scent and flickering bright lights. They illuminate the faces of my classmates, my teammates, and some kids I don’t recognize. Beautiful kids. Rich kids, with designer brands dripping from perfectly broad shoulders and muscled arms. Their heads turn in our direction, as if… as if they’re watching us.

Doing a double take, I nearly step on Celeste’s sandal and send us both sprawling to the ground. A redhead in a black leather skirt laughs as I straighten, and my stomach pitches as I realize she saw—they all did. I can feel their eyes continue to follow us as Celeste sneers, flipping them her middle finger, before leading me away. And I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what to do. My limbs feel foreign, heavier than usual. Do I smile, or is that weird? If I frown, will my classmates think I’m a bitch? If I start to move to the booming beat of EDM, will I look like a goddamned idiot? Or will I look like Celeste—a tiny pixie swaying gracefully to the music?

My brain might explode before we get arrested, and honestly that feels preferable right now. Celeste squeezes my hand as if she can read my thoughts, her heated skin burning through most of my nerves. Most, but not all of them. “It’s just like your games,” she shouts so I can hear. “With eleven other girls on the court, you’re always the one in control. And do you know why?”

“No,” I try to shout back, but it comes out a half squeak.

“Because on the court, you don’t think. You just are.” She pushes a lock of my brown hair behind my ear, smoothing out the purple tangled within it. “Your body knows what to do. Stop letting your mind derail it and listen to your bones.”

She’s right. I don’t overthink on the court. But out there, it’s just me and a ball. Obstacles in the shape of girls and a single net. Here, it’s… well, there are the girls on my team who I desperately need to impress to win captain next year. Max Cayden is supposedly here somewhere, and that makes me want to throw up a little—or a lot. And everyone else… I don’t know. They just matter. I care what they think of me, and how I’m perceived.

It’s that they haven’t decided yet; they haven’t chosen whether to swipe left or right, and that means there’s a chance they could like me, or, more realistically, I could screw it all up. Show them the worst parts of myself that I reserve solely for Celeste, and make them run away screaming.

“Not thinking might be easier said than done,” I tell Celeste.

“Yeah, sober.” She throws open a cooler, exposing a row of pink-colored liquor bottles. Smirnoff Ice Strawberry, Pink Whitney, and Crema de Tequila. They sound equally toxic. Celeste drags her finger across the labels, choosing our poison at random. “This one.” She plucks up the Pink Whitney, finds a stack of plastic cups, and tops us off. “Drink.”

“But the police—”

“I promise, you’re not going to see your father tonight.” She presses the cup to my lips, and I know I look like a baby being fed a bottle. Know that others are probably thinking we’re a couple. I try so, so hard not to care. “No more thinking,” she warns. “Drink or dance. That’s it.”

I take the drink because I doubt I’ll be dancing without it. One swig, and it tastes like arsenic. Two swigs, and it tastes almost sweet. By three, I’m enjoying it enough to smile. Maybe I should’ve tried drinking on Wednesday—but then I remember I wouldn’t have been able to drive Celeste home.

So who’s going to drive us home today?

“That’s my girl.” Celeste throws her entire cup back, swallowing it down like a pro. When she’s done with her second cup, I’m halfway through my first, and she tugs me into the dancing throng. I find Sara Wu from volleyball, who sidles up real close.

“Sick party,” she screams. Her breath smells as if it could strip paint from the lighthouse.

Celeste pulls my hands up, twisting her hips in a way that forces mine into motion also. “The best!” she agrees. Sara and Celeste—who have only ever spoken briefly after my games—laugh like the oldest of friends, and Celeste grabs Sara and drags her into what National Geographic would probably report as some kind of ancient mating ritual. I try my best to keep up, forcing my hips and shoulders and feet to copy theirs. Eventually Sara and Celeste both grab my waist and coax me into a more natural rhythm.

Liquor coats my belly. Hot compared to the icy water spilling at our feet. It shoots through my veins, straight to my heart, and then spirals out toward my muscles, until I’m warm and loose and lithe all over.

Suddenly, I feel good. As if the only problems I’ve ever had are damp sandals and wet toes. There is Celeste in front of me, cackling like a hyena as she shakes her ass, and Sara behind me, screaming about our last win. I hardly notice the rich kids still staring at us.

Let them watch.

I think I love parties. I laugh and pull Celeste’s hair. Tugging the velvet cerulean strands until they twine around my fingers, soft as ever.

“I love you,” I scream, because my mind and body tell me I have no choice.

She stands on her tiptoes and plants a wet kiss on my cheek. “Forever, bitch!”

We laugh more, and every reservation I had about tonight fades away. Wave after wave of warm liquor swallows the bad feelings in my gut, until I genuinely believe that there is no possibility of cops. No worries of being on the nightly news.

There’s just me and my friends. All sixty of them. Celeste was right. This is the best night ever.

Suddenly, Celeste screeches, and I turn. Brooklyn Davies appears in a halo of golden phone light in front of us. Tall, with jet-black braids and smooth, dark brown skin. Easily the nicest boy in school. She cries his name as if she’s never said it before, and I smile as big and bright as I ever have. I knew she liked him.

“There you are!” she says, throwing her arms around his neck.

He laughs and sweeps her off her feet, pressing the sweetest kiss to her forehead. Brooklyn has been following Celeste around for the last year, carrying her books to class, sharing his lunch, offering to change the oil in her mom’s car for free. She couldn’t keep him at a distance forever, not with the way she always stares at him, her eyes a little wide as if she can’t quite believe he’s real. As if she keeps waiting for him to vanish, or maybe for the facade to wear off and expose the rotten core beneath. He doesn’t have one, though. And I think she’s starting to realize that.

She gapes at him now, but only for a second before she hugs him tight. Doesn’t let go.

He chuckles. “If I’d known you’d be this happy to see me, I’d have found you earlier. Still need a ride tonight?”

“Yes, please,” she shouts. The music has become a goddess, blessing every square inch of the beach with thundering reverberations. I can’t stop moving to it. Don’t want to stop. “I missed you!”

He sets her down, moving his lips near her ear. I don’t hear what he whispers, but I don’t need to in order to understand that they’re basically in love. I spin in the most dramatically gleeful circle, really feeling myself, and then—there he is. Standing right before me is Max Cayden.

Oh god. I can’t swallow anymore. I can’t even breathe. He’s less than a foot away. Blond hair, blue eyes. Skin like moonlight. I want to touch that hair. His skin. What do I do? The liquor drains from my system in an instant, icy water snapping at my toes like a crab. Waking me up from my beautiful daydream and throttling me back into my vicious reality.

I am at an illegal party, and the boy I’m obsessed with is right there.

Celeste pushes me into him with the force of a Category Five hurricane. I might actually hate her now.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I hurry to say, words rushing together and almost incomprehensible as he catches me with two lean arms.

He laughs under his breath, and the sound travels all the way to my bones. “Don’t worry about it. My parties are known to be pretty crowded.”

“Yeah,” I say, dumbstruck. He helps me stand, but his touch remains firm on my skin. I stare at where his finger strokes my inner elbow and shiver.

His sapphire eyes crinkle as if he’s laughing inside. “Someone’s enjoying my sister’s stash.”

Stash. Stash? Oh, the liquor Celeste said she was bringing. I nod once in answer, wishing that I could explain how I swallowed my tongue at the sight of him and will be unable to talk for the next seven to ten business days. But I don’t need to, because Celeste still exists. And she’s clearly out for blood.

“This is Vanessa,” she says to Max for me, yanking Brooklyn up beside her. “Don’t you guys have math together?”

Max inches closer to me, and I swear I can taste my own heartbeat. “Hell, do we? Mr. Peters in fourth period?”

“Yes. I—um, I sit in the back.” I stare at him. He stares at me. It feels as if neither of us blinks, but finally he breaks the silence. I’m so glad, I could cry.

“Well, cool. I guess.”

Oh.

I tuck my hair behind my ears. Untuck it before he thinks my double-helix piercing is try-hard. I thought this conversation would be going differently. Maybe it’s not realistic for him to scoop me up and kiss me here and now, but shouldn’t there be more to say?

“You sit in the front,” I add. Celeste winces, and Brooklyn seems to be choking down laughter. Even Max isn’t making eye contact with me anymore. He waves to a blonde girl on my right, and then a redhead on my left. Shit. I am clearly ruining this.

Celeste told me to stop thinking. Told me to drink or dance. If I don’t want this night to be marked as the worst ever, I need to get it together. What would Celeste say? What would she do?

“Do you want to dance?” I blurt, the only thought left in my head: please please please please.

Max’s brows lift in surprise. He glances at the other girls and then shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”

But before we can dance—before he can wrap an arm around my waist and pull me into the romantic embrace of my dreams—someone shoves me, and I hit the ground. Hard.

This has officially become the worst night ever.

3

Yo, what the hell? If someone calls an ambulance, we’re all screwed!” Max yells from across the sand.

Whoever pushed me is gone, and sadly so is Max. My chest deflates as my knees burn. Something warm and sticky trickles down my leg.

Of course this is how my night would go. I’m bleeding on the ground, and I think Max might be… well, I don’t think he’s into me. The music quiets to a low hum and everyone turns to stare. Goddamn it.

I stagger to my feet and search around for Celeste, but she’s gone too. I’ve been left with Sara, who gives me a pitying glance and says, “We should go find you a Band-Aid. I might have some in my car.” I nod, eyes filling with tears, but then I spot Brooklyn, inches away, his gaze snagging on something in the distance. And I hear it—her. Screaming.

I move from Sara’s side, sliding into the cooing crowd. They reach out, ask if I’m okay, but deep inside the circle, Celeste is shouting. It must be for help. I need to find her. Maybe she was hurt too. Maybe—

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Celeste pokes a finger into one of the stranger’s chests. The boy is taller than Brooklyn, paler, with long black hair and almost scarlet eyes. He, like the rest of them, is gorgeous. Breathtakingly so. Unnaturally so, with a smug smile on his lips made for calculated insults and silver spoons. He glances at her finger with a scoff, as if he can’t even be bothered to react further to her audacity.

“Hey, dick,” she says, louder still, “you just pushed my friend to the ground. Do you want to try an apology, or are those pretty lips too busy still sucking on Mommy and Daddy’s teats?”

Not good.

I rush forward and loop my arm through hers, tugging. She doesn’t budge. Weighted down like a brick, she stays rooted to the sand.

The strange boy’s gaze falls on me, then my knee. His nose scrunches as though he’s disgusted. “We were dancing. Perhaps she should have watched where she stood.”

A girl at his side steps forward, silky, black hair falling to her waist. Her scarlet-brown eyes match his exactly. They share the same straight nose and pointed chin, but her lips pull into a deeper frown, her eyes narrowing further. She looks like a wasp seconds from striking, and the sight sends a ripple of goose bumps up my arms.

Her voice comes out ice cold. “Maybe your friend was too busy drooling over that fuckboy to notice, but this is a party. People dance at parties.” She turns to grimace at me. “Even the ones who aren’t good at it.”

I stiffen. Embarrassment paints me red from cheeks to chest. I try to hide it by shifting away, but I’ve got too firm a hold on Celeste, and she’s making it so that I can’t move either.

“Celeste, it’s not worth it,” I say, wishing the music would restart and everyone would go back to dancing. But they’re all watching, waiting.

Behind the first two rich kids stands a row of about six more beautiful, rich assholes. They all chest up with disapproving glares. I want to hide, now more than ever, but not Celeste.

Especially not when the girl says, “Why don’t you fuck off?” She cracks her knuckles, and the muscles in her forearms tense. The other rich kids follow suit behind her. “Or you can settle this like the badass you think you are.”

My classmates seem to inhale collectively, sharply. For a few seconds, there is only the sound of waves lapping at the beach. There is only the promise of violence before us.

Alarm bells peal in my brain.

Danger danger danger.

These kids have enough money to pay off the cops, buy a new lighthouse, and fund a new wing of the hospital all in the same day. They also look as if they’ve been trained to go five rounds in the Octagon with an MMA champion. If we mess with them, we’ll lose.

I pull and pull, but Celeste still won’t move. She swipes at the sweat on her forehead. It drips faster now, as though anger is raising her internal temperature. “I’m not scared of you.”

“No?” The girl tilts her head, hair cascading over her shoulder and obscuring the gilded crest that hangs from her neck. “You should be. Do you think a skinned knee is the worst we can do?”

“I think you can apologize,” Max says from beside me. I feel his warmth like an anchor—until he says, “You want the cops to come and ruin my party?”

The girl laughs when she notices my face fall, and my goose bumps return, as prickly as knives. Dread burrows into my spine. I manage to shuffle Celeste and me farther away, but it’s still not enough to get her out of their line of sight. I just want to stop being perceived. I want to go home.

The girl isn’t finished with me, though. She’s found a weak spot, and she’s attacking. “Did you really think he would like you? He may be a fuckboy, but at least he’s hot. Look at you.…” She waves to my knee with a flippant hand. “You’re pathetic.”

At that, Celeste lunges, ripping out of my grasp and tackling the girl to the ground. The crowd parts. Gives them space to wrestle in the sand. I can barely catch what’s happening. I see fists and nails like claws scratching across cheeks and hear a howl in the distance that might as well be a shotgun beginning their fight. Celeste screams with all her might, ripping at the girl’s hair. Brooklyn hurries over, picking her up by the waist to carry her away.

The girl isn’t done with Celeste either, however. She slaps Celeste across the cheek before Brooklyn can rescue her, leaving a puckering, red welt in her wake. The scar is jagged and unnaturally large for the size of the girl’s perfectly manicured nails, and deep enough that blood trickles over Celeste’s cheek. The other kids’ gazes snap to the wound. Their eyes seem to darken. Maybe they’re waiting for Celeste to surrender, but the injury only makes her kick harder. Scratch more.

“Celeste, stop—”

“Fuck you,” Celeste cries out. Not to me, but to the girl. Her voice is rougher than usual. Brooklyn has her hoisted in the air, using his chest as a backboard for her weight, but it’s almost not enough to stop her. “You stupid, deranged, arrogant assholes!”

“There’s no use,” says the first boy with an apathetic shrug, though his red-brown gaze remains on Celeste’s cheek. “It’s hardly even a fight.”

The girl pulls delicate fingers through her hair, adjusting the silk of her blouse as though she’s merely sandy from a quick run on the beach instead of a literal brawl. Meanwhile, Brooklyn sets Celeste on the ground with a glance at me—a plea for help—and I join him in holding my best friend back as she bucks violently in our grasp.

I don’t understand why she’s still going. Celeste never fights. Not once has she ever gotten into a physical altercation. This shouldn’t be happening. Something is wrong.

“Celeste,” I say, mustering as much strength as I can to speak up once more.

Her gaze finds mine, and for a split second, I’m looking at a stranger. I don’t recognize the girl behind her eyes. The slurred words on her tongue. “You are hurt,” she says, as though it’s as simple as that—she demands retribution for my pain, and they must pay it. Her chest heaves. The handprint on her face remains, stretching from the corner of her eye all the way down to her chin, with blood congealing in the crevice of her collarbone. Her hair sticks up in almost every direction, caked with sand and sweat and seawater. There is an inhuman hunger for revenge in her eyes.

While the other girl—she stands calmly, examining her bloodstained nails with an easy grin. As if she’s pleased.

I could kill her for it. Rage boils in my veins, slowly but no less deadly than Celeste’s, and I hate it. I hate even more that I can’t stop it. “Who do you think you are?” I ask, untangling from Celeste before inching forward. “You don’t go to our school. You don’t know anyone here. Leave.”

“Who do I think I am?” the girl purrs. “Your worst fucking nightmare.” She flicks me off, and most of her friends howl with laughter. Hatred scorches through me until I, myself, contemplate physical violence.

But then Celeste tugs away from Brooklyn’s grasp, and I spin to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. At least nothing as stupid as I was contemplating.

She doesn’t move forward again, however. She yanks at her shirt, pulling the collar from her neck. I see the splotches of sweat there too. On her reddened chest. Soaking through her armpits. Her other hand goes to her stomach, her cheeks flushing so scarlet, it’s as if her head could explode. Even her hickey looks irritated and raw, bigger than before, dipping below her shirt and spreading farther than I can see. Like a web of purple ink and black pain. Like a rash made of bruises.

“I… I have to go.” She sprints away, through the crowd and toward the lighthouse. The rich kids sneer and cackle behind her back, but our classmates form a wall between her and them. Protecting her. Thank god. Brooklyn and Max stand at the front of the pack, arms crossed and chins raised. The rich kids are all taller. Wider. More muscular and graceful. In every single way, they appear better than us.

The mean girl closest to me, with the long black hair and thick lashes, trails her tongue across her teeth. “Be a good little bitch and go chase after your Alpha.”

A different boy—a blond one—reaches out and taps her on the arm. “Enough,” he says. Immediately she falls in step behind him. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something else too, but I don’t care to listen anymore. I don’t care about any of them.

Only Celeste.

Max and Brooklyn—the rest of our school—can handle themselves. I chase after my best friend, following the brutal sounds of her retching until I’ve tracked her down.

Celeste bends over, head shoved into a bush across the street from the lighthouse. Her Beetle is yards away in the parking lot, amongst the other partygoers’ cars, looking more like the shadow of a boulder in the darkness. We can’t hear the music from here. We can’t see any lights except the streetlamps above us. I rub Celeste’s back in soothing circles as she vomits the rest of her stomach’s contents onto a very unlucky shrub and wipe the blood from her cheek and chest, taking care to avoid the growing rash.

When I’m done and she’s clean, I rifle through my purse. Pull out my granola bar, followed by my mace. “What do you think? Snack to absorb the alcohol, or mace to burn our eyeballs and make us forget this night ever happened?”

Her voice croaks out, normal once more. “I think the mace might have the opposite effect.”

“Fair enough.” I replace it with my pocketknife. “What about a free lobotomy?”

She groans and straightens, teetering on her feet and grabbing me for balance. I drop my purse on the ground to catch her. “Did everyone in school see?” she asks, burying her face in my shoulder. It sounds like a plea for mercy.

“Hardly everyone. The teachers weren’t there,” I point out with a half smile.

She groans louder, throwing her head in her hands. “I’m never drinking again.”

“Sure, sure.” I run a shaky hand through her hair. Tears trail down my cheeks, but I don’t let her see them. I’m just glad she’s okay. I’m glad the fight wasn’t worse. But I can’t say any of that without upsetting her. In this moment, my only instinct is to fix this. Get her home safely.

“I mean it,” she whines. “I—I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve never fought before. And that bitch—her nails were sharp as hell.” Her fingers ghost the marks on her cheek, and she hisses. I feel the burn as if it’s my own pain, my heart pounding in my ears. This night could’ve ended so much worse.

“You were trying to protect me,” I say, forcing myself to sound normal. Forcing myself to ignore the sweat drenching her skin. The blood crusted near her ear. “You were also very drunk. And abrasive.”

“I’m sorry, Ness.” Sobs rack her small frame. “I feel… my chest hurts so badly. It’s like I can’t breathe. I’m so hot—”

“It’s adrenaline. Your body is in shock. As soon as that fight started, it’s like… it’s like you disappeared.” I swallow hard. She trembles, and her skin still feels feverish. Maybe it’s not just from the heat. Maybe something is wrong. Really wrong, and—

No. I can’t think like that. Not right now. If I can’t keep my head, she won’t keep hers either.

“They deserved it.” Celeste pulls back and tugs the bottom of her shirt up to wipe her eyes before sitting on the curb. Her whole body deflates. “Your knee is still bleeding.”

I sit beside her, throwing an arm over her shoulder because I can’t bear to not touch her. To not comfort her. “It’s okay. I don’t even feel it.”

We sit in silence for a while. Eventually, her breathing evens out. Her cheeks grow pale as the red flush drains away. It’s Celeste again—just Celeste. Big brown eyes find mine in the darkness. “I wanted to protect you.”

“I know.” I press my head to hers, knife heavy and cold in my hand. “I thought about killing her. When she slapped you, I thought about fighting her myself.”

“That’s because you’re stubborn and loyal and… and we’re sisters,” Celeste says. “You know that, right? You’re the only family I’ll ever need. You’re it for me, Vanessa Hart.”

“You’re it for me too, Celeste Ward. Forever.”

She locks her pinky with mine, and the smile on her face takes me back eleven years, to when we first met. She laughs, and the pressure on my chest eases. I can breathe again. Everything… everything is going to be okay.

“I can’t believe you almost danced with Max Cayden,” she says, knocking into my side.

I hide my blush behind my hair. “I don’t think he was into me.”

“Don’t listen to those assholes. He would’ve been into you if you’d danced with him.”

Though I know her words are a lie, I still force myself to feel hopeful. “You think so?”

She nudges me with her elbow. “Absolutely. There’s still a chance for you and Max. So long as we can figure out a way for you to communicate actual words instead of just drooling.”

I clamp a hand over her mouth, unable to stop myself from giggling. “Like you’re any better? I missed you, Brooklyn! I love you, Brooklyn! I want to have your babies, Brooklyn!”

She licks my hand, and I yank it away with a squeal. She’s laughing, though. I am too. “I do think I like him. Maybe even a lot.”

“I know you do.”

“Of course. Vanessa Hart always knows everything.” She sticks out her tongue, giggling, before her gaze drops to the ground. “Do you… do you think…”

“Yes,” I say, without her needing to finish the thought. “He’s good, Celeste. Even better, he’s good for you.”

She exhales. “I guess we should think about leaving, then. Before the cops come and arrest us, and the boys refuse to ask for our hands in marriage.”

For some reason, I’m not as worried anymore. About the cops or the boys or even the events that happened tonight. My body feels lighter, more relaxed, my muscles no longer tensed in anxious anticipation. As long as I’m with Celeste, I know I’ll be fine.

I take my time standing, dusting the sand off her body and untangling her hair.

“If Mom catches me like this, she’ll send me to Bible camp again,” Celeste mutters.

“You’ll move in with me if it comes to that,” I say. “I refuse to let you go somewhere for an entire month without me.”

“Thank god,” she says. “Let’s sit in the Beetle until we’re sober enough to drive home. I can’t bear to walk back into that party now and ask Brooklyn for a ride.”

“Agreed.” We start to walk toward her car, our hands joined and swinging. Waiting a couple of hours sounds like the easiest thing in the world now. We look both ways when we cross the street—and suddenly Celeste’s grip on my hand tightens. She yanks my arm to her side. I think it’s affectionate, at first, and wait for her usual squeeze of assurance. But it doesn’t come.

Her lips clamp down on a whimper, her head twisted fully to my left.

“What—”

“Look.” Her gaze fixes on the street behind me. I turn to follow it, and my heart sinks to the floor.

There is a shadow in the street, a strong silhouette as tall and wide as one of the kids on the beach. They look at us, but they don’t move. At least, not forward or backward. Their arms hang limp at their sides for a moment before one snaps. Then the other.

Their bones break and twist. Their legs contort.

Each body part seemingly splits into two, three, four before our eyes.

“Shit.” The word cracks into two syllables on my tongue. Just like their bones.

“D-do you see that?” Celeste whispers.

I nod. Or maybe I don’t. I grab her tighter, hold her harder. “It’s just… some kind of stunt. Someone trying to go viral. It’s not real. It’s not—”

The shadow’s back splits open at their spine, flesh parting, bones protruding. They seem to turn inside out, molding into something else.

All the liquor I drank, every meal I ate, comes rushing out of my stomach and onto the ground. Splatters loudly enough that the shadow’s head snaps up—snaps back. Breaks viciously before reforming. Ears tightening into points. Teeth growing into fangs. And fur… fur everywhere.

“Wolf,” Celeste breathes.

The shadow has become a wolf.

4

The wolf—the beast—is huge. Twice the size of us, large enough to block out the light of the moon. The full moon. No. No. This is a sick joke. This isn’t… It’s not…

Celeste finds the knife in my hand, loosely dangling from my grasp, and tightens my fist around it. “Run,” she commands.

“What?” I can’t think, breathe, even feel. I am petrified.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It can’t be real.

“We need to run.” Celeste begins walking us quickly down the street, past a closed strip mall and flickering streetlights.

“We’re drunk,” I say. “We—we had too much, and now we—”

“It’s real,” she hisses.

I turn because she’s wrong. I want her to be wrong—even when, buried deep in my gut, I know that she’s right. The wolf remains. It lowers its front legs to the ground, almost as if—as if it’s going to pounce. But it wouldn’t, right? Why would it want to pounce on us?

“We need to run.” Celeste clutches my shoulders, her nails digging brutally into my skin. Horror fills her gaze.

The wolf leaps and lands hard in the gravel of the road. Chunks of rock break off, scatter in the breeze like marbles thrown in the wind. It snarls, its sharpened fangs flashing in the darkness. Its eyes glow so red, they’re almost black.

Shit.

We really need to run.

Just then, my brain catches up to reality. My legs begin working. I pull Celeste forward, and we stumble after each other, our minds racing faster than our limbs.

“Split up,” Celeste says in a rush. “If we go in different directions, that—that thing will be less likely to catch—”

“No! I’m not leaving you. We run together.” It doesn’t matter that I’ve always been faster. That she might slow me down. I can’t leave her.

I don’t understand what’s happening or why, but vicious growls pierce the night, and we throw ourselves down the sidewalk, our sandals slapping the concrete. Someone will find us. Or this is a dream. Or… My thoughts come in quick bursts of hope and fear as I pump my legs faster, haul Celeste after me. Nearly drag her body. We can make it out of this. We can find help and survive.

She loses a sandal, almost trips and falls as it flies off behind us. “Fuck,” she whispers. Her hand grows clammy in mine and slips from my grip, but I grab her wrist instead and heave her back to her feet.

“Keep running,” I say between breaths. “Don’t stop running. Someone will come. Someone will help us.”

Her bare foot slows our pace even more, but I keep us moving as quickly as possible. I think of volleyball practice. Every morning for two hours before school. The laps I run around the court until my lungs ache and I consider quitting and joining the school’s book club instead. This is just like that. We run, and we run. There is no stopping. Past the strip mall and a gas station and—

Oh, shit. Shit shit shit.

There is a second wolf, slightly smaller than the one behind us, prowling behind the gas station. Eyes bloodred. It bares its teeth from a darkened alleyway and springs into action.

No. God, no.

“Move,” I command. There is no thinking anymore; there is only doing. Celeste huffs, sobs breaking between each of her breaths. I know she’s crying. I’m crying. But we can’t stop moving.

This is a goddamned nightmare.

The second wolf begins to run alongside us, and I flick open my Swiss Army knife. Hold it as if it’s our only lifeline.

Celeste starts to limp, but she doesn’t give up. I don’t give up. We dodge the first wolf, swerving into the road. I pray someone drives down the street. Anyone. We scream. For help, for mercy. For everything. No one answers our prayers.

The streets remain empty, almost too silent. Too abandoned. This is some sick joke. It has to be.

And then Celeste trips, and my heart stops.

She collapses with a howl of pain, and I try not to glance back as I drag her to her feet. But she isn’t stable. She can’t stand up.

“Vanessa,” Celeste cries from the road. “Vanessa, I can’t—”

“You can,” I say, tasting salt on my lips. Tears. Mine.

“I can’t.” A piece of jagged glass protrudes from her bare foot. Blood trickles around the wound, dripping onto the ground. Behind us—far too close—there is a heated exhale and a growl. She can’t run. Not anymore. Not at all.

“You have to go.” She rips my hand off hers. Blue hair sticks to her cheeks, her eyes. She looks wild, crazed, as she shoves me. Once, twice. “Go, you stupid idiot! Get out of here.”

“I’m not—”

She throws me forward this time, pushing with so much might that she collapses onto her knees with another shrill cry. I stumble backward, landing on my ass as the wolf behind us makes one more jump.

It hits the earth right in front of Celeste.

The last time I see her face, she is screaming for me to get up and run. Her mouth is parted. Her eyes are wide. And I—I can’t move. In this moment, space swallows time, and I am trapped in an endless loop of hell on Earth. Before I can breathe, the wolf tears into her neck. Blood spurts. Then gushes.

Celeste’s blood.

My fingers twitch around cold metal. No. No no no.

I said I wouldn’t leave her. I promised.

Thoughts escape me, reason and reality fleeing my mind. I promised.

“Get off!” I lunge with my knife out and stab the wolf between its ribs, gripping its fur for leverage. It yelps. A sad, pathetic sound. Good. I relish it. Look to see if Celeste celebrates too.

But she’s limp, and she’s drowning in her own blood. Crumpled like a rag doll in a pool of scarlet. The sight of her—it makes me pause. It makes me whimper.

The wolf shakes, jostling me back and forth as if I’m in the midst of a tornado. Its rippling muscles bruise my skin with each hard throttle, but I can’t—I can’t let go. The knife almost falls from my hand, but I grasp it tighter. Regain control. For Celeste.

I stab the wolf again, deeper this time. Twisting the blade so that it hurts. So that it maims. “Get. Off. Her!” I tear my knife down its side, and the wolf snarls. But I am not afraid. I’m someone else now. Someone terrifying. Someone in control.

I want to kill it. I need to kill it. And that will fix everything.

It has to fix everything.

Before I get the chance, the second wolf rushes out from the shadows, snaps me up in its jaws, and… and bites.

I scream from the immediate explosion of pain.

My ribs fracture between its teeth, its fangs shredding the flesh of my waist. It feels like melting. Like being thrown onto an open flame and blistering to death. I scramble, try to scratch at its eye with my nails. Try to unclamp its jaw from my skin. It hurts. It hurts, and I’m going to die. I scream again. Louder. Until my throat aches and my lungs give out. The bite feels like needles, like razors, like a dagger sharp enough to peel flesh like an orange.

The wolf seems pleased. Slowly, it opens its mouth and drops me on the ground. Right beside what used to be Celeste. A sob splinters my chest. The pain of the bite dims to the faint throbbing of a heartbreak.

A barely connected pile of skin and bone and hair lies limp on the ground in a sea of blood, in the broken shape of my best friend.

My North Star. Imploded.

My constellation. Snuffed out.

All that remains is blue hair. Blue and red and red and red.

Suddenly, I can’t bring myself to care about wolves anymore. It doesn’t matter that they stalk out of sight. That I can hear their bones cracking and reforming in the distance. I curl my fingers into the earth, slowly wrenching myself toward her, inch by bloody inch, until I’m holding her in my lap.

I promised I wouldn’t leave, and so I won’t.

5

I find Celeste’s phone in the puddle of her blood and call my dad.

It takes less than fifteen minutes for him to send over a squad car and an ambulance. Restless—sick and faint and shaking—I watch the time tick by on her cell phone, staring at the picture of us in the background. She’s licking my cheek. I’m laughing. We’re in the middle of seventh grade geometry in the picture, so her hair is more turquoise than blue, and I have blunt bangs that look like an art project gone wrong, but she’s refused to change the picture for the last four years because she says it’s the happiest we’ve both ever been.

I think I might’ve been happier tonight. Before. When we were dancing on the beach.

My chest has caved into a pile of rubble, like the remnants of a shipwreck after a terrible storm. I don’t bother trying to breathe through the pain. I just let it consume me. Burning, aching. Bleeding. My ribs shift and pop with my every twitch. It doesn’t matter.

Celeste is dead. I’m holding her in my arms.

Less than an hour ago, she was right in front of me. Laughing and dancing and making stupid, inappropriate jokes.

An officer approaches. His uniform is a size too big, black in the darkness, and his badge flashes gold in front of my face. He’s the only one I could’ve called. The only one who will understand.

“Oh, baby.” He drops to his knees with a sob and tries to pull me into a hug. But I won’t let go of Celeste.

“Vanessa, honey, what happened?” My father’s voice breaks, but it sounds like gravel in my ears.

“I—I promised” is all I can manage through shallow breaths, because he keeps trying to take me away from her.

I can hear Celeste as if she’s standing beside me and almost fool myself into believing that version of reality—one where we escaped the wolves, or there were no wolves to begin with.

You look disgusting, she would laugh. Come here and let me fix your hair.

But my hair isn’t the problem. It’s hers. It’s damp. Tangled. Unattached.

I curl inward, folding myself over her as my spine screams in agony. My entire being screams in agony. And my thoughts, they don’t stop, even as my body feels wholly and completely broken.

Someone is going to have to tell her parents. Someone is going to have to clean out her locker. What—what will happen to her car?

“Baby, you have to stand up.” My father pulls despondently at my arms.

“No.”

“Baby—”

“No!” Celeste and I are fully entwined. There is no parting us. That’s what she used to say anyway. “We’re basically the same person. One soul, one brain cell.”

“Help her to her feet,” someone else says. A man.

I assume he’s another officer. Dad’s coworker. But when I glance up, I don’t meet the aged eyes of someone wise and old. I meet the golden eyes of a boy from the beach. One of the wealthy kids. Black hair, tanned muscles stretched taut beneath his obsidian shirt, and a scowl on his face so reminiscent of arrogance and disdain that I growl.

“We don’t have time for this,” the boy says, his voice firm and commanding. “Get her up, and have this scene cleaned. Now.”

I blink, unable to understand. He pulls out a watch from his jeans’ pocket and flicks the face. “This is a fucking mess.”

A… mess.

The two words burrow under my skin and nestle between my broken bones. This boy is not an officer, and he is not a friend. I climb onto my knees and search for the knife in the gore of my oldest friend.

“Looking for this?” He kneels, dangling the bloodstained knife in front of my face. I reach out to snatch it, anger making the pain all but vanish. I snarl at him, and he frowns.

“You don’t want to make this into a bigger battle than it already is,” he says. Those eyes burn into mine, glowing brighter by the second. “You need to come with me.”

He’s insane. So insane if he thinks I’m going to follow him anywhere. “I would rather die.”

“That can still be arranged,” he snaps.

My hands tighten into fists. I hate him. Something about the way he watches me, his head cocked like a predator stalking its prey, feasts on my nerves. I don’t trust him. I want him gone.

“Dad,” I say. “Where is everyone else? Where are the other officers?”

Dad doesn’t answer. The boy does. “Roadkill. A wild boar ran out in front of a semi. Made quite the mess, but the entire force isn’t needed.” His gaze challenges me to argue otherwise.

“Dad.”

He puts a shaking hand on my shoulder. “Vanessa, I… You… you were bitten, honey.”

“I know.” I should probably be dead. But I’m not. Pain lances through my chest, but the only thing I feel—really and truly feel—is rage. I can’t understand it, can hardly recognize the emotion with the agony of Celeste cracking open my heart, but it’s there. It hurts.

“Why—”

“No questions,” the boy says to my dad. “All you need to understand is that she is coming with me, or she’s not leaving the scene alive.”

I turn around. Caution tape, Dad’s police car, and flashing blue-and-red lights section off this side of the road. An ambulance hides us from sight. And between me and that ambulance—is a fully blacked-out Rolls-Royce SUV. A line of people waits beside it, some I recognize from the beach and others I don’t. Gold crests hang from each of their necks in coin-sized medallions.

I swallow roughly. “Dad, who—?”

“No questions,” the boy repeats, voice low and rough. He tries to hoist me to my feet, his hand hot on my wrist, but Dad hits his arm away with his baton.

“Do not touch my daughter.”

The boy snarls and straightens. He’s about a foot taller than my father. Maybe a foot wider too. And Dad—he looks up with a trembling chin and a snotty nose at the boy.

“I am not asking you for permission. You can acquiesce, or you can face the consequences for you and your family.” The boy grabs Dad’s baton, and it crumbles almost instantly in his grasp, turning to plastic confetti dusting Celeste’s hair. I want to take every bit of debris and suffocate him with it. My knuckles crack. My skin heats. My chest heaves with effort.

But even amidst the battering of that aberrant rage against my broken ribs, I shiver. Dad is nothing compared to this boy. Something… something is wrong with him. Unnatural. The same sort of unnatural that nearly bit me in half. The same sort that killed Celeste. I hug her body closer, tension knotting in my spine.

“You want my compliance?” Dad says, not backing down even when his eyes widen and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Fine. If it keeps her alive, I’ll do whatever it takes. But you will not hurt her. Swear it. Swear it to me now.”

The boy stares at him. Silence buzzes like electricity between them. The boy is still holding my knife, and he tosses it to his other hand, catching it smoothly. A threat.

“We won’t hurt her,” the boy says.

I laugh at that. I’m already hurt. Bleeding even where they can’t see.

Dad turns my face toward his. His green eyes crinkle. “Listen to me, you need to get up and go with—with this young man.”

I refuse.

“Let her go, Vanessa. She’s gone, and if you want a chance of survival, you need to get out of here.” His voice cleaves in half—Celeste was almost as much his daughter as she was my friend—and his face falls further into despair. “You need to go.”

He twists my hands free of hers, but I throw him off me with an easy shove. He trips backward, stumbling on loose bits of road. Almost collapsing. I don’t care. When he catches himself, I bare my teeth at him. “I. Promised.”

“The transformation has already begun,” the boy says to Dad. He flicks the face of his watch again. “Time’s running out.”

Dad stares at me, his face paling by the second. His gaze diverts to my waist, to the blood staining the gashes in the tank top I borrowed from Celeste. I glance at her in my lap, at Dad’s face, at the boy above us.

“I won’t leave her. She deserves more than… than whatever this is.”

Dad cries again, and I hate the sound. I even hate the weakness behind his shoulders sagging and shaking.

“Let me come with her,” Dad tries.

The boy shakes his head, tucking my knife into his pocket after his watch. “That’s not our law, human.”

“Fuck your laws!”

It’s the wrong thing to shout, and Dad knows it. Instantly, the people near the SUV stalk forward. They move as if they’re made of lava and steam. Liquid heat and danger. “Time’s up,” the boy commands. “What’s your choice?”

Collecting himself, smoothing out his shirt first and then his badge, Dad says, “Help me grab her.”

I flinch.

They reach for me simultaneously, ripping my body from Celeste’s, but I fight. Dad falls away easily, but the boy—I can’t take him. His hand clamps down like a shackle on my upper arm, and he drags me away as if I’m featherlight.

“That is my friend,” I hiss. “Let me go!”

“You’re not in your right mind, but that will pass. Or it won’t, and you’ll die,” he says gruffly. “As of right now, you are property of the Wolf Queen’s Court.”

It doesn’t make sense, the words coming out of his mouth or the color of his eyes. Changing, brightening. His pupils are on fire.

“Dad?” I call. “Dad, help me! Make them stop!”

My father stands completely still. His radio rings out and one of his colleagues says, “Do you have the accident under control, Rufus?”

I beg him silently, knees bent and eyes wet, to please, please, please help me. But Dad presses the button to talk back and says, “Sure is. Getting it cleaned up now.”

The boy throws open the door of the SUV and shoves me inside without a second thought.

That’s when I know I’m well and truly alone.

6

The doors shut with varying thuds, and I press a hand to the window as the SUV peels away from the scene. Celeste’s blood smears across the glass, distorting the rest of the island. Painting it all scarlet until the ambulance and police car and my own father disappear from sight. Celeste vanishing with them.

Tears cloud my gaze, like poison against my vision. I shut my eyes tight, sucking in a harsh breath. My ribs bend with it—bend, not break or crack. I swallow a whimper. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I also can’t bring myself to care. Not about the pain or the heat boiling my veins or the sweat dripping from my forehead. I stroke the window again.

“It will get worse,” a man says on my left, his voice as coarse as sand and his pallid skin sparkling against a strange gray tunic. He too has glowing yellow eyes.

I startle. So maybe I am not completely alone.

Shifting away from the window, I nearly knock legs with him. He sits with perfect posture on the leather seat beside me, wrinkles pulling at his skin, almost wispy in nature. As if they’re a mere figment of imagination plastered over the strange reality of eternal youth. He might be older, but he still appears young.

“The pain,” he clarifies with pursed lips. “Your transition will have begun already.”

The words mirror those the boy spoke, but I don’t understand them. “Transition?”

“To werewolf,” he says simply, as though discussing the weather. “It begins with a bite—unless you’re a Born wolf.” He strokes the edges of his sharpened nails. “The bite determines the state of your transformation. A shallow bite, and it would reveal itself with a fever or perhaps mood swings. Eventually both would overcome you. Hunger would rot your brain, drain the rest of your senses, and you’d be certain to slaughter even your closest loved one. Your father,” he says with a pointed nod. “But you’ve been damaged. The transformation will break what hasn’t already broken, and then it will probably break you too.”

I stare at him. He adjusts his window, pressing a button to slide down the glass and let the hot air ruffle his brown hair before leaning back against the headrest. His gilded eyes narrow as he addresses the rest of the car. “There was no need for any violence tonight. Our queen will not tolerate such a wreck again.”

The driver in front of us immediately agrees, but his voice sounds muffled to my ears. There is something familiar in the words of the man beside me. Something that cuts deep.

Such a wreck. Violence. Your transition.

It begins with a bite.

Werewolf.

I brush a hand over my hip, finding a dozen holes in my flesh. I gag. “Y-you’re crazy. You’re all crazy.”

I’m hallucinating. This whole night has been a nightmare. Any minute now, and I’ll wake up to Celeste poking me with a cherry licorice in the middle of the movie theater. We’ll laugh, and she’ll drive us home, and I’ll never have to think about any of these horrors again.

“If you find us to be unhinged, what, pray tell, would you consider yourself?” The man glances at me, his eyes falling to my wounds. Two fangs grow from his mouth, long and sharp. Unnatural. Unbelievable.

I recoil from him.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

But I don’t.

I’m not sleeping.

I gasp, unable to sit still on the leather as those fangs reflect red and yellow traffic lights. It’s impossible. None of this should be real.

And yet—I know what I’ve seen tonight. Know how Celeste died and what killed her. Know what attacked me.

Werewolf.

Heat engulfs the pain, banishes it. Sweat drips from my brow, from my lips and my hands until I’m drowning in it.

“You will be transported to Castle Severi and locked inside a room for safety,” the man says. “On the off chance you complete the transition, you will be brought before the queen and given the honor to complete the First Rite. Once the Oracle reads your future, we will find a place for you amongst one of the many packs in the queen’s American territories. Should you die… well, I suppose that requires no further explanation.”

Throat dry and scratchy, I say, “I need a hospital.”

The man glances at my open wounds before once again meeting my gaze. “You will not have one.”

I blink away the tears and sweat, clearing my vision for the first time since they shoved me in this car. I’ll find a hospital myself. Make Dad fix this somehow. This man is wrong. He’s lying.

I’m going to be fine.

Turning suddenly, I yank on the handle, but the door doesn’t open. I pull harder. Rougher. There has to be a way out of here. A way home. I pull and pull and—

And the plastic handle snaps off in my grasp. I stare at it. Stare at my trembling hands.

“Should you flee the car or the Wolf Queen’s Court, you will be immediately and swiftly terminated,” the driver—the boy who stole me—says. He glances back at me, tall enough that his head almost hits the roof. He raises a brow. “I will not tell you again. Calm down.”

Calm down?

The concept is laughable. Insulting. Understanding grows like roots in my spine, tethering me to the seat. In slow motion—or maybe it’s all at once—I know. In the depths of my soul, in the pit of my gut where the truth always lay. I should’ve known the moment I watched the boy break my father’s baton.

These monsters killed Celeste.

My heart races. Faster than should be possible, I hurl the door handle at the boy, but it flies past his face and lodges itself in the windshield. The glass cracks, splinters in a crystallized web across the whole of the window. But he doesn’t even flinch. Only growls.

My chest heaves. I palm the leather of my seat, my nails cutting through to the stuffing beneath. They killed her. These monsters killed her.

“I don’t look forward to explaining how a Bitten damaged the prince’s car,” the man beside me says.

The driver nods once. “It’s going to be even more of a bitch to repair than it will be to explain.”

They glance at each other through the rearview mirror, sharing a humorous expression.

And I could rip those expressions from them. A red haze clouds the inside of the car. I hear their blood. Taste their heartbeats. It’s terrifying. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know why I want to kill them, but I do. I do I do I do—

The man beside me wraps a hand around my wrist, his pale fingers tightening painfully around my bone until it threatens to snap. I buckle, nearly sliding to the floor. It takes everything in me to remain seated.

His yellow eyes sear into mine. “Enough,” he orders.

The red haze separates slowly, like clouds parting, and my thoughts flicker out one by one. I blink. Anger dissipates with each vacancy until I can breathe again. Numbly, I manage to ask, “What… what’s happening to me?” My voice comes out feeble. Broken.

“Your emotions are no longer your own. You are no longer your own.” Obsidian claws rip from his fingers and slice into my skin. He pulls me forward, and finally I fall onto the floor, at his feet. He leans over me with a smoldering glare. “We have footholds in every country on this earth. Our nobility have infiltrated human monarchies and democracies alike. There is not a city or town you could run toward where we would not be able to find you, hunt you down, and eliminate you. Your life belongs to the Wolf Queen’s Court now, Vanessa Hart, and should you refuse to acquiesce to our every command, your doom is not the only that awaits. You have a father. You have friends—presumably more than the one you lost. We will snuff them out like candles. Do you understand? No matter what your instinct tells you, do not try to harm us again.”

Pain returns tenfold, but nothing could hurt like the hole in my chest.

I clench my jaw and force myself up onto my knees. I will not bow, I will not bend, and I will not break. Not here. Not in front of them. My best friend is gone. She’s gone, and what else do I have to lose?

I spit blood at him. “Fuck you.”

The man releases me instantly. A victorious smile pinches my lips, albeit short-lived and unearned. There is nowhere for me to go. Nowhere I can run. Nothing left for me but death.

“Calix,” the man says as his claws retract into thick fingers. “The wolfsbane.”

The boy turns once more, his own gold eyes darkening. “That could ruin any potential for a successful transition, Lord Allard. She could—”

“Enough. Hand me the wolfsbane.”

Without another word, he leans over and rifles through the glove compartment, pulling out what appears to be a gilded jewelry box. He passes it to the man behind him, and the man—Lord Allard—opens the lid. A syringe of lavender liquid rests on a bed of blue velvet. I stare at it. It smells rotten, like acrid smoke and charred flesh. Goose bumps erupt on my arms. Bad.

This is very bad.

I slide away and press up against the door I somehow broke, but it’s no use.

Supernaturally quick and impossibly graceful, the man appears over me. He slams the syringe into my neck. Fire explodes beneath my skin, through my veins, and with a final scream from my lips, the world darkens.

7

I rise with the sliver of a waning gibbous moon beckoning in the sky.

Vivid beams of glowing white light filter through the steel bars of a window high above me. They dance along my skin, along the velvet sheets beneath me, along the gray stone floor. I don’t recognize any of it. Even my own body, which seems paler. Almost translucent, with veins of liquid smoke bubbling beneath my flesh.

I jolt upright. No. I try to jolt upright, but I… I can’t move. Where am I? What happened? I don’t know the answers. I don’t know anything, and it terrifies me to my core.

Choking on a sob, I force myself to sit up slowly. My abdominal muscles crunch as though my bones have been reduced to pebbles, and I bite down on a hiss, unable to slide to the edge of the bed without first swallowing large gulps of air.

My lungs ache. My skin feels bruised. Like a peach already begun to rot, thrown from a roof onto cement. Dazed, I glance around, searching for anything familiar. A black metal four-post bed rises under me, a canopy of sheer tulle blocks the ceiling from sight, and beside it rests a matching nightstand. A pitcher of water drips condensation onto the obsidian metal surface. Fresh, then. Someone has been here recently. Probably while I was sleeping.

But who? And why? And where am I?

Scanning the rest of the room as quickly as possible, I make a note of the door—also some sort of ebony steel, without a single lock in sight—and window—round, protected by thick bars, revealing only the moon in the midnight sky and a cluster of stars. None of this makes sense. I shake my head, tugging at my hair. I was at a party. I was at a party with Celeste, and she got into a fight. Then we… we…

I blink and lick my dry lips.

What did we do after that?

Surely, we drove home, right? I recall Dad, a look of horror on his face.… Maybe from the way we’d been dressed? No, that’s not right. I rub my eyes.

Where the hell am I?

The door doesn’t have so much as a handle. The window is barred. I’m trapped.

I’m trapped, and I… What if I die here?

Panic sweeps through me, squeezing my lungs painfully as breaths whoosh from my lips in shallow gasps. Where is my father? What happened what happened what—

Beneath the moonlight, I spy a coat rack carved into the shape of an oak. Dresses hang from every blackened branch. It doesn’t seem particularly suspicious, but the dresses are like none I’ve seen before. With corsets; lace; delicate, almost translucent skirts; gilded stitching. Each one is a variation of the same color. Ruby. Scarlet. Maroon.

Bloody, hellish red.

The night returns to me then, in sudden violent flashes. A pool of blood and bones that used to be my best friend. Twelve gashes in my hip. A car full of monsters, and a haze that made me want to murder them all.

And my dad.

My dad who left me to them. Abandoned me to the wolves.

Oh god, no.

The transformation will break what hasn’t already broken, and then it will probably break you too, the man said.

But it was a lie, and they were crazy, and I’ve been kidnapped—

My spine snaps. The pebbles that were once my bones shift under my skin. I roar, a cry so loud the window shudders, and collapse off the bed. The bare ground bites at my palms, icy and frozen to the touch, but it’s not enough to cool the fire burning through each and every hair follicle on my body. Fur rises like needles, pushing out of my flesh.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.

The transformation will break what hasn’t already broken.

I don’t want this; I want my father. I want Celeste. I want to go home.

I… I can’t become a monster. But the choice has been made for me. I choke on a wave of blood that spews from my lips before my teeth are replaced by razor-sharp fangs. They grow at once, an explosion of pain that leaves me panting and shrieking for help.

No one answers my pleas.

The fangs retract. My old teeth grow back. It hurts. All of it hurts.

I dig my nails—claws—into the stone and force my eyes to remain open. To not succumb to unconsciousness again. In my distorted reflection on the metal cot, I watch as my body is cleaved in half by an invisible axe. Separated into a woman. And a wolf.

Blood rushes in my ears.

“Dying isn’t so bad,” Celeste says, sounding as cheery as ever. Gasping, I look up to find her hovering over me. Her image fizzles in and out. Hazy around the edges. But I can’t stop myself from staring. It’s her. It’s really her. Tears prick my eyes as the scent of her washes over me. Cherries and summertime.

Her blue hair tickles my nose when she kneels, and she places a cold hand on my shoulder. “It barely hurts.”

“C-Celeste?” My voice comes out weak, hardly a whisper, but she understands. She always understands. I sit up, reaching for her—and my hand passes through a wall of frigid air.

“Relax. None of this is a big deal.”

Her lips draw back suddenly, and blood oozes from her mouth.

I scream.

The transformation comes in waves. There are hours of rest followed by minutes of excruciating pain. Each time, a different part of me breaks. And breaks. And breaks.

I don’t think it will ever end. It’s been too long. The sun has risen and fallen again; the room has burst with light only to dim to cloudy darkness. Shivering beneath the window, I watch my nails split and claws rip from my bones. I am dying. I can’t bring myself to cry anymore either. I can only stare. Stare and wait.

“Gruesome,” Celeste says.

She’s been by my side through it all, though she’s no more than a bloody puppet who sounds like my best friend. A hallucination. A nightmare.

She tilts her head and pokes my arm. “You know what’s happening, don’t you? You know what you’re becoming?”

I don’t respond.

She rolls her eyes, the action so mundane, I almost believe that it’s real. That she’s real. But she’s dead, and I’m next.

“Werewolf,” she whispers. “Monster.”

“I know,” I force myself to say. “I know.”

I stay on the floor, atop the scattered remnants of red gowns that I’ve shredded with inhuman claws, when a soft rap on the door draws my attention.

At first, I think the noise is a mistake. Another hallucination meant to harm me, but then it happens again. A second knock. A third. I force myself to sit up.

“I-I’m not sure if you can hear me,” someone—a boy—says. His tone is dark, secretive, and I don’t recognize it at all. I hardly recognize myself. “I don’t know how far along you are in the process, or what you’re experiencing, but… I’m sorry.”

My hands clench into fists. My heart beats hard between my broken ribs. But more than my own pulse, I can hear his. His breath catches in his throat, his heartbeat tripping over itself as though he’s nervous. Or maybe remorseful. His foot lifts, and I wait for him to leave, but he sets it back down. The noise might as well be broadcasted through a speaker, loud as it is. It shudders through me until I can practically taste the smoky char of his hesitation.

He exhales softly. “I know how you’re feeling. I know you must be scared—”

“Scared?” I hiss instinctively, talking to the solid wall of door. “You think I’m scared? I’ve been imprisoned in this sterile room with zero explanation, and I… my body…” I don’t finish the sentence. Fangs grow from my canines and slice into my lower lip. I shut my eyes, trying to ignore the anguish. The torment.

Celeste rises then and claps her hands with unbridled glee, knowing she’s the worst of it.

“If you’re so miserable, you could always try dying,” Celeste offers.

I whimper, and the boy at my door must hear it because he snarls. “Fight it. The pain and whatever you think you’re seeing. None of it is real. Your soul is being split. You’re—”

“Dying,” I finish for him. I lie down again, refusing to look at the ghost of my dead best friend. It would be easier if I could drift off to sleep. If I didn’t have Celeste whispering damnation in my ear and my organs knotting, twisting, curdling inside.

I don’t have any fight left in me. I barely have a care. I just want it to end. I move closer to the wall, pressing my skin to the cold stone. Nothing helps.

“Listen to me,” he says, and his voice turns into a gravelly rasp. A desperate plea. “This can either be an ending or a beginning. Don’t let the torture win. Fight it.”

With that, he leaves, marching down the hall. I follow the sound, trace it through the imaginary corridors and hallways of a building I’ll never know. Left, right, straight. But when it fades, I think about his words and how he was wrong about everything.

There is no beginning left for me here.

8

You could just leave,” Celeste says casually, legs crossed and feet bloody—a shard of the broken beer bottle still lodged in her bare arch—as she sits in front of me. Her skin flashes creamy white in the darkness, her hair an electric, startling blue against the sterile black of the room. “Go back home to your dad. Help Mom with my funeral. Pretend none of this ever happened and run.”

I hug my knees to my chest and rest my chin on my forearms, not bothering to glance at the door, the barred window. “There’s no way out, remember? I can’t leave.”

“Come on. We both know they haven’t locked you in here to die. Eventually, that door is going to open.” She nudges me with her bloody foot, though the scarlet doesn’t transfer to my own skin.

She’s not real. She’s not real.

She’s dead.

“Eventually,” Celeste drawls, far too happily, “you can flee.”

My chest cracks open, and a sob escapes. I clamp down my teeth around it. My emotions have moved from a torrential downpour to a gentle sprinkling. Sadness, hopelessness, and grief grow roots in my heart, plunging branches through my veins, but I force them to remain there. Inside me.

What am I going to do?

Celeste has asked me that question for the last four hours. I don’t know the answer. Usually, I have those—answers. I’m confident, assured. I might not be able to dance gracefully at a party full of semistrangers, but I always know what comes next. Aside from Celeste, schedules and routines have been my dearest friends over the years. But now… I raise a hand to the moonlight. My veins swell, blacker and blacker still, pulsating to the despair coiled tight in my chest.

What am I going to do?

Without Celeste, without my father, without volleyball and school and the teddy bear I’ve cuddled every night for almost seventeen years… I don’t know.

I don’t fucking know.

I can’t be a monster and live like everything is normal. Can’t smack the leather of a ball with the knife-sharp tips of my claws. Can’t wander school hallways with this… this storm building inside. It feels like drowning. Like sinking to the bottom of riotous waves as the sea smothers my voice. And the pain—

“I thought you were stronger than this,” Celeste says, standing and drifting onto the mattress. She drops down like a feather. The bed does not react to her weight. I swallow hard, unable to meet her eyes.

“All those games,” she continues. “I’ve seen you. I sat in the front row at every single one. You don’t back down from a challenge. You’re stubborn, and you’re talented, and you… you don’t lose. You hate to lose. In fact, I think if Max freaking Cayden stood in front of the net, you’d serve a ball right into his face if it would score you a point. You should have no problem hiding somewhere, waiting for them to open the door, and sprinting out of this hellhole.”

I laugh softly, but it feels more like a cry for help.

That’s just it. I’ve already lost. I can’t go back, can’t change the rules of the game… I hadn’t even realized I’d been playing one.

“You, after what happened to you…,” I whisper, but I can’t finish the words and condemn us to the truth. “And Dad abandoned me. He left me here, Celeste. I’m becoming a monster. I’m becoming…” The thing that ate you, I want to say. A tear tracks down my cheek instead.

“Pathetic,” Celeste says. My gaze snaps to hers as her tone descends into unabashed cruelty. “If anyone should be throwing the pity party, it’s me.”

“I know—”

“You don’t.” Celeste rises onto her knees. Her hair falls over her eyes as blood trickles from her scalp. I blink hard. It doesn’t erase the gore. Doesn’t end the hallucination. “One of us lost everything. One of us has nothing. It’s not you, Vanessa. It’s me. You felt my blood on your fingertips. You still feel it now. But you sit here, weeping like a baby, when you’re alive. You’re alive.”

“That’s not enough,” I hiss. “I’m imprisoned. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who’s keeping me here. I don’t have any of the facts.”

“You have enough.” Her gaze flashes with an indignation that matches my own. “This is why I died. You know that, don’t you? It’s what you’re the most afraid of. You hesitated. You could have stabbed that werewolf before it ate me. You could have saved me. But you let me die.”

You let me die.

The accusation echoes around us, as shrill and piercing as a scream, and drills holes in my composure until those sad trees inside me catch fire and I burn. The floor scorches as I stand, and my footprints smoke against the stone. “I did not.”

“You hesitated,” she repeats. “I saw you.”

But that’s impossible. She couldn’t have seen it—it’d been a split second. Of weakness. Of fear. “No,” I argue. “I couldn’t have done anything—”

“Liar.” Celeste makes finger puppets in the shadows along the wall, but they transform from fingers into nightmares within a breath.

Two wolves. Two girls.

The larger wolf attacks the tiny girl. Devours her. While the other girl stands there. Too slow. Too useless. I clench my teeth so hard, they threaten to fracture.

“You let me die,” Celeste hisses again.

I reach for her, but she’s not real. I feel the wisps of her hair, but I can’t hold on to them. I can’t hold on to her. Instead, I stumble and knock into one of the bed’s black posts. “No.”

Her image flickers out then. Sudden. Final. “You abandoned me.”

“I stayed.” A growl rips from my throat, and even the post begins to smoke beneath my grasp. The room smells of charred rage and sea-salt sadness, and I can’t control it. I can’t do anything but succumb to it. My emotions erupt like a volcano. Without thinking—simply reacting—I snap off the metal post in my hand and hurl it through the air. Somehow, it impales Celeste in her phantom chest, nailing her beside the door where she’s reappeared. Blood pools around the sharpened post.

She stares at it. Glances at me. “How could you?” she whispers softly. “You promised to love me forever. You promised to stay.”

I can’t breathe. Can’t suck in air or even expel it. My lungs are exploding. My skin sizzles. All of me—every part of me—hurts. And it’s a pain I can’t run from. A pain that nestles into my soul. There’s no fixing this. Any of this. “I couldn’t fight off a wolf, Celeste. I’m no one. I’m nothing.”

“You are not nothing. Not anymore.” She fades into the door, vanishing with a sad smile, and though I wait for her to reappear, she never does.

It no longer matters. The damage is done. My composure snaps, and my vision blurs. I no longer care. About the pulse thudding and separating into dual beats in my chest. About the claws growing from my fingers. About anything except escaping.

I rip the post from the wall with alarming strength—unnatural strength—and use it to beat against the steel door again and again and again as something big and bold and ugly rears its head inside of me. What am I going to do? Nothing. Everything.

Why?

Why did the wolves kill Celeste? Because she attacked one of their friends on the beach? It doesn’t make sense. And I hate it. I hate the confusion. I hate the pain. I hate myself.

I hate those monsters.

Lashing out with my claws, I break chunks of stone loose from the wall.

You are not nothing. Not anymore.

I scratch and kick and pound, becoming pain. Becoming rage. None of this is my fault. I was just a human. I was just a girl going to a party with her best friend. I wasn’t equipped to take on one werewolf, let alone two. No. This shouldn’t have happened. It’s their fault.

It’s their fault, and… and they need to pay.

My spine breaks. This time I don’t scream; I let it happen. The bone splits down the center, like lightning striking a tree, dividing my body into two. Vanessa Before and Vanessa After.

Woman. And wolf.

My skin ripples. Flays. The black blood running through my veins drenches me, banishing the hurt until I feel only hatred. Only anger. I emerge from the transformation, a butterfly fleeing its inky chrysalis, and finally become the monster they’ve made me.

Claws and teeth and fur—so much fur—I leap at the door.

The steel buckles. Shudders to the ground under the heavy weight of my new body.

What am I going to do?

The only thing I can do; the only thing I have left. Find who ruined my life and make them rue the moment they decided to kill my best friend.

9

My senses have changed. Morphed into a strange, almost tangible awareness.

I taste the footsteps of the past—like billowing smoke after a forest fire—and track them down empty hallways. My nose picks up a thousand scents, each more potent than the last. More than that, I hear. Everything. Noises burst in ear-shattering cacophonies even when they’re quiet. Snoring. Kissing. A whispered conversation about dreams. All behind closed doors. All carried on the scent of wolves. For just an instant, they disorient me, and I hesitate. Then—

No. I shake my head, ignoring them.

They’re not what I’m after.

Because amongst the wolves, I smell something else too. Someone else. Just a trace of clove, a hint of vanilla, but I recognize both from the beach without understanding how.

My lips pull back from my teeth.

Anger is good. Hatred is better; it rattles in my chest like a beast in a cage, begging to be freed. It consumes me. Consumes any remaining sense and reason and logic.

Her fault. All her fault.

Following the scent, I retrace the path that the boy’s footsteps echoed earlier when he left my door. Hunger grows in my belly, a lure reeling me forward. Moving me faster. Vengeance stirs, whipping my pulse into a frenzy, but I remain focused. Even as that red haze clouds my vision again, painting my surroundings in shades of blood, it’s as though I am not only in a new body but borrowing a new brain. A calculating one. Strategic. I know that if I remain silent, if I sneak my way to the enemy, I will be able to pounce. Rip her head off her shoulders just as she’d done to… to Celeste.

Celeste.

I throw myself farther into the building, beneath huge arches and glittering mosaics. Beyond a wall of ancient tapestries and flickering torches. I do not know where I am. Each sight is so foreign, I might as well have traveled to a different universe altogether. But that is not my problem. That scent is my problem. The memory of that snarling, haughty face as she struck Celeste. As she drew first blood.

I am going to kill her. The thought startles me—shocks me to my core—but it is also the only thought I have left.

The boy’s scent—ocean and jasmine—mingles with hers, guiding me deeper. Left, right, straight. On and on and on. Until finally—finally—I hear a voice. Unfamiliar. Feminine. Sharp and strong. It sends a strange shiver down my spine, and a low growl burns up my throat in response.

“What of the others?” the woman asks, and I follow the sound with slow, steady steps. Soon. Soon I will pounce. For now, I listen. “Gibbon’s territory? Lincoln’s? Perhaps we’re dealing with others farther east. Farther south. Away from our shores.”

“I am sorry, my queen,” a male says. This one I recognize. It incites my anger higher, hotter, but I force myself to remain still. Lord Allard. And he is with—my body tenses instinctively—their queen. “The Gibbons and the Lincolns are restless, but there isn’t any evidence with which to convict them.”

A clench of a jaw. The crack of bones—perhaps knuckles. I tilt my head. Study the door before me, wooden with gilded rose-shaped handles and bolts, and wait for more. Though I don’t care about convictions, it would be smart to know how many wolves wait in the room. And perhaps she—the queen—will mention Celeste’s murder. The scent of clove and vanilla still assaults my senses.

She is in there too.

My knees bend.

“That is a damning sign, Lord Allard. If the territories surrounding us have remained loyal, that means the traitor might be in this very castle. It could only be someone with considerable strength.”

“We are doing everything we can to eradicate—”

“And it is not enough. Scour every inch of this city. Tear it apart if you must. Do not stop until we have our victory in hand.”

“Yes, my queen.” Lord Allard steps away. “We will ransack the island again.”

The island. The queen. The girl.

That red haze darkens. Boils in my veins. My heart races between healed ribs, and I cannot wait any longer. The time to strike is now.

I lunge at the door—right at the moment it’s yanked open. Flailing on my new legs, scrambling with my paws, I struggle to right myself. Slipping and sliding, I land in an embarrassing heap on checkered white and blue tiles. Silence sweeps through the chamber in response. Then—laughter.

My hackles lift at the sound. Though I growl low in warning, it does not cease when I look up. Instead, the people standing around the throne meet my gaze with amusement. Without fear. Twelve of them. All are unnaturally beautiful, but stranger still—they wear gowns. Tunics. Each woven of enchanted, almost magical materials, with tight corsets and twinkling gemstones and high, sensual slits in soft, long skirts. Modern but ancient. Breathtaking and lavish. Unusual. Unreal. Shaking my head again to clear it, I scramble to my feet.

Lord Allard rolls his eyes before turning away.

Carved stars, meteors, and planets swoop out from the gilded throne behind him. They tangle with hanging vines of ivy and thorns, and stardust seems to speckle the air. As though Mother Nature has reclaimed part of this room, vibrant purple wisteria and white starflowers explode from cracks in the wall. Floral and cinnamon notes tickle my nose, followed by a cascade of other scents. Each unique. Each tracking an invisible path to someone new. Too many scents now. I exhale sharply, disoriented—overwhelmed—and pitch sideways. I search for vanilla, for clove, for any trace of her.

Where is she?

The thought grows more urgent. The others have stopped laughing now, turning away from me as if I am nothing. That heat climbs higher. I shudder with it—fighting the urge to lunge, to bite, to make them pay attention.

“So you have, in fact, transformed,” says that unfamiliar voice. “I suppose it’s time for congratulations.”

Lord Allard steps aside, and at the center of the room, atop the throne and bedecked in a crown of silver stars, sits a woman who could only be the Wolf Queen. Raven-black hair—the same black as her eyes—curls inward toward her collarbone, struck through with gray. She tilts her head slowly, watching me with a sinister smile on her ruby lips. It’s her regal air that flattens my ears, however. The way she holds her head high so she can gaze down her nose at every single person in the room.

Especially me.

Beside her sits a blond boy whose burgundy eyes meet mine curiously. I instantly recognize his bright hair and chiseled jaw from the beach. The suntanned muscles stretching taut beneath his black shirt. Lounging on a table beneath an astronomical tapestry of the solar system, he spins a golden crown lazily on his finger. And beside him—

Another snarl, louder this time.

Draped across a second regal chair, the girl who attacked Celeste regards me with a haughty expression. Her silky black hair spills down the back of a silky black gown. Her wine-colored eyes glitter with malevolence. With cruel amusement. She laughed too, I realize, and when she lifts a hand to wave at me, I cannot think any longer. Visceral hatred courses through my body until I must do something, must strike at her. This hunger inside is a melody, not a want. A lullaby written in my bones. To maim. To kill.

Why don’t you fuck off? Or you can settle this like the badass you think you are.

Her handprint on Celeste’s cheek. The blood dripping down Celeste’s face. Then—

Go, you stupid idiot! Get out of here!

The memories come faster now, tearing into my skin like shards of glass. Drawing blood. So much blood—down her chest and in her hair and on my lap. Everything scarlet. Everything gone. My dad and my school and my friends. My future. And all because of her—

“Easy, Evie,” the blond boy murmurs, smirking slightly.

Evie.

Her name bites deepest of all. It sounds like murderer.

Do you think a skinned knee is the worst we can do?

She killed Celeste. She must’ve done so, and I am still not afraid of her. I am not afraid of Lord Allard either—not even with his syringes, not even when he moves to stand in front of the girl as if to protect her. I lick my fangs, daring him forward. Challenging him. He is a monster. They all are. What do I care if he loses his life too?

“Stand down,” their queen orders.

Lord Allard and I glance at her. My hackles don’t lower. My growling does not cease. I rake my claws along the tiles, scuffing what appears to be antique flooring, and bare my fangs in a sadistic grin. Because I will not stand down. Because she is not my queen, and—

“Touch the wolfling and die.” The Wolf Queen stands as I startle slightly. An intricate black gown, gossamer and wispy, hugs her soft curves. Her long legs step gracefully down the stairs that lead to her ornate throne. As she crosses the room, her subjects part in a sea of cold smiles. I don’t care about them, however. I feel strong. Stronger than I ever have before. Their pulses linger like sweet sugar on my tongue. It will take but a second to move.

“It’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” the blond boy says. My head snaps back in his direction. I snarl, and the boy glances at me, raising a brow. “Surely we could start with a simple conversation.” A grin tugs at his lips. I hate it. How dare he—

“No,” the queen says. “She must learn.”

I turn back, and the queen is looking at me now. Her black eyes intent. “Go ahead, child.” She gestures to Evie, who looks strangely eager. The boy shakes his head in exasperation. “Attack her. Take your vengeance.”

No one else moves. They simply watch us as if vaguely entertained.

And though I know something is wrong here—my instincts warn me to stop, to think—my rage is stronger. I don’t understand it. Can’t comprehend it. But without it… I feel like nothing. I am nothing.

Murderer.

The thought rips from me before I can stop it, and suddenly I’m no longer standing. I’m running. That red haze clouds my vision, and I let it. I use it to propel me forward. I will kill her.

The girl stands. Her voice comes out frigid, even as her lips pull back in an eerie, mocking smile. “Hey, bitch.”

That’s all I need to lunge, to throw myself on top of her and tackle her to the floor. Her head rebounds off the ground with a cruel crack, but I don’t ease my grip on her. She hisses, writhing around, spitting at me, before seizing my nape and wrenching my teeth from her face. My claws still pierce her skin, however, and the haze of red darkens until her beautiful, supernatural face is a blur.

“Fucking psychopath.” She pulls harder, ripping the fur from my neck. My head snaps backward, a yelp spilling from my lips, but I can’t release her. She hurt Celeste. She killed her. The girl’s claws stab into my back, and I yelp again, tightening my hold. Thrusting her head to the floor again. Again. Again.

She drives a knee into my kidney then, and the surprise of it—the pain—gives her the second she needs to twist out of my grasp and spin us around. Suddenly, she’s on top of me. Fists are flying in my face. Somewhere behind us, a man yells.

The girl cuts my cheek with her claw—just as she did to Celeste—before driving a human fist into my muzzle. My teeth crunch. My tongue is caught in the cross fire. Blood spurts from my mouth. I slice a claw through her hair, trying to grapple with it but instead cutting it into an uneven lob.

She screams in rage, stomping on my foot. Snapping the bone. Agony radiates upward, but before I can retaliate, the queen smiles. “Enough.”

Evie’s fist pauses midair, right above my face. I use the second to shake her off me. Like a rag doll, she soars atop the blond boy’s table and crumples. He helps her up with another sigh, thoroughly unbothered by the proceedings. Vicious satisfaction swells in me at the sight of blood in her hair.

When I move to finish the job, however, the queen races forward with preternatural speed, grabbing my throat. An easy attack indeed—for her. Her nails split into claws. They tighten against my throat. She dangles me high above the floor, and in her gaze, I spy my reflection for the first time.

A huge brown beast with glowing purple eyes.

“It’s true,” the queen says with a short laugh. The audience watches with more interest now. Their attention rapt. “The Oracle was right.” She hoists me higher still, as though I’m a doll to her. A plaything. I writhe and snap at her hand. “I said enough,” she says.

As if I’d obey. I go to bite again, to scratch, but my limbs lock instantly. Muscles tense so much, they could shatter. What—how… My heart leaps into my throat. I can’t move. Not at all.

“Bark,” she commands.

I do. Like a goddamned dog.

“Good pup. Very good.” The queen trails a claw through my fur, almost gentle, before she drops me onto the ground. “It seems you can still be controlled.”

The impact slams through my bones, but I can’t brace for it. I am frozen on the tiles, terrified enough to wet myself. Fear—rotting, pungent horror—curdles my stomach. I choke on bile. But I can’t vomit, because she hasn’t told me I can. My existence is wholly at her mercy.

I whimper, but I can’t scream. I won’t scream.

Please don’t make me scream.

“Lord Allard,” the queen says.

He steps forward again, his golden eyes never once leaving my face. “Yes, my queen?”

“See the rest of the nobility to their rooms. I want doors locked until you are summoned to the Drowning. You too, Evelyn, darling,” she adds with another saccharine smile. “Might I suggest a bath? Your blood is staining my son’s sleeve.”

Evie’s answering smile is sharp. Smug. Pulling away from the boy—who squeezes her shoulders companionably but doesn’t seem at all sorry to watch her go—she waves at me again. Just the slightest wiggle of her fingers. The slightest hint of a threat. “Yes, my queen.”

10

Lord Allard waits not another moment before following his queen’s orders, herding the other adults out of the room. But the boy remains. I stare at him, willing him to go too. To let me die in peace. But he only sits up, perched on the edge of the table now, and sets the crown on the wood.

The door shuts behind us, and then it is just me, the queen, and the boy. “You didn’t need to let it go that far,” he says rather cheerfully.

“Yes, I did.” The queen watches Evie’s back until it vanishes through the door. “Your fiancée needed to learn a lesson too.”

I nearly choke at that, frozen upon the tile floor as I stare between them.

“Not quite my fiancée yet,” he corrects, “Your Majesty.”

“Soon enough, Sinclair. It’s time you become accustomed to your future.” The queen turns to me then, slashing a hand through the air and bringing an end to the casual conversation. “Now, little Bitten one, I require your ears. This is important for you to hear, but I won’t force you to listen.”

Why not, I think, when you have already forced everything else?

As though she can hear me, the queen says, “There will be a choice to make at the end of this. You must make it alone. Two paths lie before you, and where one leads to greatness, the other leads to death. Nod if you understand.”

I don’t move, though the magical release on my neck feels as if a weight has been lifted. Relief pounds through me.

“I will not command you, but I do need you to acknowledge that you hear me.” Her tone darkens, imperceptible to anyone else’s ears. I nod.

“Very good. You have found yourself in a strange world, I’m sure. The things you’ve endured over the last two days have no doubt been pure torment. That is not the fault of anyone, but a gift of the moon, sun, and stars.”

I glare. Have no choice but to glare. These past few days have been anything but a gift. They’ve been torture.

The rest of my limbs remaining locked, the queen steps around me as if I’m a felled tree in the road. She continues to the tapestry behind the boy. It displays the universe in metallic stitching. Planets, constellations, and a web of threads that I have no way to interpret.

“We come from a lineage of those before humans, in a time between human and dinosaur when Superiors alone ruled the earth. You’ve heard of most, I’m sure. Vampires, faeries, sirens. Each more sinister and deadly than the last. Well, the faeries were a people of nature. They were born—evolved, if you’d like—of the ordinary. There were the earthen fae, the water sprites, the flame wielders.” As she speaks, she points to a different thread. They interconnect from the moon to Earth to the stars, knotting over so many times that it’s inconceivable they could ever be separated.

“There were also the beastly faeries,” she says, sounding at once proud and judgmental. “Legend has it that a great star crashed to Earth, and the dust carried to the forests of every continent. From the dust grew bears that could think like humans, panthers that could speak, and wolves that could transform. As wolves do, we have since stuck with our packs. Our courts. We do not stray for anything.”

Werewolves.

She glances at me, and I blink in understanding. Only then does she continue. “Of course, thousands upon thousands of years can destroy even the ageless. The licentious vampires have been chased to the darkest corners of the world. The lewd sirens remain in the murky depths of the seven seas. And the wicked faeries… well, no one knows what happened to the other faeries. They vanished when the first human appeared. As though the mere presence of humans was enough to eradicate the lot of them. But we wolves…” She grins. “We have remained strong in numbers and power through the Seven Courts of the Wolf Regents. Seven continents. Hundreds of territories. Thousands of packs. And seven regents to unite them all.”

“Wonderful introduction, Mother,” the boy drawls, his tone sharper than his smile. He winks at me. “Perhaps the Wolf Queen of North America would now like to bow.”

“Enough, Sin. In a few years, you will be the one giving this speech and deciding who lives and dies. It’s important for you to be aware of how ruling truly works.”

“I haven’t gone through the Ascension Rite yet,” he says. “Perhaps you could wait until I’ve been properly declared an Alpha before we continue down the princely route.”

“You are an Alpha. The eyes never lie.” The queen’s black eyes darken into pools of inky night. “Red for power. For leaders. For Alphas. And one day, black. For king.”

The boy—Sin—stifles a yawn with his hand. “Eyes can change.”

“Unless you’re preparing to cast aside your own hierarchal privilege, the eyes do not lie.” The queen whirls back around, once more facing me. “Which brings me to our new Bitten one.” She removes her crown, setting it on the table before wandering toward my body. “It has always been important for us Superiors to keep our bloodlines intact. To remain with those who have been gifted from the heavens. Bitten werewolves—while adding to our numbers—do not add to our strength. That is why it’s forbidden to bite a human outside of approval from a regent.” She tilts her head. “But you… you are different, Vanessa Hart.” From her pocket, she retrieves a bronze mirror and holds it before my face, repeating, “The eyes do not lie.”

Sure enough, molten purple swirls in the irises of my wolfish face. I gulp. Shut my eyes. She said red for power. She said black for king, presumably for any regent. But what about my own?

“No one has been Born or Bitten with purple eyes before,” Sin says, voice lower, softer now. “Instructor Alvarez couldn’t find records of a single one throughout all of history, even amongst our nobility.”

“Exactly.” The Wolf Queen doesn’t remove her gaze from mine, though she stows the mirror in her pocket. “Vanessa seems to be wholly original. Untested potential, if you will. And you,” she purrs, glancing at her son as a smile twists her lips, “shall be our first test.”

He stills, and a dark shadow of contempt sweeps across his expression. “Pardon?”

“Compel her.”

He blinks. I blink. We look at each other for a moment—for a breath—before he quickly looks away. “No.”

“We need to know where she lies within the ranks of court. I have compelled her successfully. She is, thus, below the regent. You are an Alpha—and in our hierarchy, you exist directly below only myself—and I am commanding you to compel her, Sinclair. Now. We need to know how to treat her. How to use her.”

How to use me?

He steps forward, and my muscles tense. I brace myself for the worst. For another round of humiliation.

Sin crouches before me, stroking long, dexterous fingers through my fur, and his eyes flash bloodred as they crash into my own. He murmurs, “Sit up.”

My bones crunch at the words. My body contorts into the fastest position possible. I sit—once more like a dog—and my spirit cracks further. Embarrassment slices through me, deeper than last time. I am a puppet. I am their marionette. He flinches for the briefest of moments, but with my wolfish senses, I still track the movement. It doesn’t matter, however. He returns to his mother’s side.

“Excellent,” the queen says. She snaps her finger, and behind me, the doors creak open. Gentle footsteps clack across the floor. A young man with yellow eyes trails down the aisle. He wipes his hands on an apron tied around his waist. Beads of sweat drip from his forehead—they smell like fear. “Anthony, be a dear and compel this wolf to stand.”

Her voice deepens when she speaks the order, and I understand immediately that it is another compulsion. Anthony looms over me, a dazed look in his burning, golden eyes, as he orders, “Stand.”

I shut my eyes and grit my teeth. Wait for them to use and use and use me until I am a husk of who I once was, but—

I do not stand.

My bones do not obey.

Anthony’s auburn brow furrows. His pale forehead creases with effort. “Stand,” he repeats. Harsher, crueler. “Stand up now.”

I do not. Victory floods my limbs, and warmth tingles up my spine. I do not stand.

“That is all,” the queen says easily, her eyes narrowing on me. “You may go, Anthony.”

“Yes, my queen,” Anthony says, and then he retreats from the throne room with clumsy, hasty steps.

The Wolf Queen approaches me with a knowing, sinister smile. All the victory I felt seconds ago melts away under her stare. “Untested potential,” she says, as though the words carry a weight greater than even her throne. “You are above many in the wolf hierarchy. As such…” She seems to ponder this. “As such, Miss Hart, you will not yet be moved to another pack. Typical court etiquette would see you sent off to a territory in the south, where you would be raised as a soldier within a modest pack. But you are special. You are different.” She licks her lips. “If you so choose it, you will start and end your training in Castle Severi.

“New packs will be chosen during the Ascension Rite on winter solstice—when the universe will solidify your truest potential—and I am offering you the fortune of joining the others. Students of nobility and regality, much like my own son, have traveled from all over the world for this one moment. Castle Severi is hosting the Ascension this decade, and you will learn amongst them. You will live amongst them. And at the end, should you become powerful enough, you will be chosen to remain in this court, potentially within Sin’s very own pack.”

“Which is totally up to Sin,” Sin mutters with an eye roll, but… there’s a lack of venom in his voice. A softness in his gaze. It almost makes me feel… safe.

But that feeling is a lie. I do not care about my purple eyes—about being a different kind of monster from the rest. Someone here killed Celeste. Sin knows. The Wolf Queen knows. They have to. Hatred sears through me, a loathing so intense that I can hardly breathe. My muscles twitch. Slightly. Barely at all. But it’s enough to feel as if I’m in control again.

Over my dead body will I ever join them.

The Wolf Queen shakes her head. “Intelligence is a severely underrated skill, but one I hope you look to now. You could be so much more than another victim. We rule everything, Miss Hart. Everything.”

A shudder racks my spine, and the Wolf Queen’s eyes narrow. “You are strong, but you cannot resist my compulsions. I am above you—above all—in the court hierarchy. Thus, when I ask you to transform back, you will have a single moment to decide which path to take. Be wise. I would hate to kill a Bitten with so much potential.”

Sin sucks in a breath. Holds it. The rest of the room descends into silence, leaving me with a vicious maelstrom of thoughts. I hate them. I hate myself. I can’t be a monster. I’ve already lost so much. Too much.

If I refuse, however, what will happen to me? My father all but abandoned me to the wolves. If I return to him, what will stop him from doing it all over again? I don’t think I’d survive the betrayal twice. And even if he didn’t, how could I possibly go back to my old life? Everything has changed—everything—and my friends probably think I’m dead too. I wonder what he told them. I wonder if they threw a memorial for Celeste and me—if they decorated our lockers with flowers or held a vigil.

Even her name aches in my chest. It feels all at once too painful to ever acknowledge, yet also hollow, as if I am the one who bled out in the street.

Celeste.

I haven’t avenged her. With the red haze fading, I can admit that I haven’t even come close. I glance up, and the Wolf Queen inclines her head. It seems I have run out of time. “Vanessa Hart, I command you to return to your human form.”

My bones crack at once. My back breaks. The wolf vanishes in an explosion of brutal force.

Pain throttles me to the core, and suddenly I’m back in that prison with the ghost of Celeste bleeding beside me. Gripping the floor with human hands, human nails, I retch and shake. The wolf is gone. And I—I can think again. Really, truly think without that haze of red turning me into a beast.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.

What have I done? What have I become? I curl up on the floor, gasping for air, as Sin rips down the tapestry and throws it over my bare body.

“We should’ve given her more time,” Sin says, standing in front of me. Shielding me from his mother. I hold the corners of the tapestry around myself. As though if I let go, I’ll shatter again.

“That tapestry has remained in the throne room since this castle was founded by our faerie ancestors.”

“Then perhaps it’s time to purchase something a little less dusty,” Sin says. His voice turns suddenly dark. In control. And I… I think I’ve heard it before. Not just at the beach.

Outside of my prison.

Fight it, he’d said. It… it was him.

“She’s been through too much. There’s no way she’ll make the proper choice.”

“Do not speak with such disrespect. I am queen—”

“And as queen, you should know that her alliance is more important than immediacy.” Sin’s claws descend from his hands, sharper and longer than his mother’s. An ebony so deep, it looks infinite. “There’s no way she’ll even speak—”

It’s enough. That challenge, that condescension, is enough for me to open my mouth and form a single, coherent thought. “Who did it?” I rasp, rising first onto my knees and then onto my feet. The process is painful, arduous, but still I manage. I lift my chin, clutching the tapestry to my body. “Which one of you k-killed her?”

The Wolf Queen appraises me with an inscrutable expression on her beautiful face. “We do not know.”

“You—you liars!” I lunge forward, but Sin restrains me. Wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me against him with such force that I can’t even try to move. He’s strong. He might be stronger than his mother. I glare up at him, but he only smiles at me. A taunting, teasing glimmer in those burgundy eyes. Alpha.

“Believe me,” the Wolf Queen hisses, “no one would like to know what happened on the island more than I. The entire situation is a mess I cannot afford.”

A mess I cannot afford.

“What about you?” I stare at the boy beseechingly. A blond halo of hair falls over his thick brows. His jaw could cut through diamonds. His grin might be the most gorgeous grin I’ve ever seen. And I will rip it off his face if I have to. I will.

Even the thought feels feebler now than it did before. Instinct tells me to run from it—to run from myself. From my rage.

His eyes narrow slightly. Perhaps he can read my thoughts—or perhaps he can hear my heart pounding violently in my chest. “I did not kill your friend.”

“How—how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

He holds me tighter. “I did not. Kill. Your. Friend.” His voice cuts low. Dangerous. And his eyes shine brighter, redder. “You can ask the others too, but they’ll all tell you the same. Even Evie.”

My heart stops beating. My chest threatens to cave in.

No.

The enormity of the task before me crashes down upon my head. Because I—I don’t even know where to begin. The prince… Sin is right. No one here will ever admit to murdering Celeste. I’ll have to trick them, or—or find conclusive evidence. Which means I have nothing. Nothing to go on except Evie’s haughty expression and hatred of Celeste—and if tonight is any indication, I won’t be able to coerce her into a confession. Not with the queen around. Not with the prince—with Sin—as her fiancé. I’d attacked Evie on instinct, and though the queen tolerated it once, I don’t think she will again. I have no power here.

I have nothing.

The floor falls out from under me at the realization. I almost collapse. Would collapse if Sin wasn’t scooping me up into his arms. He cradles me against a firm, heated chest, but I barely feel it enough to resist. Barely feel anything. They can’t get away with this. Celeste’s parents will bury her. They’ll say it was some freak accident—roadkill, I remember them saying—and then they’ll clean out her room. They’ll sell her car. Everything that is Celeste will be erased. Forever. And I… I won’t be able to stop them.

Not from here. And especially not if I’m dead.

A decision looms heavy over my head. I can let them kill me. Bet it would be quick enough. But I can see her ghost still, in the corner of my eye, a phantom of blue hair and red wounds. I hear her laugh. My favorite sound in the world.

I can’t leave her like that. Like this.

I promised.

“You’ll train me?” I ask slowly.

The Wolf Queen nods. “After the First Rite, you will join the nobility. You can become so much more than you are now.”

I chew on the inside of my lip and glance around the room. Torches flare, the flickering flames bouncing from wall to wall. Our shadows lengthen, the edges wrong and crooked, making us look every bit like the monsters we are inside.

“Decide,” the Wolf Queen orders, but it’s not a real command. It’s not a compulsion.

Do I die now? Or do I try to do what I couldn’t for Celeste when she was still alive?

“I don’t want to be weak,” I admit, thinking of my best friend. Her laughter. Her screams.

“Good.” The Wolf Queen combs back her hair with her claws. “We may have underestimated you, Miss Hart.”

“Seems we have,” Sin whispers at my ear.

I ignore him and the shiver that follows. “Don’t kill me. I’ll stay. I’ll learn.”

“Do you swear your allegiance to your court and future pack?” The Wolf Queen runs a claw along her sleeve. Slices it off. It flutters to the ground before she plunges the claw into her wrist. Blood pours from the wound, and I suck in a sharp breath, startled.

“A blood pact,” she explains. “That was my gift from the Cassiopeia constellation under which I had my First Rite. Swear your allegiance and give me your wrist. Once this is done, you will belong to my court and command as long as we both shall live.”

I hesitate.

Blood drips onto the tiles. I flinch at the sight.

Red red red

“It will only hurt for a second,” Sin says. “The pact will heal you once it is enacted.”

Two choices stand before me, and I find myself holding out my hand. Resolve hardens in my chest—right where Celeste used to be. I will not let them kill me. I will make them pay. Determined now, with the prince still holding me in his arms, I offer my hand. It only trembles a little, and the Wolf Queen accepts it with a merciful touch.

I’m so sorry I didn’t fight harder, Celeste. I’ll do better this time. I swear it. I blink away the last of my tears and pain and hold my head high. “I swear my allegiance to my court and future pack.”

The Wolf Queen cuts my wrist and yanks my open vein against hers. “It is done,” she says, as my skin blisters to the touch. A second of burning—of bleeding—and then a golden light spills from the connection. It heals me from the inside out. “Welcome to the Wolf Queen’s Court, Vanessa Hart. We are so very pleased to have you.”

11

Take her to her room, Sin,” the Wolf Queen orders. “She will need her rest before the First Rite.”

“I can walk,” I argue, not wanting his hands on me for another second.

The Wolf Queen glares. “You could barely stand moments ago. The first shift into wolf rattles your very soul. Until you complete the First Rite, you are as delicate as glass, not yet filled with the whole of the universe’s gifts. We are lucky your little fight with Evelyn did not permanently scar you. You will let the Crown Prince carry you, and you will not do anything else reckless before the rite.”

I swallow. This is clearly a test, but my bones do feel weak. Loathe as I am to admit it, I’m not sure I could walk right now—not sure my legs would do anything but break or flee, or perhaps both simultaneously. My muscles feel liquefied, my lungs aching, and pain rumbles through me like thunder.

I incline my head, and her eyes sparkle. “Very good, Bitten one. Sinclair?”

“Yes, Mother.” Sin bows slightly and carries me out of the throne room into the magical hallways beyond. I don’t fight his grasp as he pulls me closer into his arms, making sure the tapestry is tight around me as we pass under the first archway.

The castle is like nowhere I’ve been before—nothing I’ve seen before. Whorls of purple and blue glitter dazzle in the air, seemingly spread from the flowers blooming in the cracks of the walls. High arches give way to towering stained-glass windows depicting… depicting moving silhouettes. Of wolves running through forests and meteors crashing to earth. There are faeries too, tall and strong and hidden behind shadowy oaks, and sirens moving through dazzling, cerulean waves. I stare at them, at the rugs that follow us, extending beneath our feet with Sin’s every step, at the torches that burn in an ombre of indigo to ebony flames down the hall.

I gape at the boy carrying me, lost in thought. In observation.

Sin.

Freckles dust his nose and cheeks, a mole above his lip the same brown as the veins that shoot through his burgundy eyes. He looks my age, like a teenage boy who would have a modeling contract in Paris, but his muscles ripple beneath me. His height challenges the arches. The beauty makes him deadlier. Just like this castle.

“Where are we?” I finally ask.

He glances down, his brows rising as though he’s surprised I’ve spoken. His heart beats into my side, a soothing, easy pace interrupted by a sudden jolt. Definitely surprise. “Castle Severi.”

“I’ve never heard—”

“You would know it better by its human name, Castillo de San Marcos.” His words are short. Stilted. He’d rather be doing anything but discussing this.

But—my eyes widen. Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the United States, sitting in the historical downtown part of St. Augustine. Which means I’m… minutes from home. Ten or fifteen at most. Dad patrols outside the fort often. Celeste and I have spent so many days walking past it, so many field trips exploring the grounds.

“No,” I say quickly. “The fort is used for tourism. It’s not an actual castle. It’s not this.” I raise a feeble hand, gesturing to the flickering blue flames beside us. They shouldn’t be possible. None of this should be possible. I’ve only been inside Castillo de San Marcos once, during a fourth-grade field trip, and the only sight to see was stone. So much stone and dirt and a few fake cots piled side by side to fill the empty space. Overhead, the silhouette of a wolf lunges across an open meadow of misty emerald glass and rends the head from a vampire’s neck. The beauty makes it deadlier.

“That’s because it’s here, but it’s also not.” Sin ducks under another arch, and we enter a new hallway bedecked with flags. Crests embroidered in those favored metallics onto teal and midnight blues billow with a supernaturally chilling breeze. One matches the sigil hanging on a gold chain from Sin’s neck. A seven-pointed star entwined with snakes. “It’s a portal,” he explains quickly. “The wardrobe into Narnia? The rabbit hole down to Wonderland? What my mother forgot to mention about our Superior ancestors is that they did not quite live on the earth as we know it. Rather, they lived in the pockets of Earth that only they could see and touch. It’s how they came to evolve differently than humans.”

Before I can ask any of the million questions rolling around in my head, he continues. “There are pockets—portals—everywhere into the Realm of Superiority, and while most of the realm is depleted of magic from whatever occurred when the faeries vanished, enough can be accessed to maintain the established Seven Courts and their many packs within. Each portal opens to our kind, according to Instructor Alvarez, in the places where an inhuman amount of bloodshed and gore have rotted human land. North America’s court has been housed in this particular pocket since 1740. The siege exposed an ancient stronghold of the faeries. And thus, we live here, with the remainders of their magic tangling with our own.”

Sin reaches out and strokes the small stone statue of a wolf. It wriggles under his touch. “We’ve managed to hide our opulence ever since. The human masses aren’t to know of our existence. Those who do, die.”

The spectacle of magic, the awe of it and the fright of it, hardens in my chest instantly. I curl my hands into his white tunic. “B-but my father… He was there. He would know—”

“Your fear is palpable,” he says simply. “I can taste it, like red wine to a parched man. You won’t survive long if you don’t learn to control it.”

I stiffen in his arms. He’s too close. He’s everywhere. And I don’t want to risk my current state by throwing myself onto the ground. So instead, I dig a nail into his arm. He curses but doesn’t drop me. “He’s my father. Just because… because you’ve been raised in a den of monsters—”

“Your father is an officer of the human law,” he says under his breath. Almost imperceptible. “The sheriff of St. Augustine is well aware of Castle Severi. It’s the only way to make sure humans aren’t lingering where they shouldn’t. As such, your father will be safe. Promoted probably, so long as he doesn’t tell anyone what he saw that night. We look after those who look after us.”

I shake my head. “So did he know? My father—did he know before?”

Sin scoffs. “No. He wouldn’t have known.”

Relief washes through me. Short-lived. Bittersweet. Dad didn’t know. Not until the attack. But… he still abandoned me. For a second—just a horrible, cruel moment—I hope Sin’s lying about my father’s safety. I swallow roughly, and Sin’s grip tightens on my waist.

“Your emotions are volatile right now,” he says. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not real.”

It feels real, though. I can picture my father perfectly, stocky and uniformed, driving up to the crime scene with his lights flickering and siren blasting. Imagine him appearing before the wolves ran off. I wonder if he’d have stayed and fought. For me. For Celeste.

A day ago, I’d have said yes. Without a doubt. But I’m not so sure anymore. The memory of my father feels strange now, warped like a photograph folded and unfolded too many times to be comprehensible anymore.

Dad abandoned me. He left me to these monsters. And I—I hate him for it. That rage I’d felt earlier, it hasn’t gone away. Only nestled into my bones like a pet curled up and napping. It’s dormant, and I… I could wake it at any time.

I stare at Sin, trying desperately to even out my breathing, but I can’t. I can’t seem to control it at all. “You’re saying that to appease me.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter to me what you believe.”

I watch the rugs vanish into stone as we move farther inside the castle and search for something—anything—to say that isn’t violent or cruel. I should fear Sin; I should stutter and stumble as if I’m talking to Max Cayden in the sand, but there’s too much I still don’t understand. And Sin seems like the only way I’ll find out. “How do you know about Wonderland and Narnia?”

He glances at me, his expression furrowed once more in surprise. “What?”

“You mentioned them, but I’m assuming being raised here—”

“You should not assume, Vanessa. Ever.” His fingers curl into my skin, and his gaze hardens imperceptibly. “Especially not when it comes to werewolves.”

Instincts, anxieties slam through me: stop talking, look away, don’t push him. But I ignore each and every one. The worst has already happened to me.

So instead of repeating my question about storybooks, I say, “You were at the beach.”

His pulse remains steady as ever. “Yes.”

“You saw me there.”

“Yes.”

“Where were you when I was attacked?”

He pauses. Just past us, through a clear, round window, soft pigeon grays color the sky. Dawn. It’s been days, then. Days since Celeste… I bite down. Try to trap those horrible feelings inside where he won’t see them again. If he does, he gives no indication.

“I told you twice already: I did not kill your friend.”

“And you think that’s enough for me to let this go?”

“I was trying to get the party under control,” he says. “My title—Sinclair Severi, Crown Prince of the Wolf Queen’s Court—isn’t just for show. There are duties to which I’m sworn. You and your friend shattered the temperament of the beach before you ran off. Humans were fighting us, threatening to make us shift. Some of the werewolves ran off to protect themselves, but the others… We’ve never been gifted patience. Restraint is nearly impossible once you succumb to your emotions—something I’m certain you’re now familiar with.” He cocks a brow, but I don’t respond. I don’t want to acknowledge that he’s right. “I needed to ensure those who remained weren’t going to do anything stupid.”

I snort, the sound far breathier and more afraid than I intended. “You mean stupid like murder? Like what happened to my friend?”

He approaches a narrow staircase, but instead of climbing it, he sets me on the step above him. My legs tremble, so embarrassingly frail, but he ropes an arm around my waist with a sigh. “I am sorry for her murder. I am sorry for your fate. But there is nothing to do about either. You belong to this court now—”

“Fuck… fuck that! And fuck you!” I can’t stop my voice from rising or my blood pressure from following. “Her murder wasn’t some freak accident. One of you killed her.”

“I did not,” he growls. He pushes me farther into the wall. Traps me. “For the last fucking time, I did not kill your friend. Whatever you hope to accomplish here, think again. You walk one step through this castle with your claws out, you’re as good as dead.” He picks up my wrist, showing the claws that have painfully sprouted from only three of my fingers. “Believe me, or don’t. But at least have enough foresight to not walk straight into a noose.”

I yank away my hand, hiding it behind my back. Willing those claws to vanish. One does—and it might as well be a knife sliding into my finger bone. I swallow a scream. “I… I thought the courts were united.”

“This court and the six others protect the loyal and the strong. Right now, you are neither.”

I glower at him, nostrils flaring, wishing I had the strength to step around him. Past him. “Then maybe I’ll leave.”

He moves into my path with controlled ease. An arm still guards my waist, hovering just over my skin as though he’s preparing for my imminent collapse. “You’re barely conscious.”

“I—I haven’t fallen yet.” I jab his chest with one of my normal nails. “If this court is as vicious as you make it out to be, then let me go.”

He presses a fist into the wall, blocking my way with a long, muscular arm. “You can’t.”

“Because of the pact?”

“The pact was magical and binding—but no. It was a way of placating my mother until the rite finishes. She wanted to be assured of your loyalty. No matter what, every werewolf who finishes their First Rite belongs to a Wolf Court. And you… you will belong to my mother’s. With your purple eyes, with your unknown abilities, she won’t allow you to leave. Ever.”

My eyelids flutter shut, as if I can stop the condemnation in its tracks. Purple eyes. Untested potential. Unknown abilities. “What am I?” I whisper hoarsely.

“You are a werewolf.” Sin exhales, and a small whiff of candied spearmint sweeps over me. I hate that I can discern it. That I can almost taste it—him—from scent alone. “You are a werewolf who belongs to my mother now.”

My chest flushes pink beneath the tapestry’s cover, and I open my eyes. “I can’t stay—”

“Abandoning the court means becoming a Lone Wolf, Vanessa.” My name falls from his lips softly, a plea. “Lone Wolves die. We draw our strength from our court first, then our packs. The longer we remain in our packs, learning to fight and exist alongside one another, the stronger we grow. But if we were to leave…” He pauses. Flinches as if he’s in pain.

“Bits of our soul fall behind,” he finishes finally, “and stay with the pack and court. The longer we go on without either, the more we stray from ourselves. Most Lone Wolves turn bloodthirsty and rabid. They search for anything to fill that hole inside them. But when they can’t…” He glances at me. Pain further tightens in his gaze. “They devour themselves. A Lone Wolf never needs to be hunted. They finish the job themselves every single time.”

Oh.

I swallow roughly and sag against the wall. He touches me then, making sure I’m not going to collapse. But… I don’t feel weak. Color washes from my face. Hair lifts on the nape of my neck. I feel terrified.

“There is no leaving, Vanessa,” he says sadly.

I can’t look at him. Can’t look anywhere but at the ground. “I want to rest. Please.”

He nods once, lifting me back into his arms and climbing the stairs two by two until we’re in front of a standard wooden door with a bronze knob. He opens the door smoothly and deposits me on a maroon rug. At least this room isn’t so sterile as my last.

A large bed—carved of a tree and left so unpolished that it literally looks like branches—grows from the center of the floor. More wisteria and ivy blanket the walls and grow over open wardrobes, drawers, and vanities. Everything is stocked. Dresses, gowns, underwear, makeup. As if they knew I wouldn’t die. As if they’ve been waiting for this.

“It isn’t totally awful here,” he offers in the doorway. “We have books just like you do. We can listen to music. Electronics don’t typically work within the castle, but we leave enough that we always have entertainment. We just keep to our Superior traditions.” He pauses, smiles. “Narnia was always one of my favorites,” he says, and then he leaves.

Only when his footsteps fade and the door closes do I collapse. The rug might as well be a pool of Celeste’s blood, but I can’t move from it. I stare wordlessly at a stained-glass window depicting two snakes strangling a rose. Light rises behind it, spilling over the room. Over my immaculately pale skin.

There is no leaving.

Welcome to the Wolf Queen’s Court.

What the hell have I done? Have I become? A floor-length mirror shows the reflection of an inhumanly beautiful girl with violet eyes and ashen hair with streaks of purple so rich, they could be velvet ribbons lying on the floor. She squints as if she should be crying, but no tears pour out. She’s wrong. Broken. And I hate her for it—for all of it. But I can’t look away. I can’t leave.

The tapestry hides the rest of me, and I’m thankful. I don’t want to see what bruises remain—or what bruises have vanished with the change. I stay there like that for hours, unmoving. Unblinking. Replaying every conversation in my head until the most important thing starts to make sense.

Not the werewolves. Not the court.

Celeste.

Sin said that some of the wolves stayed and fought on the beach. But others left. Others ran. Which means one of them has to be the culprit. That girl… Evie… She could have killed Celeste. Another bit me and ruined my life. Both were wolves with red eyes. The knowledge of this should make me weep and shudder, but I smile.

If Sin is in charge of them, it means they belong to this court. Nobility, probably, just as the queen said. I’m going to see them eventually. I’m going to figure this out.

12

I trace the constellations and metallic threads of the tapestry with my lone remaining claw as the sun sets once more. There are no candles in my room. Nothing to light the darkness that seems to thrive in the castle. So I simply lie still on the rug.

If Celeste were here now, she’d roll her eyes and tell me to get up. To make the most of the adventure ahead of me. A week ago, we were studying for math tests and trying to memorize the periodic table of elements, and now I’m in a magical castle with my own room and some kind of rite ahead of me that I don’t know anything about. It sounds enchanting, for a second. Like a fairy tale escaping the pages of its book and sprinkling me with pixie dust. But it’s not enchanting. It’s a nightmare.

I touch a finger to my remaining claw. It’s as sharp as broken glass, as strong as diamond, and cuts my skin instantly. I am a nightmare.

“Oh, dear. Tell me you’ve at least bathed!” My door is thrust open, and torchlight from the hallway floods the room. I squint against it, holding a hand up to my eyes as they adjust. A young woman—maybe only two or three years older than me—with an Irish accent as thick as cream rushes inside, hastily shutting the door with her foot. “Get up. Get up!”

She peels back a corner of the tapestry, sniffs, and winces. “So you’ve not bathed. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Untamed copper curls dance around her freckled face as her brown eyes flick from my head to my toes. “This is not good. Not good at all. Fauna! Fill the tub!”

I sit up, if only to stop her from tugging on my tapestry, and watch as a second woman, twice the size and age of the first, carries in a woven basket filled with bubbling tinctures. Except… she carries it past us and toward the opposing wall, where a huge landscape painting of the ocean hangs. Pressing on each corner of the gilded frame, the woman—Fauna—causes the painting to begin… moving.

Oh my god.

I hold my breath as the turquoise ocean waves part loudly, dramatically, and reveal a secret passageway within. Holy shit. A rush of scents escape the new darkness, all of them floral, crisp, and clean. Fauna enters, seemingly vanishing into blackness, before flames burst to life and the inside illuminates with an orange sunset glow.

“There, Oona,” Fauna says, exiting without the basket and wiping her hands on the dusty apron tied around her voluptuous waist. “Now get on with it before Lord Dubrow decides we need more tutelage in the art of maid-work.”

Leaving then, Fauna slams the main door shut so hard, the walls shudder. The copper-haired woman turns to me. “I’m Oona, if you couldn’t tell. Now, you need to get in that bathing room and scrub for your life, or we’re all going to be extremely regretful, understood?”

“N-no. Not really,” I stutter, too confused to do much else but stare at the gilded frame that has become something of an entrance.

Oona follows my gaze with a determined frown. She bats at her curls, blowing them away with breathy sighs, before marching toward the new doorway. “It’s a bathing room, girl. Have you hit your head?”

“But it’s—”

“Magic?” she finishes for me. “The remaining faerie magic is beyond even our own. Hidden alcoves and undisclosed corners litter every inch of this place. Makes it an absolute horror to clean. But clean I must! Especially you. You’re filthy, and you smell like death.” She reapproaches and yanks me to my feet. Forcing me forward, her hands at my back, Oona shoves me through the painting and into a pearlescent, sparkling bathroom.

I turn on my heel, gazing with an open mouth at the high mosaic ceiling while I continue to hug the tapestry to my body. Pristine marble reflects torchlight, a cavernous tub sloshing bubbling pink waters in the middle of the floor. Windows limned with seashells look out onto… onto a forest.

How is that possible? How is any of this possible?

I stagger a step, legs still delicate and frail, and Oona uses the movement to shove me indelicately into the tub. I land with a splash, and sugary, cotton-candy waters spill into my mouth. Spluttering, I surface immediately, followed by the ruined tapestry. She plucks it out of the bath with a scowl.

“We’ve twenty minutes to get you bathed, dried, and dressed,” Oona says. “That’s not to say anything for that bird’s nest you’re calling hair. So either wash up or do me the favor of ripping out your own heart so at least the mess will be contained to one room.”

I gnaw at my lip, nervous—anxious, but fast as a housefly, Oona is there in front of me. She flicks it. “Enough of that.” She ducks me under the pink bubbles for a second too long, but her grip isn’t rough, at least. It’s just firm. Reminds me of Celeste braiding my hair before school, fixing whatever mess my father had attempted to do himself.

Which is probably why I don’t fight. I miss her. I miss home.

Oona’s voice is close enough too. Sweet like honey, even when her words sting like a bee.

I peer up at her with wide eyes, and she almost manages a smile. “Scrub yourself. There is a towel beside you. When you’re finished putting on your undergarments, I will dress you. You have five minutes.” She hurries out of the painting, leaving me alone.

The privacy is welcome but short-lived. I may not understand much, but I’ve always been good enough at reading people to trust Oona at her word. I rub a shimmering bar of lemon-scented soap over my skin, ignoring the small bruises and cuts before I wash the stains of old blood. Then I work a bit of creamy strawberry solution through my scalp. It untangles my hair in seconds. I barely put down the bottle before Oona returns.

“One minute,” she barks.

I climb from the tub, limbs gawky and awkward as I step onto the cold floor with a shiver. Leaden and sore, my muscles yearn to return to the warm water. My body yearns to sleep. But I can do neither, so I dry off with a fluffy towel and return to my room. Oona hands me a pair of sheer white stockings to wear, followed by a thin white chemise. I’ve never seen anything like them outside of the period dramas that Celeste’s mother loves. “Why… why are you dressing me like this?”

“Like what?” She tilts her head, paused halfway between me and a huge wooden wardrobe.

I point to myself. “Like some kind of ritual sacrifice. Like you’re about to feed me to a demon.”

Now she does smile. Her lips pull back, showing off two rows of perfectly sharp, white teeth. It’s a needed reminder that she’s not my father, and I am not home. Oona is a werewolf. She’s one of them.

“The Seven Courts enjoy their traditions. Werewolves don elegant dress to display grandiose wealth. We live in the opulence of our ancestors. But… we do allow for modern amenities from time to time. Indoor plumbing, for instance, was immediately installed when the technology became available to our people—centuries before the humans understood it, mind you. And air-conditioning.” She gestures to a hidden vent in the ceiling, its light but icy breeze feeling like frozen fingers combing through my hair, and then throws open the wardrobe.

I clutch the edge of the bed. A single claw tears through the linens. Oona sighs, but I don’t hear it. Can’t hear.

“No.” Violent, bloody scarlet dazzles in silk and lace. It triggers every horrible memory from the last few days. “No.”

Oona purses her lips. “Clothing isn’t a suggestion, dearie. You can’t very well perform the rite in stockings alone.”

My heart races the longer she holds a red dress before me. Another claw breaks through my finger. I gasp around the sudden bolt of pain. Oona lowers the gown, her movements shaky. “You need to calm down.”

I double over. Hold my knees for support. My spine ripples with awareness. My bones twist, as if preparing to snap. Oh god oh god oh god. Control it, Vanessa. I try to tether the fear, the grief and anger and rage, inside my chest, but I can’t possibly collect it all. There’s too much. My feelings are bigger now than they ever were when I was human. They’re devouring me. I don’t understand them. I—I hate them. A growl vibrates dangerously in my throat.

Oona places a hand on my back, where my spine wriggles at her touch. “Oh, stars,” she whispers. “We can’t shift twice before the rite. But you… you…”

Shift.

Am I shifting?

“Any other color,” I whisper through trembling lips. “Please. I can’t wear that.”

Quick as lightning, Oona returns with a deep purple dress—expertly woven with raindrop crystals cascading down the stiff corset-styled bodice and spilling onto the silk skirt. The shade of plums. Of my eyes. It makes me think of death. Of wolves. My nightmarish claws rip through the bedding and into the mattress as I steady myself.

“The rest of the wardrobe is red,” Oona says. “Your coloring… The burgundies and maroons look best against your pale skin. The queen ordered them made by her very own Weaver. She—she does not want us to highlight your eyes if we can help it.”

I glance at the open wardrobe and the garments swinging inside. So much red, it could be a waterfall of blood. Revulsion shudders through me. “Throw it away,” I rasp. Then, harsher—stronger—I say, “Burn them. I don’t want to see them again.”

Oona says, “Of course,” and retreats.

Just like that.

I look up, shock soothing the deadlier parts of me. She only takes a few steps. Through the painting, and then right back. But when she returns—it’s with a torch.

What?

She throws it onto the wardrobe.

“What are you doing?” I leap upright, tripping and knocking into a branch of the tree as the fire erupts. Shit. What do I do? What… what do we do?

Oona stares at the flames, feet rooted to the ground. Her eyes appear vacant, and the reflection of smoke and flame consuming gown after gown flashes in the small needlepoints of her pupils.

“You said to burn them,” she declares in a frigid sort of voice. And the fire—it doesn’t stop at the gowns. It climbs the walls. The roof. It ignites ivy and wisteria, charring them, as clouds of heavy gray smoke begin to smother the rest of the room.

Oona still doesn’t move.

I shake her. “Oona! Oona! We need help. Help—”

“What the fuck?” There is a low voice, masculine and rough, and my door bursts off its hinges. I jump at the movement, but Oona might as well be a corpse. All while the fire eats the rug, licks at the magical painting. Draws closer and closer.

A boy hurries inside. No, not just any boy. The one who stole me from my father. The one who shoved me in that car and brought me to this damned place. Golden eyes, black hair, and the world’s cruelest frown marring his face. He doesn’t glance at me, simply hauls the rug out from under me and heaves it at the fire. With a loud hiss, the flames die. Half my room is left burnt and smoking.

But the danger is over.

We’re safe—for now.

I exhale softly. “Thank—”

“What the fuck were you doing?” He storms over to me, to Oona, and pulls up her chin toward him. His golden eyes burn brighter. “Oona, snap out of it. Continue your duties.”

Oona blinks. Sniffles. Then her head turns much too slowly, and she looks at me. “You… you…”

“I know,” the boy says, forcing her gaze away. “Go. You’re not needed here anymore.”

“But it’s my duty to dress her.”

“She can do that herself. Find Fauna, have her grab some of the men, and clean what you can of this room while we’re gone. I’ll tell Lord Allard it was an accident if he asks.”

“Oh, thank you, Calix. Thank you.” Oona runs from the room with a staggered breath. Not once does she glance back.

Dumbfounded, I pick the purple dress off the floor. As it’s the only remaining option, I step into the silk skirt, pull up the stiff bodice, and shove my arms through sheer, billowing sleeves, before lacing up the forward-facing bodice as if I’m tying shoelaces on a sneaker.

The boy growls. He stalks toward me and takes the ribbon from my hands, lacing it up the rest of the way with military precision. “Even if we’re in our technical court right to compel those beneath our station, it’s basic morality that we don’t compel the maids.”

“I…” I shake my head, not understanding. “I compelled her?”

He glares down at me, tying the bodice so tightly, I can’t breathe. Where Sin is almost ethereal in his beauty—a celestial, divine face adorned with a halo of blond hair, a smile so pure it could be carved from crystal—this boy is darkness. Death. Ebony hair swallows the little light surrounding us, and golden eyes flash murder, reflecting the smoke clouding the room. Shadows chisel the tanned muscles of his face and emphasize his snarl. “Just because she is a Delta does not mean you can abuse her.”

“I w-wasn’t—”

“Being an Alpha doesn’t grant you permission to run over whomever you would like without consequences.” He finishes the bow, his biceps stretching taut beneath a loose, black tunic. “It’s further proof that you should never have been allowed inside this castle.”

I glare up at him. The emotional turmoil of the last ten minutes takes a toll on me, and I forget to be afraid. Forget to be anything but extremely irritated. “You are the one who brought me here.”

“It was a direct order,” he growls. “Believe me, I had no choice in the matter.” I can hear what he doesn’t say—that he wishes he hadn’t. That he wishes I’d been just another mess to clean up, to leave bloody and dead on the side of the road.

A fifth claw rips free as I shove him away with all my might. To my great pleasure, he staggers. If only an inch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hiss, trying desperately to tamp down on the emotions roiling within, to stop the rest of my claws from spouting. “I didn’t mean to compel her. I just didn’t want to wear… those dresses.” I throw a hand toward the ruined wardrobe.

“And what a fantastic cause,” he drawls, moving to the doorway and leaning against the threshold. “You’re needed in the antechamber. Let’s go.”

“A man of few words and much decorum, I see,” I bite out between breaths.

He doesn’t respond, though his eyes track my movements as I try to dig a pair of slippers from the bottom of the wardrobe. They’re still smoking. It’s like touching hot coals, though, and I hiss and leap away from the mess. At that, humor floods his amber eyes. But he doesn’t smile. He looks as if he’s never smiled a day in his life. My hands ball into fists as best they can around my claws.

“I can’t go shoeless, can I?”

“You won’t be needing them.”

“Unless you plan on dragging me—”

He steps forward as though he does, in fact, plan on doing just that. I stomp my foot, moving beyond irritated and into enraged. Anger squeezes my heart in its tight grasp, forcing my pulse to obey. “Who… who are you to burst in here and start giving me orders?”

He crosses his arms. “The man who saved your life.”

“Calix,” I say, remembering what Oona called him. His gaze narrows, fixed on my lips, and his heartbeat spikes. His muscles tense. Almost as though he’s ready to attack. Good. So far, everyone I’ve met has either been terrifying or helpful—Sin being a horrible combination of both. But Calix… He wants a fight. So do I.

Though I can’t understand it, though I want so desperately to suppress it and return to the human girl I was at the beach, a fight is what I’ve craved since I first shifted into a wolf.

“I prefer to think of you as the boy who ruined my life.” I lift my chin defiantly. “But if you’re too submissive to share anything beyond what you’ve been commanded to, I’m sure I can ask around and find out more on my own.”

“And just who would you speak to?” He moves forward, the action so inherently predatory that I take a step back. “Have you made many friends in your first day outside your chamber? Have you done anything this week but mope in your room, crying yourself to sleep?”

My bones beg to break. They plead for me to transform. I shudder with little control. Calix chuckles softly, not an ounce of humor in the sound.

“You smell like sea salt and rust,” he murmurs. “Like sadness and fear.”

God, I hate him. My toes dig into the half-charred rug. My claws beg to curl around his throat. “I would rather be sad than another pathetic soldier following the orders of their murderous fucking leader.”

He growls and, before I can process the movement, hurls me over his shoulder. The world tilts upside down. All I can see is his wide, stupid back as he charges out of my room and down the hall. Quite literally dragging me to the rite.

“You’re an asshole,” I say, beating my fists against his spine.

He ignores me, even as those in the hallways gasp or laugh or gossip behind their hands. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. The emotion—that pure, unbridled loathing—snuffs out my fear and sadness until I can’t think of anything else. It feels deceptively good. Like climbing into bed after a long night, or the smell of candles being blown out on a birthday. Loathing has begun to feel like home.

I hardly notice when we race down a narrow, winding staircase. And then I smell it—the scent of dozens of wolves, all clashing, cloying, as the sound of ominous, quiet drumming rises to meet us. My anger falls away like a shield abandoned on the stairs, and I realize I’ve forgotten to ask the most important question of all. “Wh-what is the First Rite?”

Calix doesn’t answer.

He drops me on the cold ground of a damp cavern.

Stone walls encircle us, deep beneath the castle’s core, while seven shifted werewolves wait around a pool of rippling midnight waters. The rest of the wolves stand behind them, in the bleak darkness of the enclosed space. Only a single light illuminates the antechamber—a hole carved into the ceiling that spills pure moonlight into the waters.

Some of the unshifted werewolves beat drums. Others chant low, under their breath, “For the stars, for the stars, for the stars.…”

It’s horrifying enough to raise the hair on my arms. “Calix?” I whisper, looking to him hopelessly. “Where are we? What is this place?”

Raising a brow as if in condescension, he gestures to the water. “Welcome to the Drowning, Hart.”

The… what?

I glance up, meeting the eyes of the Wolf Queen and her son, just as Calix shoves me into the pool. I crash through the surface, into an endless sea of salt water and… and something else. Something bitter. Rancid. Metallic.

My legs don’t touch the bottom. Can’t—there doesn’t seem to be a bottom to touch—and I fall through the water as the light of the surface distorts and disappears.

13

The First Rite—the Drowning.

I scream. Water fills my mouth, my nose, my lungs. But I can’t fight. I can’t swim. My limbs are too sore; they burn as I flail and sink. Lower, deeper. I’m too frail. Too weak. I can only drown.

Still, I scramble, clawing at the icy depths. Desperate to find a foothold. There is nothing. Only darkness, wet, and a horrible metallic taste on my tongue as though this water… It’s not natural.

These waters are magic.

And I am going to die. The thought strikes through me like lightning as I choke on salt water. I am going to die in this damned pool in an antechamber of a castle that no one knows exists. I am going to die a monster without my father even knowing that he sealed my fate.

No.

I turn my thoughts to Celeste. I think of her car sitting in that parking lot. I think of our seats abandoned at the movies. My chest aches, open and bleeding for her. For her, I can’t give up. For her, I have to try.

Fight it. Fight it. Fight—

My entire set of right claws breaks free in a simultaneous explosion of rupturing followed by another searing split down my spine. Anger—sheer rage at being trapped here, at Celeste being killed—shakes me to my very core. I will not die. I will become a monster if it means saving what remains of Celeste’s memory. If it means vengeance.

One by one, my bones break. Then reform. My lungs implode, and with it, all the water I’ve drunk spills from my lips—my jaws. My skin splits, and the fur that emerges is thick enough to have some sort of grip on the pool. I swipe claws at it. Kick wolfish legs up, up. I am stronger now.

I am a wolf.

The scent that envelopes me isn’t metallic at all; it’s sweet. Cherries, coconut, a hint of earthen grass. So much like home that I almost see the tiny two-bedroom duplex rise in the distance of my mind. I focus on it as I swim. Farther. Harder.

I must get out.

I must keep going.

Cutting through the water, I push up, up, and—finally I hit the surface. As a wolf, I burst out of it with the grace of a dolphin cresting a wave. I splash onto the bank beside the pool, soaking wet and snarling. A torrent of water pours from my mouth, but it’s nothing compared to what would have happened if I hadn’t shifted.

“Excellent,” the queen purrs. She steps out from the masses, crown glinting on her raven-colored hair. Light pours down onto her now, a waning gibbous moon visible through the carved hole and surrounded by pinpricks of starlight. “The First Rite is almost complete. You have shown the universe the truths of your soul.”

The… what?

As though she can read the question in my wolfish gaze, she continues, “The moon pool is blessed with the remnants of the very first meteor to crash into the Realm of Superiority. This castle is enchanted by the strongest of magics. Therefore, our wolves are enchanted by the strongest of magics during their First Rite. Your destiny shall now be read.” She turns around with a wave of her hand, discussing my near drowning with the ease of discussing flower arrangements.

I snarl again, but she snaps her fingers. “Silence, Miss Hart.”

Like all her compulsions, I am forced to obey. Thanks to Calix’s reminder, at least I understand that this comes down to order. She controls everyone. Alphas control those beneath them. Betas control those still beneath them, and so forth. Somewhere in that hierarchy, I fall between the Alphas and Betas. Untested potential. The thought—the reminder—makes me feel uneasy. I don’t know what I am. No one does.

“Lyra?” the queen says.

“Yes, Queen Sybil.” A young lady moves beside the queen. White fabric hangs from her body in sheer strips of chiffon, and constellations are tattooed in silver ink along her brow, small enough to look like iridescent freckles. She nods her head once, straight black hair falling over her pale shoulders, as her crystal-blue eyes find mine.

“Vanessa Hart, do you accept my reading of your destiny as it is so told by the universe?” Her voice is a lilting whistle, too childish to match her womanly curves. “Please nod if so.”

I nod.

She kneels before me, head bowed, and whispers, “I am sorry for what is to come. Some wounds do not heal as easily as others. There is a price to pay for sins and blessings alike.”

Before I can question the strange words, she retrieves a dagger embedded with sapphires from the folds of the gown.

“Let her destiny be known,” Queen Sybil orders.

Lyra holds my wrist in her hand, gentle and delicate, and slices through my fur with the sting of a scorpion. I choke around a howl that can’t escape while writhing on the floor. The sting only worsens by the second, nestling into my veins. My bones.

“Shhh,” she whispers soothingly. “We will bandage you soon.”

She holds her dagger over the pool, tipping the blade toward the surface until three droplets ripple onto the silver waters. Then she runs a hand through it and swirls her bare fingers in the bloody liquid until they’re coated. I swallow a gasp as she brings those fingers to her wide eyes. She bathes her cerulean gaze in the morbid brew of blood and magical sea. Her eyes roll back into her head, showing only whites, and her mouth opens on a prayer.

“Of the stars that burn and suns that fade, all will be foretold. Canes Venatici. Andromeda. Hydra. Hercules. Norma. Monoceros. Scutum. Pyxis. Volans. Vulpecula. The power lies not in their names, but in their unity. As one, they lead us, guide us. Divine universe, bless us with understanding. Lend me your sight.” Lyra’s head falls at a sickening angle, as though her neck has snapped, and she collapses in a heap. I want to move forward—to help her—but no one else has twitched a single muscle, and Lyra… Her fingers dance along the stone. Her eyelids flutter.

After a few seconds, she blinks. Her gaze rights itself. Her eyes flare—bluer, brighter. “Vanessa Hart, first of her name, Bitten not Born, is blessed beneath a Virgo sun and Scorpio moon, beneath the Orion stars, as”—Lyra hesitates for a moment, and her gaze flicks to mine as her brows furrow. My heart thuds between my ribs, and I suck in a harsh breath, waiting for a condemnation, but—“a Truthseer,” she finishes. “Vanessa Hart is a Truthseer.” Lyra’s voice then lowers into a depth not of this world as she says, “The push and pull of the heart will entangle itself in a web so deep, one might not emerge, but once untangled, legacies will rise. Kingdoms will unite. Greatness beckons.”

I push up onto my legs as the rest of the court transforms into wolves. All except Queen Sybil. She watches me with a wicked grin, a cold gleam in her eyes. I shiver under her gaze. And the howls of three dozen wolves pour through the hole in the ceiling, carrying straight up to the stars. The sound is met with more howling outside, beyond the castle. So loud, it threatens to shatter my ears.

The Wolf Queen approaches. She places a crown of scarlet starflowers atop my head. Then she herself transforms. A wolf made of ebony and smoke, so huge she dwarfs even the moon itself, Queen Sybil howls next, and Lyra’s words echo around us, burrowing into my soul.

Legacies will rise. Kingdoms will unite.

Greatness beckons.

It sounds like a funeral toll. And as I glance at the surrounding wolves, hatred pounds hard and fast against my ribs. A soft growl works past my lips. With one look from the Wolf Queen, however, I have no choice but to join the others and howl. Only, I don’t howl for my birth. I howl for their deaths.

14

Oona brings me back to my room after the rite, after the queen compels me to shift back to human in front of everyone. The young maid won’t speak to me, or even look at me, and her steps sound as uneven as her pulse. Even her scent has been tinged rotten. Fear, I realize. Fear smells… bad.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stutter awkwardly when we reach my door, a borrowed chemise soaking wet and sticking to my skin. The purple dress is gone. It exploded into rags the moment I turned into a wolf while wearing it, though the court—the wolves—don’t seem to mind nudity. Several transformed back into their human bodies and continued about their evening without bothering to don another set of clothing. I turn to Oona. “About earlier, I didn’t know—don’t know anything. I would never have compelled you otherwise.”

Oona’s response is a sharp intake of breath. A suffocating scent of daisies. Her scent, I think. She smells like herself now.

She glances up with a widened gaze, though it narrows as she watches me. “Most people don’t speak with such honesty in this court. It’s a surefire way to expose one’s weaknesses.”

She’s right. I should stop speaking. I listen to the drip drip drip of water leaking from my dress onto the ground, however, and smell the floral scent of a maid who I almost forced to burn down her home. I am not myself anymore. As much as it pains me to be this… this creature… I don’t want it to ruin what remains of my humanity.

Oona has done no wrong. She was not at the beach. She is not nobility. She is not a threat in any way; there is no reason not to be kind to her. So, I am. “I’m kind of a walking weakness right now,” I admit quietly. “But I shouldn’t have let myself get so wrapped up in my emotions.”

She sighs and swears under her breath. “Come on, girl.” She yanks me into the room, slamming the door behind us. “You need to be made aware of some things right now. Go sit on your bed.”

I follow the instructions, if only because she doesn’t force me to obey. She grabs a silver comb from my half-scorched vanity and a white ribbon, then sits beside me and begins brushing through my damp locks. “Your eyes have made you a target of this court. Purple eyes have never been part of the hierarchy before. Regents have black eyes; Alphas have red eyes, gold for Betas,” she says, tugging viciously through a knot. “Brown for Deltas, like mine.” She turns my head so I can look into her eyes. “And Omegas are gray eyed. Like a stormy sea. But you really don’t need to worry about them; they do not exist within nobility due to their innate weakness.”

Stunned speechless at her generosity, I can’t do much else besides gape. She begins to plait my hair into two French braids, pulling waves loose as she goes.

“What about…”

“Yes?” she asks. “You have this one opportunity to learn what you must before they bring you into their lessons. So ask it.”

“The girl at the lagoon… Lyra… Her eyes were blue.”

“The Oracle,” Oona says. “There are seven made every few centuries, and they are created under very special circumstances. Lyra was found as a pup—freshly changed at the age of twelve like most Born werewolves—rooting through a dumpster in New York. The Lone Wolf who discovered her meant to eat the girl. They’re rabid, horrid monsters, but they never last long. This one in particular tore into Lyra like a fisherman gutting its catch, and promptly left the rest of her to rot when it found something better to hunt. She died that night, beneath the moonlight, but then… something happened. Something took hold of her. And when she woke, it was with blue eyes and a head full of conviction. She journeyed here, throwing herself at the mercy of Queen Sybil. She knew things, you see. She heard whispers from the stars. They saved her. Brought her back to life to be their messenger.”

The story sweeps through my belly like a sickness, and I swallow roughly. “Why would the stars need a messenger?”

“Why are children demanding of their dolls? Because we all want control, dear, especially over those beneath us.”

Three candles flicker on my dresser, their wax melting onto the stems of a golden candelabra. Our shadows dance along the blackened wall, though the ash and smoke and wardrobe have been cleared. In its place is a coat rack, a single purple dress hanging from a swirling branch.

“Thank you for the new dress,” I say.

“You shouldn’t be wandering around in a chemise during lessons, but there wasn’t much else made in your size. The queen will commission more, of course, but they won’t be here until your room is modified to your precise desires.” Spying my confusion, Oona elaborates. “The nobility who live here design their rooms with the help of, well, us.” She releases my hair for a moment to tug on her apron. “It is an honor to live within one of the seven palaces. Queen Sybil has requested that you be treated no differently than the rest of her court.”

An honor. I almost laugh.

“Unless,” she says, “you would like a red gown—”

“No,” I hurry to say. “No, thank you.”

Oona nods, tying little bows at the bottom of my braids. “There. Not so much a bird’s nest anymore.” She stands up to leave, but I catch her wrist.

“Lyra called me something. She said—”

“Truthseer,” Oona finishes with a nod. “Nobility are gifted with blessings from the stars under which they’re born, thanks to Castle Severi’s enchanted moon pool—it’s one of the reasons Ascension is so often held within our quarters. All royals travel here to complete their First Rite. Queen Sybil… She blessed you by allowing you to do the same, rather than forcing you to have your rite at the ocean’s banks in the human realm, as the lesser packs outside our walls do.

“Your gift has revealed itself to be that of observation. Not exactly an uncommon trait, but then again, most traits are born from those that already exist within the werewolf.”

I shake my head, not quite understanding, and she smiles. A sweet, gentle little grin. “You will know when someone is lying, Vanessa Hart. You have been gifted divine intuition.”

I nibble on my bottom lip until she stops me. “But… how?”

Leaning against a dresser, Oona pushes her serpentine curls behind her ears. “Ask me my favorite color.”

My brows furrow. “Um, okay. What’s your favorite color?”

“Yellow,” she says confidently.

But my chest—something in my chest flares like a meteor burning through the atmosphere. It doesn’t fit. It’s wrong.

Lie, my mind—my gut—whispers. She’s lying.

I stare at her, and her smile widens. “You can tell, can’t you?”

“I—I think so.”

“My favorite color is blue,” she says next.

Another strike of heat between my ribs. “Wrong.”

“Green.”

More heat. A swallowed flame. “Liar.”

Her eyes scrunch, and her grin stretches. Oona tilts her head, and a pretty lock of hair dances over her mischievous gaze. “Now ask me if I set fire to your room.”

I snort at that. Obviously, there’s no need for confirmation, but I ask her regardless. Her answer, however, is less straightforward this time.

“It was not I that set fire to your room,” she says. A lie. And I know it’s a lie because I watched it happen, but… I feel it. Not a flare of wrongness or the searing of a lie, but an explosion of warmth, of comfort, of home.

“How are you telling the truth right now?” I ask quietly.

“How do you think, girl?”

I rack my brain for an answer. How could she bypass a gift from the divine? “You’re… twisting your words somehow. You’re insinuating that I set the fire.”

“Close.” She flicks a finger against her nose with a secretive wink. “But the exact manipulation does not matter so much as the act of being manipulated. I was thinking that the torch set the fire, and thus, I did not lie to you. Superior gifts… They are not so simple as unwrapping a present and donning your new scarf. They can be tricked. They can be outwitted. Often, they can even be cursed. Be smart about your intuition. Listen to all—not just what you wish to hear.”

And finally, she says, “Pink.” And though I can hear her heart rate slow and her breathing spin into an easy, soothing rhythm, I can also feel the honesty in the words. The truth settles in my chest, curling up like a cat atop a blanket.

“Pink is your favorite color,” I say.

“Yes.” She tugs her loose curls. “But my mother always told me I look hideous in the color, which, truth be told—and I suppose it must be told with you around—I think that only made me like it more.”

I smile at her. My first smile in days. I think about leaping up and throwing my arms around her too. I don’t care that she’s a wolf; I want to hug her. I want to call her my friend.

She seems to notice this and rolls her eyes, though her own smile doesn’t fade either. “Your talent will come to protect you, Vanessa, so long as you understand how to use it.” She turns toward the door. “Tomorrow, one of your peers will fetch you for class. It’s in the south bastion of the castle. The instructors won’t expect much of you on your first day, but rest. Keep your wits about you. This court…” She lowers her voice to a breath of a whisper. “Werewolves are close. Our strength lies in our numbers. But nobility aren’t like the majority of wolves—they are constantly warring for more. For power. Keep your cards close to your chest. Reveal them to no one. You have been outed as a weapon tonight, and they will either want to use you… or destroy you.”

Oona exits with an ominous click of the door, and I pull my knees into my chest. Bury myself under a thick, wool blanket.

Truthseer.

Untested potential.

I have the power to compel most others, and the power to know when they’re lying. The gifts couldn’t be more applicable, but… right now they feel like a burden. I’m not sure I’m clever enough to outwit this court or understand their tricks. And I’m certainly not trained enough to win in hand-to-hand—or fang-to-fang—combat. Even if I sense a lie, what am I going to do with that information?

I lay my head onto a tall pile of pillows, but they feel wrong. Too soft. Too luxurious. A tangible display of how much the court has done for me when all they want is whatever I am—whatever my abilities will provide them.

I slide to the floor, abandoning the blanket on the bed. I would rather sleep curled up on the rug than betray Celeste—betray myself—by playing their games. I don’t need their wardrobes of clothes or their mountains of pillows.

“I love it here,” I whisper.

Another flare shoots through me, red hot and wrong. Lie.

“This has been a gift. The court is wonderful.”

Lie. Lie.

“I never want to leave.”

Lie.

I watch the moon sink lower and lower as the night wears on through the stained-glass window and the snake silhouettes begin to devour the rose first and then each other. Tomorrow, I’ll be surrounded by my peers for the first time. So I won’t fight. I’ll be calm. Stoic. Let them fear me. Let them wonder what I’ll do next.

But I’ll listen. I’ll observe. And if one of them outs themselves as the killer, I will lie in wait until I’m ready. And then I will attack.

After hours, I drift to sleep thinking of murder. Once more, I dream of death.

When I wake, I am covered in blood.

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.

“You only have to sit next to the instructor,” Calix says. “It’s not dramatic to anyone who doesn’t spend an hour every morning preening their hair.”

“What you fail to mention, dear Cousin,” Sin says, “is that the seat beside the instructor is underneath a perpetual leak and some of our hair tends toward frizzy in any sort of humidity.”

“You haven’t been frizzy a day in your life,” Calix mutters. “In fact, I’d consider your hair rather flat.”

Sin spins around, his mouth open in shock. Claws explode from his nails. “Et tu, Brute?”

I glare at the rows of stairs above us. “What is wrong with both of you?”

“A very long list, Vanessa. Where would I even start?” Sinclair’s claws retract perfectly, all at once, and he doesn’t even flinch from the pain. Then he joins me on the step beneath his, effectively blocking Calix’s path. “I enjoy long walks on the beach, rainbows at sunset, and old-fashioneds with extra bourbon. My father died when I was seven, and Queen Sybil made me engage in my first kill the day after my Drowning. And Calix,” he emphasizes, “well, he’s my first cousin on my mother’s side.”

I blink at Calix then. Sin’s tunic is pressed and perfectly starched, but Calix’s is wrinkled, his hair messy. He looks as if he shouldn’t be related to Sin at all. “You… you’re a prince?”

Sin laughs before Calix can answer. “Absolutely not. Well, he should be, but his mother—”

“Wore the most horrid perfume,” Calix says quickly. “Can you two move any faster?”

“I thought you didn’t care about being late, Cousin,” Sin says.

“I care about you falling to your death, and since I’m about two seconds away from picking you up and hurling you to the bottom of the stairwell—”

Sin clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Calix, Calix, Calix… whatever will we do with that temper of yours?”

Calix glares at him, but Sin smiles brightly as he slows his steps further. “Besides, even if you didn’t love me as family, it would be illegal to kill me, and the entire world knows how enamored you are with the law.”

“The law,” I echo dumbly.

Sinclair stops me on the second to last step and says, “Do not expose your wolf to humans. Do not speak court secrets to outside ears. Do not bite humans without direct permission of the regent. Under no circumstance will you ever kill a fellow wolf. These are the laws of the Seven Courts.”

“But I was Bitten without permission,” I argue. Unless… “Wasn’t I?”

“Yes.” Sin and Calix exchange a quick glance—one I would’ve missed pre-transformation. They’re not telling me something. I wait for them to elaborate, making it clear that I’m not taking another step until they do. Finally, Sin clears his throat. “Your eyes, Vanessa. If you’d turned into a Delta or an Omega, your survival wouldn’t have been assured. There is nothing Queen Sybil values more than strength; she pardoned your transformation because of those two beauties alone.” He gestures to my gaze.

I lean against the wall, mulling over the rest of the laws—mulling over everything that is making my head spin and my heart race—when two kids run up the stairs past us, a boy and a girl with white-blond hair and brown eyes. Deltas, then. They bow to Sinclair, but they don’t even bother glancing at me. Or at Calix. When they reach the hallway, I hear their whispers.

“Did you see her? Freak!”

“See her? Did you see him? Bastard is suspect as hell. I heard his father was a human.…” Their voices drift as they race through the castle. I glance at Calix, expecting him to look away, but he meets my stare. Holds it. Challenging me to ask more.

So I do. “Golden eyes. That makes you a Beta, doesn’t it?”

Sin snorts, Calix glowers, and I grin, proud of standing up for myself. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—Calix isn’t as petty as I am. He doesn’t rise to the bait.

“You should train,” he says. “If you’re to protect yourself from threats, you need to learn combat, transformation, astronomy, history.…”

It sounds so close to regular school that I almost smile. But it isn’t. Dad won’t be sending me off. Celeste won’t be inside, waiting with an extra caramel iced coffee for me. I won’t be able to lend her pencils that she’ll lose the same hour she gets them, and we won’t sit in the cafeteria, splitting mediocre pizza and cookies as we scour social media for new pictures of our crushes. Like Max.

The thought of his name hits my chest like a pellet. Not as painful as Celeste’s—not a bullet. Just a bruise. A reminder of the life I’ll never have again. Max is a boy. He woke up in his own bed, and he’ll go to school today. He doesn’t know it’s my birthday. He doesn’t know Celeste will never make me a mud pie again. He’s going to move on. And I… I’ll be stuck here forever.

“Fine,” I say. “Take me to class.”

Calix and Sin both lead the way, and I trail after them, leaving the girl I was behind me.

16

Werewolf classrooms are nothing like their human counterparts.

Sin tells me today’s first lesson is Ancestral Archives of Superior Societies before we enter, and while the title is strange enough to raise my brow, it doesn’t prepare me for what really awaits. I stand alone in the entrance, my hand curled around a fully bronze door, and gape at a room that appears as infinite as the Atlantic Ocean.

Sin and Calix don’t wait for me to move before entering, and it takes them almost two full minutes to cross the massive space. The castle appears as though it’s crumbled here, or maybe the nature of the Realm of Superiority is brutal enough that it’s invaded the castle all on its own. Dewy moss replaces the traditional stone floor, while the low-hanging branches of willow trees hide cathedral-sized walls. There is no ceiling here—or at least, there isn’t anymore. Instead, a pastel-blue sky of fluffy clouds and shimmering, buttery sunlight rises through the jagged edges of a stone cavity. It could be a fairy-tale meadow or an enchanted forest. I blink. Pinch myself again, just in case Sin was wrong and this is a dream. Although, for the first time, I’m not sure I want to wake up.

It’s beautiful. More so than anything I’ve seen before.

A gentle stream laps against rocks at the front of the classroom, where a standing desk made of old leathery book covers is illuminated by purple flames, and, behind it, a filing cabinet shoots through the open ceiling and pierces the clouds. It’s far less medieval than the main hallways of the castle, and when I notice the instructor, I finally understand why.

A short, tan man with mismatched striped yellow pants and a turquoise tunic steps out from beside the filing cabinet, his arms stacked with more parchment than the jangling bracelets on his wrists. “Take your seats!” he demands with a booming voice. “You have thirty seconds before you will be doomed to Puddle Punishment.” He jerks his chin toward a small leak beside his desk—where pink water drips from the sky into a reflective puddle.

The students—my new classmates—take this seriously and sit at various antique desks, each about three feet from the other. I move forward quickly, wanting to go unnoticed and slip quietly beside Sin, but…

Shit.

My stomach drops, and my hackles rise.

Sin isn’t alone. Of course he isn’t. He’s the crown prince of this entire damnable place. I grit my teeth, casting my gaze downward. I was a fool to be swept away by its allure, even for a moment. Sin isn’t alone because, lounging across his desk—her long, pale legs visible through the high slit of a black, gossamer gown—is Evie.

Murderer, I think, and instantly my bones shift beneath my skin. Memories flood through me once more, and it’s as though I’m back in that throne room, ripping into her as a wolf. Making her pay for how she ruined my life.

Her laugh carries high and shrill over the classroom, and she shakes out her fresh haircut with bloodred nails. A chic shoulder-length bob. No doubt thanks to me. I flush, heat creeping from my gut to my chest to my cheeks. My claws beg to loosen. My fangs start to drop painfully. I hate her. I want to hurt her. I—

“You must be Miss Hart,” the instructor says, and every single thought in my mind implodes under his penetrating, golden gaze. Beta. “My name is Instructor Alvarez, and your thirty seconds have passed. You won’t be penalized today, but I suggest you find a seat. Now.” His voice lowers as if in compulsion, but he can’t compel me. He knows he can’t.

“Y-yes,” I stutter instead.

A dozen of my new classmates turn to leer at me as I stumble over the gently rolling hills of the classroom. One step, then another. Everyone is staring, and I remember the laughter during my time in the throne room, and Evie… She’s licking her fangs and slicing a nail across her throat in a warning directed only at me. No one reprimands her. Not even Sin.

I don’t know whether I want to flee or attack her again. Maybe both, if my boiling blood is any indication. But the instructor hasn’t taken his eyes off me, and there are a dozen perfect specimens of werewolves before me. Judging me. Hating me. I can scent it—a faint whiff of charcoal and acid. They loathe my very being. I pass by Sin’s section, where Evie drops from his desk and strolls to the one right beside it, immediately exchanging a slip of parchment with a blonde girl. A boy with Alpha-red eyes sits behind Evie—the boy from the beach who looks like her. The one who was cruel. And next to him is a redhead, also from the beach, with an hourglass figure and glossy, cherry lips. Despite her golden gaze, she blows me a mocking kiss.

Clearly, this group is in charge, and I am not welcome amongst them.

I hurry faster now, past the section where brown-eyed students make crude gestures at me, and toward the far corner. It’s just Calix on his own in the back beneath the hanging leaves of a willow, a few empty seats separating him from a Black girl with short, curly hair and a tawny-skinned boy with leather necklaces layered atop his crest—a medallion of a plain open book. Both have yellow eyes.

The scent of hatred is thinner there, so I choose the seat between them, ignoring Calix behind me. Only when I settle onto the rickety wooden seat does the instructor clap his hands and begin to speak.

“For today’s lesson, we shall return to our roots.” Instructor Alvarez climbs a ladder up the side of the filing cabinet, nearly seven feet off the ground, and pulls out a massive, ancient text. He throws it down onto his desk, and I’m surprised when the furniture doesn’t snap in half. “A short summation of the monarchy and the serfdom in our world.”

Short, I think, my head already spinning, sure.

Evie laughs, the sound as ruthless as ever, and says, “Instructor, I am certain you’re aware that not only are most of us extremely educated in those who rule, but some of us are those rulers.”

I glance ahead, thinking of Sin, but he doesn’t turn to look at me. He stares forward at the instructor while Evie rolls a quill between her manicured fingers.

She meets my gaze instead, her red eyes flaring as she gestures with the feather toward the boy behind her. “Princess Evelyn Lee and Prince Eric Lee of the Asian Court. Prince Sinclair of the North American Court.” She turns her feather to the redhead. “Future Duchess Katerina Aston of the European Court. This lesson would be redundant at best, and a waste of our time at worst. A waste,” she enunciates, “of your time.”

Princess Evelyn Lee.

Fuck.

Of course. Of course she’s the princess of a foreign court. That explains why she was in the throne room, why she’s going to be engaged to Sin, why she can sit there like that, her mouth twisted in a snide grin, and no one stops her. More still, others join in. The redhead, Katerina, cackles, arching forward in her seat to sneer at me.

“Please,” she purrs in a dark, English accent. “We know why the lesson is necessary. Poor, dumb little Bitten one. Do you even know what a serfdom is?”

Evie’s brother, Eric, chuckles. “Can it even read?”

“Real nice,” the blonde girl says, her voice softer, quieter, as her golden skin flushes pink. “Just because she’s Bitten doesn’t mean she’s stupid.” She tugs the collar of a long-sleeved gown higher up her throat, as if she’s trying to hide something, but Evie comforts her with a soft hum.

“Don’t worry, Antionette. We’re not talking about you.” Evie whips her head around to glare at me again. “We’re clearly referring to the feral bitch who doesn’t belong here.”

Antionette slouches lower in her seat while Katerina throws a wad of paper at my head. Instructor Alvarez hops smoothly down from the ladder and claps his hands. Thunder echoes around us. A bolt of lightning strikes the puddle beside his desk.

“Enough!” he commands.

But Evie is an Alpha and Sin’s future intended and a princess. He can’t silence her. No one can. I grip the corners of my desk, the wood splintering from my rough grasp. I don’t see the red of her eyes anymore—I see the blood on Celeste’s cheek. I smell the decaying scent of her in my arms. Murderer.

“I am merely proposing that we continue with our studies, as we have so much to learn before the Ascension Rite, and she catch up in her own time. We can’t possibly cover an entire lifetime of lessons in three months. That would be preposterous.”

Another strike of lightning, and—finally—Evie shuts up. Though she does not join Antionette in slouching or Eric in giving me the finger. She raises her chin, exhibiting the perfect posture of a future queen. Of my future queen.

“Miss Hart will catch up in her own time, but we can allow her a day to adjust, Princess Evelyn.” Instructor Alvarez runs his fingers through thick brown hair, and electricity crackles. He must be controlling it, I realize. The lightning must be his gift. I remain still, not wanting to provoke him further. Though I’d like nothing more than to launch myself at Evie again.

“Perhaps,” the instructor continues, “you would like to list out the titles within our monarchy, Princess, in order of their significance.”

Evie sighs through flared nostrils. “If I must.”

“You must.”

“Very well.” She angles away from me and toward Sin, as though they’re sharing a private conversation. “The Wolf Regent presides over their continent, and they may marry whom they choose, though typically mates are chosen due to alliances and political negotiations.” She barely blinks in Sin’s direction. “Then you have the continent’s Oracle and the First General. The Oracle is famously depicted in werewolf artistry as being the regent’s right hand while the general is their left. Then the rest of the immediate court’s pack—usually four to six others the regent holds in high esteem. Like an inner circle.

“After that, you have dukes and duchesses, who preside over countries or territories within the continent; earls and countesses, who preside over states or provinces within those countries; and barons and baronesses, who preside over cities or counties. Nobility holds the lesser packs accountable, though every pack in the world also has an Alpha. Those Alphas report to their baroness, who reports to their countess, and so on and so forth. It’s how the Seven Courts have remained united and strong for a millennium. Laws are upheld no matter where in the world you exist.”

“You might want to write this down,” the boy beside me says. Though he makes no move to offer me a single supply needed to do so, the words don’t sound exactly unkind. But the girl sighs regardless and passes me a sheet of parchment, a quill, and a thimble of ink.

“Don’t mind his manners. That’s Myles,” she murmurs, her voice the tinkling lilt of a bell even as her deep brown hand trembles. “I’m Portia. Portia Montgomery, daughter of Duchess Claudia Montgomery and Duke Julius Montgomery of the Canadian territory.”

“Oh, um… thank you. I’m Vanessa,” I say blandly, testing out the quill and immediately ripping a hole in the parchment. “Do you happen to have a pen?”

Eric’s harsh laughter clashes with Katerina’s cackle, and I clench my fist around the quill. It snaps in half, and Portia blinks at it. Then retrieves another from her desk, where she’s lined up several in a neat row. “No pens here. It’s traditional to maintain the calligraphy and penmanship of our ancestors.”

I huff, attempting yet again to write with the new quill. I fail. “Notice the pen part of the word penmanship.”

Myles laughs under his breath, and I appreciate it. That he’s not laughing at me like the others are. Neither is Portia, and neither is Sin. I glance at the prince in question, nibbling on my lip, but he still won’t look at me. He won’t look at Evie either. His face is an impenetrable facade of bored, beautiful arrogance, but those magical instincts buried deep within me know it’s a lie.

“Here.” Portia kneels beside my desk and shows me how to use the quill, even when the others continue to mock me, and Instructor Alvarez demands they stop. “You have to be gentle,” Portia says. “Calligraphy is all about soft, sure strokes.”

Maybe. But I’m not feeling very soft or very sure right now.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Portia grins, and her hand stops trembling. “The Seven Courts’ political structure is important, but it’s really not too complicated to understand. Everything is on a macro scale here. Queens rule continents. Dukes rule countries. Earls rule territories, and barons rules cities. Of course, any gender can rule. Those were simply examples. But within cities, there are lesser packs led by Alphas. We don’t mingle with them, though.”

I open my mouth to thank her again, but Myles interrupts us as Instructor Alvarez continues explaining the difference between earls and barons. “You really need to listen,” he implores. “If you’re hoping to make it through Ascension, you don’t want to be last in class.”

“Is there a punishment for that?” I ask warily, as quietly as possible. “Being last?”

Myles’s brows draw together as if it’s the dumbest question I could’ve asked. “Nobility—especially the royals—are cutthroat. They won’t choose someone stupid for their future court.” He doesn’t say this cruelly, simply matter-of-fact and unabashed. I hunch over my work and use the quill once more. This time, I don’t rip the page.

If I’m going to defeat a future queen and her court, I need every bit of training I can get—and then some. I write faster. Listen closer. Near the end of the lesson, when my head is down and I am fully focused, another wad of paper hits me square in the side. But this one isn’t empty. There’s a message written on it in bloodred ink. I lean over, scoop it up off the ground, and unfold it on my desk.

If you think class was bad, imagine what will happen to you the next time you’re alone.

Well, shit. I ball up the paper and toss it on the mossy ground. Maybe I don’t need to worry about surviving a fight with a future queen.

By the looks of it, I might not even survive the night.

17

I return to my room at the end of the day with a woven basket full of antique textbooks, jars, and quills. If I thought the rest of the instructors might take it easy on me, I was wrong.

In Alchemical Designs, we brewed sleeping draughts. Rather, we were expected to brew sleeping draughts, and instead, I nearly burned the room to the ground because I added too much smashed faerie fruit to an enchanted mixture of lavender, rosemary, and literal stardust. In Astronomical Astrology, I had to chart a map of the entire universe with another stupid quill that tore through about nine sheets of parchment. And in Werewolves: Ancient Evolution through the Roman Empire, Instructor Helios stood me at the front of the classroom and made me recite what mortals know about werewolves to my peers, who promptly laughed at me when I said that, for one, we aren’t supposed to shift outside of full moons. Apparently, a hilarious concept to real werewolves.

I’m ready to curl up in a ball and sleep the night away—or maybe cry the night away. As kind as Portia was to sit by me in each class and lend me supplies, it didn’t lessen the sting of failure after failure. It didn’t change the fact that my existence—my tragedy—has become a joke to Evie and her friends.

Princess Evelyn.

I storm down the hall, past an open doorway swarming with maids, and wince at the fangs cutting into my lips from the sudden burst of emotion in my chest. But—wait. I glance at an unfamiliar blue door that is most definitely not my own, then turn around. I missed my room. Retracing my steps, I count the doors along the hall. Mine was right near the end, however, which would make it—the open room with the low hum of commotion. Fantastic.

Two maids exit, hoisting my dresser with preternatural ease above their heads, while another enters, carrying a sudsy bucket filled with rags. I scoot inside after her, observing the chaos with a frown. Every inch of my room bustles with frenetic activity. Maids scrub the walls. One tears the comforters from my bed. Another lugs my huge mirror from the room. Lord Allard stands in the center of it all, snapping his fingers and directing the chaos with that typical stern, raspy voice.

“Wh-what?” I manage, setting my basket of school supplies on the ground. “Why?”

Lord Allard turns his glare to the black dust on my nose—from the accident in Alchemical Designs—and then to my dress. I try not to remember how that glare felt in the back of the SUV before he stabbed me in the neck. Try so hard not to expose the two claws that begin to stretch from my fingers.

“Bitten one,” he says, his lips curling around the odious nickname. “Stay away from the maids. We don’t need you ruining anything else today.”

He pivots away from me, large nose stuck arrogantly in the air, and I understand well enough that none of my earlier failures have been contained to the classrooms where they occurred. I wince and cross my arms, as though I might be able to disappear from this moment, this castle. I hate it here. I want to go home.

But… I can’t.

And that leaves me with no choice but to stand in the corner, hiding my crooked claws and fangs and the red flush that spreads in a rash over my chest. I was never meant to be a werewolf.

Oona pops out her head from the bathroom as if she can hear the thought—or maybe she can just scent my embarrassment—and waves me through the passageway. “Come, come, girl. You have decisions to make.”

“Yes, girl,” Lord Allard murmurs viciously as I trudge past him. “Go.”

I harden my steps, rolling back my shoulders as if I don’t care about any of this. Only when I enter the bathroom do I slouch away from the facade. Oona perches on a clamshell seat at a candlelit vanity. A journal sprawls open on the marble surface, and she quickly traces a trimmed peacock feather over the yellowing pages.

“Not your best day?” she asks, and though she keeps her head down, I hear the sentiment in her voice. The care and concern.

“I’ve had better,” I say quietly.

She nods once, her ringlets bouncing with the terse motion. “The maids are here to clear your room,” she explains without needing me to voice my questions. “I’m to schedule the new ornamentation. What would you like for your room?”

My old one, I think desperately. The one with the wrinkled bedsheets that might still smell like Celeste, and the door that’s mildly dented from how often my father would knock on it, and my teddy bear. But I can’t say that, especially not with everyone listening. I slump against the vanity and shrug. “I… I don’t know.”

“A garden theme, perhaps,” Oona suggests, “or an oceanic theme. Are you interested in star charts or the violin? We could craft you a pianoforte trunk, or a roaring fireplace if you catch cold easily?”

With each idea, frustration simmers hotter and hotter under my skin. Today is too much. An avalanche of this new world. An ambush. I can’t handle anything more. I snatch the quill from her hand and slam it down on the vanity with trembling fingers. “Please, Oona, no—”

Her gaze flicks to the passageway, to the bedroom and the cruel lord that wait beyond it, and she shakes her head. Lifting a finger to her lips briefly, she says only, “We must.”

We must. Because if the court knows how miserable I am, there will be more ridicule. Maybe punishments if they view me as unworthy or ungrateful. I shut my eyes, rubbing away tension with claws that scratch my skin from a temple that heals itself instantly. I am a monster. There is no escaping it. And perhaps before I had harbored daydreams of my father showing up with the entire force and stealing me back, but… it’s been days. He’s not coming. Even though it’s my birthday, he won’t come. He can’t come.

I am alone here.

“Vanessa,” Oona says, her gaze finally meeting mine, “you can ask for anything.” She nods again, this one more encouraging, as though she’s telling me this should be a bright spot amidst the darkness. I chew on my lower lip, contemplating my answer.

“My favorite colors are purple and black, and I—I like movies. Television. My bedroom has always been my safe space, so I would prefer for it to feel cozy. I liked the flowers, though. The wisteria. And… and roses. And—” I stop myself before I can finish the request. It’s silly, probably insulting. But Oona nudges me to go on, so I suck down a breath. “Cherry perfume. If there’s a way to get any—”

Oona takes her quill and scribbles everything down, underlining the cherry perfume request several times. “Consider it done.”

I reach out to take her hand, but she’s bent over the journal, writing furiously, so instead I say, “Thank you, Oona. I appreciate it.”

“I hope you haven’t compelled her again,” a deep, infuriating voice says behind me. I whirl around to find Calix blocking the whole of the passage, a stack of dusty tomes in his hands and a scowl on his brutally handsome face. The worst.

I’m not pleased with Sin either, but while he spent the day ignoring me, Calix spent the day laughing at my failures with the meanest of my classmates. Okay, he didn’t exactly laugh, but he would watch me with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, and I knew he wanted to—if only he were capable of such a human action.

Oona swivels around on her seat before I can respond. “Calix—er, Lord Severi, hello.”

“Not lord, Oona. You know that.” Calix doesn’t take his gaze off me, and he steps forward. It feels threatening, the same as the blood on my chest or the note thrown at my back, but he doesn’t do anything except dump the books in my arms. The weight of the thick texts nearly sends me sprawling on the floor, but I collect myself and shift them onto the vanity. “More books,” he explains shortly. “Born werewolves read them as children.”

I grind my teeth. I hate him I hate him I hate him.

“Gee, thanks.” Glaring at him, I almost forget that I was ever embarrassed at all. Rather, rage tethers me to this moment. It seems to strengthen my resolve. “What a lovely gesture.”

He scoffs, rolling his gaze to the ceiling and spinning toward the exit. Before he can leave, however, a maid darts away from him as if Calix is carrying a plague. One scrubbing the wall holds her breath, and another drops the vase she’s holding right where she stands. The porcelain shatters into a thousand tiny pieces on the ground. Calix doesn’t remove his gaze from the ceiling—doesn’t seem surprised, just… annoyed. I narrow my eyes, watching him and the maids who do their best to avoid him.

Why?

Before I can properly contemplate this, Lord Allard shouts, “You fool!” And I blink out of my stupor. Calix stiffens.

Lord Allard grabs the maid who dropped the vase by her ruffled collar and hoists her in the air. “Do you know what century that pottery was from?”

Her brown eyes widen, and the stench of fear thickens. “N-no, my lord. I’m sorry, my lord.”

“Pick it up,” he demands.

“B-b-but…” The maid licks her burgeoning fangs. “My lord, I will fetch the dustpan and broom—”

“No,” Lord Allard snaps. His yellow eyes burn brighter, brighter. “Without shifting, you will use your hands, and you will pick up every single piece of detritus until the floor is sparkling.”

He drops her, and she lands directly on the sharp porcelain. The scent of copper blows toward us as her blood leaks on the ground. She does not cry, though. She does not even argue. The task is impossible—the pieces are so tiny, it would take hours to clean them all, not to mention the injuries. But… she begins to pick them up. Collects the jagged remains, so many that her fingers appear as if they’ve been impaled by crystals. Scarlet runs down her arm. She hardly blinks.

Compulsion, I realize suddenly. He compelled her.

I stumble farther into the bathroom, and Oona yanks me away from their view. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to see the maid to smell her blood and fear. I don’t need to see Lord Allard to be disgusted by him. He compelled her over a broken vase. Monster. Hatred ripples through me, unleashing the rest of my claws. Calix glances at me and tenses even more. Low, under his breath and barely audible, he says, “You will never survive here, Hart.” Then, before he can leave, “If you know what’s good for you, stay away from us. Stay away from the prince.”

Sitting on the edge of the tub, forcing my breaths to even, I have no choice but to agree with him.

18

I wake on the floor of my brand-new room to an ear-piercing scream.

With a start, I lurch upright. Sunlight streams in through my window, a kaleidoscope of lavenders and lilacs from the reflective stained-glass flickering along my exposed legs. The obsidian rug beneath me scratches, and my head throbs from the hard ground, but a single glance at the luxurious bed behind me turns my stomach. A reminder that not only am I unfit for this place, I’m also unsafe here.

Another scream, and I curl deeper under my violet blanket. I can’t quite pinpoint it exactly, but I know it’s beneath me. The sound echoes, burrowing first into my eardrums and then into my skull. I shiver. This court is more ferocious than I could have ever imagined, and I have no power. Not even as… whatever I am.

Those screams should belong to me.

Yesterday’s threats linger in the air, same as the stench of the maid’s blood. Whoever sent the threats must be stronger than me. Faster. Deadlier. Everyone in this castle fits that profile. Everyone in this castle is a monster. And I—I can’t make a single claw grow straight. I can’t even get my fangs to lengthen outside of a fight.

What am I going to do if Evie decides to go for another round? What will I do if the threats turn into attacks? The answer rings out as clear as the last and final scream.

Nothing. Right now, I can do nothing.

I hold my head in my hands and feel Celeste like a ghost at my back as her phantom voice whispers, “If you die here, so do I.”

My chest aches. My eyes burn. I miss her. I miss her, but I can’t avenge her like this. Some pathetic, out-of-control half nightmare.

What the hell am I going to do?

A gentle rap on the door pulls my attention upward, and I swallow my fear and regret with a hard gulp before climbing to my feet. “Oo-Oona? Come in.”

“Unfortunately, no.” Sinclair opens my door—just a crack. Wide enough to slide inside and shut it softly behind him. “Though I’m more than happy to bathe and dress you if you so require it.”

I glare at him, arms crossed tight over the chest of my thin chemise while he smiles. It’s not his usual smirk, however. It’s kinder. A delicate hitch of his lips on his supernaturally beautiful face. Lie.

“You’re looking chipper,” I manage, voice quivering slightly from fear. Did he hear the screams? Does he care? “For someone who enjoys pretending I don’t exist outside of the walls of my own room.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.” Sin untangles a slender crown from his blond hair and tosses it onto a shadowy corner of my new black dresser. The woven gold clangs against the painted wood, immediately forgotten as he pulls a hand through his newly freed hair. “I waved to you at least once.”

“Sure. After Evie offered to dump a boiling cup of tea on my head if I came to supper.”

“You and Evie don’t like each other. Who am I to intervene?”

I shake my head and turn away from him; I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Sin and Evie have probably known each other their entire lives, and I’m… I’m nothing to them. I’m just a Bitten werewolf thrust into their world. “What do you want, Prince Sinclair?”

His burgundy eyes narrow, glowing redder by the second in my soft, purple room. Gossamer curtains drape from wall to wall, and wisteria cascades in a waterfall above my fluffy bed. Violet roses bloom from the cracks in the roof, while a black-framed television hangs beside a gothic wardrobe and plays the comforting soundtrack of white noise. It doesn’t get any channels yet. Oona said she has to try to fix that.

Sin takes in the latest decor before dropping onto a plush black armchair and kicking his legs over the side. If not for the casual way he sits, he could be the renaissance portrait of an angel, all gilded muscles and satin hair, but those eyes… They betray his strength for what it truly is—lethal. “Using my title isn’t having the adverse effect you’re hoping for, darling. I enjoy being called prince.”

I huff. “Of course you—” I say, but a burst of heat in my chest stoppers the rest of the insult. That familiar heat flares between my ribs and shoots all the way to my toes. Lie.

He’s lying.

I stare at Sin. He stares back at me. Dares me to speak the truth with a tilt of his head and the direct threat of his darkening eyes. And maybe I’m stupid—maybe I do deserve to die without a single chance of bringing Celeste’s murderer to their knees—because I don’t stay silent. I say, “Isn’t the whole woe is me; I’m so privileged, and it’s ruining my life thing a little cliché?”

I wait for a flash of the violence everyone else in this damned castle has shown. A glimpse of the wolf beneath the boy. But Sin only sighs and relaxes deeper into the chair. “Isn’t the whole woe is me; I’m so sad that I’d rather waste away in my room as a victim than talk to anyone or go anywhere thing a little cliché?”

I swallow hard, but there’s no swallowing the anger that throttles me to my core. Something wild and barbaric claws at my bones, and I hate it. I wish it would stop.

“I’m not playing victim,” I manage to say quietly. Almost composed. “My best friend died. And you… you left me to fend for myself.” My dad left me too. Everyone leaves me.

Sin watches me through hooded lids and long lashes. As though he’s sitting in the VIP booth of an exclusive club and not in front of a werewolf ready to burst out of her own flesh. “Do you think your friend is the only one who has lost her life to the wolves?”

Whatever I expected him to say, it’s not this. “I… no. Of course not.”

“Do you think our kind is exempt from the perils of our own transformations?”

I glare harder, wishing I could stitch his lips shut. “You are less of a peril to your court than you are to humans.”

“We are a danger to everyone,” Sin says. “A month ago, during a visit from the Duke and Duchess of the Mexican territory, Queen Sybil and her current First General, Lord Allard, decided the nobles were hiding too many assets and funds from the crown. They were quickly dispatched within these very walls. Duchess Angel Martinez and her husband, Duke Santiago, had their tongues ripped out, their hands torn off, and their skin peeled from their bones. The countesses and baronesses of their territory were made to watch.” His gaze moves to the floor. “As was I.”

Acid rises in my throat. But I refuse to be sick here, in front of him. Refuse to show any more signs of weakness. “Wh-why are you telling me this?”

“Because”—his eyes slide back to mine—“if you’re going to partake in a game, you should at least know the rules.”

“And what are the rules?”

“Don’t forget that your life lies within a wolf’s den now, and only the strongest survive here. Don’t let anyone antagonize you to the point of breaking. Don’t forsake traditions. Follow commands, and never let them see your loyalties falter.” His voice lowers, losing any trace of humor that might have remained. “I can’t protect you, Vanessa, as much as I might want to do so. My loyalty will always have to remain to the throne.”

Beneath his mother now, I think suddenly. One day, with Evie.

I should get stuck on that, on thinking about his future wife and the court they’ll rule together. But another word snags my attention first—protect.

I can’t protect you. I study him closely, from the crisp lines of his linen pants to the starched collar of his purposely untucked shirt. It’s an admission that he cares. Even if he can’t do anything about it. An admission that… maybe he’s different. My loyalty will always have to remain to the throne.

“What do you want, Prince Sinclair?” I ask, focusing on the chamber of my heart that locks onto a lie like a heat-seeking missile.

“I’m not here because of what I want,” he says. And there it is. Another spark of embers, like touching the beginning tendrils of a wildfire. A lie. “I’m here for you.”

I raise my brows. The fire sinks into my blood, stretching itself into a luxurious blanket of warmth and comfort. It feels safe. Secure. He’s telling the truth now. But how can that be? He’s here for me and here for him?

He stands, fingering the buttons of his shirt until another is undone, as though he’s loosening the more severe parts of him, forcing himself to shed the court hierarchy as if it’s a second skin he can take off and hang up in his wardrobe when he chooses. His eyes crease in the corners. His lips fall into an easy smile. Too easy. Too beautiful. Too perfect.

He said he made his first kill the day after his transition. Said he has to witness the horrors of court again and again. Who would I be if I’d grown up here? If I hadn’t had a father who spent his early mornings trying to braid his daughter’s hair and a best friend who caked her polished nails in mud every year?

When Sin relaxes his shoulders and says, “Queen Sybil noticed you weren’t at supper last night. You’re needed at breakfast, lest you want her to employ a guard to watch over you. And I can’t promise that said guard wouldn’t be Calix, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t volunteer myself first,” I let him crack his smile open wider and wink at me.

“Sin?” I ask, needing an answer for this one thing. A truth.

“Yes, Vanessa?” He picks up his crown, pausing before setting it back atop his perfectly imperfect hair.

“Why do you want to protect me?”

He halts and looses a breath that smells like morning dew and oranges. He shakes his head with a soft laugh. “The flaw in looking at Lucifer and seeing a devil is that you’re missing the nuance of his time as an angel. Monsters aren’t born, Vanessa. They’re made. And you… you’re not yet a devil. You still have time. You don’t have to become one of them.” He opens my door, his hand closing around the handle with white knuckles and a glimmer of burgeoning claws.

One of them. Not one of us.

A truth.

I wait for him to leave, but he doesn’t. He stands on the threshold, his strong frame lit up by sunlight and gilded with all the ethereal grace of an angel not yet fallen.

“Evelyn is threatening you because she’s threatened by you,” he says. “Come to breakfast. Instructor Shepherd is teaching Combat and Conquest today. You’ll learn control there. That’ll help you, won’t it?”

More than he can ever know. “I’ll need a moment to change.”

“Of course.” Sin bows his head, glancing up through those insufferably long lashes one more time. “If you require help, perhaps with the removal of your nightgown—”

Lightning fast, I grab a pillow off the bed and hurl it at his head. The door is already closing behind him, though, and the sound of his laughter echoes through the room. In my heart—in my bones—I can feel that the sound is just like the rest of his facade. Perfect. Beautiful. And false.

Sin walks with me to breakfast, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his gaze fixed on the distance. He appears bothered, annoyed, by this errand that someone has undoubtedly forced upon him, but he speaks the same as usual—in a soft, cheery voice and with a twinkle in his eyes. I’m still not sure which version of him is real.

“The Great Hall is behind the second floor’s hearth, directly across from the throne room,” he says. “Werewolves are expected to share breakfast and supper when they stay with the court. Lunches, however, are eaten whenever you’d like, wherever you’d like.”

“And what, exactly, will we be eating?” I ask, suddenly realizing that no number of lessons could teach me everything I need to know about this new, strange world. Though I keep pace with Sin as he strolls easily down a winding staircase and exits onto the second floor, my head spins and my palms sweat. I wipe them quickly on the skirt of my nearly sheer purple gown. Delicate gemstone straps slide down my shoulders, the corset boning a smoky, inky black against the soft lilac that feels inexplicably like actual flower petals. Celeste would love this dress. She would force me to take a thousand selfies and post one online. We would sit on my bed, holding hands and squealing until Max Cayden commented. I tear myself from the unbidden thought. The wistful lie.

“Oh, the usual,” Sin says casually, none the wiser. “Blood sausage, liver, grilled limbs sliced off the prisoners we keep in the dungeon.”

I can’t help it; I stumble. “Y-you’re… you’re joking.”

Sinclair doesn’t respond at first, but then he glances over his shoulder and winks. I roll my eyes, huffing as I hurry to catch up with his long, quick strides. “Heinous ass.”

“You should’ve seen your face,” he says, his shoulders shaking with repressed laughter. “I can’t believe you’d assume I’m the type of man to gorge on human flesh.”

“I’m not sure what type of man you are,” I say honestly. “For all I know, you’re a cannibalistic monster who collects toenail clippings in an enchanted jar.”

“First, that’s disgusting and highly insulting. I would never waste an enchanted jar on toenails. Second—”

His words cut off as we approach two guards in the hall. One remains human in appearance, wearing thick leathers with a sash tied across his bulky chest and a fist-sized medallion in the center. A crest depicting a crow devouring a worm. The other, however, burrows long claws into the stone floor and bares their fangs at anyone who dares to make eye contact with the fully shifted Beta. They stand in front of a golden door embellished with starlight.

When Sinclair leads me past, the Beta folds themself into a deep bow, and the guard follows suit, with a murmured, “Prince Sinclair.”

Sin doesn’t bother responding, and we continue walking. When we’re far enough away, however, I ask, “What was that room they were guarding?”

“The queen’s chambers.” He glances at me and points down the hall, to another room where one Beta wolf stands guard, before his hand falls and brushes my lower back. “That’s mine, if you ever need me for any reason. Like in the middle of the night, when you’re lonely, perhaps if you need help unlacing your corset.…”

I sigh loudly, dramatically, and his smile widens briefly as though he can’t stop it. As though he enjoys riling me. And maybe he does. In my gut, there’s a stirring, a warmth like honesty curling around my heart. Sin doesn’t seem to despise me like everyone else, but he still won’t outwardly be my friend. Not like Oona. Or even like Portia.

Prince Sinclair.

Prince.

We continue down the halls, and it feels like trudging through thick, wet mud. Before volleyball games, Coach Murphy would sit me and my teammates on the rickety gymnasium bleachers and roll out a big, bulky television. We would stay there for hours after school, watching tapes of our opponents while Coach Murphy scribbled atop the screen in dry-erase markers. We would pinpoint each girl’s weaknesses. Their strengths. And from there, we could brainstorm the exact strategy necessary to crush them on the court. Of course, this court is a completely different sort, and those strategies were spike the ball this way and watch Amanda’s flank, rather than note the exits and observe the bloodthirsty guards and their stations, but still. Since being dragged from the beach, I’ve forgotten to pay attention. To think. To do anything other than react.

Not anymore.

“Could… could you show me more?” I ask Sin while we’re in a corridor with no one around. “Where the others stay? If guards are stationed everywhere? What the rest of the rooms are for?”

Prince Sinclair Severi of the Wolf Queen’s Court of North America can’t protect me, but he can at least give me the tools so that I might protect myself.

He seems to realize this too, and in an instant sweeps me deeper into the corridor, where an out-of-place hearth roars with midnight-blue flames.

Voice quiet but no less pleasant, he says, “The guards serve the Wolf Queen. They remain stationed outside her chamber, her throne room, the trophy room, my room when I’m not around, and the common areas at night. Otherwise, werewolves—especially nobility—are expected to defend themselves. We have soldiers, of course, but they train for war with rebellious packs or hunters, never against those inside their own court. To employ a guard yourself would imply that you do not think the queen can protect you, and that would be considered treason.”

“I see.”

I nibble on my lip, thinking and contemplating strategy as that out-of-place hearth roars with heat beside us.

The queen’s chamber. Sin’s occasionally. But not the others. Not those who were at the beach. Maybe there’s evidence to collect. If this court is so centered around its laws and loyalties, there has to be a way to find out who murdered Celeste and who illegally bit me. There has to be a way to convict them.

With my lack of strength, support, and knowledge, it’s really the only viable path forward.

“Does everyone stay on the second floor except me?”

Sin shakes his head, crossing his ankles and leaning against the wall. “Second floor is for current royalty and certain common areas most utilized by the queen. Third floor is for Alphas—and also you, darling, special Vanessa,” he says flirtatiously, “and fourth floor is for Betas. The towers are used for most classes, and the first floor is for the masses, with a few sitting rooms, tea rooms, the kitchen, and, of course, the stairwell that leads to the lagoon and dungeon.”

I stop listening after I hear third floor is for Alphas. That means Evie is on my floor. She’d have the means to break into my room and somehow put the blood on my chest—at least, she’d have the access. And I have the access to find out where her room is as well.

I could search it.

I’m not sure what evidence I’m looking for, but there could be something there. Something that would bring her to justice and avenge Celeste—

“All right,” Sin says despondently, interrupting the stream of ideas flooding through my brain. “Are you ready?”

“Ready?”

“Breakfast?” he asks and waves a hand in front of my face. “First meal of the day? Bacon? Sausage? Ham?”

Right. “You just listed three meats.”

“Because I’m starving, and I’m a werewolf, and as much as I’d like to spend all day gazing at you, darling, I really need to eat.” Sin tugs me to his side and kicks the bottom, misshapen tile of the hearth. Before I can contemplate his words, or the honesty that nestles in my chest from them, the hearth… groans. I leap away from it, throwing myself against the other wall. This is a hallway. It’s a hallway, and like all things in the castle, this shouldn’t be possible. The ground rumbles. And the hearth slowly begins to twist into itself, revealing a wide, rectangular passage that leads into a massive room.

“What the…?”

Sin’s fingers entwine with mine, and he gives a comforting, friendly squeeze. “I hope you know the difference between shrimp forks and salad prongs.”

“I don’t,” I say stupidly. Nervously.

Sin laughs, the sound so genuine, so heartening, that I take a step. Then another. Sin’s facade hardens back into prince, but he doesn’t release my hand until we officially enter the Great Hall. And then I’m on my own.

In seconds, I meet the gazes of three dozen of the most beautiful and undeniably dangerous people I’ve ever had the misfortune to be around. I suck in a breath. Loose it from shaking lips.

The Great Hall could very well be my own torture chamber dressed up as a luxurious banquet. Long tables haphazardly surround a massive round table dressed in velvet tablecloths and sparkling gold silverware. Chandeliers hang from the vaulted ceiling, sweet beeswax candles flickering between ornate bronze roses and thorns. Ravens perch on the metalwork branches, and it takes a moment for me to realize they’re not real. Adamantine birds chirp and caw with sweet, morning birdsong before flapping loud wings and soaring to the next chandelier.

Windows flood the room with natural lighting as well, and there’s a breeze like spring winds that tangles in my hair and draws me deeper and deeper into the room.

And the smell—my stomach growls, my nose twitching as it follows the intoxicating scents of salty bacon, fennel sausage, and savory, herbaceous eggs to the bone-white plates awaiting us. I’ve never been this hungry in my life, and I’m ready to throw myself into a seat and start chowing down. Unfortunately, however, the only seat remaining empty is at the round table, between Calix and Antionette. Directly across from Evie, and diagonal to Sinclair. Possibly the worst seat in the house.

I take it hesitantly, my gown brushing against Calix so much that he shifts his chair away from mine. I glower at him; he returns the expression in full. And Antionette—she angles away from me, using her thick blonde hair as a curtain to separate us. Hopefully this meal flies by quickly. I grab my fork, but Sin shakes his head.

“No,” he says, his voice a startling monotone. He picks up a napkin and drapes it across his lap, then collects the last fork on his right. “There are routines by which we abide.”

God. I wish I could parrot his words back at him, or maybe remind him of four seconds ago in the corridor when he held my hand and his touch burned against my palm. But his gaze flashes, and he frowns, and I… I think he’s remorseful. Of course, there’s no way to be sure. Not in front of our peers, in front of the whole of the Great Hall when they’re watching us. Watching me.

Including the Wolf Queen, who sits on a baroque chair at a table for two in the back of the hall. The seat beside her is empty, the place settings untouched and dusty, while her own place settings are affixed with soft boiled eggs and buttered toast. She raises a glass in my direction, and though I know it’s wine—can scent the bittersweet musk of fermented grapes—it looks like blood.

My stomach churns. Perhaps I’m not as hungry as I thought.

“It’s like sharing a meal with Instructor Palko’s hounds,” Evie says, not bothering to lower her voice as she speaks to Antionette—Nettie, I mentally correct, the only other Bitten in our classes. “Will she even dare to use a fork or just lick the plate clean with her tongue?”

“Evie. The queen is listening,” Nettie whispers, and when the blonde girl turns to quickly glance at me, fear blazes in the amber of her own eyes. She tugs at her collar, pulling it aside just enough that I catch sight of a nasty scar. Purple and red webbing. Almost like a rash. I squint, trying to place the familiarity of the scars, when Calix kicks my foot under the table. I glare at him, but he nods at Sin, and I quickly understand that the prince is talking. He’s talking, and we’re all meant to listen.

“We thank the universe for our blessings, we thank the stars for our strength, and we thank the moon for another peaceful night. Please, enjoy the feast.” He slices into a sausage, the nobility around us hanging on to his every movement, and brings it to his lips. Only when he chews and swallows do the rest of them grab their own forks and dig in.

I blink in outright confusion, but Sin explains, “The king usually begins breakfast, but since he’s passed, the honor then goes to the firstborn child.”

“We don’t eat until Sin eats,” Calix says, ripping into a strip of bacon with a little less decorum than the rest of the surrounding werewolves. “And at supper, we don’t eat until the Wolf Queen eats.”

“I see,” I say for a second time in ten minutes. I will never understand this place. I will never be used to it. I will never feel completely safe here. But with every eye on me, I have no choice except to start eating. Each bite tastes like poison.

Calix huffs to himself. “I hope you’ve prepared her for today.”

“I haven’t. It’s not my job,” Sin answers smoothly. “Though, feel free to do so yourself.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Calix juts a thumb at me. “She is the opposite of an apt student. She almost blew up the alchemy room.”

“Perhaps that’s just her worst subject.”

“And you think any of today’s will be better?” Calix ruffles his dark hair, his brows furrowing. “It’s shocking enough that she didn’t drop dead before her first transformation. She’s ill prepared, and she doesn’t seem very bright.”

Evie snickers at that, and so does her brother, and then so does everyone else. Except Sin.

It’s not enough. His silent loyalty isn’t enough to ease the tension or the fury throttling my bones. I haven’t done anything to provoke Calix. “I can hear you perfectly well, you know,” I manage to say. “And I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”

“She can hear us,” Sin echoes, puncturing a second sausage as if he’s made the declaration of the century.

“She’s going to break her fork if she keeps holding it like that,” Calix says unhelpfully.

“She doesn’t care.” I’ve been gripping the utensil so hard that it bends, and Evie hisses in disgust. I pivot away from her, choosing to glare at Calix instead. “Stop talking like I’m not here.”

“Forgive him,” Sin states in that same, apathetic voice. “Most of the castle believes he was born in a barn like a farm animal.”

“What was the name of your childhood imaginary friend?” Calix glowers. “Remind me?”

Sin leans back in his chair, his shirt fluttering open with the breeze and revealing taut golden muscles and a strong chest. God, he’s beautiful. I avert my gaze before my cheeks can redden.

“If you’re trying to embarrass me with Sir Dinklesworth, it won’t work,” Sin says. “He was a far better companion than you’ve ever been.”

“Oh?” Calix pops a bite of eggs into his mouth, chewing and swallowing before saying, “Did Sir Dinklesworth save your ass when you got lost in the woods and that weird lady almost kidnapped you?”

“She wasn’t weird. She offered me free candy, Calix. It would’ve been reprehensible to deny such a boon.”

It’s then that I decide to tune them out. Whatever information I seek, it won’t be found there. Or anywhere around us. Even Portia won’t hold my gaze for longer than a second. When I ask Myles to pass a bowl of fruit, he merely shoves it in my direction with a grunt. And Evie—well, she’s clearly enjoying my presence at breakfast since she can’t stop whispering about it. Loudly. To Antionette. In front of everyone.

What’s the point of being a Truthseer if no one will talk to me? What’s the point of being a werewolf if I can’t immediately enact justice through brute force?

My stomach grumbles again, and I take a few tentative bites of breakfast with a new, unbent fork. Sin doesn’t tell me I’ve chosen the wrong utensil, so I eat faster. Until my plate is clear and Sin and Calix have stopped bickering like two old ladies in a bingo hall.

No one tells me what specifically awaits at our first lesson of the day—Combat and Conquest—and I’m left to assume that’s either a very good or very bad sign.

19

It was a bad sign.

I shouldn’t be surprised, since every day in this castle has been infuriating at best and excruciatingly painful at worst, but lying on my back in the middle of a damp field with a thunderstorm waterboarding me while Katerina Aston threatens to slit my throat with her claw was not on my list of expectations for today.

The redhead grins a perfectly porcelain smile, her lips painted red and not even a little bit smudged. She licks her teeth, emphasizing that her fangs have yet to drop. Not mine though. One pierces through my lower lip while the other refuses to transform. I growl, and she laughs.

“Pretty submissive for someone so special,” she teases, her hair tickling my collarbone as she tightens her hold on my neck and squeezes.

Fuck.

No one pays attention. No one hears the stuttering of my heart or my shallow breaths. The rest of the class has paired off into half a dozen sparring sessions while Instructor Shepherd speaks to Calix on the side of the field. Every so often, Calix’s gaze flicks to me. But if he notices that I’m dying, he says nothing.

Sweat drenches my forehead, mixes with the rain, and runs into my eyes. I blink through the searing pain. Refuse to choke on my weakness and fear. Instead, I thrash wildly. Side to side. Up and down. There has to be a way to dislodge her. Her thighs clench around my stomach; her body presses hard into mine. Imprisoning my arms against my sides. The more I fight, the tighter she coils around me. Rides my struggle as if she’s swimming along a lazy current instead of battling a riptide.

“Get. Off,” I hiss through clenched teeth.

“Do it yourself.” Katerina throws her hair over her shoulder and bares down, closer to my face now. I contemplate spitting on her, or maybe even biting her. But that would be ridiculous. I just need to regain control of my limbs. I need to free my arms.

If only Instructor Shepherd had taught me how to do so—had taught me how to do anything before forcing the entire class into tight spandex and pairing us with someone of our corresponding size and stature.

God, I hate it here.

Katerina might be my exact height and shape—a little curvier on top than I could ever hope to be—but she weighs more than six tons of bricks. And she has the iron grip of a freaking cyborg.

“K-Katerina…” I stutter as my windpipe begins to collapse. “Can’t breathe.”

“Combat,” she murmurs, “and conquest.”

With that, she bites my nose. Just. Like. That. She rips off the tip and spits it onto the ground with a mouthful of blood. I stare at her in shock, in disbelief as she throws back her head with another evil cackle, and scarlet dribbles down the corners of her mouth.

It smells like death.

I scream.

Immediately, the sounds of fighting cease. Instructor Shepherd shouts and hurries toward us, followed by my peers. All of them. Katerina leaps off me with ease, smirking as she drags the blood off her mouth with her finger and then sucks it clean. “You know,” she says as I clutch my nose in my hand, “you still look better than you did on the beach. Red does wonders for your complexion.”

Somehow, she’s telling the truth. And I loathe that I know that, even as I sit up and try futilely to stop blood from spurting from the gouged appendage. I feel that soothing compression around my heart in conjunction with the searing pain of my nose, and I wish they would stop. Both of them. Forever.

The beach.

Red drips between my fingers and onto wet grass. Red clouds my vision. I’m losing control again. I’m going to kill her. No no no—my bones begin to shudder. My knuckles crack. Claws rip through my left hand. My other fang finally protrudes.

But just as I take a running leap at her pretty face, someone hooks an arm around my stomach and drags me against them.

“Play fair, darling,” Sin breathes in my ear. “We’re sparring in our human forms today.”

“She bit off my nose!” I buck in his grasp, but he holds me firm. Anchors me to his side. But he can’t keep me close if I slip away from him. And I can slip away if I finish fully transforming.

The idea hits me with the sudden onslaught of a downpour. Freedom and punishment at the same time. I home in on Katerina’s face. Her glowing yellow eyes. Her pert, freckled nose.

I’ll eat that first. Then I’ll devour the rest.

I just need to transform. Need to know how—

“A little help,” Sin says, sounding far calmer than his pulse. A rapid thumpthumpthump beats into my shoulder. He’s too late, though. She has to pay. They all have to pay—

Calix wrenches me into his chest and grabs the back of my neck roughly before my bones can further crack, forcing it up so I have to meet his eyes. Almost instantly, my bones cease breaking. Remend themselves with loud snaps.

I growl, but he doesn’t remove his gaze. Just stares, his eyes boring into mine. His heart rate is steadier. Thump. He breathes. Thump. Exhales. His touch hardens with each passing second, as though he’s afraid at any moment I’m going to win this fight. That I’m going to transform and slaughter my way through this class of far stronger wolves.

His touch hardens as though he actually believes I could.

Ridiculous.

“You’re too unpracticed to be out here with the rest of us,” he says instead, his tone dark and accusatory. Maybe his special gift is that he’s a mind reader. I don’t speak. I don’t want to admit that he’s right. So I keep staring, refusing to look away first. I watch the muscles tick in his jaw, his gaze drop to my chest. At first, I wonder if he’s admiring the cropped spandex they’ve stuffed me into, but then his mouth twitches. Not smiling—of course not. He’s mouthing numbers.

He’s tracking my breaths. My heart rate.

I snarl, but it doesn’t burst from the pit of rage in my chest like usual. “Let go of me.”

His eyes narrow in challenge. “Make me.”

My heartbeat falters. “Excuse me?”

“This is a combat class, so show me how you’d combat someone like me.” His breath flutters across my face. “You want to fight? Let’s fight.”

I try to yank myself from his grasp, but he doesn’t relent. He’s more than six tons. He’s a solid wall. He’s the very fortress we’re standing beside. He’s the thunder throttling the ground and the lightning striking the sea. “I don’t know how to fight,” I spit, my chest flushing even as it heaves. “Is that what you want to hear? I don’t know how to fight. I don’t know how to win.”

This isn’t like volleyball at all. I’m not dealing with recorded strengths and weaknesses. These are werewolves. Impossibly fast. Unnaturally strong. And they’ve spent their entire lives honing their skills. They’ve had years to transform and wrestle and spar. I haven’t even had days.

The realization—the scent of my own musky fear—turns my legs into noodles. I sag in Calix’s grasp, but he doesn’t support me. He releases me with a look of disgust.

“You’re not weak because of your physical strength,” he says. “You’re weak because of your mind.” He shakes his head. “I was using pressure points. Werewolves have two on the back of their necks. If you catch them in time, applying a rigid amount of extreme pressure will make it so even the strongest of werewolves are unable to transition. It calms us, eases our pulse. Makes us more pliable.”

He speaks as if talking to a child, and I hate it. Hate him.

With his hands off my neck, I think about swinging a fist at his face. Instructor Shepherd seems to sense the impending explosion, so he steps between us with an authoritative voice befitting his seven-foot-tall bodybuilder stature. “That’s enough, Calix.” Amber eyes gleam bright against youthful brown skin. He doesn’t look a day older than twenty-five. “If you’re not going to spar, go sharpen the swords and rapiers.”

I wait for Calix to argue or maybe even glower, but he simply shakes his head again and stalks off to the corner of the open field that houses a small portico. Rain splatters fat droplets onto a stone arch that shelters racks of weapons and a single wrought iron bench. He snatches up a fallen sword and brings it to a stone wheel. When he glances up next, it’s not to glare at the instructor. It’s to glare at me.

As if this is my fault. Any of it.

I lift my head to the skies and sigh. The same rain beats down on me, soaks through the raven-black spandex of our sparring uniforms. It tastes… sweet. Much sweeter than rain back home, like a memory from childhood I’d almost forgotten. Like I imagined Celeste’s pies would taste if she’d made them out of sugar instead of mud.

I duck my head at the thought, glancing down at the holes and rips in my uniform. Up the sides. Down the sleeves. Even across my thighs from where I’d begun to transform. My emotions fade gradually as I examine the damage, as the rain washes blood from between my fingers. Not only am I the weakest here, but I’m also the most disheveled. It shouldn’t matter under the circumstances, but it somehow does.

These tears in my uniform—they’re another outward sign of my ineptitude. My failure.

Evie ropes her arm through Katerina’s with Nettie standing awkwardly behind them. “Better luck next time, pup.” Then, to her friend, she says, “She’s never making it past the Ascension.”

Smirking, she drags away Katerina, and Instructor Shepherd does nothing to stop them. He doesn’t reprimand Katerina at all. Apparently, it’s totally fine that the tip of my nose is buried in the nearby grass.

“Vanessa,” Instructor Shepherd barks when the trio takes refuge from the rain under the portico. “We do not transition in the middle of combat. Do you know why?”

I don’t care that this man looks as though he could break me with his pinky finger. I say, “If I transformed sooner, I would’ve been able to rip her nose off instead.”

Instructor Shepherd runs a hand over his smooth, bald head, slicking off the rain like a squeegee over a windshield. “Your nose will heal completely by dinner. Already it is no longer an open wound. You need to care less about minuscule injuries and more about being killed. If you transition in the midst of a fight, of a war, you lose your upper hand. Those seconds when even the most competent werewolf transforms leave them vulnerable to a fatal attack. A claw in your chest. A snap of your neck. Wolfsbane bullet in your heart—”

“That’s enough. She understands,” Sin says, stepping forward with an oddly intent expression and glowing, burgundy eyes. They soften when he turns to me. “We shouldn’t transition fully if we’re already in combat. It’s easier to grow a claw or fangs and use those while you spar.”

“An excellent point, Wolf Prince,” Instructor Shepherd snaps, the muscles in his throat bulging with sudden restraint. I frown between them, momentarily distracted. “Portia, come teach Miss Hart how to control those wretched claws of hers.” Our teacher narrows those amber eyes between Sin and me before prowling toward Sin slowly. Viciously. Sin glances up at the teacher with a smirk on his lips and a knife-sharp gleam in his eyes.

“Don’t ever use your compulsion over me again, princeling,” he hisses.

Wh-what? My mouth falls open. Compulsion? But there’s no way Sin would’ve used that here. In the middle of class. Against the largest man I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Why don’t you spar against me next round?” Instructor Shepherd says to Sin.

Sin’s smile widens. “I’d love to.”

It’s not the response Instructor Shepherd wants. Our teacher stomps across the yard and flexes his knuckles into claws. I turn to Sin before he can leave. “Did you compel him?”

Sin shrugs. “I’m beneath only the queen in the court hierarchy. It’s legal.”

I blink, suddenly unsettled. He just—he admitted to compelling our instructor. For me. In public. The realization catches like a hook in my mind, impossible to dislodge.

I can’t protect you, Vanessa, as much as I might want to do so.

I drop my gaze, and then, unable to help myself, bring it back up again, my eyes sweeping from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. The black pants mold to his leanly muscular legs, long sleeves hugging—emphasizing—his biceps. Blond hair sticks to his forehead, rivulets of water dripping down his chin and onto his chest. Over his defined abdominals. Suddenly, I can’t swallow. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. And Sin knows. Of course he knows.

He winks and tugs on my ponytail. “Be nice to Portia. She’s not as durable as the rest of us.”

“But…” I force myself to speak, gesturing to our instructor, who is currently using the portico roof as a pull-up bar. “You didn’t have to stand up to him for me. He’s… he’s going to kick your ass.”

Sin laughs, a true and genuine laugh that lights me up from the inside out. “Are you worried about me, Vanessa?”

“Yes,” I admit grudgingly. “I—I think I am.”

He flicks my ponytail, then gently touches my nose. As if he can’t keep his hands off me. “I’ve never lost a sparring match in my life. Calix will say it’s because no one wants to hurt their prince and potentially anger their queen, but I’d like to think I’m strong enough to lay our instructor on his ass. Besides,” Sin whispers, his eyes meeting mine and sending delicious sparks up my spine before he turns away to glance at his cousin, “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Calix.”

20

While the others spar around us and rain continues to fall, I walk over to Portia, deciding to use my time with her to exercise my Truthseer abilities—but it’s kind of a waste because I’m not sure Portia has ever told a lie in her life.

Sitting within a thick garden of daffodils, Portia Montgomery waves her hand to transform the grass between us into tall stalks of dove-white umbels that shield us from the rain. Water bounces off the soft petals, landing inches away from our bodies until we go from soaking wet to merely damp.

“Your power,” I start, while she wiggles her fingers into claws. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You wouldn’t,” she says quietly, staring at those claws. “My father is Duke of Canada. He completed his Drowning during the spring equinox on the night of a solar eclipse and was granted an ability none had seen before. Earthcharmer.” She strokes a bud of grass with a soft smile, and it sprouts into lavender between her claws.

“That’s incredible.”

“It is. The court hoped it would pass on to his seven eldest sons and one day my father would bloom power on every continent.” Portia sighs, and her claw accidentally sheers the lavender from its stem. “Instead, it only passed on to me.”

Truths. All truths.

Portia plucks up the shorn lavender and offers it to me. “May I?”

I nod, not knowing exactly what she’s asking but willing to take the chance. Portia hasn’t lied to me yet. She hasn’t threatened or maimed me. Being around her is as comfortable as I’ve been since my time alone with Oona, and in a place like this, that means something. With nimble fingers, she undoes my damp ponytail before braiding the sprig of lavender through a lock of my hair, then another on the opposite side. A flower crown. I touch the delicate petals tentatively, and she watches with a hopeful expression, her Beta-yellow eyes shining even in the darkness of the storm.

Once, I would’ve returned the favor. I would’ve braided lavender into her hair too, and we would’ve admired how the dusky purple looked against her dark curls. I am not that person anymore, however. Now, when I try to smile at her, it looks more like a grimace.

“Is that a bad thing?” I press. “That it passed to you instead of your brothers?”

“Depends on who you ask.” She leans back on her hands, those pretty curls blowing in the wind. “My father would tell you that this is a gift bestowed on us to usher the Montgomerys into a larger position in the Wolf Prince’s future pack. None of my brothers were offered the same opportunity.”

“What would you tell me?”

She smiles again. Softly. Sweetly. Without a single fang in sight. “That I’d rather worry about the politics of our environment than that of our court.”

“Oh.” I furrow my brow. But werewolves can’t leave their court, can they? They can’t leave their pack? That’s what Sin told me earlier. There’s no way out. I open my mouth to reaffirm this, but Portia cuts me off with an apologetic expression.

“I’m not the only one different here.” She points to my gaze, a thread of ivy twining around her finger. “Our powers—whatever they may mean in the long run—set us apart. This court… It needs us.”

I hear what goes unsaid—whether we like it or not. Portia offers me a small smile. “If you’re going to spar with us, you really should learn how to control your body—at least some of it. Claws and fangs will be your best friends against that lot.” She nods to the training yard, to the grunting and tussling bodies of our lithe peers. Sin has lost his shirt in his battle against our instructor—row after row of those impressive muscles drenched and dripping—but Instructor Shepherd has yet to draw blood. Sin dodges the instructor’s next attack with absurdly fast reflexes, ducking and kicking the instructor’s legs out from under him. Instructor Shepherd hits the ground with a loud thud, and Sin offers him a hand to help him up, but Instructor Shepherd uses the opportunity to throw Sin onto the ground with him. They wrestle for a few more minutes. Fists flying, and then claws.

“Should we be worried about them?”

“No. Instructor Shepherd has only injured his students a few times and never any lasting bodily harm,” Portia says, as though that’s comforting. “We should be worried about you. We have Combat and Conquest three times a week. If you can’t figure out faster reflexes, forget the infirmary. Evie and Eric’s inner circle will send you to the grave.”

She takes my hand abruptly, drawing lines out from my palm to my fingertips. “Your claws grow from this center bone. In a full transition, this bone will crumble and remold into a paw, but outside of that you can lengthen your claws from your fingers. Think of it like stardust in your veins. It molds you into exactly who the universe has created you to be. You only have to summon it forth.”

I snatch my hand back. “It wasn’t the universe that made me this way.”

“I—I know.” Portia sucks in a breath, and the flowers above us wilt enough that rain leaks through their petals and onto our heads. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, Vanessa.”

Another truth.

I tuck any loose tendrils of hair behind my ears and retie my ponytail, careful to keep the braids and lavender in place. Then I lower my voice. “Evie and Eric… are they typically violent?”

Portia exhales a gentle laugh, though her eyes crease with nervousness as snowdrops bloom between us. “They are werewolf royalty, Vanessa. What do you think?”

Worrying my lip between my teeth, I let my gaze flick back to the other werewolves. They keep a safe distance from Evie and her friends, almost forming a semicircular boundary around them. As though everyone in this castle is aware of the Lees’ wrath—of their potential for malice. Especially where I’m concerned. I wipe anxious palms on my thighs.

“We aren’t raised like you were… like mortals. Humans,” Portia elaborates. “In a Wolf Court, violence is power. It is a tool to be used, a ladder one climbs toward glory. Those in charge must be fiercer than the rest.” She runs dainty fingers over faster-blooming petals. “We are all playing a game here, and Evelyn and Eric need to be the best.”

Something in her words feels urgent as her honesty coils tighter in my chest. I lean forward, my pulse beating ferociously in my ears. “Do—do you know who bit me, Portia? Do you know who killed my friend?”

“Perhaps that’s enough training with Portia for today.” Sin claps a hand over Portia’s shoulder, kneeling beside us in all his shirtless glory. “I’m happy to take over from here, Montgomery. Why don’t you see if Calix needs help with the weapons?”

Portia glances at me, blinking rapidly and sputtering. But I don’t know if it’s Sin’s presence that’s got her flustered or my questions. I have a bad feeling it’s the latter.

“I—I… that’s probably for the best,” Portia says. “Sorry, Vanessa. Good luck.”

She leaps to her feet, and the flowers wither with her departure. Water deluges us from the umbel petals. I gape at her hasty retreat before turning my scowl onto Sin, wiping the rain from my face. “What the hell was that for?”

“You’re in the midst of the newest generation of the world’s most powerful wolves, and you’re interrogating one with barely a whisper. I’m trying to save you from imminent death.”

“Sure.” I roll my eyes and move to stand, but Sin captures my wrist and keeps me seated on the ground. The storm has let up, but only a little. Not enough to stop my vision from blurring against the downpour or to dry off Sin’s body. I try not to stare. Try, but fail. He might be the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, regardless of gender or age. Built like an angel, God’s favorite warrior.

And, unfortunately, he knows it. “If you have any questions, I’m here anytime. Day or, preferably, night.” He winks, and my scowl deepens.

“This isn’t funny to me, Sin.”

“It’s not funny to me either.” He tilts his head, quickly throwing on a brand-new shirt while studying my gaze. Waiting for me to acknowledge that he’s just told the truth. That he’s always honest—until he’s not. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere more private.” He gestures to Evie and Nettie, who huddle together against the side of the fort. They’re whispering, stances wide and stiff as if they’re arguing, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Maybe Sin can. I climb to my feet and follow Sin past the portico—past a glaring Calix and grinning Portia—and back into the castle. No one else notices us.

Thank god.

When we make it inside, he takes my hand, twining his fingers through my own. I glance down at the touch. My breath hitches, and my skin flames.

I should shake him off. Pull away from him. We could be seen at any moment, but Sin isn’t soft like Portia or even sincere like Oona. He’s powerful. Strong. And when he’s touching me, it almost feels as if he cares. Really, truly cares about me.

Which is ridiculous. The dumbest thing I’ve ever thought, if not also the cruelest. Celeste is dead, and I’m here for vengeance. I’m only using Sin. That’s it. I’m using him, and so I have to hold his hand, and—and he’s the only one I know for sure is innocent; he’s the only one who can really help me. I have to follow him into a darkened room off the entry corridor filled with… oddities. I have to lean against his brutally hard and viciously wet body to avoid the glowing trident that rests by the door. A faint hum emanates from it, and it shivers with bluish energy. “Careful,” Sin murmurs, drawing me away from it. “Instructor Alvarez imbued it with lightning last year, and now it electrocutes anyone it touches.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why does anyone do anything in our world? Power. Not quite the perk he thought it’d be, though.” Sin grins, flashing those straight white teeth in the glow of the trident. “It singed off his eyebrows the first time he used it. He had to pencil them on for six months.”

I want to laugh at that, but I don’t. I can’t. I’ve never been alone with someone like Sin. Not like this. “Why is it here?” I ask instead, wrapping my arms around my waist to keep from trembling. “In a broom closet?”

He shuts the door behind us, and darkness engulfs the rest of the tiny room. “Because this is a room for useless and fiendish things. Experiments gone wrong. Cursed treasure, spilled secrets, spoiled faerie fruit, and the like—anything my mother deems too dangerous to keep and too precious to destroy.”

I glance at the shelves around us, filled with row upon row of ancient tomes. Knives. Sealed jars of mysteriously burning fire—blue and white and gold. They illuminate an evil-looking opal necklace on a bed of red velvet. A glittering gilt comb with razor-sharp teeth. “And your mother just leaves this room unlocked?” I ask incredulously.

Sin flashes an iron key between his fingers before slipping it back into his pocket. “I like to come in here sometimes when I want to be alone. To think.”

Truth.

“In here,” I repeat. Then, shaking my head as an actual broom in the corner inches closer to eavesdrop—“No one in their… their right mind would consider this place relaxing.”

“I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”

My eyes narrow on him—on the heat lighting up my chest—and the word flies from my lips before I can stop it. “Liar.”

His grin widens. “Your powers are very bad for this court, Vanessa.”

“Truth.”

“Good girl,” he murmurs, and he moves closer still, though I don’t know how that’s possible. I’m so glad for the dim lighting—that I don’t have to witness my own bad decisions.

His hand cups my cheek, his fingers brushing along my skin. The touch steals my breath. Steals my every thought.

Why am I here again? What questions did I want to ask?

Something about a bite, about my change, about—about Celeste. I leap backward, crashing into the nearest shelf. One of its many crystal balls spills from the ledge, but Sin catches it with ease before it shatters on the floor. The opaque liquid within it swirls ominously. “More faulty creations.” He gestures to the rest of the gently swirling orbs. “According to Lyra, these fail to show the future. Instead, they show the past or the present. Dreams instead of reality.” For just an instant, I see his handsome face reflected upon its dusty surface, but then he places the orb on the shelf once more. His reflection vanishes.

“We shouldn’t be here, Sin. Someone might see us.”

“What if I don’t care?” At my startled expression, he sighs. “The court has enough rules that I worry about breaking. We needed a private place to talk. But”—he opens the door an inch, allowing in a sliver of torchlight—“if it makes you feel better.”

But I don’t know if it does make me feel better. He’s been ignoring me in public for so long… why should that change now? So I shut the door, if only a little.

He laughs. “You’re an enigma, Vanessa Hart. Do you know that?”

“I—me?” Of all the enigmas in this castle, in this very room, I would hardly count myself as one of them. In fact, I’ve always been rather simple. I like watching movies. I like playing volleyball and going to the beach and scrolling on my phone. I’m… just like every other girl. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sin shakes his head, however, as if I’m anything but. “You and Kat… You didn’t try to cheat once during your match. She was seconds from crushing your throat in her hands, and you just lay there.”

“You were watching?” I snatch a quilt from his hands. Throw it onto another shelf. “I—I could’ve died.”

“You didn’t call for help,” he says. “Why not?”

“Because asking for help…” I throw my hands in the air, exasperated. “Asking for help doesn’t do anything. It didn’t save me from turning into a monster. It didn’t stop Celeste from dying. I’m not going to give anyone here the satisfaction of reveling in my fear again. That’s all Katerina wanted.” I lift my chin, finding his burgundy eyes in the dim light. “I won’t let them.”

He doesn’t speak, and the tension in the room only thickens. Finally, he says, “Ask me.”

The silence shatters. But I don’t know what to say. “What?”

“Your questions. We have five minutes at most before Shepherd dismisses everyone. So ask me your questions and hear my answers.” When I don’t respond right away, he says, “Four minutes, darling. Make them count. And give me your hand.”

I frown.

“Please,” he adds.

And so I do. He takes my palm, splays it open wide as his fingers trail a path that Portia carved only minutes ago. Back when my heart was steady, and my stomach didn’t feel as if it were mid–roller coaster.

“If you want to pull your claws and fangs out quickly, you have to concentrate on the emotion that you experience the strongest. For each wolf it’s different, and it usually reveals itself during that first transition. When our souls split, they find their way back to each other with that common thread. A tether, if you will. How did you feel? Harness that. Focus on it. Let it consume you for those seconds. The transition won’t be painless, but it will be fast, and then it will be over.” He grins softly. “Three minutes.”

There’s no time to think. To contemplate the right question to ask at the right time. I blurt out, “You were at the beach that night. Why?”

“It was a pack outing. We’re allowed them only when the Wolf Queen approves.”

A viscous warmth soothes my bones. He’s being honest. “Did everyone go?”

“The only person who stayed behind was Portia. She ate some kale that didn’t agree with her.”

Another truth. I nod, and my heart leaps into my throat. “Did you know it would happen?”

“Did I know your friend would die and you would…” He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t.”

“And you—” My voice breaks. For the first time in days, tears begin to water in my eyes. It takes all my strength to keep them there. To not let them fall. “Did you… were you one of the ones…”

Sin closes his fist around my hand, squeezing. “Go on, Vanessa. Please. One last time.”

I shut my eyes, unable to bear looking at him. Seeing his answer. “Did you kill Celeste?”

“No.” He lifts my chin, his thumb running across my lower lip. My mouth falls open with my eyes. “I did not kill your friend. Your friend deserved better, and I will never not be sorry for your loss.”

Truth. Truth. Truth.

I breathe a sigh of relief, and it might as well be the sky opening up again. Washing away the worst of my worries and fears.

It wasn’t Sin. No matter what, it wasn’t him.

“Your turn,” he murmurs, still holding my hand in his. “Try to summon your claws.”

I stare at my hand. Strain until my bones quake. But nothing sprouts. Nothing even changes. “It’s not working.”

“You’re not focusing on your emotions.”

“I am!”

“Are you, though? These outbursts you have—they make you a threat. They mean you’re allowing your emotions to control you. Perhaps Evie was right, and you’re meant to be fertilizer on our lawn. You can join the others this court has murdered—”

That does it. Fury unleashes itself from my chest and bursts forth in a red-hot streak of adrenaline and torment. I twist around Sin, grab his hand, and force his arm behind his back with a snarl.

“There you go,” he murmurs. “I knew you could do it.”

He looks over his shoulder with a grin, and I follow his gaze to our hands. My hand. Four claws have sprouted beautifully, quickly but not painlessly, from my fingers. I loosen my grip on him but don’t let go.

“Rage,” he says. “You were born with rage as your anchor. You’ll have to learn to control it in order to use it, and it’ll take some time. But now you know.”

“Rage,” I repeat through numb lips. It feels strange, foreign yet familiar on my tongue. I’ve never considered myself a particularly angry person. Or rather, I’ve never allowed myself to be. No one likes anger in someone else—especially in a woman. It makes them uncomfortable. Defensive. Most people even resent it. Celeste’s death seems to have unlocked something, however—something that has always been inside me but I’ve never acknowledged. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

As if sensing my uncertainty, Sin murmurs, “Rage is an emotion like any other, Vanessa. And just like any other, you can choose to succumb to it or use it to your advantage—embrace it when it serves you, and repress it when it doesn’t.”

Embrace it when it serves you, and repress it when it doesn’t.

The truth of his words wash over me and—and I can do that.

I did do that. Almost. Somewhat. He threw Evie in my face, and I used it to my advantage. I didn’t shift, but it’s closer than I’ve ever gotten before. “What is the deal with you and Evie?” I ask suddenly. “She isn’t your fiancée yet, but it’s already been arranged. You refuse to talk to me in public, but you whisk me into”—I extend my arms around us, knocking over an enormous portrait of a naked woman—“magical storage closets when no one is looking?”

Sin snatches the portrait away before I can straighten it. “Speaking of not looking,” he says swiftly, “don’t make eye contact with this one. She’ll turn you to stone if you do.”

“Maybe pick a safer place for our next secret rendezvous.”

Ignoring me, Sin says, “And yes, the deal with me and Evie is that our parents expect us to marry in the not-so-distant future. We still haven’t made it official, though. I am to propose during the Ascension.”

“Wh-what?” That’s only a few months away. “Why?”

“How should I know? I expect because it’ll be romantic.”

“Liar.”

He flashes another grin, this one sharper than before. Harder. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “She made a blood bargain with Evie’s parents. The Wolf Queen of Asia helped oust a traitor in our midst, and in return, Queen Sybil promised an unbreakable alliance between our continents through their daughter, Evelyn, and… me,” he finishes with a small bow. “There. Satisfied?”

No, I want to answer fiercely. Because I’m not satisfied. Nothing about their relationship is satisfactory—not the way he sits by her in public, and definitely not the way he looks at me in private. I pull my hand away from his. “Do you want to marry her?”

He laughs out loud at that. A harsh, biting sound. “Right, because I’m going to answer a question like that from a Truthseer. It’s not as if the fate of half the world depends on the answer.”

“Who am I going to tell?”

He leans back against the nearest shelf, resting his elbows on it, and contemplates my question. The movement pulls his spandex shirt even tighter across his chest. Mouth suddenly dry, I force myself to meet his eyes instead of tracing the ridges of his stomach. His abs. All six of them. “No, Vanessa, I don’t want to marry Evie, but the court expects it from me. I don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

He shakes his head with another humorless laugh. “Can a Truthseer call their own bullshit, or just other people’s?” Before I can argue, he says flatly, “If I break Queen Sybil’s bargain, she’ll die—and so will a lot of other people. Regardless of our bestowed gifts, alliances like this aren’t taken lightly between territories. To reject Evie would mean war.”

Even without my ability, I can hear the raw truth in his voice. He sounds… pained. No. Resigned. As if he accepted his fate long ago, despite wishing more than anything he could change it. And maybe he’s right. Maybe he doesn’t have a choice. Not with so many lives at stake.

I understand the feeling. Entire continents might not hang in the balance of my decisions, but Celeste does. Her memory. Her death. A lump rises in my throat.

More to distract myself than anything else, I take a step forward. As close to him as I dare. A lie. In this moment, I would risk much more to touch Sin, and I hate myself for it. My hands curl at my sides. “You know I’m a Truthseer. The entire court knows I’m a Truthseer, but I don’t know anything about anyone else.” I pause as I swallow hard. As I stare up at him, torn with indecision. Then—“I don’t know anything about you.”

He regards me intently for a long moment. Then he lifts his hand to tuck a tendril of hair behind my ear. To pluck a lavender bloom from its braid. “What are you asking, Vanessa?”

“Your mother’s power lies in her blood bargains, but what about you? What is your power?”

His gaze drops to the lavender, and he rubs it gently between his thumb and forefinger. Releasing the oil before tucking it into his pocket. “My power is the same as my mother’s.”

Truth.

“Anything else?” he asks darkly.

Something about his voice makes my stomach clench, and I shake my head, still staring up at him. Unable to look away. “Good,” he says.

Then he moves faster than I can react, pushing forward suddenly and crowding me against a wall of shelves. Too close again. I can almost feel the remnants of rain on his lips.

“It’s been torture to be so close to you, Vanessa.” A truth. He sweeps a thumb across my cheek. My wet lashes. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m only sorry for how it happened.” Another truth. Bolder, this time. Deeper. But I can’t focus on the meaning. Or the way the words curl my toes. God, I want to kiss him. And that would be a stupid thing to do. I hear Celeste in my head, her tinkling laughter and her loud pleas: Don’t you want to live a little?

You’re only seventeen once.

But this… I can’t.

Sin’s hands move to my throat next, tracing the faint bruises healing from Katerina’s wicked touch. He’s gentle and he’s warm and he’s protective. More than that, I think, he’s good. Better than the rest of court. Better than even his mother.

And that makes him more dangerous too.

“Sin,” I whisper.

His gaze falls to my lips. “I love hearing you say my name.”

“Sin, this is wrong. You—you can’t be seen with me like this.”

“I know,” he says, but he doesn’t move.

“It’s stupid.”

“I know.”

“It’s dangerous.”

But his thumb returns to my lip. Tracing it, opening it. My tongue flicks out of its own accord, tasting that rain and his salty skin. I hold my breath. His eyes darken. His hold on me turns harder, hotter. He’s going to kiss me. He’s going to kiss me, and I’m going to let him. His lips touch mine, a brief, fiery spark, and then—

The door to the castle swings open, a violent smack as it hits the wall. I push Sin away from me as hard as I can. He stumbles back a step. One measly step. While I’m left to fix my hair, my shirt, my skin. I can’t breathe. Feel as if I’m drowning. We need to leave. Now. Before Evie catches us. Sin is hers. If anyone sees me with him, she’ll become so much worse. It could start a war—

I inhale sharply.

What am I doing?

This—this isn’t me, and when Sin pushes the closet door open in response—gesturing me through it—I flee into the corridor like a bat out of hell. Luckily, Calix is the first to enter the castle—the only one to see us like that. Breathing hard. Disheveled. Eyes filled with wanton need. But he says nothing and simply keeps walking.

21

The lights of our high school cafeteria blind in fluorescent yellows and greens, the squeal of plastic chairs scraping along the tan linoleum floor far louder than any table of students could ever hope to be. Celeste sits beside me, twirling a lock of midnight blue around her finger contemplatively. She gnaws on her lip as she studies the line of boys that weaves out from one of two windows of food options—pizza or nuggets. Of course, the boys always choose pizza.

“What about Tanner?” she says, picking at her nuggets. “Or Tristan? Or Troy?”

I laugh. “You can’t just list every guy with a T name as an option for my prom date.”

“Why not?”

“Because prom dates are supposed to ask us.” I toss a French fry between her wide eyes. “I’ve never spoken to Tristan or Troy, and the last time I talked to Tanner was in the nurse’s office when I bled through my pants. He thought I’d sat on a razor blade.”

“What I’m hearing is that he’s caring,” she says.

“He’s an idiot.”

“He’s hot.” She whips around in her seat, her hair lashing me in the face. With a shove of her tray into the empty seat across from us, she lowers her voice and says, “You can’t be picky forever. Surely there is someone here who has caught your attention.”

I sigh and lean back in my chair. Tug at the purple curls hiding between my brown ones. “Why does it matter?”

“Because…” Celeste closes her eyes as though this admission costs her something. Which is strange—I furrow my brows—she’s never cared about sharing anything deep or real with me before. She usually relishes it. “Because I don’t want to go to prom alone. That’s too much pressure.”

I glance up at the ceiling. Green lights. Green. No. That’s not right. Our high school lighting was never anything but dreadfully milky. So cool toned and bright that it felt like the reflection of the sun on the white-tipped crest of a wave. Something is wrong here, but I’m… I’m not sure what that is.

Celeste tugs on my lavender sleeve. “Vanessa, come on. Look around. Pick someone.”

I’m still staring at the lights, however. At the red and silver paint on the walls that should be blue and white. Everything is just slightly wrong. I tear my gaze away—back toward the crowd of people. I don’t recognize a single one. Blurred faces that hold no meaning or memories.

And then there’s him.

My heart stops. My breath sputters from my lips.

Sinclair Severi. Standing in my high school. Beautiful and lethal as ever. He leans against the wall, thrusting a hand through his lush blond hair. We lock eyes across the room, and my cheeks flush. I almost taste him. Salty, sweet. Lingering droplets of rain and sweat. Oh god. Why is he here? How?

It doesn’t make sense. Sin was never at my school. I only met him when…

When…

“Him?” Celeste asks. “Please tell me it’s him. He’s so mega-hot.”

The bile in my stomach curdles. “Celeste, no.” I reach out and grab her hand, but it’s cold to the touch. Icy. And the table before us—it vanishes into thin air. Celeste doesn’t notice, though. She cackles at my trembling limbs, at my startled expression.

“Will you relax? If you like him and he likes you, go get your man. Who am I to stop you from true love?” She wags her eyebrows, but when I don’t respond—when I don’t smile—she scoffs. “You can’t be miserable forever, Vanessa. At some point, you’ll need to choose happiness.”

I can’t breathe. My lungs ache. A sob lodges into my throat.

“You’ll need to move on,” Celeste says.

I shut my eyes, however, because this isn’t real. It’s not real. It’s another dream. Another nightmare. And I should’ve known. When I dream, Celeste isn’t dead, and I am not a monster.

Wake up wake up wake—

I bolt upright. Out of sleep and back into my room at the castle. My television plays its usual soundtrack of soft white noise, illuminating the cozy blankets piled on the floor around my feet.

Rolling onto my side, I dry heave. It felt so real. Sitting there at school and talking to Celeste. Tears burn my eyes. But it wasn’t real. She’s gone. And I—I remain.

I ball my hands into fists, clenching my eyes shut tight and trapping the tears until they dry. If I owe Celeste anything, it’s this. I will not cry. Not anymore. Not until I’ve done something to earn them.

It’s been weeks now. Weeks of waking up, shuffling to class after class, getting my ass handed to me by any number of werewolf bastards, and then hiding in my room after dark. Afraid to sleep. Afraid to dream. I’m sick of it. Nausea roils. Bile stings my tongue and lips. I swallow it with a hard gulp.

The moment Sin and I shared—it was foolish. Butterfly inducing, heart-stopping, and stupid. And seeing him there, in some strange, wrong version of my old school with Celeste drooling at his innate beauty and shoving me toward him, only serves to remind me how awful I’ve been. Maybe later, I can worry about boys. About Sin and whatever kind of future we could possibly share when he’s meant to propose to the girl who hates me most in this world and I’ve sworn to kill a member of his future pack.

Yes, I think, I’ll move on when I’ve unburied the loss of my friend. When I’ve dug Celeste from that fake grave they shoved her in and righted her memory. She did not die in some car accident near the beach. She died between the jaws of a monster. No one will stop me from proving it and avenging her death. No one.

I swallow. My breaths shudder out from my lips, heavy and heated. But at least I can breathe again. Two claws rip from my fingers, followed quickly by a third, but the pain only anchors me, reminding me why I’m here.

I don’t deserve to be happy when I couldn’t save my best friend. I don’t deserve anything but nightmares and darkness and death.

Nearby, something cracks. It sounds like lightning striking a transformer. I glance up. In the corner of my room, the black mirror on my wall shakes. Rattles. And shatters. Glass explodes outward, slicing my face and hands before I can protect myself. I stifle a scream, lurching to the far side of the room, scrambling on the pile of blankets and tripping over my limbs. Tripping over broken glass.

Pain splits my skin in a dozen places, and blood oozes. I struggle to breathe.

What… how… why…

I glance back, my hands raised, shaking, and impaled. Behind the mirror, written in scarlet, are five jagged letters.

LEAVE

But by the time I pull out the glass embedded in my flesh, by the time my skin heals and the pain vanishes, the message has disappeared. And the mirror—it fixes itself. As if it’d never broken at all. I look up and it shimmers, as perfect and reflective as always.

There is no erasing the scent of my blood, however, or the faint echo of screams that trails into my room from somewhere below. It pierces my ears like a countdown. My days here are numbered if I can’t figure out who did this to Celeste—if I can’t figure out who might do the same to me. Wiping my newly restored hands on my clothes, I stumble to my feet and cross the room. As far from that mirror as I can possibly get.

My investigation continues now.

22

I wait in the shadows of my doorway before the sun has risen and observe the other Alphas as they leave for breakfast. Eric first, four doors down from me. Then a man I’ve never seen before who carries himself like a diplomat, six doors away from my own. And, finally, Evie. She steps into the hallway, dressed in a silky and restrictive emerald gown, and I dart back into my room before she can spot me. Before she can know I was watching.

Two doors. Only two doors separate Evie and me.

If she was stealthy, if she waited for me to fall asleep before creeping inside, it’s more than possible she’s behind the threats and sabotage. Her or her brother. But right now, I’m focused on Evie. I’m thinking about her claws on Celeste’s cheek, her venomous insults in our classes.

Yes, the others hate me, but Evie is the one who seems to want me dead.

Perhaps Evie was right, and you’re meant to be fertilizer on our lawn.

My hands tremble as though I never peeled the glass from my flesh, and the recent scent of blood fills my nose. I change into modern combat clothes. Spandex leggings and a tight shirt. Better for moving around, for sneaking. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I watched Celeste thieve enough lip glosses to know that ultimate discretion and silence is best. I need to act normal, and I need to be fast.

Breakfast starts in ten minutes, but I can afford to be late. Aside from not being served food, tardiness at mealtimes demands no harsher punishments. And by the time the meal finishes, we will attend our classes, and Evie should be, hypothetically speaking, none the wiser. Of course, that’s if all this goes perfectly and I don’t screw it up.

I slip out of my room and count each step—each breath—as I reach her door. I don’t even make it to twenty before I’m in front of it. My body shudders with anticipation.

You’re allowing your emotions to control you.

I won’t today. Not anymore.

Embrace it when it serves you, and repress it when it doesn’t.

I grab the handle to her door, banishing the fear, the anguish, even the rage by focusing on the icy feel of bronze against my palm. It turns easily. Unlocked. I stifle a smile, forcing myself to exhale through a swell of enthusiasm. Werewolf emotions burn hotter than mortal emotions, and joy may as well be a lit firework contained between my ribs. I bite my lip. Inhale. Exhale again. Begin to open the door—

“You,” someone says abruptly. “What are you doing?”

Fuck.

My stomach plummets, and I squeeze my eyes shut. That firework dies amidst a flood of cold dread. “I… um…”

Shit. I can’t explain myself. Not without being accused of treason. Evie is a princess, and even if she weren’t, I am an outsider. I am an outsider attempting to break into her room. Shit shit shit. I force myself to pivot, face the stranger, and—I recognize him instantly. “Anthony,” I whisper, the name scrambling up from my subconscious, almost unbidden.

The boy in a dusty brown apron blinks at me. Golden eyes burn bright on his pallid face, the same as they did when he tried to compel me in the throne room right after my initial transformation.

Stand, he’d commanded. Stand up now.

The memory of the queen’s compulsion must hit him then, because he slides backward a step, holding a rag and bucket between trembling hands. “I… I did not mean to… that is, I hope I did not offend you, Miss Hart.” His gaze drops to his worn boots. “It was not my choice to try and command you.”

I raise a hand to comfort him, but he flinches away from it, burrowing within the thick locks of his reddish-brown hair. “I know,” I say. “It’s all right.”

“I was… I was sent to clean Evie’s room,” he murmurs, and I can’t get over how young he sounds. A child in a uniform two sizes too big. My stomach churns. Adrenaline sizzles through me. It would be easy to compel him. I want to compel him. Another burst of emotions frightens me—a thirst for control. It would be easy, I think, feeling more wolf than girl, to compel him into helping me.

Anthony picks at his rag, ripping bits of cloth from the hem with tiny slivers of claws. He can’t even look at me, as though the mere sight of my strange purple gaze threatens to undo him. It can undo him.

“I am sorry,” he says, repeating his intentions though they were clear enough the first time. And then he does look up, meeting my gaze with his own. A cloud of rusty fear billows off him, and I realize—he expects me to punish him.

That is how the Wolf Queen’s Court works.

The strong control the weak, and Anthony is below me in both class and wolf hierarchy.

My lip curls. “Get out of here,” I snap. “Clean another room. Don’t tell anyone you saw me, and I won’t tell anyone about this interaction.”

Anthony nods once, dropping into a semibow, before simpering off down the hall first and then the stairs. I watch him retreat with bile choking my breaths. I did not compel him. I couldn’t. I may be a monster, but I will not act like one. Not to an innocent. I think of the maid Lord Allard compelled, then Oona, and shut my eyes as I throw myself inside Evie’s room, my chest rising and falling with renewed tension. I didn’t need to compel his silence anyway; fear is enough. More than enough.

The Wolf Queen’s Court is deadly, and right now I am just another pawn in its vicious game.

But not for much longer.

Closing the door swiftly behind me, I catch my breath and lean against an elaborate dresser carved to appear as an old ship. I may have minutes to search Evie’s possessions. Minutes before someone else appears. I need to be gone before that happens—if it happens. I hope it won’t.

For now, I turn to the dresser, reaching for a drawer. Everything in Evie’s room appears nautical and antique. A wooden captain’s wheel mounted on the wall, oceanic nets hanging from corner to corner and tangled with starfish and seashells, and maps—more maps than I’ve ever seen plastered on every surface. Some of the Americas, some of Asia, and a sliver of the Realm of Superiority—the part only accessible directly outside Castle Severi—marked with slender crosses of indigo ink. As if she’s tracking the places she’s been or the places she longs to go.

And atop the dresser—of all things for her to have framed inside a gilded shell—is a moving picture of Nettie. Blonde hair blows around her cherubic face as Antionette laughs. I trace it with my fingertips. My heart pangs. I have—I had—so many videos like that of Celeste. Happy memories. The best memories.

And so, in the middle of Evelyn Lee’s room, even after almost being caught once, I hesitate.

Sympathy sinks like a rock to the bottom of my roiling gut. How could a girl with so much love in her heart also loathe me so greatly? Unless I’ve misinterpreted something. Maybe… maybe she doesn’t hate me at all. Maybe she isn’t yet a product of this court, and instead she’s just a mean girl like in those videos we used to watch at school about bullies. Perhaps all she needs is a hug and… and friendship.

I tiptoe away from the dresser, leaving her knickknacks undisturbed, and approach a driftwood shelf of glass flasks and labeled tinctures. A few bubble in their bottles, while most remain shimmering and black as night. I read the labels quickly.

Wolfsbane Willow Blend. Hemlock Bane. Queen Anne’s Lace Lotion. Zoanthid Coral & Peony Brew.

Beside each title, a rating of deadliness flickers to life as I touch them, the white tags changing to devilish red and darkest ebony. A few of the bottles even shake and whistle. But I don’t need the warnings—I’ve learned enough in lessons to note that these bottles contain the deadliest poisons known to humans and werewolves alike. Though, only the wolfsbane blend would have any lasting effect on us. I move away, silencing them immediately.

Alchemy.

The magical manipulation and creation of inhuman materials and enchantments.

It has to be—this gift is the most powerful I’ve yet to witness in all of court, and Evie… She’s the best in our Alchemical Designs class. Although there, we brew sleeping draughts and make wine from grape seeds and faerie fruit. Nothing so complex, and nothing so deadly as these. I glance overhead, just in time to drop to the floor and roll out of the way of a cursed axe. The blade swings down from the ceiling, straight at me, somehow detecting that I’m a traitor. Or perhaps just detecting that I’m not Evie herself.

Of course her door was unlocked—she’s left her room booby trapped. But that’s not evidence. Even the poisonous concoctions aren’t reason to convict her. I crawl across the floor, low enough that the enchanted axe stops aiming for my head, returning to its previous path of patrolling across the ceiling, and swallow the anger bubbling inside my chest.

Maybe Evie feels the same uncontrollable, horrid rage, and that’s why the fight with Celeste escalated to her death and my transformation. It would even explain why Evie hates me so much. Because I could be the last piece remaining to the puzzle she wants buried.

But I can’t find evidence for that. I can’t find evidence of anything. I look under her bed, roam my gaze over her open wardrobe. There are jewels, and wings fluttering on the backs of beautiful gowns, and more pictures of Nettie framed above her vanity, but it’s not evidence. There is nothing from the beach. No threatening letters or bombs. A low growl rumbles in my throat, and the axe freezes in midair, then angles itself slightly toward me. I glare at it. Only once I’m good and frozen and silent does it resume its guarding waltz from wall to wall.

I need to leave.

This idea was ridiculous. I’m not getting anywhere, and Anthony could have alerted the whole castle to my crime by now. I spin around on my belly for the door—but my gaze snags on that vanity again. On a bottle of congealed scarlet in front of it.

It would almost resemble a liquor bottle if I hadn’t seen the contents before. Glancing briefly at the axe, I begin to army crawl toward it. Slowly. Surely. And when the axe is floating in the opposite direction, I snag the bottle and turn it over in my hand. Though the glass remains steady and firm outside, the contents inside slosh and release a gory burst of perfume.

It smells like blood.

I swallow hard, dripping a single bead of red onto my finger.

This could doom me, or confirm my every fear. But nothing happens.

It continues streaming down, down, as any other liquid would. No. No no no. It has to be evidence. This has to be proof. I watch the droplet slide over my wrist, and—my heart leaps into my throat. It sinks into my skin. And vanishes.

Holy shit.

I stare at the bottle, remembering those words that’d been scrawled on me: GET OUT BITCH. It was Evie. She’d done it. This is her fault. The threats, the beach… It all points to Celeste’s death.

Claws explode from my hands. The bottle rolls from my grasp, and the axe spots it—swoops down to shatter the glass. I don’t care. Not about the axe or Evie’s stupid unfilled maps or even her friendship with Nettie. Rage whips through me, enthralling and vicious as always, but this time—this time I don’t stop it.

I will wait here for her to return, and then I will pounce. I will fight. Even if I lose, I will make her bleed. I know I can make her bleed. That’s all I want right now. To make her hurt. To make her pay.

But right as I stand, ready to rip the axe from the air and snap it over my knee, someone yanks open the door and grabs me by my shoulders, hauling me out into the hall.

Evie.

My fangs descend.

Evie.

I don’t think; I react. That uncontrollable rage explodes inside me, and I can’t control it. I don’t want to control it. Snarling, I snap my teeth at whatever body part I can. There’s a low, masculine hiss, and then I’m thrown into an adjacent room. Tossed onto the ground. The door slams shut, and Calix steps in front of it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he growls, clutching his shoulder. Blood seeps between his fingers from where I bit him, but that’s less surprising than the sight of his bare chest. The towel wrapped around his waist. The dampness of a bath clinging to his skin, and a scar on his side that only serves to further emphasize his muscles. Eight abs, more defined than any I’ve seen before. I seethe on his charcoal-gray rug, forcing my gaze back to his face.

“You bit me,” he says.

I lick my fangs, willing to bite him again.

“Hart. Snap out of it.”

But rage has consumed me. I am no longer myself. I don’t remember my own name, let alone that I should be frightened of this version of me.

“I. Can’t.”

I climb onto my knees. My breath throttles me until my lungs feel like bombs set to detonate. My knuckles break—snap. And my head… It pounds. I want to kill Evie. I must kill Evie. I shut my eyes. The smallest, quietest part of my brain, the part that remains human, begs me to stop. I’ll get myself hung. I’ll miss any chance I have at revenge if I lose it here. In front of Calix. This isn’t me. I am better than this. But—I’m not. I am rage. I am vengeance. I want Evie to bleed.

Calix drops into a crouch beside me, golden gaze burning as he studies me. I can’t meet his eyes. I can hardly breathe. My bones crunch. I cry out from the brute force of unimaginable pain and hunch over, pressing my twisting palms to the floor.

Calix sets a hand on my back. “Let it out,” he says. “You’re past the point of containing the wolf.”

“No.” No no no. Fire blisters my veins. Boils my blood. “I c-can’t.…”

“Have you fully transformed since the Drowning?”

I shake my head. I’ve managed to avoid it for weeks now. Every single time we’re expected to transform, I’ve slipped away and escaped. I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to be a monster.

Calix curses. “You need to. All your emotions are building and building, and if you don’t release them, you’ll shatter. You will implode.” He leans closer. “It’s like steam, Hart. You have to release it.”

“I want to kill,” I gasp.

My spine splits. My skin starts to flay. A sob rips from my throat. It feels like death. Like hell.

No no no no no no.

“I know you do,” he says, and his voice sounds sad. “But I’ll stop you before you can. That’s my job.”

My neck snaps up, and I look at him with that red haze clouding his perfect, bare skin. “You don’t even spar.”

His lips twitch in an almost smile. “That you’ve seen.”

I shred the rug with ten claws, grappling for restraint with a soft whine. He understands immediately. “I can take you, Hart. Change. I won’t let you out of this room.”

I can’t contain it anymore. The anguish, the pain, the fury—it bursts from me like a geyser. I explode into a wolf, and Calix does the same. Though his transformation is faster, and he doesn’t scream.

Any human reservations I had before fall from me instantly.

Calix blocks the doorway, nearly the height of the door and double the width of it, and I growl at him, still tasting his blood on my tongue, while his hackles rise to meet the sound. He shakes his midnight fur. His lips curl into a morbid grin. His body language challenges, Try me.

I tilt my head. Observing. Calix is bigger than me. Wider. But his stance is wider too, and heavy things are often slower. I’ll be quick. I won’t fight fair. I launch myself at him with a sudden surge of movement. If I blow through him, or if I trick him into moving from the door, I can get to Evelyn.

I can rend her head from her neck.

Calix doesn’t move. He also doesn’t react to the collision of fangs and bones. A wall of adamant, he stands perfectly still with a low, bloodcurdling snarl even as I swipe at him. As I draw blood. Move. I throw myself into his side. Hit him like a sack of bricks. Just move.

But he won’t. He won’t even buckle.

It’s my turn to snarl. I snap at his wolfish neck with my fangs in warning, and he only gazes at me. Through me. His eyes flash gold. And then—red. Only for a moment. Only for long enough that I lose my breath, my footing, and stumble a step.

Fuck.

I right myself, but it’s too late. He’s too cold and calculated to miss the blunder. With an easy pounce of his monstrous body, he slams me to the ground. Gold eyes now. Still gold. He leaps atop me, pressing me harder into the floor.

I stare up at him, and he glares back. Immovable. Unfazed.

I don’t know how long we remain like that. Him baring down on me, holding me in place even as I buck and scratch. Riding out the storm of my emotions as they rattle us both. But after minutes—or maybe hours—the emotions begin to ebb and flow. Like the tides of the beach, they retreat. And it’s nice. Peaceful even. My claws retract.

But this isn’t the smoldering, enraged explosion of transforming into the wolf. It’s a slow melting. A painful restoration. I cry out—a howl into a shriek—and Calix throws himself off me. Grabbing his bedding with his fangs, he tosses a thin sheet over me as my body shudders back into its bare, human form. The remnants of my combat clothes litter the ground around us.

God. I shiver beneath the thin sheet and grab my aching skull as the remainders of my rage subside. I’m an idiot.

Calix changes in a split second without even a groan, and I hear the rustling of pants and a shirt. I try so very hard not to remember what his body looked like when I’d come in. When I’d bitten him. What have I done? “Calix—”

“Don’t,” he says, sounding gruff as ever. “Not transforming was stupid of you.”

“I didn’t know that; no one told me. But—”

“We don’t need to discuss this further.”

I peek out from under the sheet. He buttons his shirt slowly, fingers deft as they crest over his abs and up to his chest. Sinclair might be an angel, but Calix is a devil. A brutal, handsome beast. The muscles in his back ripple with his every movement. He holds my fate in his hands, and he knows it. I’m not above begging. For Celeste, I would get on my knees and sob.

“Evie has been threatening me,” I blurt out. “I found proof in her room. She exploded glass on me this morning.”

“You healed,” he says, sounding uncaring as ever. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, but what if next time I don’t?”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, and silence itches like a rash. “Evelyn Lee is the future queen of this court and a princess in her own right. If we want proof of her wrongdoings, it will have to be concrete and undeniable. You are nobody, Hart.”

The truth behind his words lessens their sting, but the way he says them… As if he’s sizing me up, as if I’m the threat here and she isn’t, worries me. “Are you going to tell them?” I whisper. “The rest of court? The… the prince?”

Oh god. After the moment Sin and I shared—however wrong it was—I can’t bear to think he’ll see me like this. Can’t bear to imagine him watching me gutted.

Calix’s brows furrow. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

Please. Please don’t turn me in, I think. He speaks before I can beg. “No. I won’t tell them. This time.”

He glances at me, running a hand through his hair, and though his predatory nature has vanished, that strength remains in his coiled muscles, in the tension of his jaw. I think back to that moment in the hallway again, with him and Sin. With the people whispering about us both and the mystery of his lineage forever lingering in the air. The maids avoid him. People seem frightened of him. But why?

“Wh-who are you, Calix?” I manage to ask, rising onto my feet with his sheet wrapped around me. “Who are you really?”

I don’t know if he answers because he wants to shut me up, or because he’s finally ready to explain. But he leans against his door and says, “I am Calix Severi, son of Cora Severi, Sybil’s sister and blood traitor to the court.”

Blood traitor. Blood traitor.

“Wh—”

“You remember the laws of our court?” he asks and waits for me to list them. Once I do, he nods. “My mother broke every single one. She fell in love—and exposed our court—to a human. She bit him in order to turn him without permission. And… when she was caught…” His gaze drops. Pain narrows his eyes. “She killed everyone she could reach. Friends. Werewolves. Cora Severi was the ultimate traitor. And—she was my mother. Her human lover was my father.”

Oh.

I… I don’t know what to say, and suddenly it’s as if I’m back in my high school, standing in front of my English class and trying to deliver a soliloquy. I can’t remember words. I can’t think. “Calix, I’m… I’m so sorry.”

He scoffs, plunging a hand into one of his drawers and pulling out a huge black shirt. “Don’t be. She deserved what she got.” He hands me the clothing and turns around, and I’m left to assume that I should wear it. So I do. Only once I’m clothed—when the rest of me is hidden under his shirt—do I clear my throat.

“What was her punishment?”

“Are you dressed?”

“Yes.”

Calix turns again, and his gaze lingers for a second too long on my bare legs. I cross my arms, and he blinks rapidly, as though remembering himself. “They stripped her of any remaining titles and banished her. Made her a Lone Wolf,” he says. “She was left to die, but before she could, she had me. Queen Sybil took me in as a guard to her son. Protector of the crown prince—it’s my life duty to keep Sinclair safe. A light punishment for my mother’s crimes.”

Sin’s guard. A punishment. I hate his honesty now. That he believes what he’s saying. “You’re not your mother, Calix.”

“No. I’m not.” He steps toward me. “Because I work every day to do the right thing. I obey orders. I follow the law. I take this court seriously, and so should you. You’re at two strikes. You almost lost it in Combat, and you lost it here.” That predatory gaze scorches through mine. “If it happens again, if you can’t control your rage, I’ll take you out. No questions asked. You’re a threat, Vanessa, and my job is to dispose of threats.”

The statement flickers in my belly, hot and violent, even as his honesty soothes my chest. Heat ripples off him. Danger. “O-okay,” I stutter. “Two strikes.”

He ruffles his black hair, and an uncomfortable silence stretches between us. Perhaps it’s because he’s inches away from me, and the only thing on my body is his shirt. Or perhaps it’s because he could still change his mind. He could turn me in right now and watch me flayed like the duke and duchess Sin told me about.

Their tongues ripped out, their hands torn off, and their skin peeled from their bones.

I wonder which is worse. That punishment or banishment. Wonder still which one I’ll receive when all is said and done.

23

Thankfully, Calix doesn’t turn me in, going so far as to scrub Evie’s room clean with Oona so that Evie doesn’t discover my subterfuge.

But Oona, with her lovely brown eyes so close in color to Celeste’s, isn’t prepared to remain silent about my terrible attempt at espionage. After dinner the next night, she throws a leather-bound notebook onto the ground where my pillows and blankets form a mound of minor comfort.

“If you’re going to run amok in this castle, at least be clever about it.” Gentler, she places a peacock quill and jar of purple ink beside the journal.

Standing in front of the mirror, trying desperately to take off the hideous, dandelion-yellow gown she brought me earlier, I glance between her and her gift. “What’s that for?”

“Oh, I wonder. Could it be that you were caught snooping around Evelyn Lee’s room? I spent an hour cleaning up her floor with Lord Severi, and you’re lucky we didn’t all get caught—”

“I know,” I say quickly. “I’m sorry. I haven’t… I haven’t been very careful.”

“Girl, you might be the most indelicate creature I’ve ever seen. Stumbling around, causing trouble… You’re going to get yourself killed.” She juts a finger at the notebook. “If you’re so keen on investigating, maybe try taking notes first. Learn about—understand—this court. Perhaps slow down on the outright treason.”

Treason. Hearing the word causes my heart to stutter. I turn, smoothing the misshapen lumps of the tragic dress with sweaty palms. “Did Anthony say anything to anyone? I saw him in the hall just before I went inside.”

She narrows her eyes. “You are so lucky to be alive.”

“Yes or no would suffice, Oona.”

She huffs and approaches, pulling pins from my hair without a care for my grunts and groans of pain. I originally let her twist it into an elaborate braid because I thought it would bring her some modicum of joy, but she hasn’t spoken to me since yesterday. Not beyond a few grunts and murmurs. Until now. “What would suffice is you not tempting divinity on the daily. No, Anthony did not speak a word of your encounter.” She huffs again. “You make my job very difficult, Vanessa. Very difficult indeed.”

“You’re not the first to say that.”

You’re a threat, Vanessa, and my job is to dispose of threats.

I shake off Calix’s words, but it’s the wrong moment. A pin gets lodged in a knot, and Oona ruthlessly rips both from my scalp. “Then you might do well to listen,” she snaps. “I cannot protect you forever.”

Not the first I’ve heard that either. I sigh, thinking of Sin. “Why are you protecting me at all?”

“I already told you.” She sniffs, freeing my hair before running her fingers through it. Brown and purple locks spring into wavy tendrils. “There. This is why I offer to braid your hair.”

I twirl a wave of purple around my finger, and the hole in my heart that misses Celeste grows two sizes bigger. She loved my hair curly too. She said it made me look witchy and wild. I breathe through the sudden torrent of grief. Moments like these are the worst, the little daily reminders of Celeste. Of what we shared. Of what I lost. It almost feels like waking from a dream and reaching for invisible memories that never existed at all. I have started to forget the sound of her voice. I have started to forget so much.

“Thank you,” I murmur quietly.

Oona nods, her gaze softening as if she can scent my sadness. “Now, about that dress—”

I glance down at myself. “It… wasn’t exactly my best look.”

“Dearie, I think we can say for certain that it is, in fact, your worst look.” She gestures behind us with a flick of her wrist. “I brought you others, however. You may wear them at your discretion, or you can appear as a wilting daisy forever. It’s your choice, though we’ve reached a time when you really need to make your choices count.”

“New dresses?” I ask, making my way to the ornate, gothic wardrobe. Bigger than the last, roses twine up the edges, while moons shimmer, shifting from phase to phase with bright white light along the handles. But when I open the double doors, I don’t see new dresses. I see old ones.

Red ones.

My stomach churns. I slam the doors shut.

“The Wolf Queen is stubborn. She will not commission new gowns because these are the ones her Weavers made for you at her behest.” Oona tucks her orange hair behind her ears, holding the pieces in place with my pins. “You have been here for long enough, Vanessa.” She points to the journal. “You must decide whether you will cooperate or flee.”

I laugh, the sound as hollow as I feel. “But I can’t leave.”

“You can,” Oona says, “but it will end in misery and death. So too will your time here, however, if you do not adapt. But there is another path you have yet to contemplate—because,” she adds, “if nothing else, you are a stubborn girl.”

Leaning against the wardrobe, I cross my arms and say, “So? What is this magical, miracle path?”

She points a pin at me. “You cooperate, Vanessa Hart. You wear the Wolf Queen’s dresses; you participate in your classes. You learn. You become better. Faster. Stronger.”

I throw my hands in the air. “As if I’m not trying.”

“You are not trying. You are scheming and thieving.”

Footsteps creep down the hall, and I glance at them. Oona reacts faster. She races to my side and presses a finger to my lips. We wait for the noise to subside, my heart in my throat while her pulse beats hard and fast in my ears.

When the footsteps are gone, she takes my hand and says, “How much do you know of the Ascension Rite?”

“Not much—the instructors have been so busy explaining the basics, they haven’t really covered the rite yet.”

Her eyes flutter closed, and she heaves out a great sigh. “Sit, girl. On your bed.” I don’t argue. Not with Oona, when she’s my greatest friend in this court.

“The Ascension Rite occurs every decade within the nobility of the Seven Courts. The teenage werewolves train and learn together, and though the host location changes with each rite, the nobility’s packs are chosen for the entirety of our world. Sometimes, multiple princes and/or princesses begin alliances across continents. It’s rare, but some Ascension Rites have even seen four or five future Wolf Regents choosing their immediate packs.

“Prince Sinclair won’t simply choose his own at random; he will hand select them. His First General. His mate—our future queen. Then he and Evie will choose three or four others, depending on what they envision for their inner circle. From the moment the Ascension is completed, his pack is formed, and the members’ souls will entangle for eternity. They will continue to train and learn and grow together until they become a unit stronger than any other.”

I shake my head in confusion, wishing I were holding that journal so I could take notes. “What… what happens if someone isn’t picked?”

What’s going to happen to me?

“Royals form their own packs—Eric Lee is expected to take over for the King and Queen of the Asian Court—while others might instead assume the roles bestowed onto them by their parents. They won’t choose packs during the Ascension. They will simply swear their allegiance to the Seven Courts and come into their full power, then step aside. By giving them less time with their future pack, their strength is contained and thus below the regents’, as the Seven Courts’ hierarchy dictates. The regents must remain strongest of all. But others… They may step down from their ranking and descend to a lower position if they wish. Portia Montgomery has been very vocal since her girlhood that she wishes to be a Delta, and if the princes and princess don’t choose her for their respective packs—their inner circles, if you will—she could very well move home and join a lesser pack that has already formed.”

My brows furrow. “Why?”

“The pressure and violence of a high-ranking position is not for everyone.”

Well, that’s true. But—“What about me?”

“Prince Sinclair Severi could pick you. The queen certainly expects him to. You are special, Vanessa, and no one quite knows what your power entails. Even the Oracle hasn’t been able to conjure a true guess. But you are a fool if you believe that absolves you from this court’s social niceties. A social pariah failing her lessons, unable to make more than one friend or even control her own emotions. You’re reckless. You’re a liability. The prince cannot allow that into his inner circle—even for a wolf with purple eyes.”

A wolf with purple eyes.

The words altogether strike a match inside my chest, until my every organ feels aflame, and I—I can’t breathe. Social pariah. Reckless. Liability. They’re bad enough. I am bad enough without also being… something else. Something I don’t understand. And no matter how many books I read, or how many times I ask Instructor Alvarez if purple eyes have been recorded anywhere in the history of werewolves, there are no answers. I am still a mystery. But I push it down. I have to.

It doesn’t matter what color my eyes are if they are worn by a corpse.

“If no one chooses me—”

“Yes,” she says, confirming my every fear. “You will become a Lone Wolf. If you cannot help the queen and her court, she will make certain you are cast out. She will not let an unknown power slip into anyone else’s hands. You must be chosen. If not by the prince, then by Eric when his parents are present and here to protect you.”

“Eric will never pick me. He hates me. His sister wants me dead.”

“I know.” Oona cups my cheeks, her brown eyes warm and kind and everything I don’t deserve in this moment. “I know.”

Sin, then.

Sin is my only option.

But who would he replace out of his pack? And for me? He won’t speak to me in classes. He won’t be seen with me in public. Oh god. I’d known… all this time, I realized that Sin couldn’t associate with me, but I hadn’t thought about what the consequences would mean for my future. I—I hadn’t even thought about my future at all.

Where do I go after this? After I expose the murderer, the werewolves who ruined my life? If Sin doesn’t choose me, I’ll have… I’ll be… nothing. No—worse—I’ll be dead.

“Vanessa, please,” Oona murmurs. “You must focus. You must try.”

I glance at her, at the round Cupid’s bow of her lips. The freckles dusting her nose and cheeks and forehead. She’s the only piece of home I feel I have left.

“I wanted to be a marine biologist,” I admit softly, though the dream sounds ridiculous in this room. In this castle. Shared as a secret between two werewolves while the snakes on the stained-glass window slither across a garden of roses and stars twinkle and dart across my mirror. “I always liked science. Facts and figures can be challenged. Hypotheses can be questioned. But the truth will always out with them. It’s like math with more freedom, and the beach… It was my home away from home. Celeste and I used to spend every summer on our backs in the sand.” I swallow my tears, smothering my sadness with a cough. “I don’t want to be this.”

“You don’t have to be—that is what I’m telling you. Your future can be whatever you make it once you’ve finished the Ascension Rite.” She cups my chin with a delicate touch. “So long as you serve the prince, you can waste your days away patrolling the beach or studying alchemy with Instructor Bhat. You can create potions or hypothesize about the disappearance of faeries or chart the stars. The world is yours, Vanessa. Even as a werewolf.”

“But my home, my dad—”

“Do you think he will not be welcomed to the castle if his daughter is the king’s third-or fourth-or fifth-in-command?”

My heart begins pounding again, but it’s different this time. It feels like a fluttering of wings. A candle blown out atop a mud pie.

“And Evie?”

“She will not ascend to the throne for years. You have time before her coronation. And if you become part of her pack, she will come to trust you. The point of forming packs this young in life is to establish those bonds and build your strength.”

Am I just supposed to pretend she didn’t murder my best friend? I want to ask. But I don’t. My future is tied to the very woman who ruined my past.

I gnaw on my lip until Oona flicks me on the nose.

“It… it just sounds too good to be true.”

She huffs. “It’s not. It’s merely the first you’ve been able to hope in weeks. The Ascension Rite will happen, regardless of your decisions. The most powerful pack in the world will be formed. You can make history or become history. It’s simple as that.”

It is, and it isn’t.

Every part of my brain doesn’t care about this court or werewolf laws. It only cares about my past and what I’ve lost. But… I don’t want to die. I can admit that much.

Oona slides away from the bed with a bow of her head. “I will give you the space and time to think.” She gestures to the journal on the ground. “In the meantime, collect your thoughts. Write what you need to remember. Erase what you don’t.”

“Thank you, Oona.” I move off the bed and pick up the notebook. On the cover, a VH is engraved in beautiful calligraphy, adorned with roses and vines. “For the gift, and for not chasing me out when I almost burned us to the ground.”

She pauses at the doorway, her gaze softening so much that she almost looks younger than me. “I am a maid to many in this castle. None of them maintain the heart that you do. Don’t lose that, Vanessa, regardless of your choice.” The scent of salty tears and cinnamon drifts from her person. It smells like sadness. “You… you are a good friend.”

With that, she leaves, and I hide the journal under my mattress, trying desperately not to cry.

I still hate the color red.

Even as I step into the lush, cascading gown of scarlet and black silk, I can hardly stand to look at it. But Oona was right. And after another night of tossing and turning, I realize I do have a choice here. I can embed myself in this court enough that I can uncover the murderer and find closure. I don’t need to die at the end of this story. I just need Evie to be brought to justice.

Queen Sybil chased out her own sister in the name of the law—that’s what Calix implied. She would chase Evie out too, then.

I need to find proof and establish loyalty, and in order to do that, I need to become part of this court. I need Sin to trust me. I need Calix to stop watching me. And, more than anything, I need to become a force to be reckoned with. So I pull up the new dress to my chest and hold it in place, waiting.

Oona left fifteen minutes ago after brushing through my thick waves. Breakfast started ten minutes ago. I suck in a breath and wait some more.

I know it makes me evil and wretched and reprehensible—but I also know he’ll come. I hope he’ll always come. I have two people in this court whom I can trust. Oona—and the boy knocking on my door.

Get it together. You can do this.

“C-come in,” I call, my voice far shriller than I’d like.

Not my best work.

Clearing my throat, I try to deepen it to a seductive lilt. “Please.”

“Sounds like a damsel needs saving,” Sin says, cracking open my door. He stills instantly at the sight of me. Slightly disheveled, the sultry, sheer gown sliding precariously low on my cleavage, with rumpled stockings visible through the high slit of the dress.

Unfortunately, he’s not alone.

Shit.

I did not account for his protector. Of course Calix would be suspicious of me after everything that happened. Of course he’d come with Sin to check on my tardiness. I should have planned for this, but I’ve been so anxious that my brain is really only running at half capacity.

Sin doesn’t stop staring, and it’s oddly Calix who pushes into the room first. “You’re late,” he declares with palpable apathy. I glare at him. My confidence falters even further. Thankfully, Sin follows and immediately comes to my aid.

“Bodice problems?” he asks, tone deep but steady.

I nod—try to nod, but it comes out jerky and awkward. “Queen Sybil has… chosen the most complicated dress in existence for me.”

Sin tugs on the first row of ribbon, so hard I lose whatever bit of my breath remains. “Let’s not discuss her when you look like this, Vanessa.”

Calix taps his foot impatiently on the floor. Sin ignores it. His fingers tickle the bare of my back. Heat pools low in my stomach from his touch, and I arch into it, surprised by my body’s immediate reaction to his nearness. All the tension left unresolved from our time in his secret alcove has returned, tripled, and I can’t think with the sound of his heart beating against me. His hands, rough with calluses and hard against my skin, drag down my spine. I shiver from the sudden jolt of pleasure.

Though Calix ruins that too.

“You’re late,” he repeats.

Another tug from Sin, and it pulls me further into him. If I close my eyes, I can almost forget Calix is here. Can almost pretend Sin and I are back in that closet, with his lips nearly on mine. God, I want him. Such a foolish thing to admit, but I do. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone.

“Working as fast as I can,” Sin says darkly, his lips near my ear. His cool breath ruffles my hair, and I shiver again. Maybe I’m not so in control of this plan as I thought. “Lest you wish to step in and take over for me, Cousin, do feel free to shut the hell up.”

Calix rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” But that golden gaze finds mine and seems to harden as it runs down the length of me. Slowly. Almost as slowly as Sin knots my bodice. Minutes pass. Calix doesn’t look away. Sin doesn’t stop touching me. He brushes my hair from my nape. A sinful brush that I feel in my toes.

“Almost there, darling,” Sin whispers, words even hotter than his hands. “If you want me to finish, that is.”

I don’t know whether to laugh, whimper, or moan. And it’s not lost on him. He chuckles softly, and the feel of it sweeps through me. No. I have no control left here. If he asked me to turn around, to kiss him or do anything right now, I think I would. I would, and I would be happy about it.

“That’s my good girl,” he murmurs. He knows. He knows. He knows.

Calix growls, and my gaze shoots back to his. My cheeks flush, redder by the second as he watches me. His arms remain crossed, his muscles tense and his spine stiff, as if he’s afraid to move. “At this rate, we’ll be here for a century. Your stockings aren’t even tied.”

“So tie them,” Sin says with an air of annoyance.

“I… no…” Calix scoffs, and it sounds… it sounds a lot like a laugh of disgust.

I hate him. Rage rises in the heat of my belly, and it takes everything in me to stifle it. Why does he have to ruin everything? Why can’t he just leave me alone? I lick my lips, and—and he tracks the movement. He stares. My stomach flips. I’ve forgotten about the one power I have here. I’ve forgotten that Calix isn’t the only one who can ruin things.

Though it’s risky and potentially humiliating, I force myself to dangle my leg out of the slit, wagging my slippered foot in his direction. “Do you not want to tie it, Calix?”

Sin chuckles again, taking his sweet time with my corset. Trailing his fingers up the bare expanse of my back. This is it—all we might ever have—and if Calix wants to stand here, he can at least admit that he’s choosing to do so. He could have left minutes ago, when he realized I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Calix glares at me. His arms fall to his sides. He won’t answer. He can’t. Because some part of him does want to fix my stockings to my garter, and I’ll know if he lies about it. Maybe it’s so we can leave this room faster, or maybe he’s attracted to me. And would that be such a bad thing to admit? Calix is handsome. Gorgeous in a brutal sort of way. I hate him and his rude, brash behavior, but even I can objectively say that he’s devastatingly handsome.

“Go on,” I tease, nervous and angry and… so much more. “I… I won’t bite.”

I almost don’t think he’ll do it. Seconds pass, and he stands as still as a statue. But his resolve cracks like marble, and he moves toward me with lethal speed and drops to his knees. Keeping his gaze on my face, he looks up at me through thick lashes, those golden eyes blazing. It’s no expression I’ve ever seen from him before. As if he’s unleashing the full force of his power—a deadly mixture of seduction and fury—and it’s directed solely at me.

This has become a challenge, and he’s determined to win.

I tremble as he gently takes my ankle in hand. I never thought Calix could be gentle, but his thumb traces my skin, his fingers tangling with the mess of my stocking and pulling it up slowly. So deliciously slowly that I’ve forgotten how to breathe. He exhales hotly and grins.

Oh god.

Calix’s smile is beyond anything I’ve seen before. Hands burning on my inner thigh, so close to the center of my desire, Calix ties the left stocking in place. Sinclair’s free hand curls around my waist. I fall back against him for support, and his hand moves over my belly, anchoring me.

Oh god oh god oh god.

I’m… I… This is not what I planned. This is nothing like what I’d planned. And I can’t… I shouldn’t… oh god.

Calix ties the right stocking, fingers lingering between my thighs, but I can’t meet his gaze anymore. It feels so good. They both feel so good.

“You like that?” Calix asks, though it doesn’t sound earnest or genuine. It sounds like victory.

“Don’t answer him,” Sin says. “Or I might become horribly jealous.”

Calix grunts. “Don’t worry. I don’t require an answer.” His hands fall from my skin, and an icy chill sweeps through me at his absence.

He stands with a smirk, and then he leans close, flicking a curl from my shoulder, his finger barely grazing my collarbone but still sending another rush of heady longing through me. Or maybe that’s from Sin, his fingers pressing so deliciously into my skin. I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore. I can hardly remember my own name.

Calix licks his lips, and I can almost imagine them against my own. Can almost taste them—sweet like oranges, salty like the sea. He exhales faintly. “I told you to leave us alone, Vanessa.” Pivoting on his heel, Calix marches from the room. “Don’t be late to breakfast again.”

I gape at his swift exit, the sound of my name on his tongue still ringing between my ears, nearly louder than the humiliation that follows. Stupid fucking Calix.

Sin trails a hand up my nape, and now I do whine. An indelicate, embarrassing moan. Sin laughs. “Darling, darling, Vanessa.” He spins me around quickly, and I stumble into his arms. “Next time, we’ll be alone.” He drags my sleeves upward, the sensation too much against my sensitive skin, and then he kisses my cheek. A soft kiss. Almost nonexistent. But my toes curl, and my breath hitches.

Sin.

I’m attracted to him too much for my own good. For our own good.

“Next time,” he promises, and he leads me from the room. The honesty buried within his words sinks into my bones.

24

I don’t set out to lie beside Sin in Astronomical Astrology, but it does happen completely by accident. Evie nestles between Nettie and Katerina (who has chosen to sprawl out and luxuriate in her wolf form), her brother behind them, which leaves me to choose an open spot between Portia and Sin—or banish myself to the far edge of the forest with Calix. Alone.

Yeah. I don’t think so.

We left Castle Severi through a special back door that houses the only other part of the realm we can access. But even this sliver of land is almost too much to comprehend. Pines and oaks pierce the damp earth of a magical forest. Iridescent butterflies soar between trees, and massive toads large enough to perch atop stool-sized mushrooms croak out a disjointed melody. Wet grass soaks through my burgundy dress—the exact color of Sin’s eyes—and through his thin white tunic as our fingers nearly brush, our heads inches apart from where we lie on the ground. Stars shoot across the midnight sky above us, dazzling in shades of sapphire and cerulean. And it’s so… romantic.

Romantic enough that it feels as if the universe is playing a cruel prank on us.

Sin’s pinky twitches and touches my own. My lungs ache from my inability to exhale. He’s right here. Right beside me. And I want to hold his hand so badly, but I can’t. We can’t.

Evie and Nettie giggle over some shared secret, and I yank my hand away from Sin’s, blood rushing in my ears. He looses a sigh. Even that sound, that soft breath, frays my composure. This is torture. Pure torture.

“Oh, look!” Portia says, giddy and oblivious as ever. Her hand shoots into the air, and she points a plucked purple rose at the sky. “Instructor Nagma, I found the Lyra constellation!”

Instructor Nagma—a curvy werewolf with long black hair and smooth brown skin, younger than our other instructors—steps in front of our path, her head back as she gazes at the sky. “That you did, Lady Montgomery. Very good.” Instructor Nagma snaps her fingers. “Verbal quiz: Who can tell me what gifts the Lyra constellation bestows?”

She turns to assess her class, but most of us remain quiet. Even Evie seems too taken with the surroundings—with the enchantment of tonight—to make any snide comments. I hate that I feel a flicker of understanding for her. Hate that she could plot my death, perhaps murder my best friend, yet remain human enough to appear normal. Luckily, Myles exists, and he speaks in an authoritative rush. “Historian,” he declares. “Lyra stars bestow the gift of ancestral memory, although a few anomalies catalogued by Historians have also shown that Lyra stars might bestow the gifts of psychic communication and, once, telepathy.”

“Excellent,” Instructor Nagma says. “You come from a long line of Historians, Lord Win. Were all your ancestors born beneath the same constellation?”

“All but two,” Myles says. “Their powers were decidedly weaker, with them forgetting whole eras of their ancestral history. Though we can do our best to record the patterns of the universe, we cannot hold it to exact measurements. The stars will do as they please.”

“Lord Win,” Instructor Nagma announces, “you are top of your class and unmatched in wit and knowledge.” She bares her teeth in a proud grin, glancing to Sin and then Eric to be sure they heard. They did, of course. And they’ll both want Myles for their future pack. In our academic lessons, he remains the best.

God.

The memory of Oona’s words churns my stomach.

You must focus. You must try.

I’ve hardly had time to peruse the star chart I roughly mapped. No. That’s not fair. I’ve had the time, but not the care. And now I’m sitting in class, anxious to impress the beautiful boy beside me without the proper means to do so. I pick at the delicate gossamer of my red bodice, the rubies clustered in swirling, looping patterns. Try. Just try.

“Call out the next constellation you see,” Instructor Nagma says.

I search the sky frantically. They twinkle and gleam like gemstones set on rich velvet. Gorgeous. Magical. But hell if I know what any of them are, least of all what they mean. I narrow my gaze until they blur into glowing balls of light. Still not a damn clue.

Thankfully, Portia points to another. I turn my head to assess the rest of the class, but no one seems eager to do much else but laze in the grass. Nettie passes Evie a handful of berries, and Evie passes a few to Katerina. They chew loudly. Unabashedly. Instructor Nagma doesn’t mind, but I wish she would.

I look back to the sky, annoyance hot in my chest.

“Ursa Major,” Portia says. Instructor Nagma applauds her. But Evie—Evie leans up on her elbows, her hair spilling behind her slender neck as she brags, “My constellation.” And, as an afterthought, while petting Katerina’s auburn scruff, she adds, “Eric’s too.”

A growl builds in my throat. She would be born under one of the most popular constellations. Her and her damn brother.

Instructor Nagma paces in front of my view. “What gifts are typically bestowed upon those born beneath the Ursa Major stars?”

Evie laughs. A snide, grating sound. She clicks her tongue. As if it’s obvious. As if it’s the dumbest question to ask. Even Myles doesn’t move to answer. I glare at her from my periphery. She opens her mouth, her lips covered in sweet, red juices, but I speak before she can.

“Alchemy,” I blurt out. “Those born beneath the Ursa Major constellation… They’re gifted in alchemy.”

Instructor Nagma spins around where she stands, her smile wider now. As if she’s impressed. She nods enthusiastically. “Very good, Miss Hart. You’re learning.”

My cheeks flame at her praise, at the rest of the class turning to gawk at me. There’s no way I should have known the answer. Werewolves are quiet about their gifts, but I’ve done my snooping. I may not understand how to pick out a constellation from a web of stars, but I do know about the Lees.

Evie rolls her eyes, but she makes no move to do anything worse. Or even say anything worse. Nettie pulls her back down, and their fingers entwine. I tilt my head. The action… It’s almost too friendly. Nettie bites off the tip of a strawberry before passing the rest to Evie. But if it feels strangely intimate between them, no one else comments. In fact, Myles is explaining the difference between those born with alchemy under a blood moon versus an eclipse—the strength of their enchantments grows, allowing in the rarest of instances whole buildings to be erected from so much as a thimble—and Instructor Nagma looks ready to declare him king of the world.

“Look at that,” Sin murmurs beside me.

His finger brushes mine again, this time more intentionally, and he shifts his legs so that our bodies graze. His skin is as hot as ever. His touch is firm. I glance at him only to find that he’s already watching me. Maybe he’s been watching me since we lay down. His blond hair falls away from those piercing red eyes, and my heart skips a beat. I remember his hands on my back, his lips on my neck, and I shiver.

“Very good, Miss Hart,” he says, quietly but… but publicly too. And I realize—if I do well enough at succeeding in lessons, he won’t ignore me anymore. He won’t have a reason to do so. Evie might be his future intended, but I could still be his friend. It’s enough. It has to be enough.

His finger twines with mine for a moment, encouraging me, and I pay attention to the rest of the class as if my life depends on it. When I return to my room at the end of the night, I take my journal from the mattress and scribble down every single constellation that Instructor Nagma listed.

ORION—Empath (common) or Truthseer (rare) or Influencer (extremely rare)

Ursa Major—Alchemist (common, with varying degrees of skill)

Lyra—Historian (common, with varying degrees of skill)

Capricornus—Mind Reader (rare) or Dreamweaver (rare) or Mindbender (extremely rare)

Aquila—Soldier (common) or General (rare)

Chamaeleon—Modifier (rare) or Breathless (extremely rare)

Libra—Justiciar (common, with varying degrees of skill) or Bargainer (extremely rare)

I write them in my notebook, adding extra explanations of Modifiers (those who can change their appearances), Justiciars (those who have the power to see and sometimes even experience a person’s every decision), and Mindbenders (those who can manipulate a person’s memories), before lying down in bed. Once I’m certain I’ve learned everything I can, I fall asleep.

And I dream of Sin.

25

The next seven weeks are completely uneventful.

I scribble in my journal at night and hide it under my bed during the day. I learn to shift in Combat and Conquest and research potions in Alchemical Designs, desperate to understand the one I found in Evie’s room. I don’t miss another meal. I don’t skip any classes. I don’t even sleep until dawn most mornings. All things considered, I’m trying.

So much so that I’m currently unraveling a spool of trip wire in front of my door before bed. It’s not fancy by any means, but placing it when I’m alone or leaving my room has kept Evie out. The threats have ceased. For now. Next, I set up a handful of nails that I’ve managed to steal from the wall where the werewolves haphazardly installed my malfunctioning television, arranging them so that the pointed ends stick straight up in the air. The nails are gold and not silver unfortunately; they won’t cause any lasting harm to a werewolf intruder. But they’ll hurt like a bitch, instigating enough of a commotion that I’ll hear it and react.

If Combat and Conquest has taught me one thing, it’s that a werewolf dies fastest via wolfsbane or silver to the heart, or by having their hearts ripped out or their heads torn off. I grimace. Exceedingly gruesome, like all things in this court.

The moon rises high outside my window. Full, glowing like a candle in the night. I try not to notice it. Try to forget the feel of jaws clamping around my waist and blood slick on my hands. I have no more room for error, and that includes losing control of myself. My fingers tremble, but I suck down breath after breath as I turn away from the bright disturbance. Once the booby traps are set, I slide into bed and take out my journal. However, while I should open it and recite the list of facts I jotted down after Ancestral Archives of Superior Societies this morning, I can’t help flipping to the back of the journal to a list of names, a date, and a location.

ANASTASIA ISLAND BEACH, SEPTEMBER 12

Werewolves in attendance

Sinclair Severi—Alpha

Calix Severi—Beta

Eric Lee—Alpha

Evelyn Lee—Alpha

Katerina Aston—Beta

Antionette Cox—Beta

Myles Win—Beta

My heart aches. The journal feels like a casket in my hands. The last tangible piece I have of Celeste’s life. Her death. My rebirth. If only I had more evidence than just Eric and Evie being two of the only remaining Alphas I’ve not interrogated with my gift—if only I had saved the potion I found in Evie’s room and had a way to pin the threats on her. There has to be more evidence out there. Concrete evidence. I flick through the pages, but it doesn’t help, so I shut the journal first, and then my eyes. Tears threaten to slip down my cheeks, but I don’t let them fall.

“It’s not over yet,” I whisper to myself, or maybe it’s to Celeste. To whatever remains of her in this lifetime. “There’s still time.” Five weeks before the Ascension. Almost a month before Evie and Sin become engaged and she solidifies her place as the future of this court. And even if I don’t meet that deadline, I have years before her coronation. There’s still time.

God. I wish I could hallucinate now. Just to see Celeste again. To hear her laugh, to witness her smile, to remember it all. I thought I’d never forget her. I thought I’d hold on to every piece of her for eternity, but the more enmeshed I become in this court, the less I maintain from before. I promised her. I promised her, and I’m fucking terrified I’m going to break it and shatter that last true bit of her, of us. Our love. Our bond. Once I lose that, I’ll have nothing. Nothing left of my old life. Not my dad, not my house, not even school. Nothing.

My door opens then—a sudden creak and a gust of warm air. I leap from bed, extending a hand, summoning forth my claws from that bone in the center of my palm. The razors rip from my fingers, and I hiss against the pain, utilize the anger it ignites as I brace myself for the intrusion.

“Fuck. Shit. Ow.” Sin steps directly into my trap, and three nails impale the heel of his fuzzy slipper, and the trip wire entangles his legs. He flails, nearly crashing to the floor before he catches himself on the door. The wood splinters under his furious grasp. “What in the stars is this?”

“Sin!” I can’t quite will my claws to vanish with the surprise of his appearance startling me away from pain and rage, but I try anyway. Only two recede. “What… what are you doing here?” I glance at the window. “It’s past midnight.”

“I’m aware.” Rather unbecomingly, he hops toward my plush armchair and sits down. Lifting his slipper in the air, he winces and peels the wool from his skin. A nail squelches. He curses a few more times, his blood leaking on my floor. “Were you out to ruin my favorite slippers, or is this simply a kink of yours?”

I shake my head and force the rage to sink back beneath the surface. Finally, the rest of my claws disappear, albeit more painfully than when they’d emerged. “I… no. No. How was I supposed to know you were going to show up?”

“Were you waiting on another suitor?” His lips twist in a grimace as he plucks another nail from his foot, and then he throws the stained slipper on the floor. “Luring my cousin to you with sharp objects and trip wire?”

I frown at his poorly concealed jealousy. “Your cousin?”

“Calix?” Sin flicks the last offending nail onto the ground. “Tall, dark, and handsome? Anger issues? The stubborn loyalty of an ass—”

“I know who Calix is; my question was directed at the utter stupidity of your own. I set up booby traps, not a summoning circle.”

“Summoning circle,” Sin echoes. “Someone’s paying attention during lessons.” He heaves out a great sigh as his skin knits itself back together. “Stars above, sometimes I think you were sent here to kill me.”

I roll my eyes but—warmth floods my chest. He’s telling the truth. I raise a brow. Surely, he’s just being dramatic. “Why are you here, Sin?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

Another truth.

“You’re bleeding on my rug,” I say. “The sooner you speak, the sooner I can clean it before Oona blames me for the stain.”

But all he says is, “You don’t like blood.”

I cross my arms, suddenly feeling too bare in my long black shirt. I can only be glad Sin hasn’t seemed to scent to whom it belongs. Although, I’m not wearing Calix’s shirt because of him; I’m wearing it because it’s the only thing in my wardrobe that feels… pure. Free of the grand eccentricities of the werewolf court. It’s just a shirt. A plain, boring shirt. I miss home.

“No one likes blood.”

Sin laughs, his red eyes brighter than the moon’s cruel glow. “If you believe that, then you haven’t spent long enough in this asylum.” He smiles, but a flare of uncomfortable heat blows through my ribs. It’s a lie. His facade is crumbling. He slouches in the chair, picking torn trip wire from his sweatpants. Seems I’m not the only one who enjoys human simplicities.

“You should be meaner, Vanessa,” he declares suddenly. A truth. “I don’t speak to you outside of a few words here and there, but you let me sit on your chair and bleed on your floor.”

I rub my hands up and down my arms, trying to warm myself from the chill in his voice. “It’s my fault you’re bleeding.”

He glances up, and my hands fall limp at my sides. His expression is so unguarded—so wholly, lethally him—that my heart aches. I move toward him.

“Sin, wh-what’s wrong?” I whisper. “Did something happen?”

“Something is always happening here. That’s the problem.” He wipes a hand down his face in frustration. He doesn’t look like a prince right now; he looks like a man. A young man, broken and bleeding in more ways than one. “Something is always wrong.”

“Tell me.”

He blinks away tears and reaches out, taking my hand and tugging me onto his lap. For a second, I freeze, unsure of myself—of us entwined like this. But then he breathes, his heart pounding against me, and I ease into the feel of his protection. His arms wrap around me, and he fists a hand in my hair, pressing my cheek to his chest. I hug him fiercely, my own hands curling into his hair. Even though a part of me is still drowning in grief, I allow myself this moment. Allow myself to live.

“Vanessa,” he murmurs. Just my name, as if it’s a plea. A prayer. “Do you know what I like most about you?”

Alarms ring in my head. They cry out warnings of danger. We can’t talk like this. Even in the dark. Even when I’m in his lap. I attempt to lighten the mood. “That I’m consistently the worst in our lessons? That I don’t know which fork to use at supper?”

Sin refuses to be distracted from his thoughts. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You care. You care about everything, and you’re not satisfied with simple answers. You demand the truth. You demand justice—moral, righteous justice. You are good.” He shakes his head, still tethering me to him. “You should hate me. You should kick me out and never speak to me again. It’s what I deserve.”

“Sin—”

“Use your gift. You know I’m being honest.”

“I know that you think you’re right. But, Sin…” I search for the words, even as he clings to me, and I cling to him. That’s just it, though. I’ve never liked Sin because of his title or ranking—in fact, those parts of him are the parts that I admire least. I like him because he’s strong and he’s kind and he’s warm. Because he’s good. “You’ve been my friend since you first carried me to my room. You said that your instinct was to protect me from this place.”

“Because this court ruins us.”

“Not everyone,” I argue, brushing aside a strand of his hair. “It hasn’t ruined you.”

“I’m… I’m not enough. To change it. To make it better. I can’t do it alone.” His grip relaxes abruptly, and he moves as though to push me away. But he needs me. Sin and I—we need each other. We’re the same. Two kids desperate to right the wrongs of a wicked world. I pull his face down to mine, and it devastates me to find the sadness I felt minutes before his entry darkening his own gaze.

“We’re doing the best we can,” I whisper. “I’m learning. I’m growing stronger. And you… You’re close to completing your Ascension.”

“What about after?”

I think about it, but there isn’t an answer that will please us both. “We survive. No matter what happens.” I move a hand to his cheek, and he grabs my wrist, holding it there. His eyes blaze with the few secrets we can’t speak. Sin’s hand slips from my wrist to my throat. He strokes it softly.

“We survive,” he agrees. He looks from my lips to my eyes. “Vanessa Hart, I—”

“Don’t,” I hasten. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t say it aloud.”

Don’t break my heart.

“Does what I want matter at all?” His thumb sweeps over my pulse, immediately revealing my yearning. He feels good. He feels right. If we were two people who’d met anywhere else, I would fall in love with him as easily as I would drift to sleep at night.

“War,” I remind him. “Prince.”

His touch hardens, and he lifts my chin. His lips just barely graze mine. A breath away. He tastes like mint and rain and roses. So close. Desire courses through me. But I can fight it. I can repress it. Sin touches my lips, and I whimper.

A growl rumbles through him then, brutal and sudden. “Fuck their war, fuck their laws, and fuck this court.”

He kisses me, and his lips are violent. Scalding. His hands grip my throat, my hair, and he hauls me farther atop him so that I straddle his waist. My hands can’t stop moving—up his shirt, over his chest, down his muscles. He is heaven. He is perfect. And right now, he’s letting me lead. I run a tongue tentatively over his lower lip, savoring the clean, sweet taste of him.

This moment can’t be real.

It shouldn’t be real.

Sin and I can’t exist like this, touching each other, kissing, moaning. It’s gone too far, and we have to stop. He is Prince of the Wolf Queen’s Court. And I… I am just Vanessa Hart. A girl Bitten and scorned. We have to stop. But I can’t bring myself to do so. His hands find the hem of my shirt, and he lifts it up enough that his palms glide over my hips and up my sides. His fingers brush the underside of my breasts. I shiver. The world unravels before us, and it feels infinite. I’ve never had this. Never been with anyone in this way. The other boys—ones whose names I can’t remember or bring myself to care about—were chaste kisses, juvenile crushes. This is… this is ruin.

“Sin,” I breathe against him.

“Say it again,” he pleads, breaking off the kiss to trail his lips over my jaw. He nips and bites, and I arch into him with abandon. “Don’t stop saying my name.” I moan, and his tongue flicks out to a sensitive spot beneath my ear. “Fuck, you’re so sweet, Vanessa. I have wanted to do this since I first held you in my arms.” Another kiss. Another bite. “Even when I could scent the rage burning through you, even when I knew you hated me, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Another kiss, and I writhe atop him. “I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s constant. In meetings, during breakfast, in lessons—I’m thinking of you, Vanessa. You have made my life so much harder than it needs to be. You have wrecked everything.”

Honesty. So much honesty, and combined with the rush of heady pleasure, I can’t do much else but murmur his name again—he sweeps his thumb over the tip of my breast—and again—his tongue plunges into my mouth. He devours my every moan, and maybe he devours a bit of my soul as well because I can’t help admitting, breathless and licentious, “I… I like you, Sin. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

He withdraws an inch. Enough for me to see the whole of his handsome face awash in moonlight. “You’re beautiful,” I murmur, raising a gentle hand to his cheek. He kisses my palm.

“You,” he says, gazing at me while his lips trail up my wrist, “are breathtaking.”

I thread my fingers through his hair, hardly daring to breathe. The moment feels too delicate—like a dream, and I could be seconds from waking up.

“Well, isn’t this adorable?” My door slams open, and Evie enters with a single, floor-shuddering stomp. Just like that, the dream becomes a nightmare. “The crown prince all tangled up with a mutt.”

I leap off Sin, quick as my reflexes allow me, and crash onto the ground. An abandoned nail from earlier slices into my hand, but I don’t wince. Fear implodes in my chest. I suck in a harsh breath as Princess Evelyn Lee stands in my doorway, shadowed in the darkness, her red eyes molten and enraged.

“Couldn’t do better than this?” Evie asks Sin, crossing her arms, her claws almost cutting into her own flesh. “You know, I took you for a royal pain in my ass, but never for a fool.”

“I suppose even princesses make mistakes,” Sin says casually. He lounges in the chair, his body relaxed like he’s not embarrassed at all. Not terrified. I don’t know how to act, however, sprawled out on the ground half naked. Words fail me, and a wash of humiliation heats my veins. The nail still stings my palm, but I hardly feel it. I rise onto my knees slowly, tugging my borrowed shirt as low down my thighs as the fabric allows. Evie glances at me and sneers in disgust.

“If you’re done on the floor, Queen Sybil has called us to the throne room.” She licks the tips of her fangs. “Might want to change first, though, Mutt; I can see your nipples.” Then to Sin, she says, “Next time you fuck someone, pick a better pedigree. We want a mistress, not a mongrel.” Turning on her heel, Evie tramps down the hall without another word. I gape at Sin, who merely shrugs.

“Trust me,” he says, “that could have gone a lot worse.”

And while he’s telling the truth, I still don’t believe it. Evie just caught me in the lap of her soon-to-be intended. There’s no way she lets me off with a few insults and a hair flip. I rip the nail from my hand and rise to my feet, loathing how my legs have started to tremble. How my knees threaten to fold. If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that I saw death in her eyes, and I can’t blame her for it.

Sin is hers.

If I wasn’t her target before, I definitely am now.

26

The entire court gathers in the throne room, and I’m suddenly transported to months ago. Only, this time, no one notices me. No one seems to care that I’m here. Even Evie has moved to join her court without once glancing back.

Shifted werewolves growl and snarl from the edge of the dais, their human counterparts huddled in circles around the marbled room. Tapestries have been shredded, the rugs drenched with wine from fallen goblets. A Beta swipes a claw at a glass chessboard, and the pieces shatter against the wall.

“What’s going on?” I whisper, glancing to Sin.

He’s no longer beside me, however.

Stalking up the aisle, he weaves through the crowd of werewolves toward his mother. Queen Sybil sits atop her throne, her black eyes narrowed and her fist clenched around a silver dagger with a gilded hilt. Lord Allard leans down to speak to her in a hushed voice, his expression dark. Evie is already there, at the bottom of the steps, her hair tucked behind her ears. She tugs a silk robe tighter around her waist. In fact—I look around, heart climbing up my throat—all the werewolves who’ve yet to shift are wearing some version of nightclothes. No one expected to be here, I realize suddenly. Whatever this is… it isn’t good.

Unsure what else to do, I start forward slowly, hoping to catch the end of the queen’s whispers. Instead, I hear bits and pieces from about twelve different conversations.

“… unprecedented kill…”

“… never would have happened with Cora…”

“… signing our death certificates in her own blood…”

A shifted werewolf snaps their head toward me when I pass, and their eyes flash a deeper, darker brown. They lunge as though to bite me, but I stumble away—right into Portia. She catches me with gentle hands, but the commotion of the crowd knocks me forward. Right into Calix’s hard back. He spins around, snagging my upper arm before I can trip over my feet, and heaves me into place beside him, near the front of the dais.

“Hart,” he mutters, his grip dropping from my skin the second I find my footing.

“C-Calix. What is all this?”

“We aren’t sure yet.” He stands stiff, his muscles coiled and ready for a brawl.

The energy of the room lifts the hair at my neck. It feels… volatile, somehow, as if we stand at the precipice of something—death, probably, if the shining eyes and flashing teeth around us are any indication. I scoot closer to Calix instinctively. He too tracks the overzealous werewolves with his gaze, watching and waiting.

For what, I don’t know.

“There hasn’t been a murder inside this court in over a decade!” someone cries out, while others roar in agreement. It’s deafening, so loud my eardrums might actually rupture. Or perhaps the roof will crack instead, or the walls. The entire throne room quakes with their outrage.

Murder? I cast a furtive glance at Calix, who gives away nothing. His jaw hard. His eyes harder. But who and where and how?

A few feet in front of me, at Evie’s side, Sin demands the same answers. “Tell us,” he says, and he looks somehow sharper than before—unfamiliar, his entire body radiating a sudden and lethal focus. Gone is the languid boy from my bedroom, and gooseflesh creeps down my arms at this rare glimpse of Prince Sinclair Severi. “Tell us what’s going on, Mother. We deserve to know.”

A shot of heat burns through me. The flare of a lie.

But—that can’t be right. I glance at Sin, confused by his wording, but he shakes his head as if it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. If someone has been murdered inside the castle, we do deserve to know. I don’t care if that’s not how things are done here, if secrecy is meant to be some kind of tradition. Some kind of power. We need to know.

Surprisingly, Evie agrees. “I think it is necessary for the well-being and safety of this court—”

“Quiet,” Queen Sybil snaps at her, passing the dagger to her left hand and leaning forward. Lord Allard grips the hilt of his own sword with five claws far sharper than that of his own weapon’s blade. “It is my court, and I will decide how to proceed. All of you,” she shouts now, her voice deep and melodic, “enough!”

Pink humiliation stings Evie’s cheeks, but she doesn’t speak again. None of us do. Our lips snap shut, one by one by one, sewn with the enchantments of the queen’s compulsion. The discordant chaos dies in a sudden hush.

“I have ordered you from your beds for a reason. A treacherous crime has indeed occurred tonight, but we needed time to uncover what details we could.” Queen Sybil stands from the throne and tosses her dagger on the ground. Confidence eases her shoulders and lifts her chin. “Instructor Alvarez was caught unawares during his late run on the beach. He was gutted.” She speaks the words bluntly, without empathy, and she does not flinch as she continues, “Lord Allard found Bruno with his organs strung around his neck. Suffocated by his small intestine. His left hand was missing its fingers—clearly sawed off with silver. Though he hadn’t yet shifted, the attacker knew he was a werewolf. They murdered him without remorse. Bruno Alvarez is dead, and the killer remains at large.”

My world spins on its axis, and I stumble a step, seizing Calix’s elbow for balance. Unable to process the words but hearing them echo in my skull like reverberations of distant thunder.

Suffocated. Gutted.

Murdered without remorse.

Oh god, no. Not again. The image of the crime blurs the reality of the throne room, morphing the surrounding bodies into blood and bone. Not again.

I look to my initially suspected killer, but Evie appears as horrified as I feel. Her red eyes widen, and she leans against Sin as though she can’t remain standing without his support. And Sin—Sin isn’t doing much better. His expression shudders, and he glances down. Tears burn in his eyes. One drips onto the tiled floor. And my heart aches for him—for everyone.

His organs strung around his neck.

I hardly knew Instructor Alvarez, and I want to vomit. No one could ever deserve such a horrific end.

When the queen snaps her fingers and says, “You may resume speaking,” the throne room descends into wailing grief. Shifted werewolves howl, their heads thrown back to the sky, while the others cry wild anguish.

“Who?” Calix asks over the noise.

The queen does not look at him. It almost seems as if she won’t answer him at all, until Portia echoes the question. “Who, Your Majesty?” she whispers.

“We do not know.” Queen Sybil regards her court coolly. “There was no evidence of human interference. Whoever committed this crime was a werewolf—no one else would’ve been able to enter our territory, and no one else would’ve been able to overpower Bruno.” She takes a step down the dais, her gaze flicking over us—the young werewolves. “There is a traitor in our midst, whether of my own court… or another.”

The howls morph into snarls of aggression while the shifted wolves claw at the ground.

“If that traitor is here now, I ask you to reveal yourself.” A compulsion.

No one moves. No one.

Lord Allard curses. The queen steps down into the aisle, and the masses part, immediately lowering into bows around her. As quickly as it came, their rebellion has ceased; perhaps because she turns, halfway out of the throne room, and says in a soft, deadly voice, “I will have the murderer’s head. Under no circumstance will anyone get away with killing an innocent wolf.”

As if accepting a call to action, the room explodes with noise in response. Someone smashes a table into smithereens, while two more hurl glass pawns through the windows. The howls and snarls from a moment ago return tenfold. Louder, this time. Wilder. I’ve never seen anything like it—violent, impassioned displays of uncontrolled fury as the Wolf Queen disappears.

“Werewolves grieve loudly,” Portia whispers at my side before picking up a goblet and heaving it at the wall. Evie finds Nettie. They hug each other. Eric shifts into a werewolf and howls until his lungs give out.

Amidst them—amidst his pack and his future—Sin is just… numb. He wipes at his eyes and sinks to the step. And in this moment, he looks so—so heartbreakingly friendless that I can’t stand it. Calix grabs my wrist, sensing my move before I make it, but I shake him off and push toward the lonely prince.

Moments ago, we were kissing. His hands were all over me. I can’t watch him hurt like this now and not respond; I can’t do nothing while he so obviously needs someone. I drop onto the step beside him. He glances at me, his eyes limned with pain. “Instructor Alvarez… He… he’s gone.”

“I know,” I say softly. “I’m so sorry.”

He grabs me and pulls me into a sudden hug. One hand in my hair and the other on my back. He holds me firmly to him, burying his head in the crevice of my neck. His lips ghost over my skin as he whispers my name. This is different than earlier. Almost more intimate, as if I hold his very heart in my hands.

I don’t know what to say. What to do. My grief can’t match his in this moment, can’t match the rest of my classmates’ or the entirety of court. I haven’t known Instructor Alvarez as long. To me, he was a consistent presence. A firm teacher. To them, he was family.

He was family, and they lost him.

I hug Sin, trying to hold the broken pieces of him together. Celeste’s death crushed me. There aren’t words for it. There’s no way to fix it. But I can sit here with him. I can stay.

“I’m sorry,” I echo. “I’m so sorry.”

Only then do I realize the noise has quieted—not fully, but enough that I hear my own voice. It’s too loud. And Sin and I… we’re…

Reality strikes with the clarity of a lightning bolt—because Sin and I are touching in front of the entire court, embracing—but I don’t have time to process our public display of affection. Something sharp pierces my hand in the next second, followed by an implosion of agonizing fire. I blink, my entire body seizing in shock, before glancing down.

There is a silver dagger impaled in my hand.

Shit.

The pain seems to intensify at the gruesome sight of it, and—as if my brain has finally caught up to my body—I hiss and fall away from Sin, backward, down the steps. Clawing at my wrist and landing on my ass. The blade sticks out of my palm, the hilt shoved so deep that it’s lodged in my bone. A wave of nausea rises in my throat at the friction, and my mind scrambles wildly to make sense of what I’m seeing. I’ve… I’ve been stabbed. Someone stabbed me.

A cry of terror almost escapes my lips when Evie leaps in front of me, fangs bared for all to see. And she—she must’ve—

My insides turn to ice.

“Keep your hands off my future fucking mate,” she snarls, “or next time I’ll cut it off.”

Eric howls in encouragement at her side, a hulking beast with red eyes. Red eyes. Just like that, a memory of another wolf—another pair of red eyes—rises in my mind, and I flinch away from him reflexively, remembering.

The second wolf rushes out from the shadows, snaps me up in its jaws, and… and bites.

Adrenaline courses through me at the phantom pain in my side—at the very real pain in my hand—followed by rage. Visceral rage. I flex my fingers, the bite of agony from the silver blade so vast, I feel it all the way to my toes. “You,” I growl.

Evie moves closer, bending over me and grabbing me by my throat. “Shut up,” she demands, her voice harsh and rough and compelling. Words vanish on my tongue as I swipe at her with the blade lodged in my hand, but she outmaneuvers me, twisting away before I can slice her. “Do you understand where you are, Mutt? This is the Wolf Queen’s Court, and you are no one. You are the shit beneath our shoes—”

“Evelyn,” Sin snaps.

“No. It’s time she understands her place.” Evie glares at him, and the werewolves nearest us take a few steps back. They do not help. They will not save me. To them, this is merely a conflict that must be resolved—I am a conflict that must be resolved.

Though Evie’s hand clenches tighter around my windpipe, Sin grabs her shoulders and rips her away from me. Evie flies backward, barely landing on her feet before Sin extends his ebony claws in warning.

“You will not lay a hand on her in my court,” he commands—compels. And it shouldn’t be possible; it shouldn’t work. But Evie freezes, rooted to the floor. Sin straightens, the picture of an avenging angel, and stalks closer to her with those claws still bared. Still lethal. The underlying threat in his voice raises even my hackles. “Do you understand? Answer me.”

Her jaw clenches, and she resists the compulsion for several seconds before her chin dips in the smallest of nods. Yes, she understands, but she still looks at me with murder in her eyes and says, “The day at the beach was an atrocious mistake. You should have been shredded to ribbons like your pathetic friend.” Then, through gritted teeth: “I should’ve done it myself.”

My hands shake as I jump to my feet. Blood roars in my ears, and I fight it. I fight her compulsion until my knuckles break and my vision runs red. “Don’t you dare talk about Celeste.”

Evie tilts her head with a calculating stare, and a slow, cruel smile spreads across her cold face. “Why shouldn’t I? She can’t hear me, Vanessa. She’s still dead—roadkill on that back alley, splattered on the grill of a semitruck. Don’t you remember?”

Before I can react, Sin shifts with an ear-shattering roar. Between one second and the next, he transforms into a vicious gray wolf with vibrant red eyes and charges at Evie. I don’t care. In this moment, he could gut her. He could tear out her organs in front of the court, and it would not be vengeance enough. Of course, he doesn’t do that. He doesn’t hurt her—he can’t. She is Princess of the Asian Court; even compelling her was utterly foolish.

I grab the golden hilt of the dagger and yank it from my hand, then throw it on the floor. I should lodge it in Evie’s heart, but I can’t do that either. Not without dying here and now. The werewolves in the court gawk at us; some toss rubble in my direction while others chant for me to fight and end this, but I can’t.

Not like this.

When Sin pins Evie to the ground, I run. Out of the throne room and up the first staircase I see. Up and up and up. My legs move even when my lungs explode. Even as my wound bleeds and fangs rip from my mouth. She murdered Celeste. She stabbed me. And her brother—her brother might’ve Bitten me. He must’ve Bitten me.

I want to kill them. I need to kill them.

I pause at the top of the stairs, in front of a familiar classroom door. Beyond the glass window are long wooden benches. Beakers and cauldrons arranged neatly in a cabinet of curiosities. Scorch marks on the wall and holes blown into the ceiling.

The Alchemical Designs classroom.

Good.

I enter quietly, and it’s as if I’ve been hypnotized. I register nothing but the stalks of slender purple flowers dying on the rack near Instructor Bhat’s adamantine desk.

Wolfsbane.

I snatch a flower from the rack.

It’s time; I can’t wait anymore. Evie needs to pay, and I will never win in a fair fight against her. I wasn’t raised like them—raised to value violence and malice and brutality. But I have lived amongst them long enough to know my strengths. To know their weaknesses. I swallow hard. The gaping wound in my hand oozes blood onto my feet. If I’m going to be executed for treason, I don’t care about fighting fair. I only care about justice.

From behind me, however, Calix says, “That’s strike three, Hart.”

And I know I’ve lost.

27

In the darkness of the unlit classroom, there is only the gold of Calix’s eyes.

Only the sound of our alternating breaths.

He doesn’t move, and neither do I. Just like the other werewolves, he could have me flat on my back in seconds; it would be stupid to flee or fight. In fact, I don’t see a way out of this. Every path forward leads to my death. Still, I refuse to flinch away from that gilded gaze. I am so tired of being afraid.

“She stabbed me,” I say, clutching the stem of the wolfsbane between my stinging fingers. It’s my lifeline right now.

“I know,” Calix says, tracking the blood leaking from my hand to the floor. Blood from the wound Evie created with a silver dagger. I will not heal soon.

“So charge her with treason!”

“Vanessa, there is order to our laws. She is a princess, and Sinclair is intended to be her future mate. She was within her right to harm you because you invaded her territory. You challenged her future authority. The only crime committed here was yours, and she did not turn you in to the queen and demand your head. She simply punished you.”

Simply… simply punished me? I can see through my hand. I can smell the rot of flesh where silver cut through my skin.

“Sin isn’t her territory,” I snarl. “She doesn’t even want to be with him!” A rabid animal claws free from my chest, and I clamp down on a scream of fury. None of this is fair—none of it—and Calix and his order and his laws can all fuck themselves for all I care. I will not play by their rules any longer. “Evie killed my best friend! What about the punishment for that?” Why doesn’t he understand? Why can’t I make him understand? “I lost my sister, Calix. My soulmate. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Have you ever felt that sort of pain? No,” I sneer before he can answer. “You haven’t. You’ve never cared about anyone other than yourself, have you? You’re too hard, too cold, too—too cowardly to ever love someone like that.”

I want him to rage at me. To lash out, to attack. Instead, he simply nods. “I know.”

“Stop saying that!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I—I—” The wolfsbane trembles in my grasp, and my body—it shakes uncontrollably now. Red edges my vision. “I don’t know.” Hatred spins a toxic web beneath my skin, boiling my veins to pitch-black loathing. “Celeste did nothing wrong. She was just a girl. She was just a girl at a party, and she should have gone home to her bed. She should—she should—exist.”

She should exist.

None of this would’ve happened if Celeste were still here. If she hadn’t died, I never would’ve learned about werewolves and faerie realms and moon pools. I never would’ve known Evie—not truly, not beyond her cruelty at the beach—and I never would’ve felt this overwhelming hatred. This all-consuming need to wound her, to hurt her the way she hurts me.

She’s still dead—roadkill on that back alley, splattered on the grill of a semitruck.

And here is Calix, standing in the doorway with that maddeningly calm expression. His arms crossed. His head cocked. As if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, what I’m planning, and finds it unimpressive, if not vaguely amusing.

The entire situation is too much. Has been too much for far too long. Celeste, Sin, Evie, Calix—Calix and his stupid face. His third strike. It all crashes through me like a tidal wave until I’m drowning in my own grief and rage. Until my body is moving, lunging, leaping to tackle him to the floor the way I want to tackle Evie—

He sidesteps with exceptional speed, and I hurtle into one of the benches instead. It hits the floor with an earsplitting crash. I don’t topple after it, however. Not this time. Rather, I catch myself, crouching and spinning almost as quickly—blood roaring in my ears—to kick at his knees.

He seizes my foot before it connects, jerking it toward him. That simple flick of his wrist sends me sprawling on my back. “So you’re going to kill Evelyn Lee?” he asks, looming overhead. “That’s your brilliant plan?”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

I reach frantically for something to use against him, anything, before realizing I still hold the wolfsbane in my hand. Snarling, I thrust it toward his face, and he recoils instantly, dropping my foot as those golden eyes harden, and vicious satisfaction courses through me. Though a small voice in my head warns attacking Calix is reckless—so reckless—I don’t care. That’s strike three, Hart.

According to him, I have nothing else to lose, and in this moment—I can’t think beyond this moment. There is only me, and there is only Calix.

So I swipe at him again. Again. I force him backward against Instructor Bhat’s desk. When I lunge this time, determined to drive the wolfsbane into his eyes, he catches my wrist in one hand. He spins my body, spins both our bodies, until my chest crashes upon the desk, knocking the breath from me. Though I thrash—upending bottles and papers and even the rack of wolfsbane—he pins me against the wood with the length of his heavy body. One hand still clenched around my wrist. The other seizing my nape. “And then what, Vanessa?” he says low in my ear. Treacherous goose bumps lift at my neck. “What happens after you’ve killed me? After you’ve killed her? Don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to think you and Sin will go sailing into the sunset after you’ve poisoned his intended.”

“She isn’t his intended,” I hiss. Not yet.

“Ah. You really are that stupid.” His fingers tighten as I writhe beneath him, and he drags his nose down the length of my neck. His teeth graze my throat. One large bite, and I’d be dead. As if sharing the thought, he growls, “It’d be a kindness to kill you now. I’ll be much faster than the queen.”

I drive my head backward, but he moves like an extension of my own body, too quickly for me to break his nose. “So do it, then—”

But he won’t. I know he won’t. To kill me would break his precious law. He flips me in his arms instead, and our new position puts our faces much too close—so close I can see the rings of molten gold around his pupils. His eyes blaze as they meet mine. “We do not kill fellow wolves. Queen Sybil tries criminals; she delivers their death sentence. Not us. We do not kill our packmates, our court, or our brethren. Under any circumstances.”

I quake with rage. “Are you so afraid of your traitorous mother’s crimes that you refuse to see the nuances of justice? I took you for an asshole, not a coward hiding behind a baby blanket and calling it the law.”

His expression softens, the shadows darkening his face fading into pity. Into regret. He doesn’t release me, however. His hand remains around my throat. “I didn’t have to be your enemy, Vanessa. I didn’t want to be your enemy.”

A truth.

“But?”

“It is the law,” he repeats. “Civilization demands order. Without order, there can only be chaos.” His eyes drop to the wolfsbane still clutched in my hand. “I have to turn you in.”

I look at him, from his black hair to his deeply tan skin to the curve of his lips and the sharp cut of his jaw. Beautiful. Brutal. Terrifying. “What if I compel you?”

“Go ahead.” His lip curls, revealing the tips of his fangs. “Try.”

“Let me go,” I say, unlocking that part of me I’d almost forgotten—that strange power buried under layers of my roiling anger—and turning my voice melodically deep. With my free hand, I seize his jaw, thrusting my face even closer. Our lips almost touch now, and his entire body hardens against mine. “Let me leave and tell no one.”

His pupils dilate in response, and for just a second, I think it might’ve worked. Then he shrugs. “Is that the best you can do?” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “A good effort, I suppose.”

I buck my hips, determined to free myself, but he only shifts his ironclad grip. I use the adjustment to lift my legs, attempting to wedge my knees between us for leverage. “I hate you—”

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

I stiffen in realization, in humiliation. My knees clamp on either side of his hips, and before I can correct the newly intimate position, he snarls and shoves me backward. I slide against the desktop, away from him, blinking at my sudden freedom. His gaze flicks up from where his shirt rode up my thighs, and he glowers at me. Furious. “You should’ve stayed away from him.”

He extends his claws and fangs. My cheeks flush. Breaths lodge in my throat, along with a sob that won’t shake itself free. My anger is withering, and my fear is growing through the cracks. I don’t want to die.

“Wh-what if I had evidence?” I stutter, still moving backward. I knock into another desk, and it blocks my path. Calix prowls forward. Inches away. Claws at the ready. Shit. “What if I… if I can prove she did it?”

“Do you? Can you?”

No, I think. He knows it too, but not as much as I do. I’ve spent weeks ruminating over the lack of substantial evidence. Circumstantial bullshit scribbled in my journal. Not enough not enough not enough. In this court, evidence is everything. Without it, no one would be convicted. And I—wait. I inhale sharply.

Evidence. Is. Everything.

I glance at the wolfsbane in my hand. The drying petals. Remember Calix himself reducing my father’s baton to plastic confetti. My chest heaves. My throat burns. It’s a stupid idea, but it’s an idea all the same.

“Vanessa,” Calix warns.

“You have no evidence.” I stop thinking and crush the poisonous purple flower against my gaping wound. First it turns to dust. Then it burns. Nothing like those explosions of transformations, or even the wicked heat of the silver. Rather, it feels like a grenade exploding in my flesh and bones. I cry out, slamming down onto my knees. The wolfsbane gnaws through my hand. Deeper, deeper. It flays me from the inside out. I grab my wrist and swallow another scream.

Before this moment, I did not know true pain.

Pale skin withers into gray ash. Into cinders. My blood blackens.

Calix curses and runs for me, his claws and fangs vanishing as he grabs me and scoops me up into his arms. “Fucking idiot,” he hisses. But he hurries me into an adjacent restroom and sets me on the edge of an ornately carved whalebone sink. Water splashes from the faucet, but if he’s washing my hand, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything but the hot grip of death.

“We have minutes,” he says, low and gruff, “before someone comes after us. Are you out of your mind?”

“You were… going to expose me.”

“That wouldn’t have been nearly as bad as this.” He swats away my healthy hand, forcing the injured one beneath the faucet. Water trickles through the hole in my hand. Feels like ice on a summer sidewalk.

“Hurts,” I say.

His jaw clenches and unclenches so many times that I begin to count the movements just to stay awake. Stay alive. The world spins, a nauseating carousel where the roof becomes the floor, and the floor becomes the wall.

“Breathe,” he commands.

“Trying.”

“Fuck,” he says. “That really was your big plan? Steal the wolfsbane and poison Evie in the middle of the throne room? As long as she’s dead, who cares if you are too?” He grabs a cloth from the counter and swipes it on my palm. Rubs the wound until it begins to bleed anew. Red again, not black. My head swims further. I clutch Calix’s shoulder for support. He sighs, deflating beneath my touch.

“Idiot,” he murmurs.

“Yes,” I whisper, and the truth spills from my lips in a haze of torment. “I hadn’t… hadn’t thought about how I would use it. After she stabbed me, and I saw her brother… I know they did it, Calix. I know it. And I’m so tired of waiting, of living here afraid. I saw the wolfsbane and reacted.”

His eyes harden. “You’ve not been transforming enough.”

“I have.”

“Your emotions are—”

“She died, Calix,” I say. “She died, and I’m… I’m a monster.”

A moment of silence stretches between us as he stanches my wound with quick, efficient movements. He rips off a sleeve of his shirt—almost identical to the one I’m still wearing—and presses it against my hand, absorbing as much of the blood as he can. It won’t stop bleeding.

Minutes pass before, in a low, pained voice, he asks, “Why are you doing this?”

I shut my eyes, burying my head in his shoulder because there’s nowhere else to hide. There’s nowhere else to go. He tenses but doesn’t release me. “I miss her, and if I can just figure out who murdered her—”

“It won’t bring her back.”

I withdraw an inch, glaring up at him. A black lock of hair falls over his eye, and I have half a mind to brush it away. Or rip it from his scalp. “No, but—”

“Vanessa.” He presses his forehead to mine, his golden gaze burning again. “It won’t bring her back.”

I swallow and wait for a sob to wrench from my throat. But the tears—they don’t flow. They still won’t come. I turn away from him, and Calix retreats a tentative step. Though he doesn’t stop washing and rinsing my hand. Scrubbing a bar of lavender soap on my skin. More rinsing. Surely, he wouldn’t care about my injury if he was currently measuring the rope for my noose.

“Calix?”

“Yes?” he murmurs.

“Are… are you turning me in?”

He doesn’t answer, cleaning my hand over and over. Again and again. Silence stretches once more, cold and taut, dousing the flames still rippling through my body. Maybe he will turn me in, then. Maybe I’m a dead woman walking.

“Have you heard the story of my uncle?” he asks abruptly. I shake my head, unsure what this has to do with anything. “He raised me. My mother—the blood traitor—she murdered her human lover, my father, in order to protect me. It was why Queen Sybil agreed to take me in, but my aunt never wanted anything to do with me. From my birth onward, she’s never looked at me for more than a few moments. The court says I look like… like her sister.”

I listen with rapt attention. Not quite understanding but fascinated anyway. I’ve never heard him speak like this before, with that hint of vulnerability. Never heard him speak this much before, ever. And it’s hard to picture his words. Harder to picture him like that at all—small and ostracized and afraid. The child he was before circumstance forced him to become bigger, stronger, than the rest of the court to survive.

“Queen Sybil’s husband, King Léo Severi, was a general before he mated with my aunt. He was a stern, strict man, but… he was the only one who cared for me. ‘It was the agreement,’ he always said. ‘It would be wrong to abandon a child. Against pack order, court laws, and werewolf loyalty.’”

“He sounds a lot like you.”

Calix manages a small grin, and his cheek dimples. I stare at the sight.

“He raised Sinclair and me as brothers. He taught me to fight, to be better than the weak pup the court expected from my heritage. Half of human-born wolves die before birth. But Uncle Léo said my survival was proof I could be more than my genetics. He said my mother’s stain of treachery had not bled into me. He believed in me when I only had Sinclair. For years there was just me and Sin and the king.”

The story builds, and the more Calix speaks, the more the wound in his chest seems to rip open. It becomes palpable—his pain, his grief.

I press my healthy hand to his chest, and his gaze snaps to mine. He holds my wrist with a gentle touch, calloused fingers brushing over my pulse.

“He died twelve years ago,” Calix says. “Shot near the beach. The bullet grazed his heart.”

My earlier insult echoes around us. You’ve never cared about anyone other than yourself, have you? And I realize just how wrong I’ve been. I glance up at Calix. His yellow eyes narrow with the horror of the memory. “I’m sorry,” I murmur—and I mean it.

Calix nods. “He didn’t die then. Werewolves can survive mortal deaths. He dug the bullet out. The injury closed. It seemed simple. Easy. He came home when he couldn’t find the hunter—decided it was some human playing around with firearms as they are so known to do. Sin was gone, attending an overseas mating ceremony with the queen, so I tended to the wound. Cleaned it, though it didn’t seem to need much,” he says. “It looked perfectly healed.” His brows knot. His eyes shut, as if he can’t bear to relive what comes next. My fingers contract over his heart. I’m not sure I can bear it either.

“When I woke the next morning, I found the king decayed in his bed. Burned to a char from the inside out. Blackened veins, bloody eyes, and organs spilling from his mouth.” Calix holds me harder. Tighter. I let him. God knows he needs it. Blood. So much blood and death in this fucking court. I bite down on my tongue.

“Wolfsbane,” Calix explains with a subtle shake as he returns to inspecting my wound. “The bullet was laced with it. If not cleaned properly and immediately, it burrows. It becomes impossible to spot until… until it’s too late. I had to bring his body to the Wolf Queen when she returned. I had to explain my failure. Most in this castle still think it’s my fault. The despicable deed of a blood traitor’s son.”

And my heart—it shatters for him. For the blame he’s placed on himself for years. He was so young. So alone. “It wasn’t your fault, Calix.”

He exhales a humorless laugh. “You would say that. You don’t understand chain reactions. Consequences. If you did, you wouldn’t be so focused on who murdered your friend.”

You wouldn’t be so focused on who murdered your friend.

The words sound cold, jarring, after the quiet pain of his grief. They shatter whatever truce we might’ve built between us.

Shoving him away, I leap off the sink, but my legs are jelly, and they waver like a flag caught in a strong breeze. Calix throws one of my arms over his shoulders and anchors me to his side. Though I want to shrug away from him, I can’t stand on my own.

“Can you not show one ounce of sympathy?” I snap instead. “Why are you always such a… an asshole?”

“All this,” he begins, with a gesture to the tiled bathroom, the blue waters trickling from the sink, and the siren mosaics on the walls swimming forward and backward, “it’s not a joke. Physical training, alchemy, the history lessons… They aren’t toys. They’re weapons, Vanessa. They’re tools.”

He studies my hand once more, holding it beneath the moonlight, and shudders out a resigned breath. “You should wake in the morning. I think—I think I got it all.”

“If you let me,” I remind him quietly. That’s strike three, Hart.

He nods. “If I let you.”

“Which you…”

“Vanessa,” he pleads, a growl hardening his voice. “Look at me.”

I do. I can’t not look at him.

He closes my palm into a fist. “You can wear pretty dresses and flaunt your beauty and flirt with my cousin all you want, but none of that is going to bring you closure. You’re not using your tools.”

“I’m learning to shift,” I protest. “I can grow my claws in less than a minute. When I find out who—”

He shakes his head. Hesitates. Then—“You still don’t understand. There is a puzzle in front of you. Instructor Alvarez’s death. Your friend’s death. Where did they happen?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “The beach. Different times of day, but during a full moon. Do you see what I’m saying?” When I still don’t answer, he releases my hand. “You need to focus on the why.”

“You think…” Frowning, I shut my eyes and try to follow his train of thought. There is a puzzle in front of you. “You think Celeste’s death is connected to the instructor’s?”

Blood. Organs. Death.

“I don’t know,” he says.

A truth.

“But you have theories?”

“I’ve had theories ever since I first saw you at the beach, dancing wildly and singing horribly in a crowd of mortals.” He runs a finger through my mussed hair, and I remember Sin’s hands on me only an hour ago. I force myself to step away, to lean against the sink for support. His hand falls to his side. “In our world, we don’t have the luxury of coincidence. Look at the number of lessons we have before we even set foot in a pack of our own. We are raised smart. Calculated. Cunning. Regardless of the mythos—regardless of Lone Wolves—we are not barbaric, bloodthirsty monsters.”

“And you’re humble too,” I mutter. “What about Evie? The fight on the beach?”

“Evelyn Lee has been raised for ruling ever since she was born to a queen. Do you really think she’d threaten her entire future over a human girl?”

My hackles rise at the thought of Celeste being a throwaway character in anyone’s life, but… he’s right. Fuck. He’s right. Celeste might’ve been everything to me, but she was nothing to Evie. Nothing to any of these people. My chest constricts at the realization. Because—

“This doesn’t mean she didn’t do it.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “However, it does mean you need to find a motive.”

There is a puzzle in front of you.

I’ve only ever been looking at a single piece. The fight before Celeste’s death. The nature of werewolves. Aside from that, a few threats from a bully whose gift gives her a wider variety of torture devices. And now there’s been another murder, and I didn’t even think to question if they were connected. I didn’t think.

Calix walks me to the door. Slides it open with his foot. “When they ask where we went, I will tell them that I consoled you, talked you down from hysterics, and cleaned your injury.” He glances down at me, and something in his eyes softens. My heart races in response. “Please don’t make me kill you, Hart,” he says quietly.

“You’re letting me go?”

“I’m investigating the murders too. As long as you stow your violent tendencies, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to conduct your own investigation.” He groans at the sight of my burgeoning grin. He’s investigating. This whole time, he’s been suspicious too. Condescending and rude, yes, but maybe… not my enemy. “Don’t smile at me like that,” he says darkly, “I’m not sharing my discoveries with a potential traitor.”

My grin widens, even as the wound in my hand continues to throb. “Of course.”

“You drive me insane,” he says.

True.

“I barely tolerate you,” I agree.

Lie.

But before I can examine my own dishonesty, he widens the opening of the door and forces me out of it, ending our conversation. The walk to my room is shorter than I expect. Maybe because he drags me most of the way, still checking my hand every couple of steps. I think about his uncle. How he wasn’t able to save him.

“Can I ask you a question?” I say outside my door.

Calix stops suddenly, back rigid as a brick wall. “That depends.”

“If you knew who murdered your uncle—if you could track them down and make them pay—would you? Would you kill them?”

Without hesitating, he says, “Yes.”

Another truth.

“So the who does matter?”

“If you’re going to learn who did it, you first have to figure out why.” He spins me so I face my door, practically begging me to open it. “You’re so focused on that stupid fight, you haven’t looked at anything else.”

“It was…” I glance down at my injured palm. New skin has started to stitch around the jagged edges of the wound. “It was out of character for her. For Celeste. She was… happy. Nauseatingly so. Almost always. And if she wasn’t happy, she was scrappy. Never violent. Never that.”

“Sounds like a girl I would’ve hated,” he says not unkindly. I laugh. Sniffle. But I don’t cry. Maybe I’ll never cry again.

“Yes,” I agree. “She would’ve enjoyed making your life hell.”

“She can rest easily knowing you’re doing that for her.”

“I hope she is,” I blurt suddenly. Surprisingly. It’s a thought I haven’t allowed myself to indulge in before. “Resting easily, I mean.”

The heat from Calix’s hand burns into my lower back. Hovers just barely over my shirt. His shirt. He seems reluctant to touch it, and I’m reluctant to let him. “The people we lose don’t leave us,” he says at last. “Their memories remain. We will always have those pieces of them.”

“You said… you said before that you didn’t want to be my enemy.” I glance over my shoulder at him. His eyes rove my face with an intensity that steals my breath. “Is that what we are, Calix?”

He does touch me now. Briefly. So briefly I close my eyes to sear the memory into my mind. To keep that moment forever.

“Yes, Vanessa.” Another truth. His voice lowers. “We can’t be anything else.”

I’m not sure Calix has ever told me a lie. I lean against the door and let out a harsh breath. He’s gone before I turn around.

28

If you don’t want to partake in the Ascension Rite as a bald young woman, you’ll sit still,” Oona snaps, her hands ripping my hair into an intricate patchwork braid of flowers, curls, and pearls.

I balance on my knees along a pebbled shore during lunchtime as pink waters crash against a shimmering seawall of gemstones and Castle Severi casts a large, foreboding shadow over us. Directly behind us. We only have access to this one other sliver of the Realm of Superiority’s shoreline, and it makes me wonder how far away I am from the mortal realm. From St. Augustine. From my father and home. I tilt my head as I glance back at the castle’s exit. A single door opens into the field where we have Combat training. The movement only makes Oona tug my hair harder.

“Ow,” I whine. “A little rough, Oona.”

“Yes, well. We are being watched by a dozen guards.” A few sharper tugs. “I won’t let anyone think I am bad at my job.”

“I don’t think they’ll assume that.” I press a hand to my pulsating scalp. “But they might if I leave here without hair.”

“I told you to sit still.”

“I’m trying.” The air blows fresher out here, and the sun burns brighter. It smells like sea salt spray, like the ancient rocks and seashells that make up the castle’s outer walls, and a part of me almost forgets everything that happened the last couple of weeks. The tussle with Evie, the days of silence afterward, the moments when Sin couldn’t do more than glance in my direction without endangering either of our lives. He’s on a tighter leash now, after his display of dominance over his future mate. His intended equal. And I… I’m just trying to survive.

The court mourned Instructor Alvarez for seven days—with nightly fireworks, liquor at breakfast, and songs and poetry echoing in every corridor. Since then, I’ve not managed to do much else besides record it. Any of it. All of it. I flick open my journal now, keeping my gaze low but my head high, hiding its leather cover between the folds of my velvet red skirt.

Since Calix shifted my perspective to obtaining a motive before confirming the suspect, I have written every single piece of information I can recall of that horrible night. Celeste celebrating my birthday early. Her enormous hickey from the wild party days before. Her unruly behavior, so unlike her that it’d felt similar to being around a stranger, and, finally, the fight with Evie. The hideous words exchanged with her and her brother.

But why would a werewolf have threatened their position to murder a human girl? What would Evie have to gain from Celeste’s death or my transformation? I tap my quill on the page. It can’t be a coincidence—any of it. The fight, the werewolves’ presence, or the cover-up afterward.

Something nags in the back of my mind. Some piece of the puzzle I can’t quite glimpse. I shut my journal and cover it with my gown. “How long do transitions usually take, Oona?”

“Longer than your own,” she says. “I’ve never witnessed a transformation as rapid as yours. Bitten humans experience a week or two of excruciating pain before the change manifests. You shifted the evening of the third day.”

A week or two. “And there’s no way to predict that amount of time?”

“Oh, no. Only the universe knows the potential of a human. Their fate.”

So they hadn’t Bitten me on purpose. They couldn’t have known what I would become. At least, they couldn’t have known I would survive. “And most Bitten are brought here, right? To the queen?”

She shakes her head. “All werewolves who seek to bite a human must have a regent’s verbal and written agreement first, but typically, once Bitten, those werewolves are free to live within a pack. Most bites are reserved for same-sex couples and singles who adopt human children and want to transition them when the children are of the standard age for the First Rite,” she says, and then—before I can ask—she adds, “Twelve. Born werewolves go through their transformation when puberty strikes. Of course, there are always exceptions.”

At first, I think she’s speaking of me, but then she tilts my head, forcing me to look where the pastel waves beat against a seawall and splash up onto the legs of a short blonde with wide, yellow eyes and ballerina-pink lips.

“Nettie,” I whisper, turning to face Oona. “How did she become a werewolf?”

Oona flops onto the grass and rubs her hands on her apron. “Don’t you think it would be best to ask her that yourself?”

Antionette lowers herself onto the edge of the seawall, dangling her legs over the water. From here, she almost looks like a mermaid. Her sparkling silver top glitters like starlight scales. Her leggings could be a navy tail. She looks altogether much more modern than usual.

“And give Evie an even greater reason to stab me? Hell no,” I answer honestly. “This already took four days to heal.” I hold up the offending hand, showing off the jagged scar that remains in the shape of a sunburst in the middle of my palm.

Oona laughs, a short bark of a sound. “Silver is a wicked bitch.”

“Exactly. And Evie is worse.” I pick a fallen leaf from Oona’s hair and flick it away. “She didn’t have to attack me. She doesn’t actually like Sin.” I don’t elaborate on that, don’t gather confirmation that my suspicions are correct, and she much prefers Nettie’s company to her future mate’s.

“The law—”

“Yes, I am aware of the law.” I sigh, tracing my fingers over the ridges of my scar. Memories of pain flare through my bones. Not from the silver, but from the wolfsbane. God. I shudder. I’m lucky Calix let me leave. I’m lucky he didn’t turn me in and ruin what’s left of my life.

“If you are so worried about the Princess of Asia, you should be intelligent enough to know that you’ve yet to seek out your best source for information.” Oona snatches my hand and points my fingers at Nettie. “You’ve recorded as much as you know. It’s time to speak to someone else.”

“And you think Evie’s best friend will tell me her dirtiest, darkest secrets?”

“I think your conversation would be more productive than us sitting in the smallest expanse of the Realm of Superiority while being watched by a dozen guards because they don’t trust you to leave the castle.” Oona releases my hand and leans back on her elbows, glaring at the sky. “I do not like being monitored, and I miss ice cream, Vanessa.”

Glancing behind us at the not-so-subtle soldiers pacing in a semicircle around us, I scoff. I don’t like it either. The soldiers showed up the day after the instructor’s death, however, and they have yet to do anything but follow me around like a merry band of Dobermans. Punishment for threatening the princess, I’m sure.

“Ticktock,” Oona says. “You can use your brain, or you can rot, but make the decision before I sweat to death.”

Oona is full of it. The breeze that sweeps over us is especially autumnal and cold. Nothing at all like the heat and humidity of Florida. I track the tangerine clouds that soar overhead and sigh again. I would prefer to rot, honestly, but… that won’t help me. I need answers, and I need them now.

“Fine. But I’m going to hate it.”

“That is your prerogative, girl.”

“Loathe,” I hiss. “Despise.” Passing Oona my journal, I climb to my feet, wiping pebbles and seashells and broken bits of gemstones from my legs, and force myself to trudge toward Nettie. She doesn’t glance up when I drop down beside her. Her gaze remains fixed on the ocean, on the horizon line that dazzles and blinds.

“It’s my favorite sight,” she says quietly. “The sunlight reflecting on the ocean. Can you even imagine what lies beyond? There’s a whole world out there that our faerie ancestors thrived within, and we will never see it.”

Whatever I thought she might say, it’s not that. I stare at her, mouth indelicately agape. She turns, her brows rise, and she grins. “You’ll catch gnats.” Finger on my chin, she shuts my mouth. “Relax, Vanessa. I’m not going to shove you in. Although”—she returns to gazing at the sea—“Evie would love that.”

“You hate me,” I say—or maybe I ask it.

Nettie laughs, a lovely, shimmering lilt. Almost like Celeste’s. I shift uneasily on the edge of the seawall. “I certainly don’t like you.”

Truth.

“I can’t say I’m your biggest fan either,” I offer. Then, “Why… why can’t we access more than this? The forest and the shore?”

She glances behind us, champagne-blonde hair blowing across her face and tangling with the variety of necklaces hanging from her neck. Most of them seem homemade, braided from bright threads and seashells—but another, an open oyster dangling from a gold chain, glows iridescent, shimmering with magic. Only an Alchemist could have made something so beautiful, and I bet I can guess exactly who it was.

“The castle is made of shells from this very beach,” Nettie says, “and materials from the forest. We already exist within both. But… accessing any more of it…” She pulls a clear baggie of gummy bears and sour worms from the pocket of her leggings, turning back toward the water. “It doesn’t end well for a modern werewolf. We can’t live, breathe, exist beyond that which the stars allow. There’s no real explanation for it. Only that the universe doesn’t want us there, and the mortal realm doesn’t want us with it either. We werewolves are forced to live in the in-between, never quite belonging to any one place but always belonging to our packs.” She fishes a gummy out of the bag as if we aren’t speaking deep philosophy and extends a second one to me. “Candy?”

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?”

Nettie shakes her head, releasing her shirt. “Evie took too much from her bite, and she didn’t give enough back.” Spying my confusion, she continues, “When you bite a human, the life you gift them must come from somewhere. One’s soul. It’s why one werewolf can never create a full pack of their own. The amount of soul it would strip from them would shatter their brain and body like a mirror. Too many pieces missing, gone, and impossible to be wholly repaired.

“Evie didn’t know that, though. She didn’t give me enough of her soul, and I… I hadn’t kept enough of my own life. When Ambassador Wuhao found us, he transformed, scooped me up into his mouth, and carried me to the castle. Ran so fast, the world looked like an oil painting. Evie followed, but… She was younger. Not as fast. Her left ankle twisted sometime into the journey, and it never managed to recover since she had to keep running. It still bothers her sometimes.”

“But why would they bring you here? Biting a human without permission is illegal,” I say.

Nettie nods. “Oh, Queen Sybil was furious. She ranted and raved, even as I lay dying on the cold stone floor of the entrance. We were in her court, and this would have to be her decision.” Nettie runs her hands through her hair. “If the queen decreed it, I would be allowed to live and be taken in by the Lees. If not, I would be killed. Luckily, Evie is a princess, and ultimate power is nothing if not corrupt. And so, the Wolf Queen of North America granted my survival. If the bite didn’t kill me, she would let me live.” Antionette sniffles. Her eyes water with fresh tears. I’m not sure if they’re from gratitude or sadness.

“They threw me in a metal room, as though they were worried about my breaking out, but I couldn’t move. A fever burned me to a crisp on the inside. I lay on the bed day and night, and Evie sat beside me. For thirteen days. Through my screaming, my bleeding, my weeping… Evie never left. She watched the fire turn to ice in my veins. She heard me begging for death. She washed the sweat and welts from my neck… the oozing wound at my throat. And she prayed, loudly, to the stars and moon and sun that I would live. She just wanted me to live.”

I take Nettie’s hand. I don’t know why I do it—maybe because I lived in that room for only three days and thought it would be my undoing, or maybe because she’s crying now, fat tears rolling down her cherubic cheeks—but I hold it between us like a lifeline. Thirteen days. Thirteen. How had she survived? She glances at the gesture. Smiles.

“On the fourteenth morning, I ripped into a wolf. Gold eyes, white fur, and Evie still beside me, grinning proud as I’ve ever seen her.” Nettie’s grip hardens against mine. “I love her, Vanessa. You understand that, don’t you? I miss my family, and I miss my home, but I wouldn’t leave her. Not for anything in the world.” She releases me then, drying her tears on her sleeve before clearing her throat. I give her the space to do so. “Being a werewolf… It’s a curse. But it’s also a gift. We’re stronger. We live longer. We’re magic.”

And that’s all well and good, but—“It feels less like a true story and more like a children’s fable.”

Nettie snorts. “What is life if not lessons disguised as mistakes?” She sits again. Her feet barely touch the water, but she kicks them, waiting for a wave to crest. To rise and meet her. “You need to enjoy your time here. We never know how much we’ll have on this earth.”

And maybe those are the truest words that have ever been spoken. I sit beside her, take off my slippers, and dip my toes in the freezing water as I process Nettie’s story. Evie illegally changed her and stole her forever.

Evil? No. Morally gray? Absolutely.

It doesn’t seem like evidence, however. Why would Evie take my soulmate from me the way she’d been so terrified would happen to her? Unless she’s narcissistic enough to not care about anyone else, which—as I examine my scar—does seem plausible.

I clench my eyes shut tight and admit a horrible truth to myself. If I’d been in Evie’s shoes and saving Celeste had come down to dooming her with the bite of a werewolf, I would have done it. I would have done it without question. No matter the gory consequences. It’s not worse than what happened.

It’s not worse.

Holy shit. I startle, almost pitching forward into the sea, but Nettie grabs hold of my shirt and rips me backward onto the grass. “What the hell, Hart?” she growls.

But I scramble onto my knees and paw at her shirt. “Nettie, please. Please show me your scar again.”

She swats me away. “Okay, weirdo. Is this like a fetish?”

“Please.”

“Fine.” She scoffs and shakes her hair. And then I see it—the rash. The rash. “You said you ran a fever, right?”

“Yes.” Nettie’s brows furrow.

Shit.

How had I not thought of this before?

“What else? Any other symptoms?”

“Aside from almost dying, no. I guess… I hallucinated. About my mother devouring my father and then burning herself alive. And—well, those first days, I wasn’t exactly nice to Ambassador Wuhao. I wanted to rip his flesh from his bones. Anytime he stopped to rest on our journey, I tried to attack him. But that’s normal. Mood swings, psychoses… Being Bitten means cleaving your soul in two.”

“Holy shit.” I exhale, and it shakes me to my core. “Fucking Christ.”

Nettie’s gaze widens. “Jesus, Vanessa.”

I’m already on my feet, though. Already running toward the castle. The guards follow, but I don’t pay them any mind. This is it. This is my why. I’ve been so busy making Evie my nemesis that I missed what was right in front of me all along. Just as Calix said.

I think back to the journal I left with Oona. Think about the page where I detailed the day of Celeste’s death. Inky blue words bleed into my brain.

Celeste

Feverish

Explosive rage. Purple hickey. Rash.

Partially digested gummy bears rise in my throat, and I spit them onto the grass.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Someone bit Celeste. Someone… someone bit her. They tried to turn my best friend into a werewolf. And her murder—it had to be a cover-up for the werewolf’s mistake.

It’s illegal to bite a human without direct permission of the queen. And even if you have permission, they lock us in metal rooms where we can’t get out and can’t hurt anyone else.

If a werewolf killed Celeste, it must’ve been because they thought she wouldn’t survive the illegal bite. Yes. Yes. Yes. My insides fizzle and spark with joy. This is it.

I’m unsure of the exacts, but I’ve uncovered one huge piece of the puzzle.

Celeste was Bitten.

29

I lie awake, tossing and turning in bed well past midnight. Three words echo in my brain on a soul-crushing loop. She was Bitten she was Bitten she was Bitten.

How could I not have known? How could I not have guessed?

It explains so much about her ever-shifting personality in that last week. Her chaos at both parties we attended and her anger in the fight. And that rash. Not a hickey after all, but a webbing of scars. I lift my nightgown from my ribs and expose my own scar. It’s fainter, silver and cracked on my pale skin, but it spirals and tangles like a spider’s web.

That’s because you were meant to survive it.

I roll onto my side and stuff my hands under my pillow. Had Celeste even known herself? Surely if she had, she would’ve told me. Celeste held out her pinky to me in third grade and made me swear on my future grave that we would never keep secrets from each other.

“Ever,” she said. “No matter what.”

I twined my pinky with hers and agreed. “No matter what.”

No, I think to myself. She couldn’t have known.

Now, if only I could figure out which werewolf did it and for what reason. Glaring at the waxing gibbous moon hanging in my window, I will it to darken, will the stars to stop shining so brightly that it feels like my bedroom is lit by the sun. I’ll never be able to sleep. I’ll probably watch dawn spring forth without ever shutting my eyes once.

She was Bitten. If not for that night on the beach, Celeste could have shifted into a werewolf. She could have become what I am now.

Suddenly, a piercing scream rends the air, and I bolt upright. My pulse quickens as I fist the sheets of my bed.

Ignore it. Just ignore it.

Another scream—a woman’s. Shrill and terrified.

I plug my ears. It’s not the first time I’ve heard screams here. I’m sure it won’t be the last. But the noise digs beyond my hands and into my ears. There’s something about the sound. It’s different. It’s familiar.

I try not to listen, even as it pierces my werewolf hearing and coils like a snake in my brain. The shriek is… it’s… weak. Whiny and feeble and—

Mortal.

“Please,” I make out from the depths of wherever the screams come from, “please help us.”

Tonight, the screams are loud enough I can hear the cadence perfectly, can hear each rasping of their breath. This voice does not belong to a woman.

It belongs to a child.

Claws rip from my hands as, instinctually, I leap out of bed and snatch a silk robe from my wardrobe. When the next scream rings out, my vision tunnels on the door. I forget to tie the belt around my waist. Forget that I shouldn’t be walking around this late. Forget that soldiers have been following my every move for weeks. None of that matters anyway.

A child is being hurt. A human child. And the sound—it’s coming from below. Deep, deep down in the underbelly of the castle.

My heart races, beating violently against my ribs, and I throw myself into the hallway. I don’t think; I just move. Fast as my reflexes allow it, I charge toward the winding staircase. I’m not even sure why. But somewhere a child is hurt, and maybe I can help them. I want to help them.

Torchlight flickers, dimmer than usual, charcoal-gray flames dancing along empty stone walls and casting crooked shadows on tapestries and statues. Another scream—and it’s louder. It’s closer. I race after it. Down the stairwell, around and around, as quietly as I can manage while maintaining my pace. If I make enough racket, guards will come. I’ll either be tried for treason or locked in my room—or maybe stabbed again. My clammy grip slides over the wrought iron, and my legs tremble, but I keep going. I have to keep going. Those screams don’t stop, and no one else is helping. No one else seems to care.

When I finally reach the bottom, the source of the noise, my lungs threaten to burst, and the world tilts as adrenaline consumes me. I hold on to the railing and close my eyes, breathing until the world straightens and I’m certain I can continue walking without collapsing.

“There you are.”

I startle at the voice—jump and knock into the railing painfully as my eyes pop open—however, I don’t scream. If I must, I will incapacitate the intruder. I will save the child.

But the girl in front of me isn’t an intruder at all.

Dazzling sapphire eyes watch me, unblinking, as she tilts her head. Straight black hair falls over pale shoulders, constellations inked above her brow. Along her nose and cheeks. Like freckles.

The Oracle.

Lyra.

Why is she down here? Is she torturing humans? And if she is—my stomach sinks—she’ll have me brought before the queen for intervening. “I… um… I was just on a nightly stroll,” I hasten to say, trying to glimpse the location of the last scream over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I’ll go back to bed.”

Lyra grins, sweeping aside the delicate skirts of her nightgown. “You don’t need to whisper. The stars hear all regardless.” She gestures for me to enter the spacious cavern. The lagoon.

Seawater swirls black in the pool, and the moon and stars cast the limestone rock and seashell walls in silvered, dancing lights. “I thought you would be here tonight, although the future isn’t written in stone. You can always change your mind.”

Shit. I’ve been caught by the Wolf Queen’s fortune-telling lap dog. I hesitate to follow her deeper into the antechamber. “Are you going to turn me in?”

“I waited for you, didn’t I?” Lyra waves her arms, and the wings of her nightgown flutter behind her like a swan’s. “The future must come to fruition.”

“You just said the future isn’t written in stone.”

“Yours isn’t.” Lyra tiptoes around the lagoon. “This castle’s is.”

I glance back up the stairwell. The screams may have died down, but that child is still here. I can either run away or stay. Stay and fight for them. Perhaps I can convince Lyra to leave. Perhaps she won’t intervene.

Taking another step forward, I ask, “Lyra, why are you down here?”

“If you’re asking if I’m the reason for the screams, I am not.” Truth. She gestures to the hole in the rock that leads to the sky. “The universe did not raise me to hurt others.”

My eyes narrow. “What did it raise you for?”

“I do not know.” Hollow distance fills her gaze. “Perhaps pain. Perhaps glory. Sometimes they seem much the same, don’t they?”

“I… don’t actually know what you’re saying,” I admit.

Lyra cackles. I glance nervously at the stairs, listening for any sound of guards in the stairwell or beyond. So far, silence.

“The universe bestows its gifts justly, Vanessa Serafina Hart.”

I still. My grandmother’s name passes between us like a secret. “How do you know my middle name?”

She smiles at the stars and ignores the question. I suppose for an oracle it is rather redundant. “Queen Sybil was not always as she is now. She spent her twelve wolf-less years as a young girl obsessed with dealings. Traded chores with other girls. Swapped clothing with her sister. Bargaining for a better place here. A more important one.”

I lean against the wall of rock, and it slices my skin, sharp as claws. I hiss, and blood trickles down my arm. “Are you saying the universe gave Queen Sybil power over magical, blood-binding bargains because she wanted to wear her sister’s dresses?”

“The universe can only return to us what it’s been given.” Lyra watches the wound on my arm heal itself, and her blue gaze pales to white. She blinks furiously before it returns to normal once more. I think to ask her about it, but she’s speaking again. “You wield honesty like a sword, unashamed and proud. The universe has thus gifted you the ability to sense that in others.”

“I would have preferred the universe to keep me human.”

“Yes. You would have.” She inclines her chin. “You ask all the wrong questions, you know. You miss all the answers even as they’re in front of you.”

I loathe that her honesty feels like home. I flex my hands, forcing my claws at bay. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“Are you?” She shakes her head and holds out a hand. “Come.”

“Where?”

“He is on his way.” She wiggles her fingers. “One minute to choose your future, Vanessa Serafina Hart.”

I growl as frustration clogs my throat. My claws don’t break free, but my hands shake. My cheeks flush red hot. “You are the most confusing person I have ever met, and I’m—”

My ears perk up. I stop speaking immediately. There is an echo in the stairwell. A clatter of footsteps. I listen closer. One, two, three steps at a time.

Someone is coming.

Shit.

Lyra stands as motionless as the current in the lagoon. “Your choice,” she whispers.

If I don’t trust her, I’m as good as caught. Damn it. I grab her hand, and faster than I could have imagined she yanks me into the water. “What the—” But that strange, magical liquid fills my mouth and smothers my words as Lyra holds my head under. As she presses down on my shoulders while her gaze sparkles beneath the sea.

She’s drowning me with a goddamned smile on her face.

30

My claws descend, tearing out of my fingers as I scratch and claw at Lyra. With every slice and cut on her delicate skin, her grip only hardens. I choke on water. It fills my lungs. My eyes. My nose.

I can’t win this fight. Not against her.

Lyra’s hair billows in the water, a spill of black ink on a crystal-blue page, and her gaze burns. She doesn’t even blink. Simply smiles, a true anchor sinking me to the bottom of the seafloor.

Shit shit shit.

I gag around the water that’s desperate to shoot from my lungs. Lyra’s nails puncture my skin, and then—

We ascend.

We shoot from the depths with two kicks of her long, curvaceous legs and explode out of the lagoon. I throw her from me the second we hit the stone and crawl away, puking up gallons of water, no longer caring about guards.

“Are you crazy?” I hiss. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“We can’t die here, silly.” Lyra laughs. She wrings her hair onto the stone floor and lies on her back. “No one can die here.”

“You’re nuts.”

“That’s not very kind of you.”

“Yeah, well, forgive me. I’m still choking on the ocean.”

“It’s not the ocean, Vanessa.”

“What—”

She sits up suddenly, and the sopping wet of her nightgown slaps against the ground. “I need to go. You’ll be okay. Remember, trust your instincts. Your body knows what to do. Stop letting your mind derail it and listen to your bones.”

She glides up the stairwell like a wet wraith, and I can’t stop her.

Your body knows what to do. Stop letting your mind derail it and listen to your bones.

Goose bumps erupt over every inch of my flesh.

Celeste said that to me. At the party on the beach. She said it when our biggest worries were the boys we had crushes on. I hug my knees to my chest, sitting in the middle of the floor until my dress goes from soaking to damp. Until I remember why I’m here—the screams.

I climb to my feet, sucking in a sharp, pained breath, and move to the doorway on the far wall. “Is there… is there anybody here?”

A slender arch—clearly werewolf-made—gives way to a narrow room with a nauseatingly low ceiling. If I had any claustrophobia, it would trigger here. The walls seem to close in on me, yellowing stone stained with mildew and algae. Hooks hang from the ceiling, metallic and spiky. I touch one and hiss. My skin instantly blisters.

Silver.

“Who’s there?” a woman asks with a throaty cough. “Who are you?”

The words—the gravelly, distressed tone in which they’re spoken—make me flinch. I move deeper into the dungeon. In the far back, hidden in shadows, steel prisons trap three people with erratic heartbeats and weak breaths.

Humans.

The rotting stench of decay suffocates, wafting from them in waves. The older woman sits on her knees, but her bones are too feeble to hold her up, as if every bit of fat has melted off her body, rendering her a skin sack of bones and tendons. She coughs again and blood sprays from her mouth. She covers it quickly with a shaking hand, her gray eyes and hair charcoal in the blackness.

Beside her, in their own cages, are a young man—amber eyes, flaming orange hair, and a wound oozing through his thin cotton shirt at the center of his chest—and a child. Not more than five, with brown eyes and a dirt-smeared face. Oh god. I fall to my knees in front of the prison and grab the bars without thinking.

The silver scorches my palms, and I swallow a shriek of pain.

The boy blinks at me. “Don’t touch the bars,” he says, and holds up his tiny toddler hands. They’ve melted, congealed into pink puddles.

“Oh dear,” the woman murmurs to herself, rocking back and forth now. “Oh dear, dear, dear.”

The young man watches me, silent, his nostrils flaring as his chest wound bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. I can’t breathe—can’t swallow. Vomit rises in my throat. But I can’t throw up here, in front of them. And I can’t force the bars open to let them out.

“What do I do?” I ask, voice cracking. “Please tell me what to do.”

“Has your queen not done enough tonight?” the woman murmurs. “Or has she sent you to torture us more?”

“Torture you… no. No.” I force myself to my feet. Inside, my soul breaks. My heart splinters. But I keep my head high because they don’t need to see my fear. “I heard your screams. I was coming to rescue you—”

“Rescue us?” The woman’s eyes wrinkle as her lip curls. “Funny. After so much torment, you expect us to believe that one of you would—would ever help us?” She scoots farther back in her cage when I glance at the young man. He opens his mouth, and old, brown blood slides down his chin. The nub that was once his tongue is almost invisible in the gore. I muffle a cry behind my hand.

“Soft,” the woman says. “You are soft.”

The small boy says, “I miss soft.” He cranes his neck, just a bit, but it’s enough to spot the rash of webbing climbing up and over his skin. The welts beneath his shirt. The sweat on his forehead.

Oh god oh god oh god.

They’ve been… they’ve been Bitten. I check the other two for rashes, and sure enough they explode upward—each spiraling from their necks. They’ve been Bitten.

“How long?” I whisper.

The woman immediately understands. “I have been here three days.”

“A week,” the boy croaks—as his nose morphs into a snout, and then breaks. My stomach churns.

The young man doesn’t speak, though his eyes widen, and he flops onto his back as a seizure overtakes him. The woman nods at him. “He’s been here the longest, but I can’t tell you an exact time. We… we’ve become interchangeable. There were bloodstains when they threw me into this cell. I’m not the first to live here.”

No no no.

They’re dying. They’re all going to die down here, and no one will know. No one will care. They are humans.

Just like Celeste.

I glance at the bars—at the padlocks forcing them closed. Silver. Soldered shut. Not a keyhole in sight. But I’m a werewolf. Surely, I’m strong enough to break it. I seize the lock on the woman’s prison even as it scorches me, threatening to dissolve my skin, and tug.

“Pointless,” the woman says. “Look at us.”

I tug and tug, but it doesn’t break. Panic strangles my lungs. I can’t focus, and that’s the problem. I need to find my rage. It’s buried under layers of trauma, however, and I can’t reach it.

“You let us out, and what do you think the guards will do? Will they let us leave this castle unharmed? Will they let you?”

I groan, releasing the lock and letting it clang back into place. Unchanged. Why can’t I break it?

She’s right, though. I can’t walk out of here with them. They reek—even if the guards don’t see us, they’ll smell us from miles away. “You can’t die in here,” I tell her, refusing to meet the watering eyes of the child as he touches his mangled nose. And no one else will save you.

“We grieved our losses the moment that woman stole us into her great black car.”

That—that woman? My breath hitches. A great black car.

“What woman? Did you see her? Do you know if—if she’s the one who bit you?”

“I don’t know,” the little boy says. “I didn’t even know I was Bitten until they brought me here and told me so. They said I would have to die.” Quieter, he says, “I’m dying.”

Tears burn my eyes.

“The same as what happened to me,” the woman agrees. “One night, I was on a date to the beach, and the next morning I was alone in my house. Nothing out of the ordinary until that SUV pulled up and ripped me from the street in the afternoon. I remember a woman with black eyes tying my limbs behind my back and tossing me into this prison.” The woman looks up with a widened gaze. “There’s been torture.” She shudders. “So much torture.”

Sweat beads down her forehead. I back up a step. The woman screams. Guttural and crazed. The bite takes hold of her, and she fists her hair.

She is dying.

They are all dying.

And they don’t even recall how this happened to them. It could’ve been anyone. Could’ve been—my mind grinds to a halt—holy shit.

Black eyes. The woman who nabbed them had black eyes. Queen Sybil. I glance at the woman in the cell. One night, I was on a date to the beach…

I turn to the boy. “Did you go to the beach too?”

The little boy nods. “With my mommy. She took me to build castles.”

“And you went on your date?”

The woman ceases her cries. Her voice comes out shallow. Depleted. “Yes. We matched—matched in a dating app. She asked me to the beach. It was late. We picnicked in the sand.”

The young man who can’t speak points to himself. Violently smacks the wound on his throat.

“You too?” I ask.

He nods furiously.

“I see.” But I don’t. I know the puzzle pieces are before me, but I don’t know how they fit together. Why would a wolf be biting all these humans? Why would it be failing so horrendously that these humans have been locked up and tortured? Nettie said it’s impossible to split one’s soul so many times. Is the same person doing this, then?

Did they do it to me?

And, more than anything, how had this court—how had the queen—known to kidnap every single one of us?

“I have to leave now,” I murmur. “But I’ll come back, I swear. I’ll bring food… blankets…” I’ll figure out who’s doing this to you and stop them.

“Don’t bother,” the woman says, before echoing the very thought I’ve been having since I stepped foot in the dungeon. “We’re dead no matter what you do.”

31

I stumble through the doorway, up the stairs, down the hall. My steps are clunky and uneven, but I don’t worry about hiding them anymore.

I think of the child’s melting hands. The man’s missing tongue.

They were Bitten. Doomed to die or survive. But the queen—she’s not giving them a choice in that prison. Celeste wasn’t given a choice either.

It has to be the queen hiding them, torturing them. Condemning them. Why? The question sends me into a spiral. My hand finds purchase on the walls, pulling me forward even as my feet trip over themselves.

That could have been me. It was Celeste.

Why have I survived and not the others?

Worse than anything is the bone-deep agony of knowing—expecting—their deaths. It’s hopeless. I can’t save them. I can only be aware of their lives snuffing out like candles in the darkness. One, two, three of them. A child. Who knew how many there were before them; who knows how many will exist after them?

How am I supposed to fix this?

I can’t. I’m just… I’m just a girl. I can’t even solve my best friend’s murder. I throw open my door and slam it shut behind me. Let the guards come. Let them throw me away. At least I won’t be responsible. My claws emerge, but I don’t feel the pain of the small transformation. I don’t feel anything but self-loathing and disgust. I would cry if the tears would spill, but they don’t.

Sinclair lies on my bed, but I don’t startle when I spot him. I only fall to the ground and hug myself tight, trying to hold the pieces of myself together, but I’m too broken. I’ve been broken for so long now.

“Vanessa?” He slides off the bed and sits beside me. His hand rubs circles into my back, but it’s not enough to heal this. To fix any of this. It’s been days. Almost two weeks since I’ve seen him, since he compelled the princess and his mother probably locked him in his room and threw away the key.

What are we supposed to do?

“Vanessa,” he whispers again. “What happened?”

“I… I saw…” A whimper rises in my throat, but I stifle it. “I saw the dungeon, Sin. There are humans down there. Bitten humans. They’ve been… they’ve been tortured.”

“What?” He grabs me and pulls me into him, a hug fiercer than ever before. His arms encircle me, his steady heart beating against mine. And I notice—they share the same rhythm, our pulses. They share the same cadence. “Why would you go into the dungeon?”

“I heard screaming. I… I kept hearing it.” I curl into his lap and knot his shirt in my fists. “Sin, there is a child down there. He was Bitten, and h-he’s going to die.”

He curses, and his grip on me tightens. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

Lie. Lie. Truth.

My chest caves in. I feel like porcelain and glass. As if I’ve been thrown against cement and shattered. I am broken. So, so broken.

I can’t live like this.

Gore oozes from every pore of my memory. Celeste’s death, my first time shifting, fighting with Evie, with Katerina, with Calix, being stabbed—but this, seeing a child down there, helpless and hopeless and mangled… “We have to stop th-them. We have to… to…” To what? I don’t know. I don’t know that there is a solution when the queen of this court is the one who locked them all up. These werewolves didn’t care about Celeste. They can hardly stand to let me wander amidst them. They won’t help these humans. And the humans—they’re going to die. Oh god. I can’t breathe.

Sin lifts my chin with trembling fingers. “Slow down, Vanessa.” But I can’t. I can’t slow down and I can’t fix this and I can’t help anyone. Sin’s voice darkens, and his eyes glow. “Inhale,” he commands—compels me. My lungs expand of their own volition. “Exhale,” he commands seconds later. I breathe out, blinking at him.

“Good girl.” He presses his head to mine, and I feel the hot wet of his tears on my skin. “Just keep breathing.”

I try. Even without compulsion, I try to follow his orders. But—“What are we going to do?”

His hair tickles my cheek as he shakes his head. “I don’t fucking know. I…” He looses a ragged breath. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“I can’t say it.” He gazes into my eyes, and the honesty of his words soothes some of the agony in my chest. “You’ll hate me forever.”

“No,” I argue, remembering the way he protected me when Evie hurt me. I remember all the moments he’s checked on me, collected me, helped me. I cradle his face in my hands and brush tentative fingers along his lips. His eyes shut around a pained expression. I’m broken, but so is he. “I couldn’t hate you. You are… the only good thing about this court, Sinclair Severi.”

Because he cares.

He always cares.

He laughs softly, sadly, as if he doesn’t believe me. “Sometimes I wish the blood traitor hadn’t died. That she’d taken revenge on her sister—on Queen Sybil.” He spits his mother’s name. “Queen Sybil is regarded as having saved this castle, but you know why she did it, don’t you? You know why she let Cora die?”

I shake my head.

“Sybil wasn’t always the queen, Vanessa. She was never the one destined for the throne. Born as the youngest sister, she was meant to become third-or fourth-in-command. She’d exist below at least two others in the royal pack order.” He scoffs. “Sybil Severi was the spare.”

My heart stills, and I glance up at him in confusion. “She was?”

Sin nods. “Cora was queen, and Sybil was jealous. That’s why Sybil sent her spies to watch Cora. This court… It doesn’t believe in true loyalty. Only obedience. And only if they gain something from it. Sybil caught the blood traitor in bed with her human lover and dragged them both in front of the court for a swift death and even swifter ascension into power. As soon as the treason was spoken aloud, Sybil was declared queen.”

I’m unsure what to say. The information makes my head spin. And Sin—he sounds crushed. Defeated. “You’re better than her, Sin. I—I hope you know that.”

“I want to be,” he responds, and his honesty is as bright as the sun. “One day, I want to build this court into something right and just and good. No more lies. No more murder. No more fear.”

“Sin,” I whisper. Because it’s all I can think—all I can say. He is right and just and good. He is worth more than the rest of the werewolves combined.

My gaze captures his, and eternity stretches before us. With me in his arms and him holding us both together. He’s as broken as I am, and he’s hesitantly laid those pieces before me, waiting to see what I’m going to do with them. But what can I do? Sin will mate with Evie one day. The girl who stabbed me will become his wife and the queen of his court. And I will always be just Vanessa Hart.

Sin must see the thought written plainly on my face because he knots a hand in my hair and pulls my face closer to his. “You are fucking extraordinary,” he growls before kissing me.

We shouldn’t be doing this. In so many ways, it’s wrong, and guilt sits in my stomach like wood for kindling—but he feels so… so good. I moan into his mouth, immediately straddling his lap and slipping my hands beneath his tunic. He tastes like mint and candy tonight. He tastes like heaven. His heart pounds against me, a steady comforting beat as he stands, picking me up and carrying me to the bed. Our pulses synchronize again. And this kiss—it’s not the heated rapture of our first, it’s a slow fusion of body and mind and soul. His soul. My soul. In this moment, with him laying me down and trailing kisses from my throat to my breasts, they are the same—they feel the same.

I could love you, I think abruptly. I could love you, but I’m not allowed.

“Sin,” I whisper, shivering as he gently eases the sleeves of my nightgown down my arms. Lace lowers over my breasts, grazing the most sensitive parts of me. “Sin, we could die for this.”

His red eyes scald in the darkness, but when he looks up at me, he doesn’t respond. Our actions answer for the both of us. He seizes my lips in a fierce kiss. I rope my hands in his shirt and yank him lower, closer. Right now, he is the light. He is the sun. I need him. I need this reprieve from the darkness and death.

There is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing we can do to save anyone.

“I don’t want anyone else, Vanessa,” he says, his voice dark and hot against my skin. He cups my breast, his fingers wickedly playing my nerves like a piano. He knows the right keys, the exact melody, to drive me wild. And his honesty—it’s a flame, and I am the moth. I am burning.

“Tell me what you want,” he pleads, his tongue laving the hollow of my throat. “I’ll give it to you. Anything you ask for, I will give you.”

Lie.

There’s one thing he can’t give me, no matter how much I might want it. But this… tonight… It’s enough.

Emboldened by his lips, by the heady pleasure searing my veins, I whisper, “Touch me.” If this moment is our last, I don’t want it to end. Not yet. “Please.”

His eyes nearly blacken. He pulls me to the edge of the bed. “Vanessa Hart,” he murmurs against my lips, “it would be my pleasure.”

My thighs clench around him, nightgown bunching indecently at my waist, but his gaze doesn’t leave my face. He growls—the dangerous snarl of a werewolf prince on the brink of losing control. His lips punish mine, unforgiving and sweet and sinful, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth and devouring what’s left of me as his fingers curl into the center of my desire. I’ve never felt like this before. So beautiful. So loved.

I might not feel like this again.

My back arches as Sin touches me, and the somber thought is quickly lost to the waves of tension and need flooding my core. “Don’t stop.” Please don’t stop.

And he doesn’t.

I wake up the next morning with a nervous twitch and a soft breath, my legs entangled with Sin’s, his six abdominal muscles tense beneath my head, and a raging hardness pressed against my wrist. His eyes pop open seconds after mine, and he startles as if he forgot he came here at all. Actually, it’s more as if he flails. Rather ungraceful for the prince who’d kissed me deftly hours ago. I almost laugh, but he glares at me.

“I am not a morning person,” he declares. His hands find purchase on my bed, and he sits up, hoisting me after him and nestling me in the crook of his arm. He glances at my window, at the sun rising above two hissing snakes. We have definitely missed breakfast. His brow furrows. “I also don’t sleep in. Ever.”

I lick my lips, thankful our werewolf genetics have rid us of morning breath, and sprawl a pale hand across his chest. It’s horribly unfair that he’s so beautiful. His skin shimmers under the sunlight, as gilded as his hair. Nerves flicker and zip through my belly like hundreds of fireflies. I—I don’t know what to do with myself. Sit? Stand? Pull the blanket up to my chin and hope he didn’t count the cellulite on my thighs? Oh god. He may not have seen all of me naked, but he saw bits and pieces. And we may not have done everything, but it was more than before. It was… it was…

“Your silence is disturbing,” he says. “Are you upset about last night or are you basking in it?” Then, lower, he mumbles, “I hate that I can’t tell.”

I chew on my lip until his thumb intervenes.

“Vanessa,” he traces my lips with a gentle touch, “I really need you to answer that question.”

“I’m… not upset,” I say finally, hazarding a glance at him. He watches me with narrow eyes, studying me so thoroughly that I may as well be completely naked. “I’m not,” I promise. “It’s just…”

“Yes?”

“I’ve never… done that with anyone, and I’ve never woken up with a boy before.”

He considers this for a moment, all the while my heart races as if I’m in a free fall. “Have you ever—”

“No.” God. I contemplate yanking the blanket over my entire flaming face. I can imagine what Celeste would say: If you’re going to run to second base, you should at least be able to talk about it. But talking about it with her is different than talking to Sin. One, because she knew everything about me, good and bad. Two, because she shared far more than even I wanted to hear (Mark’s index finger is pretty small, but his speed at smashing the buttons on his PS5 controller definitely came in handy). And, three, because she wouldn’t have been the one kissing me.

Sin stares at me expectantly, waiting for me to elaborate. I twirl a purple strand of hair around my finger. “I’ve only gone all the way once, but Celeste… She said it didn’t count.” In her defense, Grant Austin barely managed to take off his pants before finishing.

“I see.” He still watches me closely, and his heart stutters nervously. “So—no complaints?”

A smile twitches on my lips, unbidden. “No. No complaints, Sinclair. And you?”

He hooks my chin with a finger and drags me in for a kiss that curls my toes. “You are perfect, Vanessa,” he says. Truth. The fireflies in my stomach multiply by a thousand.

“I guess all that’s left now is for someone to burst in and catch us,” he says—and just like that, the magical haze around us shatters.

It’s a sobering thought. I push away from him with a sigh, clutching the blanket around my body. “We’re lucky they haven’t.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I know you believe that, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true.”

“Vanessa—”

“Evie stabbed me for hugging you,” I say. “She would kill me for this—or lock me in that fucking dungeon. What we did last night… It can’t happen again. It—it was an accident.”

“An accident,” he repeats numbly.

“Yes,” I say, though even to my ears I sound entirely unconvincing. “We got carried away. It was a bad night, and we were both sad, and it… it wasn’t our fault.”

Sin nods as if I’ve dumped a bucket of ice water on his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.” He climbs off my bed and reaches for the shirt that we abandoned to the floor. Tugging it on, smoothing it over his defined chest, he runs a quick hand through his silky hair and sets off for the door.

“Sin, stop.”

He halts at my words, his shoulders set with sudden tension. “I shouldn’t have come,” he says again.

“But you did.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He glances back at me, and his burgundy gaze scorches once more. “Probably for the same reason I almost disemboweled Princess Evelyn Lee in the middle of the throne room.”

Oh. Right. I reach beneath the blanket and tug my nightgown sleeves back in place, pulling the lacy silk up over my chest. Once I’m decent, I release the blanket and stand. “We shouldn’t continue like this. One of us is going to get killed.”

He growls in frustration and drops his gaze. “I know.”

“And I…” I hesitate before the confession spills from me, but I need him to know. I need him to know that if there were any choice here, I’d pick him. “You’re good for this court. You will make a great king.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“I meant everything I said last night. You are good.”

He turns on his heel to face me, observing the sun’s rays as they dance along my body. “It would probably sound very petulant for me to admit that I’m tired of not getting what I want, wouldn’t it?”

I can’t help that my smile returns, if only for a second. “It would.”

He nods again. “Good thing I didn’t say it, then.”

“Good thing.”

He leans a hand against my wall, and his face withers into melancholy. Any light left in the room evaporates in an instant. “About the dungeon, I’ve been thinking.…”

“Me too,” I say. “The humans mentioned something—each of them was collected by a woman with black eyes. It has to be—”

“The queen,” he finishes for me.

“And if she collected them that quickly,” I continue, “then she had to have been informed about them early. About all of us.”

“Yeah,” Sin says. “We’re sharing the same train of thought. One rogue wolf couldn’t bite all these people. They’d be broken and soulless, if not outright dead. Logically, it doesn’t make sense.”

“So maybe a rogue pack?”

He shakes his head. “Werewolves cover enough of this planet that an entire pack shouldn’t go undiscovered. It’s probably someone in this court. Someone with influence and power, who could command a few werewolves to help them.”

“And you think—”

“I don’t want to say what I think yet,” he says honestly. “And I’m not even convinced on the why. But, if I’m right, you need to be careful. Remain on your best behavior. Coming to your room was stupid, but I wanted to check on you.” He looks at me, wielding his next statement like a weapon. “I’m glad I did, you know. I shouldn’t have come, but I don’t regret a single second.”

Truth.

My cheeks flame. In a rush, I recall the rough sounds he made, his whispers of adoration, the feel of his tongue and hands. “M-me neither.”

He grins, and the sight weakens my knees. “Do you remember the first time you shifted?” he asks abruptly. “When you exploded into the throne room and tried to attack the princess?”

“Yes.” As if I could forget it.

“That’s when I knew I liked you. No one has ever stood up to Evie before—no one has ever fought against the court. You’re fiery and kind and stubborn as hell, and I admired that the moment I met you.” He moves forward, and, between one blink and the next, he’s in front of me, touching my cheek. His shadow swallows me in the daylight. He’s massive—everywhere—his hands hot and urgent once more. “Vanessa, don’t go into that dungeon again. I don’t think it’s safe for you to be there. If this court is torturing those prisoners, you’ll be killed when they find you.”

“Okay,” I promise. “I’ll stay away.”

For now.

32

If possible, I’ve become even more of a pariah since Instructor Alvarez’s death. Aside from my walk along the seawall with Nettie, no one speaks to me. Not even Portia or Myles. I suspect Evie threatened them, but maybe I really am just that much of a liability.

Now that Sin has returned to ignoring me for our safety, I meander to and from lessons on my own, using the time to think about the prisoners in the dungeon. Queen Sybil kidnapped them. She brought the humans here to torture them—but why? Sin obviously thinks she’s involved in a larger conspiracy—but how? And where does Celeste fit into all this?

My head aches with unanswered questions.

The prisoners won’t survive, and there must be a reason for it. A reason why humans have been Bitten and transformed in the past, but now they’re more likely to die. I’m the only one of the new bunch who’s lived… that we know of, anyway.

The amount of soul it would strip from them would shatter their brain and body like a mirror. Too many pieces missing, gone, and impossible to be wholly repaired.

If a werewolf gives up a piece of their soul to whomever they bite, then the werewolves invoking these changes must be weaker after so many experiments. There must be a sign of it—of them—somewhere. My hands curl into fists. I promised Sin I wouldn’t go in that dungeon again, and I won’t… so long as we find a piece of evidence sooner rather than later, a piece we can use to condemn the culprit. Celeste’s death is tied up in this. My transformation is tied up in this. The prisoners, this court—it’s all connected.

If only I knew how.

I scoop my hair behind my ear and shuffle up the stairs to my next lesson. I’m so lost in my thoughts that I almost miss the hulking, brooding guard in front of me.

Calix stands outside of Alchemical Designs, his arms crossed and his gaze glowing a vicious yellow. I glance over his shoulder, into the classroom, and remember our fight. Remember his smoldering voice and dark gaze. Is that the best you can do? I flush as his words creep back across my skin. “Calix,” I say quietly, trying to step around him without making too much eye contact. He moves back into my path.

“No,” he says. “I asked you to stop.”

“What?” Frowning, I raise a brow and attempt to walk past him for a second time. He most certainly didn’t ask me to stop, yet he still grabs my wrist now to hold me in place. Whatever nice feelings remained from the gentle way he cleaned my wound vanish in an instant. Frustration boils my blood. “Are you hallucinating, or is this your version of a joke? Move, Calix.”

Portia darts up the stairs, spots us, and quickly ducks behind Calix to enter the classroom without speaking to me. If only I could join her. I glower at him, certain my violet eyes are darkening by the second. “Let go of me,” I snap. His fingers don’t loosen, however. If anything, they tighten, and he pulls me flush against him right there in the corridor.

“No,” he growls.

Footsteps echo in the stairwell behind me, and then someone places a hand on my shoulder. The touch is laced with wicked heat. Familiar heat. Oh, thank god.

“Cousin,” Sin purrs. “Do you have a reason for accosting our dearest Bitten one in the hallway?”

Sin steps in front of me then, his hand dragging across my back as he pointedly wedges himself between us, going toe-to-toe and chest-to-chest with his larger cousin. Though Calix releases me, he doesn’t balk away from the prince. In fact, the guard’s eyes flash and harden. I stiffen, glancing around Sin’s shoulder, trying to assess the danger. A scent I’ve never noted before—citrus and vanilla, like a lemon tart—billows around us. Jealousy.

But—but that can’t be right. Not when it’s coming from both of them.

“Nice to run into you.” Calix narrows his eyes and tilts his head. “It’s strange. I was looking for you the other night, but I couldn’t find you. Any ideas where you were?”

Sin laughs, but it sounds wrong. Cold. “If you were looking to borrow a dirty magazine—”

“You were gone again,” Calix growls, and my blood runs colder still. He’s dead serious. Gooseflesh erupts over my arms at the warning in his voice—a warning I’ve only ever heard directed toward me. Sin, however, does not seem nearly as bothered by it as I am.

“I’m allowed to have a life, Calix,” he says with a scoff, still standing in front of me, protecting me. And if Calix didn’t already know about us, he does now. The way he glares at me tells me as much, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

You should’ve stayed away from him.

His eyes blaze brilliant gold. “You know what happens when you go missing.”

Sin relaxes now, sighing heavily and looping an arm around my waist, pulling me away from Calix to lean with him against the stone at our backs. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Calix’s lip curls. “No, you’re not.”

Sin grins—a twitch of his beautiful lips, and completely at odds with his cousin’s brutal features. “No, I’m not.”

“Bastard.”

“Dick.”

“Royal ass.”

“Traitorous leech.”

They exchange barbs the way girls might exchange true, genuine sentiment in a bathroom after midnight, and it is fascinating to observe. Fascinating and terrifying. I can’t seem to breathe as my gaze darts between them, the light and the dark. The prince and his guard.

Laughing out loud now, Sin moves forward to clap Calix on the shoulder, and the tension seems to drain from both their bodies. When Calix huffs and rolls his eyes, the pressure in my own chest eases slightly. I don’t want to see them fight. Not about anything, but especially not about me—a pointless concern, I realize when Calix’s irritated gaze meets mine in the next second. As if he just remembered I’m still here.

I try not to feel insulted.

“You’ve been summoned,” he says simply, as if that explains exactly why he’s kept the three of us trapped outside the classroom.

“For?” Sin asks, inserting himself directly in the middle of the conversation once again, but Calix ignores him, too busy studying my face.

“I—I didn’t do anything,” I hasten to say. “I swear it.”

But Sin’s eyes flick to mine, and—my stomach twists. Fuck. I did do something. Not only have I fooled around with the prince, but I found a dungeon full of human prisoners across from the lagoon. Shit. Blood roars in my ears. Though I swallow hard, I maintain careful eye contact, determined not to give Calix a reason to suspect me.

He still registers the new stampede of my pulse, however, and says quietly, “I warned you to be careful.”

“I was,” I respond instinctively, even though it’s a lie, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t.

Shit shit shit.

Dread chills me to the bone. Who could have told on me? There was a guard in the stairwell when Lyra was with me, but she hid me in the lagoon. And—Lyra.

My stomach drops.

I forgot about the Oracle. How could I be so stupid? Of course she must have confessed. She works directly below the queen.

“Hey.” Calix touches my arm—one quick brush that feels as if I’ve been electrocuted. As if I’ve been damned. I jump away from it—nearly jump out of my skin—and his brow furrows at the overreaction. He drops his hand instantly. “You need to go. Queen Sybil demanded an audience. If you don’t leave now, she’ll send more guards. Worse guards.”

Sin frowns between us before seizing my hand, squeezing my fingers when they start to tremble. “Everything is going to be all right, Vanessa.” But it’s a lie, and we both know it. Sin has no idea what awaits me in his mother’s rooms. Has no idea what she might have in store. “I’ll go with you—”

“No, you won’t.” Calix shakes his head abruptly, and his tone brooks no argument. “She demanded an audience with Vanessa, not with you.” Then, under his breath, Calix says to Sin, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Cousin.” A pause. “Or she’ll pay the price.”

Though a chill sweeps down my spine, I pretend not to hear him. So does Sin.

Terrified but with no option to argue, I let Calix lead me to the queen’s personal chambers. He doesn’t enter with me either, doesn’t say a word of reassurance as I push open the golden doors. He doesn’t even look at me as I step inside.

When I speak to the queen, it’s alone.

Queen Sybil Severi sits on a throne of gold deep within the heart of her ebony chambers.

Roses smother the space, the air. Black, red, white—so many that their petals wither onto every single piece of furniture and even the queen herself. She stares at me with the pitch-black eyes of the Wolf Queen. A title that didn’t always belong to her, but one she wears as if it’s her own flesh and blood. Which, I suppose, it was. It is.

I crouch on my knees before the throne, tangling my hands behind my back to contain my shaking. Roses bloom beneath me, petals opening and tickling my chest when the queen sighs.

She knows. There’s no way she doesn’t know.

I might die. Before she can even stand and slit my throat with her bejeweled claws, I might pass away from terror and fright. I bite my lip, head bowed so low, I can only see the blackened petals before me and the charcoal tile beneath them.

“Would you really bow for an entire day if I didn’t release you?” Queen Sybil drawls.

Hatred snags in my organs, further worsens the knots that have been there since I left for her room. I breathe through flared nostrils, counting to ten. Twenty. It’s better if I don’t speak, if she doesn’t hear the tremble in my voice.

She sighs. “Yes, yes. We understand your obedience. Sit up.”

A compulsion. My spine straightens. My chin darts upward, so harshly that my neck almost snaps. I keep my stare fixed on the skirts of her gown. Long layers of embroidered black silk struck through with silver thread. Powerful, to wear our very weakness on her body. A conqueror of death.

“Do you know why I’ve called you here, Miss Hart?”

I shake my head, and Queen Sybil snarls. “Answer me. If I wanted you mute, I would have shorn your tongue from your throat.”

My blood runs cold.

It’s true.

I’ve seen proof of that in the dungeon. I’ve—words fill my mouth, then, and flee it. Unbidden. Uncontrolled. “You’re sentencing me to death.” No. No no no. I am powerless here. I’ll tell her the truth even if it’s the last thing I want to do.

“Now why would you think that, I wonder?”

I glance up before she can make me and speak so that she can’t compel me. Her tiara sparkles—a thousand diamonds formed into the phases of the moon rest on her graying hair.

“I am afraid,” I say honestly. Because what other option is there?

If she wants to kill me, I hope she does it fast. Swift. I don’t want to provoke her further.

“You are the least subtle person who has ever graced this court,” the Wolf Queen spits from painted red lips. “Your heart is worn on your sleeve for all to see. Why?”

“I—I don’t know.” The icy tile bites through my gown. I’m going to die, I think. I’m going to die, and my father won’t know. I’ll never find out who murdered Celeste. It’ll all be wasted. Every second here.

“Tell me the truth,” the queen compels with flashing, ebony eyes.

So I do. “I can’t control my feelings. They consume me. I’m sad. So sad and broken inside. And lonely. Everyone I love leaves me, and I—”

“That’s enough. Silence.”

I shut up. My lips freeze into stone. I whimper—try to whimper. The sound doesn’t make it past my chest.

“Pathetic humans.” Queen Sybil throws her head into her hand. “I expected strength from you, Miss Hart. After observing your secret touches and glances with the prince for months now, I thought you had begun to conspire a better life for yourself. But look at you. As weak as when we found you on the street.”

She snaps her fingers, and Lord Allard approaches. He carries a longbow on his back and a golden scabbard on his hip. From the sheath protrudes the ocean-blue hilt of a great sword. I shiver in terror. He’s going to kill me.

“Do you have anything to confess?” the queen asks. “Anything at all? Answer honestly.”

I shut my eyes, unable to fight her or her compulsion, and the hard evidence will condemn me. Words rise. Build in my throat. No. I need to focus. Oona said werewolves can bend their words to escape their own lies. I need to do that now. I need to concentrate on another truth. And not just any other truth, but one so harmless and innocent the queen can’t possibly think of me as anything other than a silly little Bitten.

“Well?”

“I… I…” My eyes open and find her black ones in the torchlight. “I hate cheese. Melted cheese, cheddar, provolone, Gouda—they taste bitter and sharp, and I hate the texture.”

“You hate cheese?” The Wolf Queen sits forward. She blinks furiously. “Cheese?”

Beside me, Lord Allard stills. His hand remains on his hilt, but he doesn’t retrieve the sword. Not yet.

“Yes,” I say innocently. “Very much.”

“Stars above. Show her the proof, Lord Allard.” The queen flicks her hand, and Lord Allard drops something heavy at my feet. I’m afraid to look. Maybe Lyra did turn me in—and why wouldn’t she? If we were both caught, she would be murdered too. If it’s just me, she lives.

I peek at the ground, but… it’s not proof of last night. It’s my journal.

My stomach churns. The rough brown leather mocks me while Queen Sybil smiles a bloodcurdling grin that raises the hair on my arms.

“Do you want to explain that?” the Wolf Queen asks.

I stare at it.

It’s not exactly proof of any treachery. While I wrote about Celeste and Evie, it was vague—random lists and bullet points. Most of the journal is filled with notes and research from my lessons. I’m not stupid enough to put my schemes into writing. “It’s just a notebook.”

“Is it, now?” Queen Sybil stands and meanders down the stairs from her throne. She wanders the perimeter of her room, her heels tapping on the tile. Her claws run over the surface of her desk, her private dining table, even Lord Allard himself, as she asserts her dominance. She owns everything and everyone in this castle. Including me.

But I don’t understand. I left the journal with Oona. She was meant to hold on to it until I needed it next.

Did Oona… Did she turn me in?

I swallow hard, and Queen Sybil ceases her cutting path. She spins toward me, snatching a bronze letter opener from her desk and pointing it at my head like a dart. “Open it,” she orders.

“I swear, there’s nothing—”

“Open it,” she compels. Then, to her First General, she says, “I am sick of disobedience.”

Lord Allard nods. “It must be broken out of them.”

I hate them. Both of them. But I have no choice other than to flip open my journal and—no. No, this isn’t right. It’s filled out. Each and every page is chock-full of foul words and loathsome curses.

Fuck Queen Sybil and her court…

… will destroy them. All of them.

I, Vanessa Hart, will be the Wolf Queen’s Court’s undoing.

“It’s not true,” I blurt out, even as the flesh pricks along my arms and an icy chill throttles my spine. “It’s… it’s not.” I look up at the queen. “I swear I didn’t write it.” But who did?

She sneers. “Unlike you, Bitten one, I do not have the ability to see lies.”

“Compel me,” I beg.

She hurls the letter opener at my head, and I barely dodge it by an inch. It lodges in the ground beside me. “Do not order me.” Queen Sybil stalks forward and kicks the journal aside with her heel. “Whether you wrote the damning evidence yourself makes little difference to me. Either you are involved in treason, or you have betrayed a member of this court enough that they have involved you themselves.”

No no no. I suck in a breath, and it quakes through me until I’m trembling at her feet. “I… I…”

“Stutter one more time, and I will take an eye.”

I inhale again. Exhale. Breathe until I have further control of my voice. “Okay,” I whisper, forcing myself to sound more certain even though I’m not. I’m not certain at all—about anything. I don’t understand what’s happening here or why it relates to my stupid journal or who… who sabotaged me. My heart aches. It couldn’t be Oona. She would never do that to me.

“Explain,” the queen commands.

I speak slowly so as to not mess up. “I don’t know who wrote that incriminating stuff. I used the journal to keep track of my lessons and…” Her eyes burn through mine, watching for any sign of a lie. Honesty. The best course of action is always honesty. “The night my friend, Celeste, died, she and Evie fought on the beach. Evie hurt her—clawed her.”

The Wolf Queen hisses. “Evelyn Lee transformed in front of humans?”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, it was a split second, and it was only a claw.”

Queen Sybil frowns with a glance at Lord Allard. He nods once more in response. Whatever they’re thinking, it doesn’t seem good.

“Continue,” she commands.

“I thought… Evie might have been the one who killed her.” But with the new evidence of the Bitten humans, I’m not so sure. And I certainly won’t condemn Evie without that evidence in front of the queen. I don’t care if she stabbed me. “I was wrong,” I say. “I don’t think Evie did it after all.”

“Hmm.” Queen Sybil’s eyes narrow, and she snaps her fingers at Lord Allard. He leaves the room at once.

He leaves us alone.

I almost scream for help, but not even Sin could save me from his mother.

“We do not do well with schemers and liars in this court, Miss Hart.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“The information in that notebook would not be useful to even the finest detective. Between the ravings of a treacherous rebel, you have scribbled nonsense, as fueled by your emotions and not an ounce of logic. Evelyn Lee was gifted her place—my place—since her very birth. I had a pact with the Lees from when I ascended the throne. I promised to pass my crown to their second-born child. Can you imagine what it’s like to have the legacy you’ve built tossed to another? Let alone to another who believes they deserve it more than you?”

I shake my head, though I understand more of her story than she might think. The Lees must have been her spies in court—or at least helped orchestrate the findings of Cora Severi’s treason. And now Evie has been promised the crown and court, and Sybil is pissed. This noble, loyal werewolf who is so adept at bargains wants out of her own. She wants to break the law and shatter the deal. She is desperate for control.

“When we came upon your journal, I thought it might be useful,” Queen Sybil states. “We can all see that you have had it out for Evie since your first day in this court. The men on the moon would be able to see it, Miss Hart. But you’ve enjoyed flirting with the prince, and I assumed you would enjoy mating with him one day as well. With your untapped potential, you would be good for this court.” Her lips twist into a devious smile; she is not paying me a compliment. “But I will not train someone to their full power in order to pass them elsewhere.”

Untapped potential.

Full power.

I swallow hard.

“I wasn’t seducing Sin for sport,” I say. “I… I don’t want power.”

Queen Sybil scoffs. “That is the problem with you, Bitten one. You could be so much more than you are, but you have given me nothing to work with.”

Could be—could be. I lift my head. With trembling lips, I ask, “Aren’t you killing me?”

“I should. I really should.” Sybil Severi scrapes her claws down the side of her throne, and they squeal over the solid gold. A shrill, earsplitting sound ten times louder to my supernatural hearing. I clap my hands over my ears and gasp.

“However,” the queen says, silencing the noise and waiting for me to look back at her, “I do not think that is what I wish to do with you. The first werewolf in history with a purple gaze. Lyra has learned much about your future potential. The stars won’t stop whispering about it. It seems you will be powerful one day, Miss Hart, whether you want it or not. You only need to be broken first, like a dog.”

Behind me, the door to the chamber opens. Two separate pairs of footsteps echo—one pair a stomp, and the other a fumbling trudge.

“The key to breaking you is not with your own pain. You’ve endured that well enough already. It is the pain of others. Is it not?”

My chest seizes as the Wolf Queen nods behind me. “Now, Lord Allard,” she says.

He shoves his prisoner in front of me. With silver chains around her ankles and wrists, Oona is forced before me.

“No!” I rush forward—a split-second decision. A horribly stupid decision. Lord Allard seizes my hair and wrenches me backward, throwing me onto the ground.

“You will watch, silent, or she will die,” Queen Sybil says.

I tremble uncontrollably. Oona won’t look at me. She stares at the wall behind my head. Her eyes swollen, her face red with previously shed tears. How long have they had her? And I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

“Please,” I whisper, rising onto my knees, my hands folded as I beg the queen. “Please don’t hurt her for my mistake.”

“The maid was caught harboring a treasonous journal. She will be punished for it. Now, I won’t ask you again. Silence, Miss Hart,” the queen demands—but she doesn’t compel me. She wants this to be my choice. My responsibility. And it is.

Lord Allard retrieves a silver arrow from the pouch on his back. Metal tipped and sharp as a knife. Oona glances down, right as he looses it into her left calf. I can’t cry out, but she does. Each arrow—all four of them—tear a fresh sob from her throat. She cries and cries and cries. All the while, I bite my tongue so hard, blood floods my mouth.

Pain is the least of what I deserve.

The Wolf Queen watches with that sinister smile mangling her beautiful face. “Broken like a dog,” she repeats. “If you do not learn to obey, Miss Hart, it won’t be your death that awaits you. It will be the death of your friends.”

Lord Allard finishes his assault, and Oona collapses. Her left leg gives out, breaking beneath the rest of her. She won’t heal from four silver arrows anytime soon. I glare at the queen, at the lord. Rage burns through me, brandishing my claws and fangs even as the rest of me shudders.

But Queen Sybil keeps smiling. “It’s good to know you have some fight left in you. See yourselves out when you’re through sniveling.” She and Lord Allard leave, and the torches magically snuff out behind them. I don’t get up. I can’t get up. My bones crack.

I hate them. I’m going to kill them.

Oona takes my hand in the darkness, her touch clammy and cold. “Please, Vanessa. I need… I need the infirmary. I’m hurt.”

Just like that—my rage vanishes.

I find my calm at the center of her soft Irish accent. Oona needs help. She’s bleeding everywhere, and all I can see and smell and hear are the screams of Celeste from when she died in my arms. The screams of Oona when she was shot because of me.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I scoop up Oona, surprised by how light she feels, and race to the dusty infirmary near the Combat courtyard. A slender nurse takes Oona, fixes her onto a gilded cot, and immediately begins tending to her wounds.

No one asks how it happened, but maybe that’s because they know. They all know. They’ve had to live in the terror of this court for years, and they either don’t care enough to change it—or they’re too powerless to do so themselves.

I hold Oona’s hand at her bedside, and she assures me this isn’t my fault. But she’s lying. Even though she thinks she’s telling the truth, I know in my heart that she’s wrong. I was stupid enough to take that journal out of my bedroom. I thought no one would see. I thought no one would care. But all this time, the Wolf Queen was watching, waiting for her chance to strike.

I will never be safe here. No one is safe here.

I’ve been a goddamned fool to think otherwise, but no more. This can’t happen again.

33

I hide in the infirmary for days. If Queen Sybil is bothered by that string of disobedience, she doesn’t punish me for it.

I knew she wouldn’t. One can only be pushed—tortured—for so long before they snap. She has to back off for at least another week, otherwise I’ll fight to my death. I’m almost ready to do so as is.

Oona’s grip is finally firm and warm in mine, her leg wrapped in so much gauze that it looks like a cast. She sips a cup of steaming tea, the bergamot and cinnamon spice thick in the air. At her bedside, flowers grow from cracks in the wood of a small, rickety table where a teapot refills itself whenever the contents begin to recede. Beside it, cookies stack high on a crystal plate, and beside that, a bowl of sugar cubes whistles a merry melody for the entire infirmary to hear. The magic in this place is far more beautiful than the queen deserves, but Oona… I’m glad. I’m glad she can have this.

Portia visited yesterday. She grew gardenias for Oona—her favorite flower—and brought her tomato soup for supper. Another favorite. I hadn’t known that, but Portia did. I haven’t been paying enough attention. I haven’t been smart. I curl my legs into the uncomfortable, straight-backed chair that I’ve spent more than seventy-two hours perched on, untangling an enchanted blanket from my waist that wraps itself back around my legs the second I fling it off.

“If you frown any harder, even your werewolf genes won’t be able to smooth away your wrinkles,” Oona says with another delicate sip.

I wrestle the knitted, cream blanket away from my chair and hurl it across the room. It slithers on the floor toward us. “I don’t care about wrinkles.”

“You should.” Oona reaches out a hand, and the blanket slides over her skin, nestling on top of her body with a wistful sigh. “You won’t be youthful and lovely forever. Only for the next few centuries.”

I pull the soft tassels from her chin with a forced laugh. Orange hair mats to her forehead from days of fighting a fever, her brown maid’s uniform turned to strips of dirtied, soiled rags. She needs new clothes. A bath. But the cuts from the silver have kept bleeding—some kind of dark alchemy or curse designed to prolong her torment. The fresh gauze is already soaking through again.

My hand fists around the arm of the chair and snaps it in half. The rest of the furniture in the room gasps.

“Stop it right now. You have spent days moping here,” Oona snaps. The arm affixes itself back to the chair, and the lump beneath me becomes all the more uncomfortable. “To no avail, might I add. Your glowering and grunting certainly hasn’t healed my leg.”

She lifts the makeshift, bled-through cast high in the air, and I can’t stop staring at it. “It was my fault—”

“We will not have this conversation again. We both made our own choices, and we both reaped the consequences.” Oona sets down the empty teacup violently and shoves it aside with a brush of her hand, where it falls, discarded, into the garden of gardenias. It leaps back up onto the tray seconds later. I can’t even imagine what sort of enchantments have made this room so sentient. I’m sure I don’t want to know.

“You should leave,” she says.

“What?” I gape at her now. “You’re not nearly healed yet. I have time.”

“You might have time, but I’m running out of patience. Lingering here isn’t going to help you. It won’t solve anything. You should be in your classes, attending mealtimes, participating in the court before the Ascension happens.” She smooths out the tattered hem of her skirts. “You shouldn’t be wasting your days on your maid.”

“Oona, the classism is bullshit. Your life isn’t worth less—”

She glares at me. “Did you think to ask how I came to be a maid here?”

I glance around. The nurses are on their lunch break. Oona and I seem to be alone—though I don’t necessarily trust that anymore. Someone here sabotaged my journal. And I’m pretty convinced the furniture is alive. “We should lower our voices.”

“That is an armchair, Vanessa; it cannot hear you,” she whispers, with no less venom than before. “I am Oona Gallagher, daughter of Baroness Gallagher of Carlow, Ireland.”

I rub the throbbing ache between my brows. “I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps you should pay more attention, then. Do you know where our servitude of this court begins?” She doesn’t allow me to answer. “We maids were high enough in the hierarchy that any acts of treason have been forgiven in exchange for life debts.”

My arms fall limply to my sides. I shake my head. This doesn’t make sense. “You… you were a criminal?”

“A traitor.” Oona shrugs. “In my fourteenth year, I was courted by a human. My mother caught us together, exchanging love letters and flowers, and I was taken to the Countess of Leinster for my punishment. She wrote to the King of the European Court, who agreed that since no copulation had occurred, I could be brought here and spend the rest of my life serving the queen and her courtiers. Queen Sybil offered me a bargain to work for her, and I took it.”

“That’s bullshit,” I breathe. “You dated a human.”

“It is the law,” Oona says.

“The law only serves those in power. They bend it when it benefits them. They break it if and when they want.” My claws loose from my right hand, and I swipe them at the ground, chiseling away at the stone.

“Careful, girl, that’s treasonous speak if I’ve ever heard it. You don’t want to join me in here.” Oona’s gaze softens. She takes my hand, smoothing out my skin until my claws vanish. “Go. Return to your classes. I came to terms with my bargain long ago.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“What’s done is done, Vanessa.” She squeezes my hand. “Please, let me rest. You’ve kept me awake for days now.”

Lies.

I roll my eyes but concede with a sigh. Queen Sybil won’t allow me an eternity to be disobedient. But my stomach roils as I walk away—as I glance back at Oona and see her pained expression as she grabs her bleeding leg and silently sobs. My fault. Oona, the prisoners in the dungeon—they all feel like my fault.

Combat and Conquest awaits me, and for once, I’m glad. The field contained within the castle’s walls shimmers with late autumn rain, and the air tastes salty, like sweat and ocean spray and the possibility of throwing my fist into someone else’s face.

My classmates run drills: push-ups, sprints, sit-ups, and pull-ups on the portico roof, but by the time I reach them, most have finished. In their tight black fighting gear, they stretch and break off into sparring pairs. No transformations today. No claws or fangs. Instructor Shepherd barks out that we’re playing one-on-one capture the flag, and then he ties an emerald ribbon to our sleeves.

“The goal is to be the last one with the ribbon,” Instructor Shepherd declares. “Then you’ll move on to another match with the next winner. And so on and so forth until there are thirteen losers and one victor.”

Katerina twirls a fiery curl around her finger. “What does the victor win?”

Instructor Shepherd’s gaze snaps to hers. “How about supper outside of the Great Hall for a week?”

Katerina grins. “Hell yes.”

It seems no one really enjoys the court niceties, though I doubt even Katerina would openly complain about them. I approach the field, my sneakers laced tight and a cropped shirt cutting into my waist. Instructor Shepherd notices me first. “Glad you’ve decided to join us, Miss Hart.” He tosses me his only spare ribbon. “Tie that to your sleeve.”

Sinclair turns at the sound of my name, and so does Calix. Both furrow their brows, their expressions so similar that they look less like cousins and more like brothers.

Where have you been? Sin mouths when I don the ribbon.

And I should have known his mother wouldn’t have told anyone. She’d want to keep my deception under wraps. To keep me under her thumb as a weapon and threat to the rest of her court. I couldn’t do that if everyone thought I was committing treason. I shrug at Sin and face the instructor.

It’s painful to see him. It’s painful to be here at all.

Instructor Shepherd pairs us off, but he saves me and Evie for last. With a cruel smile on his face, he snaps his fingers and draws us forward. He must be someone in the queen’s back pocket, I think. Sure enough he says, “Let’s make this interesting, shall we? Evelyn, Vanessa, why don’t you take the portico for your match?”

Fuck.

The weapon racks fill the portico to the brim with weapons both bronze and silver. Evelyn’s eyes flash from red to maroon. She nods tersely. “Absolutely.” Her black hair blows behind her as she stalks toward the portico. She’s lean. A few inches shorter than me, so probably swifter. Her gaze flicks quickly between the weapons available. She’s sly. But I—I am not the girl I was three days ago. Adrenaline courses through me. Strengthens me. I will go down fighting if I have to. I will give this my all, even if it is no more than a game to the others.

Queen Sybil says I have untapped power? Perhaps it is time I tap into it, then.

Sinclair and Calix pair off across the field—another sadistic coupling on Instructor Shepherd’s part—and they look in my direction before their own match begins. We have five minutes to snatch the other person’s ribbon. If no one grabs it, then we’re both out. Evie pulls a sword from a rack, tossing it between her hands with the dexterity of a professional juggler.

“What do you think? If I accidentally slit your throat, will the queen condemn me?” she asks with a bold laugh.

No, the queen wouldn’t. I’m starting to think we are just a game to her—entertainment as she waits for one of us to murder the other. Although, if Evelyn kills me now, perhaps the queen would manipulate the event to count as treason. It could make their bargain null and void, and she could take Evelyn’s life as payment.

“Come on, Hart. Let’s go.” Evelyn aims her sword at my chest. “Timer started thirty seconds ago.”

Quickly, I examine the surrounding racks as she circles me. Instructor Shepherd always tells us to utilize our strengths, but maces and flails are too heavy; I’d either flatten her or myself. Sword against sword is fine, but the portico is small, and I am not adept at swordplay. I spy a narrow table of daggers. It could be deemed rather stupid to use a dagger against a sword, but if I can evade the sword and get close to her, I have the best chance of cutting off that ribbon. I’ll have to be quick. Nimble. I’ll have to remember what it was like on that volleyball court.

My gut—my bones—tell me to go for the dagger, so I do.

Evie scoffs. “Humans have the smallest brains.”

“I’m not a human anymore.” To prove it, I dart out first—as if I’m hurtling toward a ball instead of a werewolf—and the movement catches her off guard. I manage to scratch her left arm, drawing blood before the cut heals neatly. A cruel delight burns between my ribs. Rage. I am finally using my rage. I smile, my gaze flicking to hers. “I’m a werewolf.” Her eyes blaze in response, and she twirls the sword in her hand. We’re done talking, it seems. She lunges, her sword flying near my face, but it rebounds off a post and then a table of chains. The portico is too small for swords.

Good.

Evelyn might be faster, smarter, and stronger than me, but I want this more. I need this more. And I am angry about so much. I wave my dagger at her, inviting her to try again. She swings hard, but I duck, and the silver of her sword meets the wood of a rack. Splinters explode around the blade. She screams, trying desperately to rip out her sword. With her back to me, and the sword effectively stuck, I channel over two months of bullying and torment and kick her. Right in the spine.

She soars into that same rack of longbows and arrows, and groans as bows crash to the floor. Arrows fall at our feet and scatter.

“Bitch,” she hisses, tossing her hair behind her and wiping sweat from her forehead. “I am so sick of you.”

“Ditto.”

She growls and throws aside her sword, scooping up two silver daggers. Just like the one she stabbed me with weeks ago. Her goal is always to maim.

Mine is to win.

She flies at me, faster than lightning, and manages two slices on my hip. Blood wells, then trickles down my shorts. I glare at her, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel pain right now, only rage.

“Very good, Miss Lee,” Instructor Shepherd says, standing beneath the weathered arch of the portico. “You cut her any deeper, and she won’t be able to fight back.”

“She’s hardly fighting back as is.” Evie spits at me, and a glob of hot saliva lands on my chest.

My vision bleeds red with anger, but I breathe. Keep breathing. I will not allow her to win.

“Defense won’t be enough for victory,” Instructor Shepherd says.

He’s right. I can avoid her attacks all I want, but if I can’t land any of my own, I’ll never rip the ribbon from her clothes. Unless… That’s it. I brace myself, suddenly ready. The strategy returns to me from before, when I wore jeans to school and sat at plastic tables during lunch and smacked a leather ball around for fun. Evie wants to maim.

She lunges once more, hands flying, daggers like claws in her fists, but I dodge them with ease and dart around her. I switch our places. Again. Again. She blinks rapidly, her head swimming from the speed at which she twirls to keep up with me. I am not playing her game any longer; I am playing the one Instructor Shepherd set up for us.

We did not need weapons for a capture the flag challenge. That’s why no one else is surrounded by racks and swords. I crouch near the ground and sweep my leg near her bad ankle—that’s what Antionette said; her left ankle is weak—and sure enough, it gives out. Just like that. Simple plays are always better than complex strategy, our volleyball coach used to say. And she was right. Evie crumples to the ground with a scream and grabs for her ankle as I rip the emerald ribbon from her shirt.

Her nostrils flare. She glares at me. Claws grow from her hands, fangs from her mouth.

I hold the ribbon victoriously between us. Raising a brow, letting myself feel her defeat—feel a modicum of joy for the first time in months—I say, “I win.”

Instructor Shepherd claps me on the back. “Not bad, Bitten one. Not bad at all.”

And I move on to the next match.

34

I fight Katerina with fists, defeat Eric by pulling his precious hair, and battle Portia by ripping through her walls of ivy and thorns. I’m scarred—still bleeding on my hip from the silver daggers and beaten to a pulp, bruised everywhere else. None of them expected me to win, but I have. With rage as my anchor and a lethal sense of injustice propelling me forward, I’ve made it to the final round of the competition. Victory is in sight and has become a beacon of light in this fucking court. I will show them all how dangerous I can be—how dangerous I will be if they hurt someone I love again.

Unfortunately, Calix waits for me in the center of the field.

Our classmates gather around the outskirts, watching with bated breath as I flex my knuckles, and Calix peels off his shirt. Eight perfect abdominals glisten with sweat in the unrelenting sunlight. Calix might be a cunning fighter, but he’s strong too. The best of both worlds. The worst of both worlds. I have no strategy to win against him, only the adrenaline coursing through my veins and that haze of red in my vision. It wants to hurt someone, anyone, and right now, Calix will do just fine. I have to win.

These five-minute matches have become a drug to me. The intoxicating thrill of delivering blows, even as I receive them. The crunch of bones feels barbaric, but it also stirs a primal part of me. Kill. Hurt. Maim. Those are the only goals of a bloodthirsty werewolf.

Like me.

But if Calix punches me, I could very well lose consciousness. He’s so much stronger than I am. So much faster. If we used weapons, he’d be able to slice off my entire arm in seconds. This is Sin’s protector. This is a man who had me on my back in seconds when we fought in the Alchemical Designs classroom.

This is the only shot I have to even the score—and it’s a long one.

“Frightened, Hart?” Calix asks.

I hold up my middle finger in response. “You should be.”

“Is that right?” The hint of a smirk twitches on his lips. “I’m surprised you’re up for a rematch. The first time wasn’t enough?”

“Oh, was that your first time?” I ask sweetly.

He scowls at me.

“Shut up, both of you.” Stalking to the perimeter of our classmates, Instructor Shepherd clicks his stopwatch. Both Evie and Katerina glare at me from the sidelines, while Portia fixes an unconvincing smile on her face, flashing an overly enthusiastic thumbs-up. The grass has withered at her feet, however. A gust of her ocean-spray fear tickles the ribbon on my arm.

Sin leans against the portico, watching us with rapt attention.

His scowl almost matches his cousin’s.

“What are you waiting for?” Instructor Shepherd barks. “Your clock has started.”

I roll my shoulders, turning my attention back to Calix.

Five minutes to lay him on his ass and rip that stupid ribbon tied around his bicep. Five minutes to prove to everyone here—to prove to myself—that I am the one to be feared. Not them. My hands ball into fists. I growl. Light on his feet, Calix bounces from side to side, taunting me. Daring me to step forward first.

However, I’m not the idiot he thinks I am. No. I’ll wait for him.

Calix doesn’t have any patience. Even less patience when it concerns me—something I can use to my advantage. I tilt my head, taunting him with a smile. I don’t care what I need to say in this moment—what I need to do—to unsettle him. “Interesting.”

His eyes narrow. As predicted, he can’t seem to help himself. “What?”

“You must’ve really wanted to get your hands on me to beat your precious prince.” Sin stiffens in my periphery, and a rush of vicious satisfaction sweeps through me. “Aren’t you meant to guard him with your life?”

“This is Combat class, Hart.”

“Sure it is, Calix.” I shrug as disgust ripples through our classmates, and Sin pushes from the portico to stalk closer. “If you wanted to touch me this badly, all you had to do was ask.”

Calix snarls. Charges for me.

A victory, albeit short-lived. He’s a freight train barreling over a cliff, and the impact is going to break me. I twist out of his reach at the last second, though he catches a thin tendril of my hair in his hand. He pulls it, hoping to wrench me back to him. But the sacrifice is worth it, so I keep running. I jerk away, and he tears the hair from my scalp. Blistering pain spots my vision.

He shakes his head, glaring at the hair between his fingers before releasing it to the gentle breeze. “Fuck sake, Vanessa. Surrender.”

I sneer at him, unable to exist beyond my white-hot anger. “No.”

Calix prowls forward, and I raise my fists in front of my face. The left close to my nose, and the right above it. Just as Instructor Shepherd taught me.

Punching Calix means throwing my fist way, way up.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmurs, beginning to circle me now.

I laugh at that, though the sound comes out dry. Humorless. I shadow his footsteps. “Yes, you do.”

His brow furrows, and his steps falter in what looks like genuine concern. “What is wrong with you today?”

“What do you think?” I lash out, but he smacks the strike away with ease. Another punch, and he merely leaps backward. Away from me. I follow with a snarl, forgetting about the ribbon, forgetting about anything other than pain. Concern. Where was his concern when he brought me to the queen? Where was his concern when she maimed Oona? My punches fly relentlessly, one after the other, at his face, his chin, his stomach. I even land a few. He grimaces as my fist collides with his stomach, knuckles cracking against those eight stupid abs. All the while, he only defends himself. Doesn’t attempt to hit me back. I nearly scream in frustration. “Fight me, Calix!”

“What is wrong—?” He begins to repeat his question, but I deck him in the jaw before he can finish. His teeth shudder. His skin splits open. Blood spatters his chest. His gaze flashes murder, and he closes his eyes as if praying for patience. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to hit him again—right in the nose this time.

His eyes snap open. “Fine. You want to fight? So be it.”

If I thought I’d fought Calix before, I was wrong. Completely, terribly wrong. That had been child’s play. He stretches his arms now, widens his stance with a growl. Black hair falls over his forehead, but he ignores it. Ignores everything except me. It’s like being spotted in the wild by a bear. A massive, bloodthirsty, rabid bear.

He bares his fangs at me.

Shit.

Alarm spikes through me, and all thoughts of strategy fly out the freaking window. This is a Calix I’ve never met before—that no one has ever met before, if our classmates’ gasps are any indication. He takes a step forward, and I—

Flee.

I run as fast as my legs can carry me away from him, using the length of the field to my advantage. I dart to the left, the right; I try to change my pattern just as they taught me in kindergarten to outrun an alligator. But Calix is so much worse than an alligator. So much faster. He laughs during the chase, placating me—mocking me—and it sends goose bumps up my spine.

“You can’t run forever, Hart. Someone is going to win this match.”

I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.

If that someone isn’t me, I might explode. I’m not certain how much more I’ll be able to take before the Ascension Rite. First, they killed Celeste. Then, they bit me. And finally, they attacked Oona. I repeat the three tragedies in my mind. Over and over until I stop running and turn abruptly.

Calix can’t stop as quickly.

With surprise on my side, I reach out to yank his ribbon as he blows past me, but he’s still too adept. He recovers almost instantly, grabbing my arm and throwing me to the ground. I hit the grass like a pillowcase of bricks. A painful thud as my body connects with the earth. And then he’s on top of me, everywhere around me. And heavy. Though I struggle beneath him, he presses harder against me. Into me. And I’m pinned.

“Fucking asshole,” I snarl.

Calix smiles, pulling the frayed edge of the ribbon on my sleeve. I grab his wrist and twist before he can remove it. He hisses, his face inches from mine. Less than that. And I grab his ribbon instead. He reclaims mine at the same time, and we glare into each other’s eyes. Neither of us willing to surrender. But we also don’t want to end this match in a draw.

“What is wrong with you?” he repeats, his chest heaving against mine.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline, or that I can’t catch my own breath—or maybe I really am just a pathetic creature who wears her heart on her sleeve—but I say, “Where were you? Where were you and Sin?” My voice splinters as though a sob builds in my throat, but the tears don’t come. Won’t come. Calix shakes his head in bewilderment.

“I don’t understand.”

I throw my free hand into his chest. Smack and pummel his abs. He takes it all without a word, his gaze boring into mine. Searching. He doesn’t pull my ribbon or retaliate. It makes me angrier. I scrape my nails down his flesh next, willing him to respond. The wounds pucker, swell, and then recede, and still he doesn’t. I hate it.

I hate that I can’t trust anyone.

“Vanessa,” Calix says, low and gravelly. “What are you talking about? Lord Allard informed Sin and me that you had been sent to your room after your meeting. You didn’t wish to hang around the court. They asked we give you space over the next few days because you’d been reprimanded over some damned journal.”

“You didn’t check on me,” I accuse. “You didn’t come and ask.”

“You’ve been upset before! At least you weren’t sneaking out this time. You weren’t having secret trysts. I—”

I scream, and the earth beneath us rumbles. Or perhaps it’s just me. I never thought I could be strong like this. Never thought I could be so… so monstrous. With all my might, I clench my thighs around him and throw us sideways. Scramble on top of him with my hand clamped around his throat. He raises both of his in surrender, his expression hard. Hurt.

I don’t fucking care.

Behind us, our classmates chant for us to take the other’s ribbon already. Instructor Shepherd shouts that there’s a minute left on the clock. But I don’t care about either. There is only Calix—Calix and his loyalty, his naivete. And also mine.

“Did you really assume they were telling the truth?” I lean over him, and my hair spills between us. Onto his neck, his chest, his face. He blows it out of the way with a ragged breath. “Did you really think the queen finding my journal would result in solitary confinement or a gentle scolding? Use your brain, Calix. You’ve lived in this court for enough time to understand that punishments here are always more than skin-deep.”

Calix slides a hand to my waist, the other to my upper arm. Two places where he could use his force to knock me off him or break my limb. He doesn’t do either. He simply holds me. Seconds pass. He studies my face. The redness spreading from my cheeks to my toes. My strange purple eyes. I am boiling inside. I am lava and flame, and I… I can’t control it.

“What did they do to you?” he whispers.

I bite down, forcing my fangs at bay. I’m going to win this fight fair and square. “It’s not what they did to me,” I say. “It’s what they did to Oona.”

Thirty seconds left. I’ve been counting even if he hasn’t. He must see it in my eyes—that I’m about to reach for his ribbon. He throws us around again, switching places with a bone-crushing grasp on my arm. But I’ve been waiting for him to restore the power dynamic. Waiting for him to move, swift enough for me to run my hand along his arm without notice.

Which is how—when he presses me into the grass, hoisting my wrists above our heads—I’m already clenching his ribbon in my hand.

I force myself to smile, hoping I look as vicious as I feel. “I win.”

None of our classmates clap. Not even Portia or Sin. I didn’t expect them to. I don’t feel much like celebrating either. All of this—my rage, my victory—feels somehow empty now, lying beneath Calix with a stupid ribbon in my hand. No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape the brutality of this court. I can’t even escape my own brutality. I can only wait for Calix to climb off me.

He offers me a hand with a frown, but I don’t accept it. I leap to my feet without his help.

“Vanessa,” he starts.

“Don’t,” I say, and then I stalk off to be alone.

35

Oona returns a week later to tuck me into bed, but she’s limping the whole time. Her wounds have healed, though the bones and tendons in her calf will never be the same again. She smiles and laughs through most of her evening duties even as it’s clear the labor wears on her.

As the night continues, however, her mood worsens. She swats me away when I try to help with scrubbing the tub.

“I am the same person I was,” she says. “I can do it on my own.” Then she breaks down crying beside the bath. I pick her up, an easy task thanks to the strength I’ve been cultivating in my free time, before sitting beside her on my bed and rubbing soothing circles into her back.

“It’s okay that you’re not the same now,” I tell her. “How could you be?”

I don’t care whether Oona can still run a mile in under two minutes; I care that she’s here. I care that she’s my friend.

I haven’t spoken to Calix since the match, nor any of my other classmates. I attend lessons silently, work my ass off to pay attention, and fill any spare seconds with push-ups and sit-ups and lunges. Sin knocks on my door nightly, but I ignore that too. How can I face the boy whose mother maimed my friend? And while I know that Sin isn’t the crimes of his family, that his heart is the opposite of hers, he must maintain his position in this court. He must go along with the traditions and rituals in order to one day rule.

It’s enough to make me sick.

The future appears hazier than ever before. If I can’t find a way to change the court from the inside out, there’s no way I’ll survive past the Ascension Rite. The future queen hates me, and the current queen wants to use me for… for something. I just don’t know what. I don’t know anything. I need to sneak down into the dungeon and talk to those Bitten wolves again.

When she’s feeling better and finally cracking jokes again, Oona leaves, but I sit in bed. Waiting. Planning. I’ve spent the last week cataloguing the guards’ nighttime routines, as well as those of the other werewolves who live on my floor. I know exactly who sneaks out for a warm glass of milk and who naps when they’re on a long shift. I even know that Evie snores when she sleeps—which starts precisely at 10:30 p.m. so that she can wake up before the sun.

So, once the world is dark and I hear Evie’s snores rise over those of the guards downstairs, I open the door and step into the hall.

My stomach plummets. I am not alone.

Prince Sinclair Severi leans against the wall, his foot kicked up behind him as his head lounges on the stone. He glances at me from the periphery of his gaze. “I knew you’d sneak out eventually. Back to the dungeon, I’m sure.”

I glower at him. It’s easier than focusing on the hurt in his scarlet eyes or the frown on his lips. Lips that have brushed mine. I shake my head. He laughs, a soft, humorless chuckle. “Don’t lie to me, Vanessa.”

So I don’t. Instead, I stomp down the hall.

“Careful, darling. You’re making an awful lot of noise. I’d hate for you to be caught.”

His words land like arrows. I stiffen. “No more noise than you,” I whisper behind me. But I do quiet my presence as I take the stairwell to the antechamber in slow, hesitant steps. Sin follows, so close that his presence burns my skin. His hand remains on my lower back, guiding me deeper and deeper to the lagoon. Once we’re safely inside, I turn on him.

“Just why do you think—”

He lifts a hand to my mouth and silences me. Cornering me against the wall, he says, “You’ve had time to speak. Nearly two weeks of it. It’s my turn now.”

My eyes widen as his left hand trails over the thin gossamer of my pitch-black nightgown. It matches the night outside. The new moon is swallowed by the sky; not an ounce of silver light streams into the pool. Its obsidian waters remain motionless as Sin slides his hand from my mouth to my throat. He caresses the curve with soft, tender strokes. And I ache—god, I ache. To slap his hand. To lean into the touch. To kiss him. To hate him.

If the world were painted in shades of black and white, this would be so much easier. It’s the nuance that hurts.

“Calix informed me of what happened, Vanessa. I should have been there for you. I should have fucking known. It was foolish of me to assume the queen would be kind. But I thought”—he shakes his head—“I thought you were keeping your distance for your own safety.”

I glance at our feet. His boots, my slippers, and the wet stone beneath them. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes,” he growls, “it does. I should have checked on you.”

My heart pangs. I don’t want to admit the truth; I wish he had checked on me too. “You… you have to protect yourself. Your future.”

His touch turns rough, his breathing ragged. He grabs my hand and presses it to his heart. “Fuck my future, Vanessa. I’m sorry.”

Truth. Truth.

But that only makes it hurt more.

“Someone sabotaged my journal,” I tell him. “The queen isn’t the only one out for my blood. Someone staged it to look like I’m planning a coup. And the queen… She irreperably wounded my closest friend, Sinclair. First Celeste died, and now Oona is hurt.” My hand curls around his, and I wish more than ever that my claws would appear, and I could disguise my trembling chin with rage. “How much more can this world take from us?”

He shakes his head as though he can throttle the nightmares away. He can’t, though. The nightmares are all we have left. “We have to find a way to change it. To make it better, but… I don’t know how.” He breaks away from me with a growl, throwing a hand against the stone across from us. A crater forms. Stone chisels and falls into pebbles at our feet. He slumps against the wall, and I move closer to him, brushing tentative fingers through his hair.

“It feels like we are all just marionettes to be manipulated according to her will,” he mutters, his eyes shut as painful truths fall from his lips. “I wasn’t born to choose my own destiny. I was born to help with hers.”

“It won’t be that way forever,” I say, but it comes out less inspirational and more like a question.

Sin laughs at that, and he glances down at me with a sad smile. “Let’s go,” he says. “You didn’t come down here to mope.” He gestures a hand to the doorway. To the dungeon. “I knew I couldn’t keep you away forever, but I also didn’t want you to come alone. It’s not safe for you here.” A pause. “I’m trying my hardest to keep you safe, Vanessa.”

His honesty, that sense of rightness, wraps me in its arms, and I do feel safe. With Sin, I always feel safe. I incline my chin. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” He presses a hand to my back when I step forward, and instinctively, I sag against his side. “I haven’t fixed anything yet.”

His hand entwines with mine, and he leads me forward, into the horrors of the dungeon. For a moment, I feel strong. Prepared. But the scent of copper gore smacks us in the face, followed by the thick, curdling stench of decay. Sin’s grip tightens.

The older woman remains, appearing exactly as broken as she was before, but the young man is gone, replaced by an old man who rocks back and forth, cowering in his cell, facing away from us and revealing a brutal bite that oozes black blood. And the cell behind him—I stop breathing. My heart stutters. Between the old man’s and the older woman’s cells is an empty cell that once belonged to a child. I fall to my knees, grabbing the bars without thinking. The silver burns, but Sin is here this time to peel me away and hold me against his chest.

A bloodstain mars the ground where the child had been. A large spill. It doesn’t appear to be accidental.

“Did he… Was he…”

“Killed?” the woman asks, her voice a feeble croak. “Yes. One week ago. His transition… He’d begun eating himself.”

Oh god. Oh god.

“Breathe,” Sin whispers in my ear. “Just breathe, Vanessa.”

I try. I try so hard. But the child… the old man… the woman. They’re dying. They will all die. And still more will come. The death and destruction won’t end. And—and that could’ve been Celeste. It could’ve even been me.

The woman scoffs, but a cough follows the meager action, and she spits blood onto the dirty tatters of her clothes. “If you came here… to gawk at us,” she manages with shaky lips, “I suggest you leave. Let me die in peace.”

Sin turns rigid at my side, and fear, or perhaps sorrow, spikes his heart rate. “We didn’t come to gawk.”

“No?”

“We… we want to know if there’s anything you can tell us,” I intervene, stumbling forward with blistering hands. “Do you remember who bit you? Do you remember any other details that might be useful?”

“I don’t remember who bit me. I only know that… that lady stole me into her car and told me I’d either be an asset or a corpse.”

“An asset?” Sin asks.

“I don’t remember, boy.” The woman curls inward, her ribs contracting—breaking—with the movement. She struggles to sit up or lie down, and a tear trickles down her cheek. “It happened so suddenly. Too suddenly. I was—I was stolen. And she stuffed me in her car, and she told me… she told me…” The woman shudders. Her back cracks. I wince, imagining exactly what she’s experiencing. Knowing that she’s probably pleading for her death. Being the last to go is worse, so much worse than being the first. A lump rises in my throat, but I swallow it roughly. “She said I could change, and that if I change, I might become an asset.”

I recall the words spoken to me in the SUV. On the off chance you complete the transition, you will be brought before the queen and given the honor to complete the First Rite.

“But they locked you up down here?” I glance at Sin and ask, “Why? Why would they treat them differently?”

His gaze roves over the cells, halting on the spill of blood in the child’s cage. Sin shakes his head. “I’m not certain. Unless it was clear they might not make it. Whoever turned you would’ve been stronger at the time. Who knows how many humans have been down here since then?”

I gnaw on my lip. It’s not enough to be conclusive evidence. Not enough to be anything at all. I wrap a hand in his tunic, leveraging him for support. Thank god he’s here. I couldn’t bear this without him.

“I can’t.…” The woman shuts her charcoal eyes. “I can’t tell you who bit me. I can only tell you that the woman who grabbed me was not alone. She was joined by another—a man. Sickly pale skin. Yellow eyes. Brown hair. He… he…”

My blood runs cold. That night returns to me in a crimson wave. Not just the car, not just the pain, but Lord Allard and Calix and the syringe.

“He stabbed you,” I whisper. “Didn’t he?”

“In—in the neck.” A cry wrenches from her throat, and she fists her gray hair. The bite at her throat has deepened into a brutal black web, sticky and damp with blood. She’s not going to make it. Bile stings my tongue. I want to help. So badly I want to help. I glance at Sin, but he frowns. There is no hope here. No solution.

However, the kidnappings line up. Even if they did not end the same way, these people were taken exactly as I was taken. They were stolen from their homes, their loved ones, their lives. They were left here to die. The Wolf Queen knows something. She has to be involved in not just the kidnappings but the bites themselves.

“I’m going to find who’s behind this,” I tell the woman. “I will bring them to justice, I promise.”

“You can’t win here.” She hums sadly, and more tears spill over her cheeks. “No one can win here.”

As she devolves into a bloody coughing fit, Sin takes my hand and leads me back to my room. Up the stairs, down the hall, and through my door without ever making a sound. I don’t either. I don’t know what can be said or done. But my bones tremble, and my claws break free the second I step foot in my room. “We have to learn the truth. There must be a way to change this and—and save them. If not them, then whoever is next.”

He pulls me close, burying his face in my hair and inhaling deeply. His arms encircle me, protecting me, and I snuggle deeper into his grasp. “We don’t have much to go on,” he admits, his voice soft and low.

“But the queen is at the center of it. What if she’s the one behind the bites?”

He hesitates, withdrawing so that he can gaze down at me and smooth the waves away from my face. “Implicating her in this would be—”

“Stupid,” I finish for him.

“Dangerous,” he corrects. “Unless we are one hundred percent certain and we have the right powers backing us, we will lose that war and die.”

“The right powers?”

He moves to my bed, tugging me along after him. “My mother has never made a political move in her life without the proper alliance protecting her. Evelyn’s parents ensured that Queen Sybil would have the crown. She even chose Lord Allard as her First General because Lord Allard’s family offered her an alliance with France.” He pats a hand on the comforter, and I sit beside him. He grabs my feet and peels off my satin slippers, then massages my ankles. So caring—so loving—that it hurts. We can’t exist like this anywhere else. We shouldn’t even exist like this here. “If we had the proper alliance, and we had the right evidence, we could overthrow the Wolf Queen. There’s no reason she’d do this if it wasn’t for more power. For some sort of world domination. Trying to amass an army of Bitten humans… That’s dark. Real fucking dark. And, most of all, against the law.” His eyes redden. “If it’s true… we have to stop her, Vanessa.”

Fuck.

My heart pounds, faster and faster as the seconds tick by, and my claws burrow into the mattress. This seems like the queen’s fault. Seems as if we finally might have a true suspect.

Celeste, Oona, the prisoners in the dungeon—instinct cracks in my chest. Listen to your bones, Celeste said, and I finally am. My bones know this is the right path.

The Wolf Queen.

Maybe Evelyn spent my months here torturing me with her alchemy and even potentially framing me for treason, but… she wouldn’t have killed Celeste. She couldn’t have Bitten me. Evie may be heinous, but she isn’t missing her soul. No. I think about the girl in Nettie’s stories, the girl who stabbed me in the throne room. Evie protects her friends and her place in court. They are all that matter to her. Evie is a bully, not a criminal mastermind.

Queen Sybil, on the other hand, condemned her own sister to death for power. She didn’t even seem to grieve our instructor—“Alvarez,” I say abruptly. “Do you think—”

“Not a coincidence,” Sin agrees immediately without needing to hear more. “Instructor Alvarez loved running along the beach. He was killed on the beach. He must have witnessed part of this plot.” He turns to face me on the bed. “Do you think this is it, Vanessa?”

My bones scream yes, and there’s an intensity to my pulse as it roars in my ears. All the humans have been grabbed from the beach, and each and every time the queen has been there in some capacity. I’m the outlier, but the rest of the cases… She threw them in the dungeon. Perhaps to cover up their wrong transitions from the rest of the court, or perhaps because she wanted us to hear their torture. The queen uses us like puppets. Me included. We are all just pawns in her game. Only—“The court won’t care about the humans alone.” I worry my lower lip, thinking. Piecing together what I can. “The instructor’s death, however… We could implicate her with that. The court cares about him, about losing one of their own. It’s one of the main laws.”

“It is.” Sin nods tersely, as if what’s done is done and we’re on our way out. “We just need to find evidence, and we can convict her. We should do it at winter solstice, when a majority of the world’s nobility will travel here to witness our Ascension Rite.”

“Are you sure?” I ask him. “She’s your mother, and it might not work out how we plan—”

“It will,” he says, and the words wrap around my heart in the most intense truth yet. “We’re better together. Stronger. We can do this, Vanessa. After all these years… I might finally have what I need to save the world.”

He believes what he’s saying so much that I have no choice but to believe him too.

36

Sin and I conspire for a while before we start to put our scheme into action, always during stolen hours in the middle of the night. The Ascension Rite is a mere two weeks away, and while we need all the time we can get, we also need to work quickly.

In two weeks, queens, duchesses, earls, and baronesses alike, the strongest werewolves in the world, will be here. Right here.

If we’re going to accuse Queen Sybil of murdering one of her own werewolves and—depending on her motives—potentially seeking to threaten the other six courts with some sort of Bitten-human conspiracy, we need to convict her with allies present. Allies who will be able to take her down.

Of course, that means we need hard evidence. No more scribbling in journals, and no more dungeon quests. If we are going to trap a murderer, we have to think like one. Unfortunately, Queen Sybil still won’t let me out into St. Augustine for fear of me fleeing—for fear of her losing whatever power she sees within me. But Sin…

Sin has freedom to roam over the city, and tonight, he’s used it.

Oona brushes my hair while I perch on my bed, counting the seconds since he’s left. After supper, as soon as the sun set.

“You’re quiet today,” she says. “Of course, typically that would be a reprieve, but silence with you is never a positive omen.”

“I’m thinking.”

She moves aside the capelet attached to the falling sleeves of my gown. Scarlet as roses and as sheer and billowing as the sea. She pulls a whalebone comb through the ends of my pin curls. “As I said, not a positive omen.”

“Hmm.”

She smacks me on the head with the comb, and I startle. “If you’re keeping secrets, there will be more where that came from.”

“I’m not keeping secrets.” My heart pounds a deceptive rhythm: lie lie lie. Oona doesn’t have any gifts, however, so she can’t tell.

“I should hope not. I’d rather like to keep my other leg stable and steady.”

I wince, but Oona clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “We are done pouting,” she says. “We decided that days ago, remember?”

“How are you doing? With the training, I mean.”

Instructor Shepherd has been helping Oona exercise her leg in his spare time. Apparently, the man has a heart after all, and by the way he glances at Oona—often and deeply—I have a feeling it beats only for her.

“Shep said it won’t ever work the way it used to, but I can strengthen it. So far, I can almost rotate my leg in a full circle.” She huffs. “I’m doubtful of his confidence.”

I pivot on the bed, grinning at her anew. “Oh? Shep, is it? I’m sure he’s very confident in you.”

“Instructor Shepherd is a gentleman of the court,” Oona says. “He would never stoop so low as to—”

“Feeling you up while teaching you about resistance training?”

She whacks me with the comb again, and we laugh. For a second, the world feels right and whole. We are just two young women laughing and talking about boys. My chest flushes with deep affection. But that ends quickly when a hard knocking throttles my door. I leap off the bed.

Sin.

He’s back already. It has to be quite the find for him to come to my room before midnight. More knocking throttles my room, and I throw open the door. My nose wrinkles. My lip curls into a grimace.

“You,” I say, right as Calix says, “Where is he?”

Calix Severi takes up the entirety of my threshold, one hand behind his back and the other propped above my head on the doorframe. He glances down at me with wild, glowing eyes. “Where is Sinclair?”

Oona gathers her materials—pins, combs, oils, and sprays—and busies herself with organizing my room. Undoubtedly eavesdropping. I roll my eyes. “Haven’t you noticed? I don’t speak to him anymore.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Calix growls.

“I’m not,” I say in a tight voice. “When is the last time you saw me and Sin sitting together—”

Calix grabs my arm and hauls me backward, into my room. “Do you mind, Oona?” he barks. I’ve never heard him so panicked or aggressive before. Oona hasn’t either, with the way she drops into a curtsy and silently stumbles from my room.

“Don’t be cruel to her,” I growl, snapping my arm from his grasp.

He prowls forward, all predator, forcing me backward still. Until my legs hit the edge of my bed, and I’m trapped. “Where is he, Hart? You don’t want me to ask again.”

“What are you going to do? Torture me? Hurt my friend? I think the queen beat you to those.”

His eyes flash. Soften. But I’m not in the mood for his pity. When I confessed what happened at the match, Calix didn’t care. He didn’t seek me out again. We’ve been just fine existing far, far apart in this damned court.

“My cousin is missing,” Calix repeats. “He’s in danger. I need to know where to find him, and I think you’re the key.”

I scoff, ready to tell Calix to fuck off, but he raises a hand between us.

A hand blackening to ash.

His veins pulsate, inky beneath his flesh. “What the hell?” I breathe. “Wh-what’s happening to you?”

Calix sticks it in his pocket, but those veins coil up his forearms. He’s being incinerated slowly from the inside out. I recall the pain of the wolfsbane and wince.

“The blood bargain,” Calix says. “Sin’s life is tied to mine. If I’m dying, then he…” He curses. “I need to find Sin. I need to save him.”

Save him? No.

No, no, no. If Calix is dying, then Sin must be too. My heart leaps into my throat. What did he find? What did he get himself into? There’s no time to ruminate. There’s no time to wait. I push my hair behind my ears, collect my skirts in hand, and hurry for the door. Calix stops me with a hand on my belly. “Where do you think you’re going, Hart?”

I glare up at him. “To find Sin. And since you have no idea where he is, you can’t stop me.” I raise my brows and level him with an unspoken challenge.

Work with me or die.

Calix sighs and drags both hands down his face. The blackened one is rigid. Ashen. “Fine, Hart.” Calix yanks my door open and stalks into the hall. “But if I’m sneaking you into town, you might want to change into an outfit that won’t stick out like a sore thumb.”

I glance down.

My cape and gown are hardly the right attire for St. Augustine’s busy streets on a Friday night. “Give me five.” Calix moves to close the door, but I stop it at the last second and stare him down. “Do not leave without me, Calix.”

His jaw ticks. “I won’t.”

A truth.

I shut the door and disrobe quickly, tugging on a pair of Combat leggings and a cropped white shirt. Then I follow Calix out into the hall. I’m going to be watched, however. Sneaking out won’t be easy. Queen Sybil wants me under her thumb, and I’ve never even been shown how to return to the mortal world.

Before we can pass the guards in the foyer, Calix snatches me by my waist and drags me into his side. His muscles tense against my soft body, and even his healthy hand is too stiff to be anything but extremely unfriendly. Yet he’s holding me as if we’re lovers.

“Calix,” I hiss in protest—in confusion.

“Shut up,” he growls, pinning my hand to his chest. He is a wall of hard muscle, and fighting with him twice does not change how intimate this moment feels. His heart beats unsteadily against my palm. He’s much more nervous than I am.

“But why—”

The guards squint at us, study us, and my spine straightens. Shit. They’re already watching. I glance up at Calix, anxious, my pulse frantically outpacing his, and he looks back at me with a storm in his gaze.

“Your gift doesn’t happen to be magical disguises?” I whisper.

His cheek dimples, and a smile twitches on his lips. Just for a second. One beautiful, infinitesimal moment. “No, Hart. It doesn’t.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Well, fuck,” he agrees. He begins to walk toward a pair of massive ice-blue doors, shielding me in the crook of his arm all the while. But the guards will notice—they’ll still spot my hair. They’ll still see my face. We can’t just casually stroll by them. I need to turn around. I need to fully hide myself. I need… I need to pretend Calix and I are doing more than just going for a stroll.

I glance up at him again, and the knowledge of this already flickers in his gaze. But he makes no move to touch me, to change our current lover’s amble. “Calix,” I whisper, “are you… are you waiting for my consent?”

He growls, another deep rumble of frustration that reverberates through my core, and yanks me in front of him so we’re face-to-face. Chest-to-chest. Nose-to-nose. His eyes glitter dangerously, and he fists my hair, jerking my head back—exposing my throat while hiding the recognizable purple strands of hair in his hands. “Would you prefer I didn’t?”

He continues walking me backward, the bulk of his body hiding mine. It’s a brilliant plan. And that is most certainly the only reason that my heart contracts and my belly flutters. His lips move to my ear, and I suck in a breath, trying so carefully not to bow my back and arch into him.

“Ease up on me, Hart,” he murmurs. “You’re going to rip my shirt off my body.”

Oh. Oh. I didn’t realize—I have a death grip on his chest. I’m clutching him as if I might die if he doesn’t hold me tighter. Ridiculous. This is… this is just a disguise. I check for the guards surrounding us, but they’re careful to avoid eye contact with Calix. The blood traitor’s son. He’s the one werewolf in this whole court who could slip me out unnoticed.

I ease my grasp, trailing it upward to his neck, and he licks his lips. I swear his tongue flicks against my skin. “How do we… how do we leave this r-realm?” I ask, fumbling almost every word. My fingers brush his hair, and he tenses further.

“The doors themselves are the portal, crafted by Alchemists centuries upon centuries ago. We need only walk through them to reach the mortal realm—if the guards will open them for us.”

Wow.

All this time, the exit has been right here. Easily accessed aside from the guards. Not complicated in the least. My home—my father—are right on the other side of it. “And what happens once we leave?” I ask softly.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he admits, his voice darkening.

I haven’t thought that far ahead either. How can I? In this position? With this boy? I stumble a few steps, nearly tripping and sending us sprawling on the ground, but Calix catches me before I can demolish our entire plan.

Calix who kicked my ass in a classroom. Calix who washed my wound with so much care that it made me ache. Calix who I beat in Combat.

Calix who is Sin’s cousin.

“Hook your legs around my waist.”

I blink. Surely I heard him wrong. “C-Calix?”

“Your legs.” His hands move from my waist to… lower. Decidedly lower. I bite my lip. “If we trip and fall in front of the guards, we’ll be locked inside our rooms faster than we can blink. We won’t have time to save Sin. The castle is desperate for an excuse to trap us both. You because you’re special, and me…”

“Because you’re the son of her sister,” I finish for him.

“Son of a blood traitor.” Calix shakes his head. “I can carry you. It’ll be faster, more efficient, this way. It will simply look like we’re impassioned.”

“Impassioned,” I repeat, my legs turning to jelly.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

He pulls back enough to glance at me without ruining our ruse. His eyes narrow, and a muscle in his jaw feathers as though he’s exerting extreme control. “It’s okay, Hart. It’s just until we’re outside.” A pause. A breath. His voice lowers further. “But only if you want to.”

Do I want to straddle Calix while he presses every hot and hard inch of himself against me? To be quite honest, I don’t want to answer that question. Not when Sin and I have become so… close.

“It’s natural,” he murmurs, attempting to soothe me. Or perhaps he’s soothing himself. “It’s a natural reaction, and it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay,” I say, and then, because I can’t bring myself to say please help me straddle you now, I echo, “Okay.”

Calix’s fingers dig into my thighs, and he lifts me effortlessly. I wrap my legs around his hips, pulling him against me, and his abdomen clenches as we walk. He carries me almost leisurely past the guards. We still look like lovers, perhaps a touch more… impassioned. His heated touch presses into me, and my hands find his hair. Our faces are so close together that we may as well be kissing. But we don’t. We won’t. Still, I can’t help glancing up. He’s already watching me through a hooded gaze. His lips brush mine as the movement of his steps jostles us. Electricity crackles in my veins. He’s not Sin. He’s not kind or warm. But he’s protective. He’s loyal. My fingers twirl around a lock of black hair, and Calix looses a breath that tastes like midnight rain.

“It doesn’t mean anything. We’re enemies,” he whispers against my lips, as if to remind me of the fact, but the fire that subsequently blazes through me is catastrophic. Lie. His pupils dilate.

“Enemies?” I ask, not daring to directly call him on the falsehood when my pulse beats into him like war drums. His grip tautens further, and his nose caresses mine. I almost forget where we are. I almost forget he’s dying.

“Vanessa,” he says. Then, to the guards in a booming, gruff voice, “Do you mind?” He nods toward the doors. I hear the guards’ breath catch in their throats.

“How long?” they ask, their footsteps thudding around us. I tuck my face into Calix’s collarbone, writhing against him now for show. As if we’re so enthralled by this moment and not terrified of our impending dooms. Calix’s grip hardens even further still. “A few hours,” he responds roughly.

Please please please.

“Very well.” The guards step back—they step back—and one laughs to himself dryly. “Horny bastard. At least she’s not a human.”

I cling to Calix, begging him to not react. To ignore their cruelty. He does. Thank god he does.

The doors open with a creak. The guards fall away. Calix walks us through the portal with one large, powerful step. And then—the air changes. From the thick sweetness of magic to the clear scents of salt water, musk, and grass. The moon brightens his face, and the sky batters rain down upon us. Cold, wet droplets of mortal rain. I shift in his arms, throwing my head backward toward the cloud-covered stars. It’s black and gray and so… so familiar.

It’s home.

We did it. We successfully left the castle. But when Calix gently lowers me down his body and onto the ground, he doesn’t seem pleased at all.

“I hate to break it to you, but you can’t be driving a hundred miles an hour through a residential area.”

My complaint only makes Calix step harder on the gas. It seems we are, in fact, enemies, as right now I’d love nothing more than to shove his body out of the driver’s seat and take over the car myself.

We fly through Anastasia Island, and maybe it’s good that we’re speeding because the lights are a red-and-green blur through the window. I can’t fixate on a single location. Can’t remember exactly where I was when Celeste and I last drove over the bridge, or where we were attacked. Still, it’s the first time I’ve been here—back in my world—since my kidnapping.

“Calix,” I snap. “Will you relax?”

“Does it look like I can relax?” He holds up his left arm, and the pitch-black veins have spread to his neck, climbing his throat like tendrils of ivy. “I swear to the stars above—if you’re the reason my cousin dies…”

My stomach flips. I wipe sweaty palms on my pants. Please no, I pray. Please let Sin be okay. But I don’t want Calix to hear that sort of vulnerability from me, so I say, “If he dies, you’re dead too.”

“And you think you’ll survive our deaths?” Calix turns his head to glare at me some more, but I look out the window. Whatever friendliness I might have felt when his hands were near groping my ass is gone now. It’s as if that moment never happened at all. Though, to be fair, he is dying.

“I know my place in court better than anyone else,” I say quietly.

His grip on the wheel tightens. “Is that why you’ve been running around with the prince at night?”

I clutch the handle of the door. It threatens to snap, just like the last time Calix was driving me around. Driving me to my doom. “I haven’t been.”

“He’s never in his room.”

Because he’s always in mine. I wince. “Why are you keeping tabs on his nightly activities? Maybe he’s been with Evelyn.”

“He would sooner roast his body over open flames, and you know it,” Calix retorts. “You and I have both seen the way he looks at you. Sin can’t hide a single meaningful emotion to save his life. He’s as good at keeping secrets as an infant bribed with candy.”

I roll my eyes, cross my arms, and aim my body even farther toward the door. Calix’s words should be comforting, but he spits them out harshly. Like accusations. And as I would rather avoid discussing my intimate moments with a man I just semi-grinded on, I choose to gaslight him instead. “Evie and Sin are going to be mated soon,” I say matter-of-factly. “It would be ridiculous for him to have relations with anyone else.”

The wheel threatens to break off in his grasp. “You drive me fucking insane, Hart.”

“Ditto.”

“Besides, you’re only in this car because you claim to know exactly where my cousin is located.”

“I did not use the word exactly.”

“Oh?” Calix unlocks my door with a button on his side. “Feel free to roll out, then. I won’t slow down, but I’m sure you’ll heal.”

“Have you ever considered acting… I don’t know… like you’re not a huge fucking asshole?”

He slams on the brakes in the middle of the street, and I jerk forward, nearly smacking my head on the dashboard. “What the hell, Calix?” This. This is why he boils my blood so much. This is why I have to hate him even when he has moments of kindness. Because he is an idiot.

He puts the car in park—still in the middle of freaking street—and swivels in his seat to glower at me. “Do you understand what my life is? My aunt hates me. My very presence ruins her every waking moment. My uncle died in my care. The only person I have left is Sinclair. He has always believed in me. He has always loved me. He has chosen me over even his own mother’s disdain. He didn’t have to do any of that. He could’ve ignored me as a child or complained about me growing up as his shadow. But he hasn’t. Sinclair and I are tied together by this fucking bargain, but I would kill for him, Vanessa. I would die for him. So you tell me where you think he is, and we’ll go there. You are not the first victim of this court, nor will you be the last, and that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I just care about Sinclair more.”

I rest my head on the glass of the window and angle the air conditioners onto my face. The cold helps his words seep into my skin. Calix isn’t the villain. He might be a dick, but he’s not a murderer.

Forcing myself to sit up straight, breathing deeply, I whisper, “He should be near the beach, but we need to stop looking for a car. I think he ran here as a wolf.”

“Okay,” Calix says. And then, quietly, “Thank you.”

He shifts the car into drive and starts down the street. We’re minutes from the lighthouse. Where everything happened. We’ll have our best chance at finding Sinclair there. But of course, this can’t be so easy.

Red and blue lights flash behind us, and a siren screams through the otherwise quiet night.

“Fuck,” Calix says.

I’m forced to agree, throwing my head into my hand. “Tell me you have a legit license.”

“Vanessa,” Calix says plainly. “I’m a Beta with royal blood. I can compel humans. It’s the timing that sucks.”

Right. I scoot farther down in my seat in case it’s one of my father’s partners and they remember my face—avoiding that unpleasant exchange would be nice—while Calix rolls down the window and gets ready to compel someone probably twenty years our senior.

The officer walks up with a straight, serious gait, and the smell hits me before he does. My stomach plummets. Coffee grounds. Microwaved dinners. Cheap cologne. I turn as he reaches the car, and his voice—it paralyzes me. I’d forgotten the sound of it. The depth. Like the bottom of the ocean, but warmer.

My father.

“Vanessa?” he whispers, freezing mid-step. “Baby, is that… is that you?”

Dad.

Calix’s knuckles whiten as he continues to clutch the steering wheel. He glances between us with rigid muscles, no doubt awaiting a response. But I… I don’t have one.

The last I saw Dad, he was throwing me into Calix’s arms. He was feeding me to the wolves. And I’d been holding Celeste, and she was dead, and everything was broken. My heart beats painfully between my ribs. I can’t suck down air fast enough.

“Honey?” Dad asks, undeterred by my silence.

There’s no fleeing this.

“What do you want me to do?” Calix mutters under his breath. So quiet, my father won’t know he’s speaking anything intelligible. His human ears would never pick it up. I shrug because what can I do? What can I say? My father is here. He’s here, and I… I’m…

“You look good, baby,” Dad says. “Are they protecting you? Keeping you safe?”

Keeping me safe.

Keeping me safe?

My knuckles crack, but I drag in breath after breath to maintain my composure. It’s fine. This is my dad. He doesn’t mean anything cruel. He wants to make sure I’m healthy.

But my bones shudder and shift.

With a single glance, Calix understands that I’m unable to speak right now. He clears his throat, trying to draw my father’s attention toward him. “Sir, what seems to be the issue?”

Dad closes his eyes and raps his baton on the side of the car. “Vanessa, talk to me. I just need to know that you’re happy. They said they would train you. It would be better for you. You’ve made friends, right? You’re not alone?”

Friends.

The word triggers something inside me.

In a fiery instant, ten claws rip from my hands. Fangs descend from my mouth. My father stumbles backward with a feeble yelp.

“Celeste died,” I growl. “She died, and you left me.”

I know it’s the rage clenching my heart in its ugly fist, but I can’t stop snarling. My claws rake over the dashboard, carving fine lines into the beige material. Calix flinches.

“You sent me to them. Why? How could you leave?”

Dad can’t respond. He’s too busy stuttering. His baton clatters to the ground. “Y-your face…”

“I’m a monster! You understand that, right? I’m not sipping tea with the queen; I’m a monster.”

“V-V-Vanessa…”

I shut my eyes. My nose twists. Snaps. I lost control of myself, my breathing, everything. I’m going to transform. I’m going to accidentally murder my father.

I fold in on myself, trying to stop it. Trying so desperately—

Calix grabs the back of my neck and squeezes so hard that I cry out.

It sounds as if I’m in agony, but immediately, the rage depletes. The red haze parts, and my vision—my thoughts—return. Dad doesn’t understand that Calix may have saved his life, though.

He pulls his gun from its holster and aims it right at Calix. As if this night couldn’t get any worse, Dad says, “Get your hands off my daughter.”

Calix doesn’t bother glancing at him. He keeps hold of my neck, his thumb pressing directly against a pressure point. It’s only because of him that I’m able to breathe. That I don’t burst out of my flesh. But Dad… He doesn’t see the anger wither inside me. He only sees Calix holding his teenage daughter hostage. The boy who stole me away. The monster who ruined our lives forever.

I almost can’t blame him when he fires the trigger.

A bullet blows through Calix’s dying arm, and black blood splatters inside the car. Like a water balloon popped, it’s more blood than I could have imagined. It leaks from the roof, the dash, the wheel, and Calix himself.

“What is wrong with you?” I shriek, undoing my seat belt to leap onto Calix’s lap and stanch the bleeding.

“Vanessa?” Dad asks, confusion wrinkling his brow. “He was… he was hurting you.”

“He was protecting me!” I glance at him through a curtain of my hair. “You asked if they’re keeping me safe? Well, Calix is one of the only reasons I’m still alive, and you shot him!”

“Appreciate it,” Calix says gruffly into my hair.

I don’t pay attention to his hard body beneath me or the way his good hand snakes between us to brush hair away from his wound or that this is the second time today I’ve been this intimate with him to save his life. I press down as hard as possible on the injury.

“It’ll heal,” he says. “We need to find Sinclair.”

“R-right.” But we haven’t yet. We haven’t found him, and we don’t even have an exact idea of a location. The stretch of beach is miles long, and we could only have minutes left. Maybe seconds. A cry builds and builds in my throat, but I swallow it and look out the window at my father, who stands there, completely frozen, with his jaw dropped all the way open. “Dad, have you gotten any calls about monsters tonight? Or maybe anyone acting out?”

“I… I…”

“I see where you get your stuttering from,” Calix murmurs.

I pinch his wound until he hisses. He’s lucky I don’t make it worse. “Dad, focus. This is really, really important. There are maybe four people on this earth that I can trust, and one of them is in jeopardy now. And since you just shot another one, you owe me.”

A smile twitches on Calix’s lips. That dimple appears. I growl and jab him with a finger. “Don’t read into this. You saved my life once when you didn’t have to. Consider this me repaying the favor.”

“Of course.”

“Calix—”

“Hart.” He cups my chin, and his eyes blaze gold. “If you want to find my cousin, you’re going to have to get off my lap.”

I contemplate choking him but decide better of it and throw myself back to the passenger seat. Calix’s bullet wound doesn’t close, even after he’s plucked out the bullet and flicked it at my father, who catches it with clumsy hands. The black veins have made their way to his face. We have to find Sin. As soon as possible.

“Dad,” I say again. “Please.”

Holding the bullet, he tilts his head down and stares at the ground. “There were reports from the beach. There have been more and more by the day. Most of the guys at the station don’t understand that something supernatural is happening, but the sheriff and I are working on it. We’ve managed to question a couple of individuals with bite marks, but the only connection between them seems to be the beach and an older woman.”

“An older woman?”

Dad nods tersely. “Short hair. Black eyes.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck.

Every theory is just about confirmed and I… I don’t know how to process it. Not without Sin. “Where was the incident tonight?”

“The lighthouse. But, Vanessa, honey, I don’t think you should get involved.”

“I already am.” I lean across Calix to roll up the window, but Calix puts his hand on mine, stopping me.

“This could be your last chance to talk to him,” he says.

But I can’t think about that now. Calix is dying. Sin is dying. And the queen… She… I can’t think it. I can’t say it. I close my eyes. When I open them, I find Dad watching me, his gaze narrowed in sadness and grief. These last months haven’t only been hard on me. He’s been alone. But I needed him. He is my father, and I needed him, and he wasn’t there. He’s never been here when I need him.

“Be safe, Dad,” I manage to say. “Don’t go near the lighthouse. If you run into a wolf… silver. Use silver to defend yourself.” With that, I finish rolling up the window and return to my seat.

My ears are good enough to hear my father outside. He says, “I love you,” and still watches as we drive toward our doom.

37

Sin isn’t at the lighthouse nor the beach. Calix and I run along sandy shores, following the trace scents of mint and soap and candy, but he’s nowhere to be found.

We race across the road, past any and every landmark on the island, and my heart is in my throat now. Black twines over Calix’s skin like skeletal fingers—like Death’s fingers—and Sin… Where is he?

He has to be hurt, bleeding, alone. Our plan failed. Our plan failed, and now they’re going to die. Fuck. I ball my hands into fists and throw myself down the street faster, leaving Calix behind me. He calls out, tells me it’s okay, but it’s not. It’s not. My hair whips around me with the mildly cool breeze of Florida in December. The city smells like ocean, like dirt, like grime and sweat and humans. And I should miss it, I should contemplate fleeing home to my father, but those smells don’t belong to me anymore. This island with the flashing streetlights and the flickering neon signs, it doesn’t feel much like home at all. Perhaps because I can see more than before—I notice dewdrops forming on the tall lamps, bloodstains on the ground, worn facades of gas stations and saloons with porous, splintering wood and grungy metal.

I hear riotous noises from inside.

I hear… screaming.

Stopping abruptly in the middle of the road, I tilt my head. Calix has already heard it, and he’s charging toward the bar as we speak. A local dive, with Christmas lights tangled atop a crooked wooden awning and two massive saloon doors that do little to keep out the mangled sounds of fighting.

Sin.

His voice is crystal clear inside as he says, “If you’re going to throw a punch, at least put more effort into it than that.”

I race after Calix, my heart in my throat and my nails cutting into my palm. We burst into the bar, knocking aside the doors, fists out and ready to fight. But—we both screech to a sudden halt in our pursuit, and I slam into Calix’s back.

Whatever danger we expected, it’s not… this.

Beer signage flashes in vivid reds and blues above a sticky bar, with liquor bottles spread out along the surface and alcohol dripping onto the floor. Sin takes a shot with four huge men who wear gray beards down to their bellies, and then he steps away from them.

“Go ahead,” he says. “Hit me again.”

I blink. A man in a leather vest and cutoff jean shorts throws a punch into Sin’s chest, but it has no effect other than Sin laughing. “See,” he says. “Told you.”

“What kinda trick is that?” one of the men asks.

Sin wiggles his fingers. “You’ll never know.” He swivels around on a barstool, tossing more amber liquid into his mouth before he spots us. Maybe Sin has a fake ID I never knew about. “Ah!” he shouts. “My cousin! My lover! Welcome them, everyone.”

Weirdly, everyone does.

It’s clearly not compulsion because they kind of grumble the words, but nonetheless, Sin seems to have enthralled each person in this bar with charm alone. Well, each person except for Calix and me. The bearded men clear away, grabbing liquor bottles of their choosing and stalking off to red lacquered booths in the back, but Calix stalks forward, headed straight for his cousin.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Calix demands, snatching Sin from his stool and hoisting him to his feet by the collar of Sin’s very mundane polo shirt. “Are you drunk?”

Sin pats his cousin’s arm lightly—and then he notices the blood. Black blood dries on Calix’s shirt, on his arm, his bullet wound healed but the evidence remaining, and Sin pokes it, nose twitching. “Why are you covered in ink?”

“It’s blood,” Calix snarls. He throws Sin back onto the stool, and Sin wobbles for a moment before righting himself with all the grace and dexterity of a cat currently using its ninth life.

“Apologies,” Sin says. “How could I have known?”

“Maybe through our mothers’ bargain. The one wherein our lives are tied to each other’s.”

“I have been busy,” Sin says—slurs. “And the humans will hear you if you keep yelling.” I step forward, out of Calix’s shadow, and Sin reaches for me. “Truly, Cousin, I expected a little less melodrama from you.”

Calix’s muscles coil. He looks as if he’s about to explode out of his own flesh—or maybe shift into a wolf. But he breathes deeply, and his jaw tenses. His voice lowers so that only we can hear it. “I could kill you.”

Sin pulls me to his side, his hand tacky with old, bitter liquor as it wraps around my wrist. I stare down at him in confusion. This… was not our plan. This is nothing like our plan. But when I frown at him, he quickly glances away, plucks a glass of amber alcohol from the bar, and downs it in a single gulp. “Killing me would kill yourself, and even you aren’t that self-sacrificing.”

“Try me,” Calix says.

Sin furrows his brow, and his nose twitches again. He looks back at me and brushes the wild hair from my nape. “Vanessa, darling, why do you smell like my cousin again?”

I would pull away from him, but his grip is manacle-tight, and his thumb traces a smooth path along the curve of my wrist. It’s an easy movement, a careful one. It doesn’t feel very drunk at all. But I glare at him anyway. This wasn’t our plan, and I really don’t want to explain why I have Calix’s scent all over me. I like even less that I can’t smell it on myself.

“Because I had to sneak her out of the castle in order for us to find you when my veins started turning black,” Calix says fiercely. “We thought you were dying.”

Sin doesn’t bother turning his attention to his cousin. Deadpan, he says, “Well, clearly I am not.”

Calix snarls. Sin ignores it. Moving his hand down my wrist, he entwines our fingers and squeezes. “Are you okay?” he asks me softly. There isn’t a drop of alcohol in that perfect, beautiful voice, and my head spins. I lean against the bar for support.

What is going on?

“She is definitely not fine. She”—Calix points to me—“just ran into her father for the first time since becoming one of us. You should talk to her. Maybe explain what the hell you’re doing here, because she seems as shocked as I am.” To me, Calix says, “I’m going to clean up so I don’t attract more attention.”

“Yes,” Sin says, “because the seven-foot-tall, colossal nineteen-year-old is very subtle usually.”

Cursing, Calix stomps off toward the black curtain that separates the bar from the bathroom. Once he disappears from sight, Sin’s grasp hardens. I can’t even manage to ask him what’s happening before he says, “You saw your father?” His voice drips with molten control and clear sobriety.

He’s not drunk. But he’s in a bar.

Why?

I shake my head, blinking rapidly to clear away the confusion. “He… he was on duty, and Calix was handling the SUV like a Formula One driver to get to you. My dad pulled us over.” I release his hand and step back an inch. “Why are you here, Sin? Why did Calix’s arm start to decay?” My voice cracks. “I thought… I thought you were dying.”

Sin’s face falls, and he glances to that black curtain before he stands. Brushing my hair back from my face, trailing his hands over my cheeks, he says, “We can’t talk about that here. I promise I’m all right.” But—no. A white-hot comet explodes against my ribs. He’s lying.

“Sin—”

His wine-stained eyes narrow, and I… I smell it. The copper stench of pain. Blood. He tries to back away from me, but I hook a finger in the collar of his shirt and peel it back. Sin exhales roughly as I expose a deep cut, scarlet congealing above the white bone of his shoulder. Oh my god. My stomach churns brutally, violently, at the sight. Silver. It had to be inflicted by silver. He… he could have…

Sin tugs his shirt back in place, however, as if it’s no more than a paper cut. “Not now,” he says. “It’s not safe here.”

Truth.

But I glance around for an explanation as to why. The bearded men have returned to their booths and conversations. The bartender wipes down his perpetually messy bar. Calix is in the bathroom. Why—

Sin retreats a step, his hands falling from me in an abrupt, cold second.

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” a girl says, and instantly, my body fills with dread.

I stiffen, and I refuse to turn around.

A pair of heels clacks over the gritty floor, growing louder and louder like the beginning wails of a tornado siren. Evelyn Lee approaches Sin, a glass full of some kind of thick, green mucus in her hand as she glares at me with the hatred of a thousand burning suns. “I’m gone for three minutes, and she’s here?” Evie shoves the glass into Sin’s chest. “Take your damn potion. I hope it hurts.”

“You wound me, Evie,” Sin says dryly, though he immediately heaps the mucus onto his shoulder. The wound… closes. Just like that. My brows pinch, and Evie rolls her eyes. Planting a fist on the high waist of her black miniskirt, she wedges herself between me and Sinclair.

“What an interesting coincidence to run into you here, Vanessa,” she says, saccharinely sweet. “Is this your favorite local hang?” She glances around at the dirt, the dust, and the grime. “It certainly seems like a place you’d frequent.”

Sin pushes her aside, if only a centimeter, and forces a chuckle. “Ladies, as much as I enjoy you both fighting over me, I really must demand that you relax. We are in a place of tranquility, after all.” He smiles brightly, as though this isn’t the biggest lie he’s ever told. Evie narrows her red gaze at him.

“Must you always act like an absolute nitwit?”

“I can promise you, it’s not an act,” Sin lies through his teeth.

“Our engagement will be one for the ages,” Evie says—and now it’s her turn to delve into flame-hot dishonesty.

Sin nods. “Our grandchildren’s children will speak of our illustrious affair.”

Lie.

“I cannot wait to be united with you,” Evie says, completely deadpan.

Another lie.

Unfortunately, these roundabout confessions don’t make me feel better. Unless Sin found conclusive evidence tonight, these two will be engaged in two weeks’ time. Even if they don’t want to be—even if they kick and scream the whole time—they will be together for the rest of their lives. And I will either watch it unfold or be cast aside as a Lone Wolf and left to die. I place a hand on my stomach, willing the insurgence of nausea and bile to calm. It doesn’t. Sin’s blond hair dangles over his stunning red eyes. His sharp jaw tenses with another fabricated smile. He’s beautiful. I’ve felt his hands on my body, his tongue, his lips. And, god, he’s beautiful, but he isn’t mine.

I retreat to the bar, leaving the two of them to bicker, and numbly sit down on a stool.

Fuck my future, Vanessa.

But he can’t do that without cause. Sin glances at me, and he frowns. By now, Evelyn has spun away from him and commandeered a table across from my spot at the bar. But he stands there, torn between the two of us. Torn between what’s expected and what’s right. And Evie—she’s not happy about any of this either. I know she wouldn’t choose Sin if she could help it. She is a bully. She hurt me. She damn well tortured me and threatened me within an inch of my life. But she is also just a girl trapped in a bad situation.

She is also just a girl.

I bite my lip, thinking. Mulling over what could be the dumbest decision of my life. But my legs move of their own volition, and I stand and walk to the chair beside her. When I sit down, she blinks at me, her pink mouth twisting into an automatic sneer.

“Evie,” I say, trying desperately to keep my tone even. “Can I ask you a question?”

She rests her chin on a manicured hand. Her nails sparkle in varying shades of scarlet and maroon. “No.”

I stifle a scream of frustration with a perfectly placating smile and ask anyway. The one question I’ve wanted to know for ages. The one that has haunted me for months. The one that she never would’ve answered in the midst of court, surrounded by their laws and principles and heavy expectations.

“Evie.” I brace myself for the worst. For the truth. “Did you… did you kill my friend?”

Sin moves beside us then, pulling out a chair and sitting on it backward, but she doesn’t look at him. Her gaze burns into mine. Through mine. Seconds feel like hours now, and my hands tremble the longer they stretch out before us. My foot jostles against the floor.

Evie’s head tilts. She opens her mouth.

However, four harsh, abrasive footsteps thunder from that curtain, and cut through our conversation instantly. They fell it like a tree. She turns around and spots her brother, and I turn around and spot Calix, and the truth dies in her throat. Now I try not to cry. I was so close. So close to forcing this issue into our past and unraveling the real mystery. The real danger. It can’t be Evie. She can’t have killed Celeste because of a stupid fight when there is a web of conspiracy entangled around us. Celeste’s death can’t have been that pointless.

Calix and Eric return from the bathroom and sit at the table beside us, their bodies too tall to fit neatly in the wooden chairs. Eric huffs, folding inward and trying desperately not to touch a single thing with his bare hands or arms.

“We found your cousin loitering on the beach,” Eric says to Calix. “Any idea why? He claims he was out for an evening jog, but I don’t buy it.”

“I think you are mixing up a few facts,” Sin argues with a lazy air. “You did not find me—you pounced on me.”

“I healed you,” Evie says, sounding more bored than ever. “And you didn’t even say thank you.”

“You daggered me with silver. I’m not ever going to say thank you.”

“An honest mistake. We thought you were a murderer,” Eric says, stretching out and almost breaking the chair under the weight of his muscles. “Since you appeared to be haunting the very spot where Instructor Alvarez died.”

“I was running on the beach,” Sin says.

“Sure you were.”

“Sin enjoys his time away from the castle,” Calix says defensively. “He goes for runs often.”

“Right,” Eric huffs. “Our dearest Wolf Prince may as well be a triathlete.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sin says. “Triathletes bike and swim. I’m merely a wolf who enjoys a good race.”

“Say wolf louder,” Evie snaps. “I worry the bartender didn’t hear you.”

Sin laughs. “You’re not afraid of a human, are you?”

“I’m afraid of gutting you in front of one.”

“Evelyn, my dear, you have the patience of an untrained dog.”

“And you have the brain of one,” she retorts.

I watch them spar, the four of them with their years of history, and it reminds me of bickering in the cafeteria with Celeste. Of long car rides and sweaty beach days and arguments about maps and sunscreen. God, I miss her. I miss having family. I slouch in my seat. Calix remains mostly quiet as well, but even he can’t help interjecting after long.

“I’m not accusing you of being a serial killer,” Evie says, “I’m just asking why you happened to be here, at the beach, on the night of a full moon?”

“Stop interrogating him,” Calix growls.

“No, don’t stop,” Sin says, his muscles taut when he crosses his arms. “Go ahead. Dig your grave deeper.”

Evie jabs a red nail at him. “I don’t trust you, Wolf Prince.”

“Nor do I trust you, Wolf Princess.”

She scoffs, throwing her chair backward and leaping to her feet. “And I don’t like your blood-traitor cousin either.” She doesn’t mention me, specifically, as she and Eric make their way toward the door—which feels like a minor victory—but she does glare at me. Evie glances around the bar, at the humans and spilled liquor and the hideous saloon doors and shakes her head. “I hate your entire fucking court,” she admits.

And then she and Eric exit.

“Fucking delightful, aren’t they?” Sin mutters to the table.

Calix glowers, however. “You better have a really good explanation as to why you were at the beach, Sin.”

“Don’t tell me you think I’m a serial killer too.”

“I think you’re hiding something.” Calix licks his lips, and his searing yellow gaze falls on me next. “I know you’re both hiding something.”

But we can’t confirm or deny the accusation. Just then—outside in the sprinkling rain—a howl pierces the night. The three of us freeze. Calix leaps out of his chair, knocking over the rickety thing, and the bartender yells at us for property damage. We don’t respond. Calix storms outside, and Sin grabs my hand, dragging me after them before I can process what’s happening.

“Why—”

“Wolf,” Sin says. “Full moon. Beach.”

Oh.

Oh no.

A second howl splits the sky, and it burrows into my ear. My hackles rise. My claws break free. I’m—I’m responding to the sound.

“It’s an Alpha,” Sin says, readying his body in a fighting stance.

Calix nods once. His fangs have descended, and his eyes flash gold. “Where?”

Evie and Eric jog toward us from across the street, their hair wet and plastered to their faces. I almost think it’s suspicious, seeing their red eyes flaring from the darkness, but they reach us with preternatural haste, their breaths coming harsh and fast.

“Did you hear—” Eric starts.

“Howls,” Evie finishes.

Calix and Sin nod, and Calix steps forward to meet them in the parking lot. “Did you follow the first?”

“To the beach,” Eric says, slicking his hair back with a pale hand. “We were returning to alert you when we heard the second.”

Calix curses, and he turns to look at Sin, who nods again. “It has to be Instructor Alvarez’s murderer—or someone aligned with them.”

I recall Calix’s words in a rush.

In our world, we don’t have the luxury of coincidence.

I flinch. Celeste’s murderer, the instructor’s, the assailant of those prisoners, they’re here. Right now. Rain drips onto my cheeks in a cold flurry, starting soft, then growing fat and violent with the wind. I blink away the water, repress the fear that’s whirling through my chest like smoke.

“Wh-what do we do?” I ask, my claws reflecting the light from a lamp above us.

Evie and Eric glance at me, and for the first time ever, there is no hatred in their gazes. Eric straightens, every bit the prince he is, and Evie curls her claws toward her chest. Royalty. The future of werewolves. Something in my bones wants to bow at the sight.

“We follow it,” Calix says, and when Sin moves to argue, Calix shakes his head, cutting him off. “We must.”

“Follow the scent,” Eric agrees. “I doubt they’ll howl again. Whoever they were calling…”

“The victim has already been lured,” Evie says.

Victim.

Another victim. Oh god. I suck in a breath, and Calix tracks the ragged sound. His muscles shudder with an impending shift, but he takes the moment to say, “You have to stay here, Vanessa.” Then, “You too, Evelyn.”

“What?” Evie spits, her own body rippling now. “No fucking way.”

“You are my future mate—the future queen,” Sin says. “If I can’t handle this myself, then you’re as good as dead.”

“So you want me to babysit her?”

And there’s that hatred again, but I’m not going to argue against it. “I can help—”

“No,” Calix interjects. “You can’t. We don’t know what’s awaiting us. You’re just not trained enough. You won’t survive.” Calix points to the streetlamp above us.

Sin agrees, though his expression is somber. Almost forlorn. “Wait here, and don’t leave the light.”

Evie looks as if she could shatter the lamppost with a single claw, but she nods anyway. “Fine,” she bites out.

And the three boys take off for the darkness and seclusion of the beach. I can’t see them shift. I can only hear it—the cracking of bones, the implosion of fur. They chase after the rogue werewolf, darting into a blackened mangrove forest, and leave Evie and me alone.

She begins pacing back and forth, never leaving the safety of the light, her red eyes deepening into a molten maroon. “Speak one word,” she says to me, “and I will rip out your throat.”

She is undeniably telling the truth.

38

I do not obey Evie’s command regardless of her threat—how can I? We are left alone with nothing to do but wait. I drag my foot along the gravel, shivering under the icy fingers of December rain.

“Should we go back to the castle and alert everyone?”

“Rip out your throat,” Evie repeats, not bothering to look at me.

“But—”

Evie slams her heel down, and chunks of street break off into rocks and pebbles. She whirls around. “This is exactly why you aren’t fit to be a werewolf. We listen to our pack. We don’t disregard the rules and order on a whim. Sin is the Alpha right now, and he told us to wait. Thus…” She splays her claws wide, like a malicious magician in the middle of a grand show. “We wait.”

I scowl at her. Anxiety ticks in my heart like the countdown to a large explosive while frustration wells painfully in my throat. My body shudders. My bones ripple. But I can’t shift, and I can’t help, and I have to stand here with her. “Don’t you get tired of insulting people?”

“Hmm…” She taps a claw to her chin. “No.”

A truth.

I decide to share one of my own. “I’m not a threat to you, Evelyn. You’re going to be queen one day. We don’t have to be enemies.”

She cracks her knuckles. Her neck. “If you’re not afraid because you won our last fight, I can assure you it was a fluke, and I will kick your ass now.”

“Stop,” I say, though I don’t step away or flinch upon the signs of her aggression. I won’t be afraid of her anymore. She is just a girl. “You’ve made living here so… so much harder than it needed to be. My best friend died, Evie. I moved to this strange fucking castle in a body that no longer felt like mine. I lost everything. And all you’ve done since day one is make it worse.”

She bares her fangs. “You attacked me in the throne room.”

“You attacked my friend on the beach!”

“That was my job!” Evie cries, so loudly that the ground threatens to shatter beneath me. Hell threatens to swallow me whole.

That was my job. That was my job. That was my job.

“Wh-what?” I shake my head viciously, certain that I’ve misheard her. “What do you mean?”

Her jaw clenches, and she glances off into the distance. “Do you think we were at the beach randomly that night? Do you think I wanted to hang out amongst a bunch of human teenagers? She—Queen Sybil—told us to scout out a potential illegal-Bitten as a practice mission. One of the only ways to tell is…” Her eyes harden, and I’m almost convinced that she’s forcing herself to say the words. “You rile them. You press their buttons and see if they’ll attack.”

I stumble backward. A cry wells in my throat, but, as usual, it doesn’t burst forth. It can’t burst forth. I haven’t cried since Celeste’s death.

“You were there—”

“On purpose,” Evie confirms. “Queen Sybil commanded Sin to carry out the investigation, but once we arrived at the beach, he couldn’t. He’s soft, Vanessa. I had to do what was expected.”

The world spins in a wicked rotation. I think I might throw up. Sin… Sin knew. This whole time, he knew. “You killed her?” I murmur, the words slipping from my lips in a torrent of pain. Of grief. “It was… it was you?”

I shut my eyes, waiting for the moment that will change everything. The moment where I’ll have to kill her. Or at least fight her to my own death. My claws sharpen, and my fangs cut into my lower lip.

“No,” Evie says. “I didn’t kill your friend. None of us did.”

I freeze.

Her honesty cradles my heart in gentle hands. It touches the very core of my soul.

She’s telling the truth. But… that doesn’t make sense. Someone killed Celeste. If the queen sent them to scout the situation, then she must have had them deal with it.

Evie sighs and rips a hand through her hair, her claws gone now. I hadn’t even noticed them vanish. “We didn’t expect a fight to break out between the humans and werewolves. It caused a disruption, and most of us escaped so we wouldn’t risk our lives by shifting in front of the mortals. By the time the scuffle ended and everyone made their way back to one another, it had happened already. She was dead. You were Bitten. And we had to find a way to clean up the mess.” Her eyes narrow. “Whoever did it isn’t one of us.”

Her words play on a loop in my head. It’s so much information, I think about dropping to the ground, perhaps sitting in this filthy street forever. Celeste died here. Months ago, the accident happened not even miles away. But it wasn’t an accident. They were sent there to scope out the issue for… for the queen.

I glance up at Evelyn abruptly, ideas forming in my head. Conclusions. “Did you sabotage my journal? Did you try to frame me for treason?”

She laughs dryly. “Tell me you’re not being serious. Why would I sacrifice my own position in court? Queen Sybil hates me enough. If she caught me tampering with her precious purple-eyed Bitten, she’d have my head delivered on a literal silver platter.”

My heart pounds furiously. If that wasn’t Evie… “What about the threatening notes? The blood on my mirror?”

She blinks. Her head tilts, and she slows her pacing to stand closer to me. “Vanessa, you look green.”

“Answer me,” I plead, wringing my claws before her. “A straightforward answer.”

“I did not sabotage your journal, write you a threatening note, or put blood on your mirror. I’ve never even been inside your room aside from when I went to collect you and Sin.”

Truths. All truths. Bile rises in my throat.

“But you stabbed me. You hate me.”

“Yes, but I’m not suicidal.” The streetlight above us emphasizes the chiseled lines of her cheekbones and seems to deepen her frown. “You barged into this castle like a medieval battering ram. You attacked me in public. You hugged my intended fiancé in public.” She holds a hand up when I move to interrupt her. “It does not matter that I find the Wolf Prince as attractive as a bowl of rotten fruit. There is etiquette in our court. There are rules, laws, expectations, and hierarchies. I have been trained in them since birth, but you… you bulldozed through each and every one, and you thought the consequences would never catch up to you. I don’t like you, Vanessa Hart. I think you are weak and a stain on our society. But I do not care about you so much as to sacrifice my own place in the very court I am one day meant to rule. You’ll die here, with or without my help.”

Warmth wraps around me like a blanket. Once more, I feel safe, secure. No part of me burns. She’s being honest. And I can’t even be upset with her for it. She hasn’t been threatening me. She hasn’t been sabotaging me. No, I’m not overjoyed that she stabbed me, but she didn’t kill Celeste.

She is just a girl.

A great cavern expands in the pit of my stomach. The conspiracy Sin and I have been uncovering blows wide open. Evie was never out to get me; I only thought she was. Because of the fight on the beach, because of Celeste, because of the alchemical nature of the torture, because of the sabotage.

Someone was setting me up. Someone was setting her up.

From that cavern in my stomach, anger quakes in the aftershocks of the explosion—the realization. Evie, Sin, everyone knew about this. Despite my abilities, they hid it from me. What else… what else could they be hiding?

“If you’re going to be sick, please aim it away from my Prada shoes. They were a birthday present.” Evie pauses before adding reluctantly, “We couldn’t tell you. The mission was classified.”

I chew on the inside of my lip, considering her words. Another howl, farther away, toward the bridge, breaks my concentration, however. Evie tracks it, mentions something about how long her brother is taking, but that doesn’t matter.

She—Queen Sybil—told us to scout out a potential illegal-Bitten as a practice mission.

Queen Sybil also knew about Celeste, and this… this situation is familiar. Too familiar. Every single person who had been Bitten, she knew of first.

“How did you find Sin?” I ask slowly. “Why were you out here tonight looking for him?”

Her gaze tears from the distance, landing back on my face, and she asks apprehensively, “Why does that matter?”

“I know you think I’m stupid and weak—”

“And pathetic,” she adds unhelpfully. I ignore it.

“Queen Sybil outright admitted to me that she loathes you,” I say. “She loathes the bargain she made with your parents. She resents the control they—and you—have over her.” I repeat, “Why were you out here tonight?”

Evie’s pulse rises, an aggressive beat like the thunder throttling the cloudy midnight sky. She wipes rain from her forehead. “Queen Sybil called me to her chambers to inform me that her son was spotted on the island. She asked me to discreetly take him home. But, as you are well aware, Sinclair has never been discreet in his life. He insisted we stop in every bar on his way back, and then he offered liquor in return for fighting with the locals. I think he wanted to distract me and Eric so he could slip out the back.”

Her words are honest, but she’s wrong. Sin wasn’t trying to distract them.…

You rile them. You press their buttons and see if they’ll attack.

Sin was provoking the locals. If a Bitten human had been there, they would have snapped. We would have been able to rescue them—or maybe question them.

But if the queen sent Evie here, to the beach specifically, it had to be for a reason.

“Did she want you to come alone?” I hurry to ask.

Evie nods. “She said she didn’t want rumors to spread. I brought Eric because he caught me sneaking out.” My stomach roils. Her spine straightens, and she tenses. “This was a trap,” she whispers. Her gaze flicks back to the distance, to the spot where her brother, her future mate, and her potential future general ran off. Dread curdles in my own veins as she says, “They’re in danger.”

My wristbone snaps, spurned by terror, before I can even ask, “What do we do?”

Evie grabs my hand and pulls me into the shadows across the street. Sand kicks up behind us, wet and rough against our skin. “We go after them,” she says. “We save them.”

“What about… about order?” I manage, my back bowing as the shift into werewolf begins the slow mutilation of my body. Though I try to remain in control, I can’t stop it—not with this fear coursing through me. My other wrist snaps, and I clench my teeth to keep from crying out.

“Fuck that,” she growls, her red eyes darkening menacingly. “This is an order from your future queen. We go after the boys, and we bring them home. No matter what.”

Another howl rends the air—closer. Strangely close now. My stomach twists, and sweat breaks out across my forehead in searingly hot rivulets.

“Shift,” Evie commands. “Stay by my side. Follow my lead. We’ll get through this together.”

Together.

The word is a light amidst the bleak dark surrounding us. We have to save Sin and Calix. Eric too. I can’t let anyone else die. My resolve hardens, and the transformation comes quicker now.

Lowering onto all fours, I submit to the pain. I think of the queen, of Celeste’s death, and allow the rage boiling within to swallow me whole.

My spine breaks next, my ribs, my legs, my ankles. It’s faster now. Faster than ever before. My body reduces to dust in short, agonizing fissures, and my bones rupture one by one before reforming into something else. Something strong. And then—where Evie and I stood before as enemies, we now stand as wolves. Almost… almost as a pack.

She lowers a russet-brown snout to the ground, her nostrils flaring and exhaling smoke in the direction of the shoreline. I nod once, and we take off in search of a murderer.

We hit the sand with enough force that it erupts around our heavy paws. High tide rises to meet us, spraying us with sea-foam and icy waves. I register the chilling temperature, but it doesn’t dissuade me from riding up, up the shoreline. After the predator. Another howl. Louder. Closer. Evie charges after it, so I do too.

I stay tight to her left—her weakest side. I protect it. As we converge on the source of the sound, we press farther together, almost becoming one. Evie slows her pace to a prowl. I creep alongside her, listening.

A ragged breath exhalates from behind the wooden shack of a dilapidated lifeguard stand, followed by a short, terse growl. There. I aim a paw at the noise, and Evie’s head snaps toward the same direction. Our eyes lock. She begins to wind her way around the left of the shack, and I stick close behind her. I am to protect her. She is the Alpha right now. The leader.

Before we can burst out and capture the rogue werewolf, she halts. Tenses. And then hurtles forward in an explosion of expert movement. I leap out after her to find—to find nothing.

Just sand. Air.

What the hell?

A low growl builds in my throat, but Evie keeps her movements silent. I must stay silent too. I glance at the large brown wolf, and she shakes her head. She doesn’t understand either. I hold my breath and listen again.

My ears pick up breathing still.

I run through a fast list of explanations and possibilities. Could someone’s gift be invisibility? Could they just be quick enough to move without us seeing them? Or is it something worse… something deadlier? I don’t see Sin. I don’t see Calix or Eric. I don’t scent them either. The salt of the ocean drenches everything besides the rot of old wood. Strange. I hear breathing, but I still don’t smell another presence.

Evie digs through the sand.

I stalk over to her, and she nudges a hard rectangle from the earth. Not a rectangle. She stomps on it, and the screen bursts to life. A cell phone. An unknown number flashes before us, and on the other end, someone whispers a garbled, “Good girl.” The call abruptly ends.

Fuck.

Not good. Not good at all.

Whirling around, I stumble to a halt. Déjà vu nearly cleaves me in half. It’s as if I’m back on that street with Celeste, watching in horror as not two but four wolves slink toward Evie and me. But how? We couldn’t scent them. We didn’t know. My pulse pounds. I suck in a short breath. Though they surround us, they don’t make a move. I look to Evie for direction, but her red eyes pale with fear as she takes in the size of their pack—bigger, broader than us. One Delta. One Beta. One Alpha. And a gargantuan gray wolf with sparkling ebony eyes.

No.

No.

No.

My stomach drops, and my claws cut viciously into the sand, rooting me to this horrid moment.

Whatever magic they must have used to mask their presence vanishes in a gust of wind, and I can smell them now. The gray beast in particular. Their scent is familiar, like roses and musk. Like the Wolf Queen of North America. I bare my fangs on instinct. Traitor, I want to hiss. Murderer. Queen Sybil has us surrounded by her army, and we’re fucking trapped. We’re trapped, and that was the plan all along. Not for me. Not for Sin or Calix or Eric. But for Evie. My pulse riots. I riot. Red hazes my vision, and that rage that has cocooned me for so long bursts into a moth and unleashes from my chest in a violent snarl.

Evie doesn’t have the same reaction. The Princess of Asia… bows. She submits to the Wolf Queen with a soft whimper.

But Queen Sybil doesn’t want our obedience anymore. She wants our death. A brown-eyed wolf with white fur lunges then, swiping a paw at Evie’s left leg while Evie is bent. It knocks Evie onto her side and bleeds her onto the sand.

All hell breaks loose.

The Alpha and Beta lunge for Evie with their fangs, and I heave my body into theirs with another snarl. Get up, I think to Evie. Get up get up get up.

Of course, she can’t hear me, so I howl. I howl until my lungs give out. The werewolves of the Wolf Queen’s treasonous pack leap atop Evie—attack her with ruthless force—and I rip into them with similar abandon. I swipe claws at the Beta, bite through the tail of the white Delta. Blood pours from my paws, from my teeth; all the while the queen watches us with a sadistic grin curling her wolfish mouth.

Evie sees it then—the hollow void of the queen’s black eyes. No soul left. Not after biting so many humans. Or perhaps just enough soul to continue ruling the court with a malicious fist.

Finally, Evie snaps. Like a flame winding down a stick of dynamite, she detonates.

Shooting up, she tackles the Alpha and stops it from taking a bite of my haunches with a vicious bite of her own. She tears into their throat and spits a chunk of their flesh on the sand, quickly hurling herself behind me, protecting my flank.

We’ve mixed up the hierarchy.

I’m in the lead now. I manage to dig a claw into the white wolf—the Delta—impaling it between their ribs and throwing their body into the ocean, while Evie slashes at the remaining Beta.

Killing werewolves—I try to recall the lesson from Instructor Shepherd—tear off their head, claw out their heart, or stake them with silver or wolfsbane.

I don’t have silver or wolfsbane, but I have claws—I have a power inside me no one seems to understand. However, I’m not sure I can do it. I’m not sure I can kill. It feels so permanent, too permanent. Even against a villain like Queen Sybil and her marionette army. Evie must think the same, because she hurls the golden Beta into the ocean. We listen for the splash before she lunges at the queen next. The white wolf rises from the ocean before I can reach her, before I can join her, and throws their body atop mine. They wrestle me into the sand with a sickening crunch. I kick at them, ribs aching, bones blistering from the attack, but Evie shrieks. And I can’t let her die. I can’t.

My heart beats violently in my ears. I struggle with every fiber of my being. Beat. I claw at the wolf, slashing into their chest. Beat. But the wolf snarls and clamps down on my left ear. Beat.

I roar.

The white wolf hesitates before their next attack, and I roll away from it with lightning-fast speed. My wounds stitch together, my blood stanching before it can even drip onto the sand, and I retreat a few steps, readying to pounce again—wait. I tilt my head. The white wolf’s breaths come out heavy, hard, and their eyes. Brown. Delta brown. Belated realization strikes me.

I’m above this wolf.

I’m above them in the hierarchy, and I can command them with ease.

I turn to share this with Evie—to encourage her to howl, to snarl, to charm the Delta and Beta into backing off while we take on the Alpha and the queen—because we can win this. We can defeat two wolves, and we can run. Back to the castle, to the boys, and we can tell everyone what we’ve seen. They’ll believe her. She’s a princess.

But… Evie is… She is…

My heart stops beating.

Evie’s head rests between the Wolf Queen’s fangs.

Queen Sybil whips her head toward me. A cruel growl rises from her bloodied mouth: a taunt. A threat. She closes her fangs. Just a bit, enough that Evie’s body flails, and Evie howls.

The horrific sound of Evie dying crackles between my ears and pierces my soul. I stumble a step. The white wolf knocks me over. I don’t care. I don’t care that I hit the sand hard enough to break a rib. I don’t care that the white wolf snarls beside me. I don’t fucking care about any of this.

Evie is dead.

Evie is fucking dead.

No. This can’t happen. Not again.

Queen Sybil chomps down harder. Evie stops fighting. Blood spills between us like a river.

Not again. Not again.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.

Behind me, the other two wolves I’ve refused to kill rise from the high tide, fully healed. I’m trapped. And Evie is… She is…

They’ll kill me too, then. I shut my eyes and wait for the end.

It doesn’t come. The Wolf Queen snarls, and the three wolves in her command retreat into the shadows of mangroves. Queen Sybil watches me for a moment, her eyes flashing with cruel malice—and then she smiles. Even with Evie locked between her fangs, she smiles.

I barely rise onto my paws before the queen launches herself after the rest of her rebellious pack. She speeds into the night with Evie’s limp, wolfish body caught on her teeth.

Evie is dead. The beach reeks of blood. And I—I think of the queen, her sinister grin, the sound of Evie’s final wail, the memory of Celeste’s scream—I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of being weak. I am tired of liars.

I don’t chase after the queen.

I’ve learned my lesson. Sitting and cowering will get me nowhere in this brutal fucking world. I abandon the puddle of Evie’s blood and race straight toward the castle. I’m going to end this. Now.

39

Evelyn Lee died fighting the Wolf Queen of North America.

She fought, and she lost, and now her body—her soul—is gone.

With each pounding step, I repeat the words to myself like a mantra. It spurs me forward. Over the bridge, charging through shadows, ignoring any cars that might be on the road. Let them see me. Let them see the werewolf. I will not cower. I will not hide from this.

I throw myself through Castle Severi’s massive, ice-blue doors. I don’t stop to breathe—I take off like a rocket, past the chandelier-lit foyer and into a hall of painted portraits depicting the regents of old.

The sight of black eyes in every single one makes me snarl.

“Halt!” Instructor Shepherd leaps into my path, his mouth twisting into a severe frown. “Who are…” He pauses and sniffs the air. “Miss Hart?”

I glower at him with flaring nostrils and gleaming teeth. My claws burrow into the tile, chipping at the antique flooring recklessly. Instructor Shepherd must sense it—that I’ve abandoned my sensibilities. That my rage has fully taken over. He flexes his muscles, and claws rip from his fingers. “Miss Hart, whatever you’re doing, I’m telling you to reconsider.”

But he is a Beta. He cannot tell me to do anything.

I snap my jaws at him, and he barely manages to leap out of the way. Evelyn Lee is dead. His future queen is dead. I snarl again. The portraits on the wall quake. The two most recent ones crash onto the floor—canvases splitting open. Frames breaking. I stomp on Queen Sybil’s face, claws slicing through what remains, and dark butterflies spring from the remnants of her gaze. Instructor Shepherd tilts his head. He raises placating hands, as if expecting me to lunge. As if he isn’t prepared to fight until I do. But I won’t. I just need someone to listen.

“What happened?” he asks. Though I slam my paw down again in answer, his eyes still narrow in confusion. I growl. “Miss Hart, if you are looking to communicate, you need to shift.”

Shift. Shifting makes me weak. I shake my head, but his voice hardens. “Miss Hart, I will not ask you again.”

My hackles rise, and, like frostbite needling my skin, his tone burrows into me. Instructor Shepherd is one of the strongest werewolves in this castle. I don’t want to fight him. I want him on my side. I need to speak to him. And if I want him to listen—if I want all of them to listen—I cannot explode with rage. Months of advice rush through my ears, the lethal riptide of a hurricane, and I hear the snapping of Evelyn’s neck as if it’s happening again.

Vanessa, there is order to our laws.

There are orders, rules, and expectations. I need to be smart. I am not the strongest, the fiercest, or the fastest here. But I have the most evidence. I nod in agreement, and Instructor Shepherd finds a discarded robe in a closet, then allows me time to shift back on my own. The closet is tight, dark. I can’t see even the claw in front of my face. My wolfish body shudders.

I have to transform, I think. Otherwise, no one will understand.

My bones snap and mend, but I don’t feel it this time. Grief smothers the pain as I slowly break back into my body. Evie… Evie… My heart races. I stumble into a row of forgotten coats, and dust powders the air. But I don’t care. About any of it. Evie died. I watched her die.

Why is it always my fault?

I swallow a wave of panic. Another. I have to get out of here. I have to tell them what happened.

Shrugging on the long silk robe, I tie it tight around my waist before meeting Instructor Shepherd in the hallway. “She’s dead,” I say, forcing the tremor from my voice. “Evie. At the beach. The Wolf Queen… She snapped her neck and fled with her body. I saw the whole thing happen.”

Instructor Shepherd stares at me, then glances behind him. Three guards have appeared, all wearing the sash of their queen. And if I have to choose between them—between the instructor who fancies my closest friend or the guards who report directly to the villain—I know exactly who is safest.

Grabbing Instructor Shepherd’s hand, I say quietly, “You have to listen to me. I know what I saw. A big beast with black eyes grabbed Evie and ran off. I watched her die. I fought three other wolves… I couldn’t save her. I tried. And Sin and Calix—they were there too. But they ran off. And Eric…” Oh god. Eric. I hadn’t thought about Evie’s brother. He doesn’t know yet, and—and someone will have to tell him. My stomach roils, but I won’t puke. I need Instructor Shepherd to listen to me.

Frown deepening, he drags me down the hall on silent feet, into an alcove where the guards won’t see us, though I’m sure they’re still following. They’re going to tell the queen I’ve returned. My ribs threaten to burst from the pressure building in my lungs.

“You said Evelyn Lee is dead?” Instructor Shepherd asks.

I nod fervently. “Yes.”

“And you think Queen Sybil was behind it?”

“Not behind it. She was it. She killed her. I—I recognized her scent, and I saw her eyes—” My voice rises at the last word, takes on a frenzied tone before I can smother it, but Instructor Shepherd shakes his head.

“That’s not possible.”

A growl rips from my throat. “Why the hell not?”

“Queen Sybil would not break her bargain—”

“Evie dying is the only way she could break it,” I implore. “She has one way to ensure the Lees don’t control both Asia and North America, and that was by murdering their daughter. Which she did. In front of me.” I clench my teeth, grinding out, “Don’t tell me what I saw, Instructor. She was there. If you had my gift, you would know that I’m telling the truth.”

He contemplates this, his amber gaze venomous, and I can sense he wants to believe me. This is his queen, however. This is his court, his life. At last, his jaw hardens. “I am an instructor here, Miss Hart. I am not part of the queen’s pack. Just what do you expect me to do with this information?”

I throw my arms into the air in frustration. “I don’t know! The Princess of the Asian Court has just been murdered. We need to do something—”

“What you need to do”—he grips my arm, forcing me deeper into the shadows of the alcove—“is be smart. Think. Like I’ve said in our lessons, every move you make should be deliberate. Court is no different than battle. If what you’re saying is true,” he says, his voice lower still, “tearing through the castle in a mindless rage won’t help.”

We stare at each other while the truth of his words washes over me. I need to be smart. I need to think. In order for this court to understand the depths of Queen Sybil’s treachery, I need to tell them. All of them. For months now, I’ve believed the only path to vengeance lay with Evie’s death, but that isn’t true. Her death hasn’t fixed anything. And her life—it was only a symptom of the greater disease. Evelyn Lee was never the villain here.

It’s been Queen Sybil all along.

This could be my only chance to make it right.

“Would you be able to gather the court somewhere secret?” I ask, unwilling to waste another second. “Or as many of them as you can?”

He releases my arm and steps back. “They’ve already been summoned to the throne room.”

“For what? By who?”

“Lord Allard.” He clears his throat uncomfortably before looking away. “There was a skirmish between the Countess of Montana and the Earl of Alberta. The pack relations within the North American Court are becoming… fraught.”

Of course they are. We are all being led by a tyrant, and the bruises of her torment are beginning to show. I take a deep breath. Though nerves threaten to consume my anger, I do my best to ignore them. This isn’t the time to hesitate. This is the time to act. “I need to speak with them.”

His gaze snaps back to mine. Doubt flickers in his amber eyes. “Do you know what you’re doing, Miss Hart?”

No. Not even a little bit. “Y-yes,” I whisper instead.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Sin and I planned to do this together—to do it at the Ascension Rite, surrounded by the most powerful leaders in the world rather than simply the Countess of Montana and Earl of Alberta. Sin isn’t here, however, and Evie’s death has tipped the scales too far. The queen cannot get away with this.

So… so I will go alone. I will make them listen.

I straighten my spine, and—voice stronger now—I repeat, “Yes. I know what I’m doing.”

That same wooden door greets me from my first night as a werewolf—massive, with gilded bolts and a large, rose-shaped knob—but this time I approach it without the overwhelming haze of uncontrolled rage, instead using the anger inside my chest to anchor me. To complete me. I hate the queen. I hate her, but I will make this right. The cold of the handle bites into my palm, and I turn it with one more sharp inhalation, glancing back at Instructor Shepherd. He gives a terse nod—his only indication of support—before pivoting on his heel and marching away.

It’s now or never.

The guards behind follow my every movement, but they don’t steal me away from the throne room. They allow me to open the door. I do so quickly, revealing a dozen or so courtiers and…

And the queen.

My feet lurch to a halt, my claws nearly emerging as I spot Queen Sybil lounging on her obsidian throne. She smiles at me, a gown of rippling black covering her arms, her legs, lace hiding her neck. But she can’t hide the scarlet on the corner of her mouth.

A speckle.

A dot.

But the closer I walk down the aisle, the more I smell it. Blood. Evelyn’s blood.

I want to snarl and lunge at her; I want to rip those hateful teeth from her mouth bone by bone, but uncontrolled emotions have gotten me nowhere. I glower at her instead as Lord Allard steps from the dais beside her. Golden eyes. Blood hidden beneath his collar. And his scent—traces of it wind through the crowd, and I recognize it now. He was with her at the beach.

I ground myself with another deep, steadying breath and ignore the scarlet edging my vision. At the base of the dais, a woman who must be the Countess of Montana stands beside a man I assume to be the Earl of Alberta. Both turn as the courtiers part before me in twin waves.

“Good evening, little Bitten one,” the queen purrs. “What brings you—uninvited—to my throne room at this very late hour?”

My eyes flit between the courtiers’ faces, and I recognize most—the queen’s inner circle, her trusted confidants. I swallow hard. Their expressions range from mild disapproval to outright disgust, not one of them friendly. Except Lyra. She stands on the queen’s right side, looking strangely solemn. I focus on her face as I say, “You know why I’m here.”

She doesn’t react whatsoever. Right. She doesn’t need to react to listen.

“Oh?” Queen Sybil flicks a hand toward the countess and earl, jerking her chin toward a man I’ve never seen. A scrap of white linen obscures his eyes, and his robes—also white—hang from a tall and skeletally thin frame. They bely his gift as a Justiciar, a werewolf gifted in the magical art of reading one’s choices. “Are you here to watch what happens to those who sow discord in my court?”

Before I can answer, the Justiciar moves with eerie grace to stand behind the countess, who tenses as he cradles her skull. When he plunges his forefinger claws into her ears, she screams and almost collapses, but his tether on her brain forces her to remain upright. Beside them, the earl turns green.

It takes only seconds for the Justiciar to pinpoint the exact choice that led her to this nightmarish scene. Clearing his throat, he says in a slow, deep voice, “There was no malice in her provocation of Lord D’Artagnan and no intent to undermine the harmony of this court. Lady Billings simply bedded his brother.”

Silence descends at his pronouncement. And all of this—it is so stupid, and further proof that Queen Sybil cannot and should not be leading this court. The countess’s crime was simply sleeping with the wrong person, and now a Justiciar has claws in her brain. He removes them with a slick and sickening sound, and Lady Billings does collapse this time, blood trickling from her ears. A ringing starts in my own as I push toward the dais.

Now or never.

“Where is Princess Evelyn Lee?” I ask the queen. “Where did you send her tonight?”

Queen Sybil licks her lips—licks the blood off them. Another snarl builds in my throat, but she tilts her head with a cold laugh. “It sounds like you already know.”

In my periphery, the earl slinks backward as even the Justiciar rotates to face me. The courtiers remain silent and watchful, their attention fixed solely on me. Good. I need them to hear me. I need them to help me. Though I know this is a long shot—appealing to the queen’s closest companions—I have no choice but to take it.

“The princess is dead.” I hesitate as Queen Sybil’s gaze sharpens, and she slowly sits forward. Our eyes lock. “You murdered her.”

A shudder seems to rock the throne room, and several of the courtiers recoil, the rest frowning and blinking between us. A fragile tendril of hope unfurls in my chest. They look—shocked.

Queen Sybil notices too. Her black eyes rove their faces before hardening. “That is preposterous. I was here all evening.” She turns to her conspirator at the base of the dais as the fire of her lies ignites in my chest. “Wasn’t I, Lord Allard?”

Calmly as I can manage, I state, “She is lying. He was with her. I saw them tonight at the beach, where the queen and three others ambushed us as wolves—where she crushed Evie’s throat in her jaw.”

“Asinine,” the queen spits, just a little too aggressively. The Justiciar tilts his head at her. Blood drips from his claws. “You have never been permitted to reenter the mortal realm.”

“You have never been permitted to slaughter members of your court.” I gesture around us to the courtiers, who have started to whisper. One has even grown fangs, his brown eyes narrowing on the queen’s face. I speak directly to him. “First, she killed Instructor Alvarez, and tonight she has slaughtered the future queen of this court. Who knows how many others have died at her hand in secret?”

His lip curls with a low growl.

Queen Sybil stands in response, smoothing her skirts as she descends the stairs to approach. I am a wild animal inside, rabid and throttling the bones of my cage, but I still lift my chin to meet her lethal gaze.

“Oh, little Bitten one,” she murmurs. “Always so vicious, aren’t you? Always so righteous.” Her coal-black eyes flick to mine. “Your emotions make you foolish, Vanessa.”

My name lands between us like a grenade. She has never spoken it before this moment. It feels like a death sentence. I force myself to stand my ground. It’s too late—even if I wanted to, I cannot flee. I can only pray her courtiers will hear the truth in my words.

“Where is she, then?” I demand. “Where is Princess Evelyn Lee?”

Queen Sybil arches an imperious brow. “As you seem to know so much about this situation, why don’t you tell us?”

She isn’t answering my question. Determination floods my veins anew as the courtiers around us sense it too. The brown-eyed man isn’t the only one watching her suspiciously now. He isn’t the only one who realizes she doesn’t want to speak the words aloud. Not in front of her court—not when I can tell if she’s lying. They know I’m a Truthseer. “Answer the question, my queen. Honestly.”

“Very well.” She flashes a knife-sharp smile. “I am certain you spent tonight tussling on the beach. One could smell the blood on you from a mile away. But you were either drugged or mistaken. I did not kill Miss Lee, and you will cease these accusations immediately—or I won’t hesitate to punish you again.”

I blink as every person in the room turns to me, awaiting my response. Even the Justiciar seems to hold his breath.

No.

Arrow after arrow of her honesty impales me, bleeds me dry, but—but how? I stumble back a step, heedless of the eyes on me. She’s lying. She has to be lying. I saw her. “No,” I whisper. “N-no. You were at the beach.”

“Do you see a body? Do you have evidence?” The Wolf Queen begins to circle me, spreading her arms wide to address the whole room. When she speaks again, her voice is louder. Harsher. “I did not kill Princess Evelyn Lee.”

A truth. A brutal fucking terrible truth.

How how how

My mouth parts in confusion. My eyes widen. She must’ve found a loophole within my gift. Or… or she’s made a bargain for the ability to lie to me. Or, a voice whispers in my mind, she’s telling the truth. But she can’t be. I don’t care that her honesty ices over the fire raging in my chest. She killed Evie. I saw it.

“Well?” she asks sweetly. “Am I telling the truth?”

Lord Allard smirks at my dumbfounded expression, but—but there’s blood on his collar. There was blood on her lip. They’re lying. I shake my head, unable to voice the words, even as the court stills entirely.

The queen is lying.

I feel it in my bones. That instinct, the one dormant beneath my Truthseer gift, stirs. It begs me not to trust her. Evidence or not, Queen Sybil snapped Evie’s neck and ran away with her. I know what I saw. “Even without those darling little abilities,” she says to her inner circle, “you all know I am telling the truth. You can hear my pulse. You can scent my calm. You can see I remain in control.”

“And what of Instructor Alvarez?” the brown-eyed man asks quietly.

The queen draws to a halt in front of him. “I am pouring every resource into uncovering who murdered your husband, Peter. I promise to do the same for Evelyn Lee if she has indeed been murdered.” Her black eyes cut to mine. “Which I doubt.”

When Peter drops into a low bow—the ultimate sign of submission—my heart plummets, and Queen Sybil stalks back to me. She flicks aside my hair. Her nail trails from my throat to my chin before she squeezes it. Hard. Eyes watering in pain, I’m forced to meet her gaze. “My sweet, purple-eyed pup—you are playing a child’s game, and you have lost. You will always lose. And I will punish you again and again and again until you realize this is an adult court with adult consequences.” She leans low to whisper directly against my ear, too quietly for the others to hear. “Oona is not the only one you love.”

She tucks my hair behind my ear almost lovingly—maternally—before stepping away. And I can’t breathe. I’m going to be sick. Oona is not the only one you love. My thoughts spiral wildly to Sin—to Sin—and my knees threaten to crumple as the room around us swings back into motion.

The queen murdered her sister. She would murder her son too. She would probably burn down this whole castle if it furthered her agenda. My claws cut into my hands and wrists. Blood wells and drips onto the tile. My heart thunders like a summer storm. A courtier shoves me from behind as Queen Sybil resumes her place on the throne. Another shakes his head with a dismissive laugh. And Peter—he refuses to look at me as Lady Billings rises.

As Lord D’Artagnan pales.

As the Justiciar looks to the queen for guidance and a wide, benevolent grin spreads across her face. She waves an airy hand. “I think we’ve suffered enough theatrics for the evening. My lord and my lady, please return to your guest suites until your departure in the morning. I am certain this won’t happen again.”

They both hasten to agree before tripping over themselves to reach the exit. The other courtiers don’t bother to watch them go. Already, they’ve begun to pour themselves drinks from a bar cart in the corner, and gentle chatter fills the room as the queen surveys her favorite toys. Her puppets. Everything returns to as it was—except me.

I stand alone in the middle of the room, ignored by everyone and lost. So lost. I don’t know what to do, where to go, who to trust. Evie is dead, and everyone I love has been threatened. They’re in danger. We’re all in danger, and the queen—she has us in the palm of her hands. Sheer hopelessness lodges in my throat, and I curl inward.

I don’t know what to do.

“Vanessa,” Queen Sybil says softly. Dangerously. “Leave.”

40

I almost break down when I see Sin.

The full moon weaves bright, silver light through my window, painting him in shades of iridescence and divinity as he leans with his back against my wardrobe. He looks exactly as he did hours ago, in a black polo and jeans, with his hair damp and clinging to his forehead. “You didn’t stay,” he says quietly—roughly. “You didn’t wait.”

His burgundy eyes track me as I enter, and it feels as if we’re both holding our breaths for the single second it takes for my door to close. He explodes forward then, in a flurry of movement, the heady scents of berry-sweet adoration and salty fear whirling around us, followed by the scent of him. I inhale deeply, and he grasps my cheeks between his hands, his thumbs brushing sand from my skin as he hauls me against him. “You didn’t wait,” he repeats. “I thought… When we went back to the street to look for you, we thought you two had…”

He can’t finish the words, and his body shudders with devastation. I lean into his touch, depending on it to keep me standing. In this moment, I can’t feel my limbs, my pulse, anything. I am numb. I am numb, and I am scared, and I am so angry. I clutch the hem of his shirt, nearly tearing it in two.

“Evie,” I whisper. “She—”

“I know,” Sin interrupts. “Instructor Shepherd informed the maids so as to begin preparations for another week of mourning. I overheard him.”

I want to cry. I want to weep. Evie deserves that. She deserved more than being murdered because of a fucking crown. But the tears don’t come, and my eyes won’t burn. I hardly feel Sin’s touch as he scoops me into his arms and cradles me against his chest. His hand tangles in my hair, and his lips sweep across my temple.

“It was my mother, wasn’t it?” he says softly, those words my mother falling from him like petals plucked off a rose. I nod in lieu of speaking. Maybe it will break his heart less. His eyes clench shut, and he inhales a ragged breath.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, forcing his eyes open. “I swear to you—we couldn’t have done anything to stop her tonight. You couldn’t have known.”

I hate that he’s telling the truth. I want it to be a lie. If I could have controlled this, if there was a way to go back in time… “I despise it here,” I say, and my voice sounds little more than a breath. “We have no power.”

“One day,” Sin vows, setting me on my bed. “One day, we will.”

More honesty—but I don’t believe it. Queen Sybil won’t allow us to win. I am no one. I am no one, and yet she still wants me. As I tell him all that happened in the throne room—how the queen demolished our plans—he kneels at my feet, gazing up through those thick lashes, his red eyes blazing, and I—I can’t voice it. I won’t voice it. The queen threatened him already; I can’t damn us further by admitting the depth of my feelings for the golden prince. I shouldn’t be with Sin at all.

Oona is not the only one you love.

Her screams still ring in my ears, and those screams… They cannot become Sin’s. I will not allow it. If the queen thinks I don’t care for him anymore, perhaps she will leave him alone. But he breathes, and his heart beats in time with mine, and I feel that tug from his soul—the piece of him that’s so similar, so familiar, to mine—and I don’t think I can do it. Not tonight.

“Are the others okay?” I ask finally.

“Yes.” Sin takes my hands in his and squeezes. “We arrived minutes after you. We chased the werewolf, but it vanished. None of us recognized the scent. When we returned to find you, you were both gone.”

“It was a trap,” I say. “She… she just wanted Evie. I don’t think she planned for the rest of us to be there. She tricked Evie and me at the beach. She disguised her scent somehow and crept up behind us. And then she… she…” I start to shake, and my eyes widen against the memory, against the onslaught of pain that ensnares me.

“Don’t say it,” Sin says. A pause, and then, “It’s going to be okay.”

Lie.

He’s lying. I’m lying. This moment—the two of us in the dark of my room—it’s a lie in and of itself. We could never have been together. Evie’s death changes nothing; it only emphasizes the complexities of his mother’s schemes. He still gazes at me with painful yearning, with fatal longing, and we both know we can’t take it further. To protect ourselves, our loved ones, we can’t be this.

Sin and I… We don’t exist as an us, and we never will.

My heart splinters, cracking and shifting after tonight’s harrowing events. I should… I should send him away. I should crawl backward and lie on my pillow until I fall asleep and tomorrow starts anew. Sin stands then, as if he can hear my train of thought, and moves to leave.

But—

The worst, most selfish part of me reaches for him. I seize his wrist and tug him back to me. He hesitates for one second, and his eyes have never been redder. Molten and infinite. I hold on to him, my chest rising and falling with shallow breaths and reckless indecision. I hate this court. I hate what I’ve become. And I might… I might never find another moment of joy again.

The queen could take everything from me. She will take everything from me.

“Tonight,” I whisper, and the word is unexpected to even my own ears. “What if we just had tonight?”

He doesn’t speak; he reacts. With fearsome strength and wicked speed, he twists out of my grasp and captures my wrists. He pins them above my head with a burning hand as he settles on top of me, pressing us deeper into the raven-black sheets of my bed. His lips claim mine, and I gasp. It feels punishing, this kiss. Not the heated frenzy of a wildfire or even the slow crackling of simmering tension. This kiss is primal. It feels like devastation.

It tastes like goodbye.

I hook my legs around his hips, reeling him further into me as my back bows from his every touch. His free hand finds the belt of my robe, loosens it with a sinful pull, and exposes me. He pauses then, to stare down at my body with the starving gaze of a man lost at sea. He trails his hand from the pool of silk at my side to my belly and carves a path between my breasts, over my throat, and down. Down. He can’t stop touching me. I can’t stop staring at him. He’s beautiful. He’s everything. I whisper his name, and his gaze snaps to my face.

“You’re an angel,” he says. “A fucking angel.” He kisses the hollow of my throat, his tongue hot and wet, and I moan. “I want to worship you, Vanessa. I want to touch you, taste you, memorize your soul. I want your secrets. I want to know you, in whatever ways a mortal could possibly know—could possibly understand—one of their gods.”

His fingers curl between my thighs, and finally he releases my wrists. I jerk forward, a wave of pleasure cresting over me, and twine my arms around his neck. The robe slips farther away from my body. And I don’t care. I don’t care that moonlight reveals the entirety of me. I want this. I want him.

“Sin, you are—”

“Don’t,” he demands roughly. “I can’t bear to hear it.”

“But—”

His fingers move inside me, working me toward the edge of release. “I won’t recover from it, Vanessa. If you say anything, I’ll vow myself to you forever. I’ll burn this castle to the ground. I’ll murder anyone who threatens to harm you. I will damn myself for you.” I shudder, clinging to him as release sweeps through me violently, moaning and gasping and barely able to breathe under the adulation of his stare. “For you,” he repeats, a razor-sharp edge to the confession, “Vanessa Hart. You have turned my world upside down. You have wrecked me.”

“Please,” I whisper, the intensity of his fingers too much now—far too much, and yet still not enough. I paw at his shirt, desperate for him to take it off. He does. He does, and he is gorgeous. The moonlight doesn’t do him justice. Only the sun could, only the brightest golden rays of light should illuminate his magnificent, strong body. “Please,” I beg, desperate now, “I want you, Sin.”

He brushes my hair from my face, his hardness pressing deliciously against my core, and I writhe against it as his lips and teeth mark the rest of me. All of me. I may have wrecked Sinclair Severi, but he has devoured me. I don’t know how I existed before him. I don’t know how I’ll exist after tonight. No one else has ever compared to him—to his goodness. To his rightness. I whimper, and he kisses up from my thighs to my lips, positioning himself right there. And, oh god, I want it. So badly. More than I’ve ever wanted anything before.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Vanessa,” he says, and the truth of those words adds another layer to the pleasure sizzling in my veins.

“It’s okay.” I undo the button of his jeans, sliding the zipper down slowly. “I’m safe.” And it’s the most honest statement I think I’ve ever said. A war is raging around us, and we are losing, but Sin… He’s the one good thing in my life. He’s the candle in the darkness. He’s the stars in the night sky. He is hope and justice and passion. “I’ll always be safe as long you’re near.”

He growls at that, discarding the rest of his clothes in a frenzy, and that wolf inside of him bursts forth as his kisses return to fraught hunger. Mine do too. I can’t kiss him hard enough, taste him fast enough. I breathe, and he’s everywhere around me. The mint in the air, the heat on my skin, the sugar on my tongue, the pounding in my heart. I moan his name, and finally—finally—his hips rock slowly as he moves inside of me.

“Sin,” I whimper, and the sting of pain overrides the rest of my thoughts for a split second. Inch by inch, he fills me, and it’s… so much. Too much. Again, not enough. I want more. “Please… more,” I gasp, shocked at the heavenly feeling of him. Of us.

I could love you, I think suddenly. I might love you.

He feels so good. Too good. I rake my nails down the muscled contours of his back—my claws break through then, in an incandescent haze of sensation that builds and builds—and he growls once more, a sound of deep approval and deeper need.

“That’s it, Vanessa. You are… so good.” He kisses me, and his own claws impale the pillows on either side of my head. His pace remains slow, controlled, but his muscles tense as if he’s barely hanging on. His red eyes flash. All Alpha. All prince. “So perfect.”

I match his pace, meeting him thrust for thrust. Once the sting vanishes, I force him to move faster. Harder. I need more. And he hitches up my legs, holding them prisoner between those wicked black claws as he plunges inside me again, again, again. He smirks, and the sight of it makes my stomach clench and my thighs tighten.

“There’s my good girl,” he purrs.

A wave of pleasure hits me then, and this time, it threatens to drown me. Threatens to drown us both. I muffle my screams against his lips and ride out the storm with him. But tonight can’t last forever.

He can’t stay.

Brushing my hair aside, he presses a kiss to my forehead before hoisting my spent body in his arms. Then he carries me through the portrait to the bathroom. To the tub. And though it’s a bad idea—the worst idea—I just can’t help myself. “What are we doing?” I ask him quietly.

He turns on the tap with a sad smile, filling the porcelain with glittering lavender bubbles. “Right now? We’re taking a bath.”

It doesn’t answer my question. Not really.

Tonight can’t last forever.

When he leaves my room an hour later, holding his shirt in hand, his chest gleaming with soap and silvered moonlight, he gazes at me from the doorway. It looks as if he’s trying to memorize this moment. As if he’s trying to memorize me.

I do the same.

I’ve fallen in love with Sinclair Severi, Crown Prince of the Wolf Queen’s Court, but he is not mine. He can’t be mine. I curl up under blankets that smell like him and shut my eyes. And when I fall asleep, I dream only of him.

41

For three blissful moments the next morning, I forget anything except the sound of Sin moaning my name. And then Oona appears.

“Up, up, girl! Have you lost your wits? You’ve skipped breakfast, and you have lessons in mere minutes.” She flies around my room like a bat out of hell, orange curls bouncing and hands snatching a gown from my wardrobe, a comb from the bathroom. She doesn’t ask me to sit up before she rips the comb through my waves. If she can scent what occurred last night, she makes no mention of it—or the bedsheets piled on the floor. I wince at her firm, unyielding grasp.

“I thought—you wanted me—to keep my hair,” I say, wincing after every other word.

“Hush, now. The Ascension Rite is in less than thirteen days, and there is a ball in twelve where you will finally be able to prove yourself. You must prepare. It is time to do well in your lessons, to behave in this court, to—”

“Oona,” I say, sliding away from her and off the bed, “it’s a little late for that.”

“No, girl, it is not. Prince Sinclair—”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I blurt out. “Not… not now.” Not when I can trace the fiery path his hands carved last night from memory alone. I grind my teeth. Oona heaves a gown at me, maroon, with a sheer bodice set with dazzling rubies and black diamonds. If only I could tear it into ribbons.

I don’t care about a ball. I don’t care about the Ascension Rite. If Sin chooses me, I’ll be forced to work for his mother forever. If he doesn’t, I’ll be cast out. There is no happy ending left for me. I dress quickly regardless, just so this conversation can end.

Lessons.

My stomach tightens, and nerves lump in my throat. I’ll have to face Eric. I’ll have to face Nettie too. God. Bile churns, and my organs knot. My hands shake. Oona grabs them with a frown.

“Why are you so sullen this morning?” she asks, an ebony pin held between her teeth as she pauses in weaving black roses through my hair. “One might assume you’d be happier with lessons drawing to a close. You’ll be a true member of this court soon.”

My stomach flips—and not in a good way. I deflate under her touch. She doesn’t know. The maids Instructor Shepherd spoke to last night, Oona must not have been one of them. She doesn’t know Evie died. “Oona…”

“What’s wrong?” Oona wanders in front of me. She turns my cheek to the right and then the left. “Are you running a fever?”

“Oona, Calix and I left the castle last night. To find the prince.”

“Yes, I’m aware. I was here when Calix barged inside.”

“No, you’re not aware.” Please don’t hate me, I pray. Please please please. “Last night, we went to find Sin, but instead Evie and I were attacked by werewolves on the beach. We fought them. She died.”

Oona blinks. Her mouth falls open.

And she laughs.

I stumble away from her, knocking into a post of my bed and nearly snapping it in half. “Wh-what’s wrong with you?”

Oona laughs harder, as though her chest cracked open, and malevolence is spilling out. I race around the bed, my heart plummeting. “Why are you… you laughing?” I can’t breathe. My bones ache. Surely Oona isn’t under the queen’s thumb. She can’t be evil.

“Because you have, indeed, lost your wits,” Oona says, with a shake of her head. She takes the clip from her mouth and approaches, trying to pin a wilting rose behind my ear.

“No, I haven’t.” I inch away from her. “She’s dead, Oona.”

“She’s not.”

Did the queen get to her? Manipulate her? “Whatever the queen said, it’s a lie,” I say. “I can’t prove it, but you have to trust me.”

“Dear, she didn’t have to say anything.” Oona stomps toward me and holds my head in place, jabbing me to the point of bleeding as she fixes the flower. “I saw her with my own eyes this morning at breakfast. Evelyn Lee was picking at her buttered toast and rolling her eyes alongside her brother. In fact, you were the only one missing. The prince, Calix, her friends—they were all there. They are all preparing for the coming events. Be smarter, Vanessa,” she chides. But… well, now I really don’t give a fuck about the rite.

Evie was at breakfast?

There—there’s no way. I hear the crack of Evie’s neck. Recall the smell of her blood. Vanilla and cinnamon and pungent copper. No. Evie’s not alive.

No fucking way.

“Oona, you’re mistaken.”

Oona heaves a great sigh. “If you truly think she’s dead, be my guest and attend Alchemical Designs. I assure you, she’ll be there.”

She doesn’t finish speaking before I race out the door.

I shove into Alchemical Designs. The front of the classroom is dressed in billowing, shimmering tapestries depicting magical elements human eyes can’t pick up—crafted from spider silk and stardust—but the back of the class remains unchanged from when Calix and I fought. Cabinets of curiosities and mythical concoctions. Rows of adamantine desks resistant to any spills or burns. A ceiling painted with ground moon rocks and crystals, as fluorescent as the expanded universe. And my peers. All of them.

Including Evie.

My heart stops. My throat tightens.

How?

She sits with her legs kicked up onto her desk in the back row. Stilettos dangle from her ankles, the sheer lace of her gown hiding everything but the pale of her chin and face. Her arms appear unmarred. Smooth and porcelain as ever.

No. Fucking. Way.

Sinclair and Calix spot me before she can, but I storm past them. This isn’t possible. It can’t be possible.

Marching up to Evie, charging toward her rather violently, I throw my arms around her neck. She screams as we careen backward, her chair spilling us onto plush, albeit charred, rugs. “You’re alive,” I whisper, clinging to her. “I can’t believe it. You’re alive.”

It’s a resurrection I never expected. I thought this sort of miracle couldn’t exist, even in the Realm of Superiority. But Evie is real. She’s here, and her heart is pounding against mine. She smells the same as always, like winter spices, and a hint of something floral and feminine, and god—I could inhale it for ages. I squeal against her neck, tightening my hold, even as she bucks in my arms. Her hair tickles my nose. Her flesh is warm.

She. Is. Alive.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry.” A sob almost bursts out of me, and my voice cracks. “Thank god you’re here.”

Unfortunately, my relief is short-lived. Evie snarls beneath me, using her claws to wrench open my iron grip and free herself. “What is wrong with you?” She shoves me away, and I roll painfully into Nettie’s desk. The blonde Beta glances down at me with wide, surprised eyes.

By the time I stand, Evie is already seated again, perched on that adamantine stool as if it’s a throne. I shake my head. Her stare is void, and she glares at me as if… as if nothing occurred.

“What happened to you?” I ask softly.

Evie’s jaw clenches, and Katerina strolls over, leaning against her desk. Followed immediately by Eric. Evie’s closest friends form a protective circle around her, their claws descending with a flick of their wrists.

“You’re lucky we don’t gut you, bitch,” Katerina hisses.

“You created enough trouble last night,” Eric agrees. “You told everyone my sister died. I could dismember you here and now and no one would fault me for it.”

But—I glance at Evie. She won’t look at me. No. No, that doesn’t make sense. None of this is right. Confusion pounds in my skull. I know what I saw. I lived it. Evie was at the beach, and the queen stole her limp body away. And then… I stiffen. And then I came here, to this castle, where the queen told me she did not kill Evelyn Lee.

The queen had been telling the truth.

I gulp, and sweat beads down my back, chilling my spine.

Killing werewolves—tear off their head, claw out their heart, or stake them with silver or wolfsbane.

But just because Evie isn’t dead doesn’t mean what I saw was completely false. Evie hadn’t been decapitated, but she’d been hurt. Badly. I stare at her high neckline of lace, searching for any semblance of a scar, but she pushes me away. “Get lost,” she snaps. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Evie—”

She glares at me, and it’s like looking at a blinding solar eclipse. “Nothing happened. You were trying to cause a commotion. It didn’t work. So fuck off out of here before I give you a reason to flee.” She bares her fangs. “I won’t ask you again. I don’t like you. I don’t want to see you. Fuck. Off.”

Lie.

I don’t know which parts are specifically the lies—I can’t tell when it’s all jumbled together—but she is lying. It scorches through me, reducing my heart to cinders and ash.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened.

Liar.

I stare at Evie, and she stares back. Seconds pass, infuriating, maddening seconds, and then I retreat. Just one step. Enough to show that I’m not going to fight her. I don’t need any more fights. Her friends relax, if only infinitesimally, but their eyes continue to flicker with loathing.

Evie picks at her quill, ripping out the feathers and scattering them to the breeze. Something is wrong here. She glances up when I take my seat, and her body shudders as a quick scent of fear blows past me. Something is very, very wrong.

42

Orion’s Ball takes place the night before the Ascension Rite, and I have not been prepared for a second of it. I’ve been to parties before—most of them taking place inside small, ramshackle homes or on the beach—but this… this is nothing like any of those.

I follow massive crowds as they weave around the back of the castle, to the sliver of enchanted forest that only exists in the Realm of Superiority. Everyone is here. Nobility from other countries, from every continent on this Earth, gathers beneath the stars on the longest night of the year. Stardust and magic dazzle in midnight blues and purples above great pines and gnarled oaks, the evening painting the arresting greenery in dusky shades of black. Lanterns with flickering cerulean flames hang from the boughs of the ancient trees, bioluminescent mushrooms growing up their trunks and illuminating the pathway to a carpet of moss and strewn petals where werewolves have already begun to dance.

“There you are, girl,” Oona exclaims as I trail after an older woman who is at least seven feet tall. Oona snags my arm and pulls me from the path and toward one of the dilapidated statues circling the clearing, a weathered stone depiction of a sinuous woman with wings carrying a bundle of wheat in her hands—Virgo, I realize. I glance to our left and spot a fearsome lion, its cracked head thrown back in a frozen roar. Leo. There are twelve of them, forgotten and hidden between the trees, and they seem primordial. Ageless. But Oona leans against the woman without so much as a care, wiping her hands on her forest-green dress. “I did your hair an eternity ago. What took you so long to come out here?”

I raise a brow as Oona fans a hand in front of her face. A tray of bubbly wine floats by us, and she snatches one of the drinks, downing it with a loud gulp. “I wasn’t exactly excited to come. After Evie…” I lower my voice, trying to shake the haze of lingering confusion from my mind. Life has returned to normal at the castle. Evie remains popular. Sin doesn’t speak to me. And I am once more a pariah. “People aren’t really enthused by my presence. And—what is going on with you?” I ask, surprised when she snags a second drink. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

“I am enjoying the party,” she says through clenched teeth. If she were a wolf right now, her hackles would be sticking straight up. As it is, her chest flushes, the low cut of her leafy gown exposing patches of uneven red across her pale skin. And though the air in this realm smells sugar sweet, a breeze of licorice unease wafts from Oona. She looks like a wild nature nymph—a wild nature nymph who is seconds from fainting.

Bubbles burst out of the glass in her hand and pop in the air, causing Oona and me both to giggle. She curses. Drinks it quickly. “Silly wine,” she mutters. “Queen Jae must’ve brought it as a gift.”

I follow her gaze to the dance floor, where a lithe Korean woman in an ebony gown dances with a man in an ivory suit. Their ornate crowns glint beneath the lanterns, gold with amethyst stars that sparkle like the real things. They must be Evie’s parents. I glance away quickly, and Oona continues muttering to herself.

“Alchemists. I wouldn’t eat the food either. The last time this court held a party, the lemon squares made you speak dark truths, and the sticky buns made you levitate. Shep damn near flew straight out of the forest.”

I blink at her, and Oona blows an errant curl from her face. Her eyes flick to the left and right as if she’s worried that she’s being watched. And now I know exactly by who.

“Shep?” I ask, a grin suddenly twisting my lips. I sidle closer to her, the train of my soft pink gown so at odds with the rest of the dark decor. Oona delivered it to me this morning, with a note from Sin attached.

You deserve better than red

S. S.

I blush softly now, recalling the perfect calligraphy, the golden box, and the bodice woven of sheer spider silk, cascading cherry blossom petals, and sparkling rose quartz teardrops. He must have had an Alchemist make it in conjunction with a Weaver. It must have been expensive. I run a hand along the feather-soft fabric, forcing myself back into the present. With Oona.

Oona who nearly crouches behind the statue now. “Oh, never you mind,” she says with a scoff. I laugh, and I don’t know whether it’s from those magical bubbles in the air, or because she looks like a toad.

“You can’t be hiding from Instructor Shepherd,” I say.

“Don’t say his name,” she hisses. Her gaze darts toward the line of trees. “Absolutely ridiculous. I am… I am merely enjoying myself on my one free night.”

The maids have all been invited, since magic alone seems to conduct the ball, including a quartet of instruments in the corner—a pianoforte, a harpsichord, and two others I’ve never seen that appear to be enchanted variations of flutes.

“Oh, good. Then you won’t mind that he’s coming over here.”

Oona leaps to her feet, and her curls whip me in the face. “What?”

“Kidding.” I wave a hand to the dance floor filled with my classmates, their parents, the nobility of other territories. Instructor Shepherd is nowhere in sight. Sin, however… He currently dances with Portia. He spins her in a graceful circle, and her pastel-blue skirts flutter around them.

He’s beautiful tonight.

Strong, tall, handsome as ever, with a crown of black resting on his golden hair, he looks more like a prince than he ever has before. My heart aches watching him. He catches my eye then, and he frowns. Only for a moment. Only for enough time that I know he feels the same as me.

I love him. I can’t have him.

And everything we were working toward together—it’s imploded. I ruined it the second I stormed into the throne room and accused the queen of murdering a girl who strolled back into the castle the very next day, healthier than ever. I ruined everything.

My stomach churns. I turn back to Oona, and she watches me with narrowed eyes. “Very funny.” She crosses her arms and huffs, avoiding a bone-white plate of cherry tartlets as they pass. I follow her instructions and don’t pick one up, even though they smell absolutely divine.

“They’re an aphrodisiac,” she says simply.

“Oh.”

We both scowl.

The merriment around us swells when Queen Sybil takes to the mossy dance floor with Lord Allard. The other revelers give her space. Aside from Evie’s parents—Queen Jae and King Zhiyu—who almost seem to dance closer to her. They exchange whispered words no one else can hear. Queen Sybil appears unsettled by them, though she raises her chin regardless and continues to waltz.

“You should go,” I say softly, watching it unfold. “You have a night off; you should dance.”

“I don’t dance.”

“Oona, your feet are moving to the rhythm.”

She glances down, and sure enough, she can’t stop swaying. Her scowl deepens. “If you must know, Shep—Instructor Shepherd—asked me, but…”

I finally notice him, standing on the other side of the dance floor and leaning against a rather whimsical statue of a mer-goat. His yellow eyes darken, his hand cupping a goblet so firmly, the handle snaps off. He jolts in surprise when it falls to the floor, then quickly kicks it behind him. I smile again. He is a gargantuan man, seven feet of adamantine muscles, with an expression that could turn anyone to stone—and he is clearly incredibly besotted with Oona.

“But you’d rather be miserable?” I ask her. “You’d rather stand here with the outcast and make small talk about magical desserts?”

She glares at me. “You know very well that you are my friend, and I care nothing for the gossip of this court.”

“And Shep?” I ask.

“Shep…” She huffs and quiets her voice so that he won’t be able to hear it. “He’s the son of the Duchess of the United States and an instructor to future werewolf royalty. I am a former criminal working in the Wolf Queen’s Court. It would never work between us.”

I glance at Sin. He’s moved on from twirling Portia round and round to twirling Myles. They laugh together, and it sounds sparkling. I miss him. So much it hurts.

“What if it could?” I whisper.

Sin looks at me again, and desire blazes in his eyes. I turn back to Oona. She shrugs sadly. “He shouldn’t like me. It’s rather reprehensible of him, don’t you think? A stain on his character.”

“Oona, you are my favorite person in this court. He should be so lucky to dance with you.”

She gazes at me with watering eyes, and the emotion is so swift—so palpable—that I stumble. Her hand brushes mine. “You deserve the world, Vanessa. Everything… everything will be better soon. I promise.”

“Thanks, Oona.” I nudge her with my foot, a severe sort of adoration caught in my throat. I wouldn’t have survived here without her. Not even for a day. I hope she knows that. I hope she knows how much she means to me. But I can’t say all that at this ball, in front of a hundred werewolves. So, instead, I say, “You deserve to be happy. If Shep wants you, and you want him—”

“We kissed,” she blurts out, and then squeals when she looks back across the dance floor and notices that Instructor Shepherd is gone.

“Oona,” a deep voice says behind us. I stick my tongue out at her before we turn, although I probably should’ve taken her arm. It appears she might actually faint.

Instructor Shepherd stands between the trees, extending a hand toward her. His usual stern tone is replaced by a softer one. A loving one. “Can you… Could I possibly… That is, would you do me the honor—”

Oona glances up at him—very far up, since he’s about two feet taller than she is—and her cheeks flush. Her voice comes out biting as she snatches his hand and yanks him toward her. He staggers a step, completely caught off guard when she says, “Oh, very well then. But not near the queens. I don’t want to disrespect them.”

“Of course.” He nods once, a flush deepening his own skin too. “I wouldn’t dream of them—I mean, I wouldn’t dream of it.” He shuffles after her as she leads him into the revelry, and he doesn’t ever look away from her. In fact, I don’t think he noticed me at all. Oona glances back, and I blow her a kiss. Another voice—masculine, husky, and rough—startles me.

“You’re too lovely to stand here on your own. You deserve to be admired.”

I don’t need to look behind me to know who speaks. Heat scalds my back, and he steps closer, until our bodies meld together like the last two pieces of a puzzle. I’m so tempted to lean into him. To let the daydream of our time together carry me away. But—

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say without turning.

Sin sweeps a hand across my nape, brushing aside my curls, and the touch lingers on my bare skin. Oh god. He feels so good. He always feels so good. He splays his other hand on the statue beside me, and I glimpse the veins running along his wrist, his dexterous fingers. An icy chill blows through me—suspiciously akin to longing. “It is torture to watch you tonight,” he murmurs at my ear. “We haven’t spoken in weeks. I’ve been miserable.”

“We agreed,” I argue. “One night, remember?”

And it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’m the one who has to remind him of this when I want nothing more than to kiss him. I’ve had weeks to think of that night. Of his hands, his lips, his tongue. Weeks to remember his darkened words of worship, the soapy bubbles on our skin, the soft, adoring way he cared for me. I love him.

I love him, and it’s ruining my life.

“I’m feeling petulant,” he says, as though that’s explanation enough.

“How fitting for a prince.”

“Oh, very,” he agrees with a soft laugh. The sound of it burrows into my core, and I shiver. “I have to give the people what they want, after all.”

The word want lands hard between us, and I stiffen against his tautening muscles.

“What if I asked you to dance?” he whispers, and I imagine his burgundy gaze growing hotter, brighter, in the darkness. Thank goodness we’re standing on the outskirts of the forest. Thank goodness no one else can see us. “Hypothetically, of course.”

“I’d say no.” My voice cracks as his hand travels down my spine. “Hypothetically.”

“What if I told you no one has ever looked this beautiful in the history of our world, and I might die if I never touched you again?”

“I’d tell you that you’re touching me right now.”

Sin clicks his tongue. “This is entirely hypothetical, darling.” His hand cups my bottom, and his fingers dig into my flesh. It’s excruciating, and my legs tremble with need. I want to turn. I want to kiss him. I want to touch him.

I can’t.

“You’re wrecking this party,” I mutter. “I was having a perfectly pleasant time before you and your petulance came along.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“As if you could tell.”

A pause. A breath. “I can always tell, Vanessa. It’s you.”

It’s you.

The statement—the sentiment behind it—splinters inside my chest. I whirl around. Stupidly. Foolishly. Sin’s breath catches in his throat, and I force him farther into the cover of the trees.

“For a prince you are so…”

“Handsome?” he asks. “Dashing? Debonair?”

“Dumb.” I press a hand to his chest, and he seizes my wrist, holding me there. Our pulses pound brutally in unison. I back him into the firm trunk of an oak, and he smirks wickedly.

“If this is my punishment”—he hooks an arm around my waist and draws me against him—“so be it.”

He looks down at me then.

I look up at him.

I can hardly breathe. Magic and stardust swirl around us; the trees flutter their leaves in a gentle rasp. Music crescendos in the distance, and I know the others still exist. The court. The queens. But I’ve been miserable without him. I hardly have anything left here. Sin tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and leans close, his lips just barely brushing mine.

“You… you had a cherry tartlet,” I whisper against his mouth. “You’re drunk on lust.”

“Yes,” he says—a lie that incinerates me on the spot. “None of this is real.” Lie. “I haven’t been dreaming about you nightly.” Lie. He kisses me, and my belly tightens. “I haven’t been picturing that gorgeous mouth of yours wrapped around—”

“Sin,” I breathe.

His eyes burn. “Ask me.”

“For what?”

“For anything, Vanessa. For the fucking world.” He drags a hand up my hip, over my waist, past the curve of my breast. “Ask me. Let me be selfish.” His tongue sweeps along my lower lip, and he groans. “Let me have you.”

The music crashes to a halt. The ending of a song. The ending of this moment. I break away from Sin, stumbling backward as I remember it all—Celeste, Oona, Evie, Queen Sybil, being humiliated in front of the court—remember the stakes of losing the ones I love. I glance behind us, and the werewolves continue eating, drinking, kissing, dancing. Even Oona and Instructor Shepherd twirl around to a sudden, slow melody.

“We can’t,” I say.

“I know,” Sin says.

And we stare at each other—the prince and the outcast—like two characters in a Greek tragedy.

“Y-you should go,” I manage, rubbing my arms from the chill of losing that nearness to him. “I’m sure you and Evie are expected to dance.”

He curses under his breath, his gaze never once leaving mine. And—it looks as if he is going to give me the world. Here. Now. He looks as if he might steal a lantern from the tree and ignite the whole forest. I love you, I think.

In another life, one where Celeste is alive and I am just a girl, we’re together. I know it. A life where Sin isn’t prince, and he is just a boy, our souls would still fit. They would still match.

I would love him forever.

“Ah, my darling son,” Queen Sybil says, approaching us on knife-sharp heels that impale the petals at our feet, “I wondered where you ran off to. How unsurprising that you ended up here.”

I jolt with surprise at her appearance—at the way, yet again, she has somehow hidden her scent. My spine straightens, and I wish so desperately to cast my gaze to the ground, but… I can’t.

The queen’s shoulder-length black hair has been braided into a tight chignon, emphasizing the severe set of her jaw. Her gaze is black fury, narrowed on us, and she waves a hand behind her. “Perhaps you plan on dancing with your fiancée? Some of our guests don’t believe in patience being a virtue.”

“Your guests believe in upholding bargains—gifted or otherwise,” a woman says, stepping out from behind the queen. Another scent suddenly blows around us—so much like Evie’s. Vanilla and soft. My stomach knots. I step back instinctively.

Queen Jae is inches taller than Queen Sybil, with long hair hanging past her waist in intricate braids woven with ebony stars. Their black eyes, however, are the exact same. Queen Jae inclines her head at Sin, refusing to turn that regal gaze onto me.

“Prince Sinclair Severi, should we worry that you’ve yet to seek out our daughter?” Queen Jae sneers, and the hairs rise on my arms. “Forsaking our princess for a… purple-eyed Bitten.”

“She is nothing,” Sin lies quickly, wedging himself between me and the queens. I retreat into the forest, but Queen Jae snaps her fingers and two of her soldiers appear from the blackness, the crests on their chests of a tiger devouring a wolf glinting gold. They shove me out of the trees and back toward the party.

Queen Jae snags the skirt of my dress with a claw as I trip to a halt, and my heart leaps into my throat. My fear smothers the pretty scents of this realm. She’s going to kill me, I think suddenly. Bile washes over my tongue. But before she can harm me, or even speak, Queen Sybil plucks Queen Jae’s hand from me.

“She is nothing, Jae. Certainly not worth your time. The engagement stands. It will happen tomorrow.” Then, harsher, she says, “I do not break my bargains.”

My feet grow roots in the earth. Queen Sybil only lies about the first two statements, but the rest… She does plan on Sin and Evie becoming betrothed. Becoming mated. Sin’s expression hardens, though he refuses to show any true signs of displeasure. “I shall go and find the princess,” he says, and he lowers into a respectful bow. “But if you don’t mind, I was actually bringing Vanessa to my cousin.”

What?

I whirl to face Sin, but he won’t look at me.

“Calix is shy,” he says, smiling that charming, roguish grin even as he lies through his teeth. “My poor cousin cannot yet fetch his own dance partner, you see. He is terribly dim-witted and unromantic. He sent me in his stead.”

“The bastard of the blood traitor?” Queen Jae’s lip curls, and a low snarl builds in her throat. She watches Sin, the way he takes my arm stiffly, as if we’ve never touched before, and nods once. “Fine, then. She can have him.” She slices a hand through the air, and her soldiers vanish back into the shadows as Sin forces me onto the mossy carpet.

“What the hell are you thinking?” I hiss, surrounded now by a dozen classmates who think I’m either a traitor or a pathological liar. They avoid me. Even Portia won’t look at me. I glare up at Sin.

“That I don’t want you to end up fucking dead,” he growls. We reach Calix, who has stationed himself beside a table of sweets, though he appears to have touched none of them. My heart beats painfully as Calix glances at us with furrowed brows.

“Why are you dragging Vanessa around like she’s cattle at an auction?”

“Because, congratulations, you’re the lucky bidder who won.” Sin shoves me into Calix’s arms quickly. “Dance with her, Cousin.”

Calix’s spine grows rigid as I land against his chest. He glances between Sin and me as if he’s waiting for the punch line to a horribly unfunny joke, but his arms don’t leave my shoulders.

Sin sighs. “I do not have time for this.” He opens Calix’s palm and sets my hand atop it. I swallow hard. Calix doesn’t flex his own hand, doesn’t so much as twitch. “Remember when I let you borrow my favorite sword and you broke it?” Sin asks.

Calix nods brusquely.

“You owe me,” Sin says, and then he pivots on his heel and abandons us.

We haven’t been alone since the car. I haven’t spoken to Calix since the bar. He never sought me out after Evie showed up in our lessons alive and well and undisturbed. Like everyone else, I doubt he wants to speak to me now. My gaze drops to our feet. We stand inches apart. Like strangers.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say quietly, hoping none of the other werewolves will hear. “The queens… They were suspicious. Sin thinks he’s saving me.”

Calix tenses further. Abruptly, his hand fists around mine, and he tugs me against him. I gasp, nearly tripping over my feet as I clutch his shoulder. As his golden eyes search my face. “I don’t mind,” he says gruffly.

But those words blaze through my heart. He’s lying. And it shouldn’t, but it hurts. Calix and I have been through so much together. My father shot him. He almost drowned me. He snuck me out of the castle. He cleaned my wounds. Maybe we were never friends, but we were more than this. Strangers. I shut my eyes and shake my head. “I can go stuff my face with desserts. It’s not a big deal.”

He leads me onto the dance floor in answer, surprisingly smooth, and begins a slow waltz. One of his palms lingers on my lower back—high enough to be respectable, but still intimate—while the other lifts my arm around his neck. It doesn’t matter that he once carried me through the castle as lovers. This is… different. This is…

“It’s just a dance,” he says darkly. “Stop acting like we’re marching to your funeral.”

I frown, staring at the thin black button-up stretching across his shoulders. It does a very poor job at concealing his hard muscles. “You’re the one who didn’t want to dance with me.”

“Perhaps because we spend most of our time at each other’s throats.” He sighs, and his chest rises and falls against mine. I count each tick of his rapidly beating heart. He’s nervous. Or maybe uncomfortable. Either way, I have become just another responsibility. And Sin…

He’s dancing with Evie now. Her scarlet gown dazzles in the middle of the floor, and he smiles at her as if she’s the sun. He smiles at her the way he usually smiles at me. Though I can feel in my bones it’s a lie—a performance—I don’t care. I hate it all the same.

“Yes, well,” I snap, tightening my hold on Calix, “you are infuriating.”

“Hart,” he growls, “unless you are a fan of erotic-asphyxiation, stop choking me.”

Oh. Oh. I loosen my arms, and he exhales roughly. “It’s a dance,” he repeats, before he twirls me away. “Loosen up.”

“That’s hilarious coming from you.”

The forest spins around me in a gorgeous blur of lights and stars and sky, and Calix reels me into his chest, his arms now wrapped around my belly as I lean back against him. His lips brush my ear, and I can’t help shuddering at the sound of his deep voice. “See?” he whispers. “If I can do it, so can you.”

“I’m sh-shocked you can dance,” I say, paying far too much attention to my feet as they fumble through the movements.

“My cousin is a prince, and my aunt is a queen. I am not just the brooding bastard bodyguard of Castle Severi.”

“I don’t consider you brooding,” I offer.

“Oh?”

“Gloomy. Menacing. Sometimes even moping.” I grin in spite of myself, even as I watch Sin and Evie sway together across the dance floor. “But never brooding.”

Calix whirls me around so that I face him once more. “Those are all synonyms for brooding, Hart.”

“If the shoe fits, I suppose.…”

He dips me then, as if to punish me—or perhaps distract me—but the movement is so fast, it feels like flying. I giggle, and Calix smiles. The sight of it feels like a punch to my stomach. His eyes flash brighter at the sound—gold to red, then back to gold so quickly, I might’ve imagined it. “You don’t laugh enough, Vanessa,” he says softly.

But I don’t hear him, and I—I didn’t imagine it. His eyes flashed red. Blinking rapidly, I touch his cheek, and he stops breathing altogether. “Your… your eyes, Calix. They just—”

He snaps upright, his hands splaying across my hips, and resumes swaying us gently. For a moment I think he might ignore me. Then—“I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”

“Liar.”

His eyes narrow, though he doesn’t frown. “Yes,” he agrees, capturing my gaze as seconds stretch between us. His heart pounds. Mine stutters. He lied again. “I am.” And—the depth of those words entangles my organs. The implication. I stare at him in shock.

Confusion.

“Calix—”

He won’t let me finish the question. Shaking his head, he says, “Enough about me. How are you doing? After the beach, you weren’t quite yourself.”

“You don’t believe me either,” I guess, trying not to let it wound me. And failing miserably. As before, Calix’s doubt hurts much more than it should. “But I know what I saw, and she attacked Evie—”

He spins me again—violently this time—hissing, “Would you keep your voice down? This is hardly polite conversation for a party.”

“You’re the one who asked—”

“And I regret it instantly. Trust me.”

Truth.

I scowl at him, but this is too important to let my anger get the best of me now. Too treacherous. Something more is going on here—something sinister—and I am sick of no one listening to me except Sin. I cast a look at him over my shoulder, and my heart breaks a little at that smile on his face for Evie. “You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed—things happening around this place. Bad things.”

“We’re werewolves,” he deadpans. “Bad things are an occupational hazard.”

“Well, the people in the dungeons aren’t.” Keeping my voice low, I slide my hands from his shoulders to his chest. And I want so badly to push him away, but I can’t. Not without drawing attention to ourselves. He seems to share the thought, stiffening slightly before dipping me again. “They’re human, Calix, and they’re being tortured down there. Even if no one else cares—”

Calix freezes. When I straighten, trying to force him into the next box step, his hand hardens in mine. Though I tug and tug, glancing around us, he doesn’t budge. He also doesn’t speak. His brow falls. His gaze narrows.

I try not to move my lips. “Calix, if you think any louder, it may as well be a scream.”

Nothing. Still nothing.

“Calix—”

“Stop talking, Vanessa. For one second.” His gaze snaps to mine after a full minute passes. “Did you say you found people in the dungeon?”

I check our surroundings again. Eavesdroppers could be anywhere—are everywhere. We’re surrounded by werewolves with preternatural hearing. But Calix doesn’t seem to care about that anymore, even when I say, “Yes, Calix. Not that it’s any of your business.” I drop his hands when he still doesn’t move. If he’s done pretending, so am I. “You don’t believe me, remember?”

“Impossible,” he says. A truth, and my blood chills to an icy frost. “Vanessa, we don’t use the dungeon. There hasn’t been anyone down there for centuries.”

43

Calix drags me out of the party.

No one seems to care about the two of us—blood traitor and Bitten—as they celebrate and toast to the morning’s impending rite. Wild drums accompany the other instruments now, rumbling through the earth as we weave our way out of the forest and slip inside Castle Severi.

“Calix,” I force out, my arm straining against the strength of his grasp as he pulls me deeper and deeper through the halls, “this is unnecessary.”

“We don’t use the dungeon” is his only response. Determinedly, he charges us toward the stairwell and the antechamber below. I huff out uneven breaths, my adrenaline racing even though he is sorely mistaken. I’ve seen those cages. I’ve smelled the blood, tasted the grit on my tongue, heard the screams.

His words, however, continue to warm my chest in direct, inimitable honesty.

Because, a little voice whispers in my head, Calix believes in nothing more than his job. To acknowledge the dungeon’s use would be to realize the true nature of Queen Sybil. And Calix… He can’t do that. Ever. Otherwise, he’d become a traitor. Just like his mother.

“Sin saw it too,” I say quietly, knowing he’s about to fall face-first into a conspiracy that will break his heart. “Calix, we don’t have to go down there. There’s nothing we can do about any of it—”

“Impossible.” He snarls, and the violence behind it echoes in the stairwell as he races us faster down the stairs. My ankle nearly twists on the last step, but Calix catches me in his arms, only to push me forward again. I glare at him. A full claw erupts from my hand.

“Enough,” I snap, aiming the perfect set of daggers at his chest. “You don’t want to see what waits in there. You won’t be able to unsee it. I’m trying to protect you.”

He doesn’t recoil from the threat, and his eyes flare a searing yellow. “I don’t need your protection. You need mine.”

My blood boils now, hotter and hotter as the seconds pass and we stand there, my back to the dungeon and Calix’s to the stairs. The antechamber is otherwise silent save for our ragged breathing. Dark save for the lights of our eyes and the stars above. But Calix won’t be deterred. As always, he has no patience for any of this, and pushes past me without another thought.

Fine.

I can’t force him to leave, so I spin on my heel to stomp after him. But—my steps falter, even as Calix’s continue their hasty pursuit. The crevice in the wall isn’t so much a doorway anymore. It appears like a natural slit in the stone. Like an accident. Strange. Needles prick my arms. My bones beg me to stop.

Something is wrong, I think, just as I did after Evie was resurrected. But what?

I trail after Calix, tiptoeing with hesitancy, as he enters the room.

“We have no need for a dungeon,” Calix continues before I can step inside, his voice rougher now. Angrier than I’ve ever heard it before. “Our court functions by the queen doling out swift punishments. Oona was not chained up. You were not chained up. No one is ever chained up.”

Oona who was shot through with silver arrows in the throne room. And me—I’d been punished through emotional torture. No. No. I grip my head in my hands. My skull aches. Agony ripples through me. But why?

I don’t understand. His questions. The answers. My stomach churns, and bile threatens to spew from my lips.

“Come inside, Vanessa,” he commands.

But… I don’t want to. For some reason, seeing the doorway—the lack of the doorway—is enough. I don’t want to go farther. Something is very wrong.

“Th-the queen,” I stutter. “She… she trapped them here. She bit them, and she tortured them.”

“Why?” he demands, and I hate those three letters. I hate the way they puncture my nerves. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

“Come on.” He reappears, nearly folding in half to maneuver out of the crevice. I think back to entering with Sin—to walking inside the dungeon easily, without any trouble or effort. Calix extends a hand. I glare at it. “Vanessa,” he urges, “please.”

A slender arch—clearly werewolf-made—gives way to a narrow room with a nauseatingly low ceiling.

I step forward and take Calix’s hand, my fingers quivering. He’s gentle, at least, and his eyes soften as he leads me through the crevice. I pivot and crouch to fit inside it.

Wrong.

Calix slides beside me and points to a row of cells. Cells, not cages. I place a hand on my stomach to calm it, but shock pummels me in a ruthless assault.

Hooks hang from the ceiling, metallic and spiky.

Wrong.

In the far back, hidden in shadows, steel prisons trap three people with erratic heartbeats and weak breaths.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It’s—it’s all wrong.

The cells are larger. The bars are wrought iron, not silver. There are no hooks hanging from the ceiling. And the ground… It’s mildew and stone. A sheen of damp clings to the walls, the smell of musty sea pungent, but there isn’t a drop of blood.

Not a stain.

Not a stench.

Nothing.

“Calix…” I lose any sense of purpose and place and stumble for the nearest wall. Nausea roils viciously in my gut, but I can’t soothe it. I can’t make sense of any of this. This is not the place I’ve been before. It’s not even close to the dungeon of the past.

“Maybe… maybe the queen cleaned it up,” I manage, though I don’t feel the words as they escape me. “Maybe sh-she needed it to be bigger.” I blink, but the image before me doesn’t change. I think of the tortured woman, the young man, the child. They were here. Right here.

“No,” he says again. “We do not use the dungeon.”

“Then what is it?!” I whirl around, claw still fully emerged, and swipe at the stone. Anger bursts from my chest like a geyser, and rage rattles me to the core. I need it. I need that rage. Without it, I am confused. I am weak. I am afraid. I inhale sharply. “You don’t understand what I’ve witnessed. You don’t believe me. But Sin saw it too. He’s been in the dungeon. He trusted me when I told him that I watched the queen try to murder Evie on the beach—”

“Evie is alive,” Calix interrupts, and he’s so… so controlled now. So collected. I hate it. I lash out again, breaking pebbles off the stone. He still doesn’t react.

“Something happened,” I growl. “You heard the howls yourself.”

“That doesn’t mean it was Queen Sybil.”

“Who else?” A shriek of frustration explodes out of me. “You are so concerned with remaining loyal and right that you refuse to see the truth even when it’s in front of your face. Queen Sybil is biting humans! She is biting them, and she is collecting them. I don’t know why—it doesn’t even matter. She’s conspiring against Evie. I heard her say it! She does not want to lose her power. She… she murdered Celeste,” I hiss, adrenaline like a drug, coursing through my veins, building and bursting and building and bursting until I’m shaking with it. Queen Sybil ruined my life. She ruined my life, and—I spin around, taking in the dungeon once more—I have no more evidence.

No explanation.

Fuck.

Calix’s expression shutters, and a strong gust of sea-salt fear blows around us. Not mine. His. Chest heaving, blood pumping, I glance at him with disdain and loathing and unbridled fury. He recoils. But I—I want a fight. I want answers.

“How could this place look so different now?”

“Vanessa,” he murmurs, and his face… He looks broken. I drop my claws to my sides and listen to the instinct in my bones.

He knows something.

“What, Calix?” I ask, but he doesn’t respond. He studies me silently. “What, Calix?” I echo, teeth clenched. But whatever is coming—I can’t prepare for it. This is Calix, I try to remind myself. Calix who made sure I didn’t die by cleaning my wound over and over. This is Calix, who helped me rescue his cousin. I hold my breath, and he…

He begins to unbutton his shirt.

My stomach plummets into hell. “Wh-what are you doing?”

He shrugs it off, letting it fall onto the dank ground. Then he prowls forward. Is he going to shift? Is he… is he going to kill me? I back up into the wall, and his eyes glow.

Not gold.

Red.

Whatever breath remains whooshes from me in a painful second. I pick up the delicate train of my skirt and take an uneasy step backward. “Calix, p-pl—”

“I need you to listen to me,” he commands darkly. “Don’t react. Just listen.”

I palm the wall behind me and sweat breaks out on my forehead.

“Queen Sybil did not kill your friend,” Calix says. “She is not biting humans.”

His muscles flex. His abdominals. As though… as though he’s revealing them. But that doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen him shirtless before. And what does that have to do with Celeste? With the queen? He reaches me and, wordlessly, peels my hand from the wall and moves it to his side. To his ribs. I stiffen at the touch but track it with my gaze.

Beautifully tanned muscles… marred by a jagged line.

A scar.

But werewolves can’t have scars unless they’re cut with silver, and—I glance at the sunburst scar on my hand. Then back at his ribs. A cut from a silver dagger.

I lunge with my knife out and stab the wolf between its ribs, gripping its fur for leverage.

The world roars to a halt. Silence screams.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper. I don’t I don’t I don’t—

The wolf shakes, jostling me back and forth as if I’m in the midst of a tornado. Its rippling muscles bruise my skin with each hard throttle, but I can’t—I can’t let go.

“Yes, you do,” he says sadly, and his red eyes darken to twin pools of blood. My hand flexes against his skin from the memory. I force my eyes shut. No. No. No.

I stab the wolf again, deeper this time. Twisting the blade so that it hurts. So that it maims.

“It wasn’t the queen,” Calix says. “It was me.”

A barely connected pile of skin and bone and hair lies limp on the ground in a sea of blood, in the broken shape of my best friend.

I always thought my life would end in a riot of noise—the booming of a crash or the guttural horror of violence—but this… It’s nothing. It’s the faint whisper of a sob. It’s the feeling of my knees hitting the ground. It’s my heart breaking in my chest without even being able to see it.

“No, you didn’t,” I say to the floor, even as his honesty impales me, and a tear trickles over my cheeks and drips beneath me, onto the stone.

He killed Celeste.

“Evie said…” My voice cracks painfully. “Evie said it wasn’t any of you. She said you were so worried about the fight that—that everyone took off. You’re… you’re covering for the queen.” Please please please

Calix kneels, though he doesn’t touch me again. “Queen Sybil sent us there to scope it out, and I… I did what I had to do. I snuck off during the fight. Evie didn’t know. The queen wanted to brush it under the rug without alarming everyone in the court. We made her death look like an accident, and with your transformation… It was a good distraction.”

An accident. Her death.

Her death.

My head snaps up, and a low snarl reverberates between us. My bones begin to twist and pop, but I force down the magma of my rage. Repress the explosive heat of it. Instead, I focus on the betrayal. His betrayal.

“She was a person,” I say slowly. “She was my best friend.” I glare at him, and the intense violet of my own eyes reflects off the onyx bars. “Say her name, you fucking coward.”

And he does. It sounds like damnation.

“Celeste,” he says, refusing to flinch away. “I’m sorry, Vanessa. It was my job.”

That’s all it takes for me to lunge.

I tackle him, throwing him onto his back and slashing open his chest with my claws. All the way to the bone. He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t raise a single hand as my chest heaves and I cry harder. I weep over him like the sky opening up during a hurricane, and I can’t stop it. The grief, the anger, the betrayal, the sadness… It’s swirling into a lethal vortex. The world rotates with it. Faster, faster.

He killed her.

Calix killed Celeste.

“How could you?” I slice his arm. His shoulder. I am going to kill him. I have to kill him. “How could you?”

Blood spills between us, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough to make up for what I’ve lost. Celeste. Her laughter. Her smile. My home. He hurt her. He murdered her.

“Monster,” I cry. “You fucking monster.”

“I know,” Calix breathes. “I know.”

Just like our fight on the field, he lies here, allowing me to hurt him. Allowing me to gut him the way he did to her. I plunge my claw under his ribs, and he stares up at me with resolution burning bright in his scarlet gaze. He doesn’t retaliate. He doesn’t speak. What more could he say?

I’m going to rip out his heart.

It was my job, he said.

He’s a liar. A filthy, disgusting traitor. My claw squeezes the warmth of his rapidly beating organ. He gasps now, whispering my name as if it’s a promise. But I don’t believe it. I don’t believe a single word he’s ever said.

He stole Celeste from me. He stole everything—

“Vanessa! What the fuck are you doing?” Sin tackles me to the ground seconds before I can rip out Calix’s heart.

Calix turns over, gasping, as blood pours from the crater in his chest. He can barely clench the wounds closed, though he tries. Blood covers his fingers, his arms. So much blood. So much red.

Sin presses me into the stone, using the full weight of his strength to bear down on me.

“Get off,” I hiss, struggling beneath him. “He killed her. He killed her!”

Tears pour. Trickle over my cheeks, into my hair. Down my gown. Stupid fucking dress. Stupid fucking castle. I hate it here. Calix, the queen, all of them—they can die. They can die, and it is more than they deserve.

“Vanessa,” Sin murmurs, trying to remain gentle even as his touch hardens. “Vanessa, you have to stop. The others will hear. They’ll come.” I thrash beneath him, wild and rabid, but he doesn’t relent. “Vanessa, please, don’t make me compel you.”

“You wouldn’t dare—”

“You’re going to murder my cousin.”

I glare at him and snap my fangs at his nose. He growls, gripping my cheeks and forcing me to remain still as his gaze flashes and his voice deepens.

No.

I wrestle a knee between our bodies and move to kick him in the groin, but—

“Stop moving,” Sin whispers, and a tear of his own falls onto my lips.

I freeze. The tension inside me unknots, thread by thread, until I’m limp. And my thoughts—they catch up to the present in a wicked spiral. Sin. The golden prince. So beautiful above me. The boy I love.

How could he compel me?

Sin shudders, agony unspooling from him in a bitter, minty gust. He turns to his cousin, and the hold he has on me loosens. “Go,” he orders Calix. “Back to your room. Sleep. Prepare for the rite.”

Calix stumbles to his feet. His wounds are healing, but blood splatters his skin. “She—”

“Go.”

I don’t know if Calix is compelled or merely chooses to obey, but he hurries out of the dungeon without looking back. And I… I can’t breathe.

Calix.

It was Calix.

I can’t stop crying. I can’t stop breaking.

Sin wipes away my tears, his voice raw and rough as he says, “I have to carry you to your room now, Vanessa. Please be quiet.”

And I know what he’s asking. He’s asking me to stay alive. Because if I scream, if I kill, they will murder me too. No matter who does it, it will be their job. Just as it was Calix’s job to murder my best friend.

I glance up at Sin as he lifts me into his arms and carries me up the stairs. He’s strong. Protective. Loyal. But something… something still isn’t right. He’s not shocked. He’s not surprised.

I did not kill your friend, he said. So many times. Always honest. I did not kill your friend.

He races us through the castle with preternatural speed and throws us into my room. Before I can scream. Before I can react.

Before I can figure out that Calix wasn’t alone in this betrayal.

My heart beats an excruciating rhythm. Sin sets me on the bed. He wipes the dirt and the blood and the tears from my body. And I stare at him. I can only stare at him.

“You can move now,” he whispers, releasing me from the prison he erected of my bones.

When you bite a human, the life you gift them must come from somewhere. One’s soul.

My claws vanish with the pain of another break, followed by my fangs, and I almost can’t even speak. If I voice it, I can’t take it back. I can’t unlearn the truth. But Sin gazes down at me, and his fingers are so familiar against my skin, and our hearts… our hearts beat in unison. Our souls beat in unison. I used to think it was coincidence, that we just happened to be made for each other, but it’s not.

“It was you,” I whisper. “You bit me.”

I’m desperate for him to say I’m wrong, but he can’t. I’ll know he’s lying.

The second wolf rushes out from the shadows, snaps me up in its jaws, and…

… and bites. He stops touching me and straightens. My ribs fracture between its teeth, its fangs shredding the flesh of my waist.

Tell me I’m wrong, I want to scream, to beg. Tell me you didn’t ruin my life.

“I couldn’t let you die,” he says instead. “The options were to let Calix kill you, or to bite you and maybe save you. I asked the queen for a pardon after it happened.” He doesn’t flinch away from the truths, even though I do. “That’s why no one else could know. The queen didn’t want them to learn I’d been given special treatment. That I had been the reason you lived.”

I curl inward, trying to hold myself together. Sin bit me. Calix killed Celeste. And I—I trusted them. I believed them. Especially Sin. I blink up at him through tears. More tears. Maybe I’ll drown in them. “You knew,” I breathe. “There was never a second where you didn’t know.”

He retreats. One step. Another. Until his back hits the wall. His head hangs low, his gaze seeking the ground. “Vanessa,” he murmurs, and my name is a ragged plea. A devastated confession. “I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“You… you lied to me,” I say. And it shouldn’t be, but that’s the worst part. How could he? With my ability, my gift, it shouldn’t have been possible. “You manipulated me.”

His hands clench into fists. “I withheld the truth.”

“You played me for a fool every single day since.”

“No.” He glances up then, at the venom in my voice, and his gaze darkens. “I love you. I’ve loved you every day since. I’ve done everything in my power to keep you safe. I saved you. And you can hate me for it, Vanessa. You can hate me and curse my name and wish death upon me—but you’ll be alive to do those things, so I don’t regret them. I would do it again.” He rips the crest from his neck, a seven-pointed star overlayed atop the silhouette of two entwined snakes, and brings it toward my bed. He drops it on the pillow stained with my tears. “I would do anything to protect you. You are the other half of my soul.”

I don’t know how it’s possible to hate him and love him so much at the same time, but I do. He crouches, his face closer to mine, and I want to pull him in for a kiss. I want to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him. He lied to me. He saved me. “You only think that,” I breathe, “because you bit me. Your soul is part of mine now.”

He grips the bedsheets roughly, and his claws slice through them. “You’re lying to yourself now, darling.”

I ignore it, the comforting warmth in my chest at his words. The fire engulfing the remnants of my heart at my own. Sin bit me. He knew. He withheld it from me.

“I love you, Vanessa,” he repeats, his lips inches from my own now. It takes all my resilience not to arch into him. “Everything I do is for you.” He pauses then, and a breath passes between us that tastes like mint and honey. His gaze softens, and hurt curls like smoke in his irises. “I’m sorry.”

Truth.

He brushes his lips along my temple, and my eyes shut. I hold my breath. “I will see you at the rite,” he says, and then he leaves.

Just like that, he vanishes, and I shiver. The absence of him is worse. It’s always worse without Sin. But how can I exist alongside him anymore?

I spend the rest of the night crying.

When I fall asleep, I don’t dream at all.

44

The universe revolves around the sun, and so must werewolves. The Ascension Rite begins at dawn.

I am already awake when Oona bursts into my room before sunrise.

I dress in the dark, anxious, my stomach roiling. If Oona can sense my unease—if she noticed anything wrong with me before Calix and I disappeared from the ball—she doesn’t ask. She hardly speaks. Her hands shake with nerves as she laces up my stark ivory bodice.

All white today, as per tradition.

She weaves a purple rose into my hair, but otherwise leaves my waves untended. “There,” she says when she finishes. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m walking toward my death,” I answer honestly, my heart panging. At least I can still trust Oona. If nothing else, I have her.

She licks her thumb and wipes a stain of Calix’s blood from my cheek. “Nonsense. Today, you will join the future of this court. I’ve seen the prince. He’s very taken by you.”

He loves me, I think. He said he loves me, but all I feel in return is hollow and afraid.

Love isn’t enough, sometimes, to repair the holes inside us. It’s not enough right now.

“I think you’re a vision,” Oona says. “A fine girl with a strong pair of purple eyes. When it’s your turn, remember, you will drink the blood of the queen, and the sun shall reach into your heart and wrench your truest form from within,” she says. “From that moment forward, you will belong to the pack. Your pack. I am—so proud of you, Vanessa.”

I glance at Oona—her round, freckled face and orange hair. She’s never lied to me. She’s always been here. Without considering the action further, I throw my arms around her and drag her in for a hug. Tears leak from my eyes onto her maid’s uniform, but she doesn’t mention them. She runs her hands over my hair.

“It’s a big day,” she says. “It’s fine if you are nervous, but I’ll be there to watch you. The queen… She’s allowed me to attend.”

Oona sounds pleased at that, but she doesn’t know—she doesn’t know that Queen Sybil still uses her as a threat against me. Oona’s attendance is simply to ensure that I will remain at Castle Severi. As if I have another choice. Sin will pick me. After all his confessions last night, I’m sure of it. And I haven’t decided how I feel about that yet. I don’t want to face him this soon. Him, or Calix. But the Ascension is in less than hour, so I must.

Oona returns to cleaning my room, picking up spools of ribbon, brushes, and combs, before fixing my bed. She’s so busy that she doesn’t notice me deflate. I sag against the door. My head throbs. It hasn’t stopped throbbing since last night.

Calix killed Celeste. Sinclair bit me.

Nothing can ever be the same again.

My future with Sinclair was uncertain before, but now it’s the fog over dewy moors. Intangible. Cold. A phantom more than anything else.

“I will be here for you every step of the way,” Oona says, returning to my side. She squeezes my hand. “I promise.”

“Thank you, Oona. For everything.”

“You are the sister I’ve never had.” Oona kisses me on my cheek before opening my door, and it’s that gesture that manages to wrest me from my room and out into the forest where my peers and the most powerful werewolves in the world await.

I’m the last outside.

In the fathomless blue of dawn, the massive, muscular frames of werewolves blur together. Queens and dukes and countesses gather between the oaks and pines of last night, the mossy carpet of the dance floor now blanketed with red and black roses. It looks like a blood spill. Like decay. Oona sandwiches herself between Lord Allard and Instructor Shepherd, and for a brief moment, I even feel a glimmer of happiness. Instructor Shepherd moves closer to her than necessary, his cheeks flushed again. I wonder what happened between them last night. I’ll have to ask her about it later—because there will be a later.

I will never leave this castle.

I swallow hard, shuffling my feet even as I wait in a straight line of my peers. Evie is the only one beside me, Sin and Calix at the other end, thankfully. I don’t need to see them. Not now. Just get through it, I tell myself. Worry about the rest after. If I scream or lash out, someone here will kill me. I have to remain collected.

Lanterns sway from boughs, glowing with scarlet flames, and the sky overhead cracks open with slender rays of golden light. It looks as if the world is on fire.

Lyra steps out from the pack of werewolves first, her blue eyes fixed firmly on my face as a sheath of gauzy white billows around her body. “It is time,” she says, raising her hands to the sky. As though she conjured it, rain drizzles onto us in a soft but freezing melody.

A sprinkle of ice during the first morning of winter solstice.

I slide my feet in the grass. In the mud. Beyond the minor preparations that Oona has helped me with, I’m unsure what to expect, and I find that I no longer care. I just want to get it over with. I want to move on.

Queen Sybil prowls out next and takes her position beside Lyra. A large diadem sits on the queen’s head, obsidian as her soul. She smiles at us, and though it’s meant to be a warm and adoring gesture, it raises the hair on my flesh.

At the heart of it, this is her fault.

I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I’m not even certain what she did to the dungeon—but it has to be her fault.

“Welcome to the Ascension Rite,” she announces. “It is my honor to host this generation as you ascend to your rightful places in our courts and packs. Since your First Rite, we—as your parents, your rulers, and your court—have witnessed you grow from pups into leaders. You have learned. You have fought. You have protected this court before even yourselves. This morning, you shall be rewarded for your service. The universe long ago granted you gifts, and now it is time to reap the rewards of the sun.”

On cue, gold flickers across the sky.

Lyra hums, and that hum weaves into a song soon joined by wild drumming. Her lilting voice carries through the sunrise, ethereal and heaven-sent as the onlookers begin to sway. Rain soaks through their black clothes. Soaks through our white clothes. I look to my right. Evie shoots me a nervous glance, biting her lip as her gaze darts to the doors of the castle. I suppose I’m not the only one anxious about today.

When Lyra’s song finishes, the werewolves still. She blinks her pretty blue eyes and curtsies to the Wolf Queen of the North American Court, who speaks once more.

“Those accepted by the sun will be welcomed into the Seven Courts and forevermore bound to our laws and ways of life. If you should agree, please step forward when you are called and drink.” Queen Sybil retrieves a gilded chalice from the folds of her ruffled black gown, and she holds it beneath her neck as she drags a claw across her throat, slitting it with a shallow slice that pours blood into the cup.

I glance away quickly. The smell permeates, disguising the magical, rich scent of sweetened earth with gore. I hate it here. I hate it, but there’s no way out. So I stand up straight and wait for the moment when my future permanently belongs to this castle.

Unless, a little voice hisses in my mind, Sinclair doesn’t want you anymore.

But even as I think it, I realize how ridiculous that is. Last night, he told me he loved me. He wouldn’t revoke that now.

“Sinclair Severi, first of his name, Born to the Wolf Queen of the North American Court and blessed beneath a Scorpio sun and Aquarius moon, beneath the Capricornus stars, as a Dreamweaver, would you step forward and accept your place as the future of this court beneath the sun of a new winter’s morn?”

I tilt my head.

Something about that… is strange. Scorpio sun, Aquarius moon, Capricornus stars.

Dreamweaver.

But Sin is a Bargainer. Like his mother, he’d said. I blink rapidly, and Evie’s gaze flicks back to the castle’s entrance. The droplets of rain impale my skin like icicles. I shiver. My belly tightens as if in anticipation. But around us, all seems well. Sin walks up to his mother and accepts the chalice. He takes a small sip, licking his lips before swallowing.

“I do accept my place,” he declares.

For moments, nothing happens. I wait for the sun to rip from the sky, for the world to implode and grow anew. But nothing. And then—he drops to his knees. His heart floods with light, shining bright through the white of his shirt. He claws at his chest, a guttural scream freeing from him as that light pulses.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The shadow of Sinclair’s wolf emerges. Bursts forth as a spectral gray beast with haunting red eyes before evaporating with the rain.

“Alpha,” his mother says proudly. “The sun has pronounced you Alpha. Rise, and fulfill your potential, Sinclair Severi. It is time to declare your intentions.”

Sin looses a ragged breath before stumbling to his feet. Still holding his chest, his shirt torn in places where his claws scratched too deep, he rasps, “I accept my position as a Dreamweaver Alpha in the Wolf Queen’s Court of the North American continent and will forever abide by our laws and way of life.”

Dreamweaver.

I chew on my lip, desperate to ignore the burgeoning flames in my gut. Something is wrong.

The only way to rouse from a dream is to notice everything wrong within it.

I glance around, but everything appears normal. An enchanted forest filled with werewolves as the boy I love—the golden prince—is crowned with a diadem of magically woven sunlight. The werewolf crowd cheers, a louder celebration than even the ball, and my chest aches because I should be celebrating too. But… I can’t shake the feeling burning through me. It feels like a lie. It all feels like a lie. Evie’s gaze fixates on the castle now, her attention sharpened to a fine point. I follow it. However, Castle Severi remains massive, intimidating, morning light slowly drenching its adamantine walls and explosions of ivy and flora.

It’s fine, I tell myself. That too feels like a lie.

Queen Sybil nods to her son and continues the rite. “Please choose the leaders of your future pack, Prince Sinclair Severi. Remember, they will become your closest allies and dearest friends. Together, your strength will bloom as one. You will remain eternal as brethren. As the Wolf King’s pack when my own reign has ended.”

“I shall.” Sinclair turns to the rest of us, and his eyes soften as they land on mine. I’m sorry, he mouths.

And I know what’s coming before it happens.

“First,” Lyra announces, “you must declare your mate—the most cherished member of your pack—before the formal mating ritual on the spring equinox. Prince Sinclair Severi, please choose wisely the fate of this kingdom.”

My stomach drops, and even though I’m angry at him—even though I might hate him—I feel sick. I can’t watch.

Sin is seconds away from being engaged to Evelyn Lee.

Oh god. It’s going to hurt.

I love you, Vanessa.

Why did he have to say it? Why did he have to bite me? Why did he have to lie? The questions pummel me, one after the other, like blows to my chest. I refuse to watch. I refuse to breathe. I just want it to end. I want the Ascension Rite to be over—

“Vanessa Hart,” Sin says, “first of her name, Bitten not Born, blessed beneath a Virgo sun and Scorpio moon, beneath the Orion stars, as a Truthseer, would you please step forward?”

Wh-what?

All eyes turn to me.

No. I couldn’t have heard him right. He just said… he just said my name instead of Evie’s. What is he doing? Why… why? Sin meets my gaze now, unflinching. He repeats himself amidst the ripple of confusion that sweeps the crowd. The shock. At the front, the Lees go unnaturally still. And—and he’s inciting a war. A low growl reverberates from Queen Jae in warning, but Sin doesn’t seem to care. I gaze at him with wide eyes, my hands limp at my sides, the rest of my thoughts lost to the wind. Sin. He stares back at me, and hope brightens that beautiful burgundy gaze.

I blink. And blink. And blink.

He doesn’t care.

“What the hell are you doing, Sinclair?” Eric asks quietly—menacingly. He takes a step forward. “Consider your decision here, or it will be your head—your entire court—as payment.”

Queen Jae’s fangs lengthen in response, and that low growl—it heightens to a snarl. Her soldiers echo it behind her, and King Zhiyu glares directly at… at me. My chest constricts. It can’t be me.

“We are in the process of the rite,” Lyra interrupts, and her soft voice draws the attention of every single wolf. She speaks for the stars. They can’t ignore her. “What has begun cannot be undone. The Ascension must continue.” The growls intensify. “Vanessa Hart, step forward.”

Limbs numb, I do as she says, though I hardly feel as if I’m moving at all. Queen Sybil smiles at the Lees, cold and cruel, and I spy Oona behind her. Oona, who is the only one in the crowd flushing pink without a claw in sight. She waves tentative fingers at me in encouragement.

I’ll do anything to protect her. Just as Sin did for me.

“It’ll be okay.” Drawing me against him with an arm around my waist, he whispers the words against my hair. “Just stay by my side.”

He grins then, and the sight of it stops my heart. It’s so pure. So him. His thumb caresses my hip. I hear his words from last night as if they’re the only thought left in my mind.

I would do anything to protect you. You are the other half of my soul.

“I’m sorry,” he says at my ear. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again.” A pause. A horrible, cruel beat. His gaze flashes, and his voice deepens further into compulsion. “Just don’t fight.”

That’s when the screaming starts.

45

A pack of forty wolves charges into the forest from the castle.

Inside, brutal screams of visceral terror ring through the halls—guards dying, maids choking on their blood, the fetid stench of gore rising, smothering—as the strange wolves begin to slash their way through the royal and noble werewolves as if they’re peeling back the layers of an onion. The outer ring collapses first. Then the next. Blood sprays. Entrails plummet from open stomachs, squelching on the ground beside unblinking eyes and limp claws. The new pack doesn’t feast. It only kills.

An ambush, I think in horror. A calculated assault.

But that can’t be right. This can’t be real.

Queen Jae transforms as the pack slices their way through the court, but Instructor Shepherd’s words during Combat echo in my ears. If you transition in the midst of a fight, of a war, you lose your upper hand.

Sure enough, the split second that the Wolf Queen of the Asian Court’s back breaks, a wolf leaps atop her and rends her head from her neck with a single bite. Though I cry out, stricken, Evelyn roars. Her hands don’t work, however. Her head doesn’t twitch.

It’s… it’s as if she can’t move either.

Compulsion.

Sin stiffens beside me, exhaling a harsh breath. “Shit.”

I try to flex my bones, my limbs, but he cages me against him with an iron grip as we take in the shock wave of violence. “Sin?” I whisper, that horrible gut instinct sinking in my stomach like a pocketful of bricks in the ocean. “Sin.”

“It’ll be over soon,” he says quickly, brushing his hands over my hair, down my arms.

A lie.

I hear his words as if from very far away. He can’t have spoken them. They don’t make sense. “What have you done?” I whisper.

He swallows hard and says, “What was needed.”

And I’m in a free fall. Dropped from the heavens and crashing into the ocean. I’m drowning. Around me, the elders enter the fight. They’ve learned from Queen Jae, and they don’t transform. Instructor Shepherd manages to wrench the heart from the chest of a gray beast, and Lord Allard swiftly removes his sword to behead a black wolf that leapt past to attack the remaining queen.

Queen Sybil snarls as their head lands at her feet. She glances around her. Chaos shatters her perfect rite into a million shards. Her claws emerge, and she leaps into the fight. So do my classmates. Portia. Antionette. Myles, Eric, Katerina. Calix. They throw themselves at the bloodthirsty pack with remarkable skill.

But it’s not enough.

My bones scream that it won’t be enough. These wolves—they’re stronger, somehow, than the rest of us. They move in a blur of speed. When one snaps a soldier’s ankle, dragging him off his feet, they slow long enough for me to notice their ears. They’re both human. And the russet wolf beside them—my vision narrows—has two sets of teeth. One pair sharp and wolfish, the other… also human. As though these wolves… their transformations went wrong.

Sin’s arms tighten, and he spins me into his chest, shielding me from most of the carnage—but not all of it. He can’t hide all of it. “Sin, please,” I beg, but my body still refuses to move. My mind still refuses to believe Sin is involved in this. Not again. This is so much worse than before. The blood has spread from my hands to everywhere else—everywhere. Everyone. Evie screams again, and tears stream down her face as her father joins her mother on the ground. As her brother rips a wolf from Nettie’s throat. “Let me go! Let me fight!”

Sin looks away swiftly as Nettie collapses, his expression pained. Then, voice harsh—“I can’t.”

“They’re dying—”

His bones shudder, as if he wants to fight. As if he wants to shift. But he… he’s not. I don’t understand why he’s not. I can feel the tension in his body. More than that, he feels appalled by the scene around us. But how can he be? He compelled me; he expected this fight. This execution.

Sin is a Dreamweaver.

He lied about his power. Time and time again, he concealed the truth from me—wording his answers so carefully, always so carefully. Has he ever told me the truth? I thought I could see past the golden prince, but maybe… maybe I don’t know Sin at all.

“You told me you love me,” I snarl. “Was that true?”

He flinches as a white wolf clamps their jaws around Lord Allard’s middle and dismembers him with swift ferocity. Another beast launches onto Instructor Bhat, and she crashes to the ground with a cry. Sin’s mother dives over the fresh corpse to give chase, and her crown tumbles to the blood-soaked petals. “You know it is,” he says. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

I would do anything to protect you.

“Then let me go.”

He tears his gaze away from the massacre, searching my own. For a second, I think he might do it. I think he might listen. “Please,” I breathe, and I swear I can see him in there. The boy I love is still in there somewhere. Torn with indecision. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. “Please, Sin.”

Despair shifts in his eyes. The scent of it curls around us like smoke.

Then his face darkens. “No.”

My heart doesn’t break this time. It shatters.

Behind him, Lyra screams and flees an enormous wolf, ducking around the statue of a scorpion. Calix tackles the beast before they can touch her. Most of our instructors have fallen now. They’ve been caught off guard. And Oona—I scream too as Instructor Shepherd defends her with Lord Allard’s blade. He keeps her behind his back, but even he cannot battle so many wolves at once. His movements are growing slower with exhaustion. One of them manages to slash open his thigh, and he stumbles into the nearest tree. Leaving Oona vulnerable.

It’s Celeste all over again. Panic claws up my throat.

“Sin, help her! Help them!”

He doesn’t. He doesn’t move. Instead, Calix dives forward, snarling and launching one wolf into the trees before tearing the head from another. A third snaps at his back. My body shakes—quakes with pent-up rage as my heels dig into the earth—but Sin won’t release me from his compulsion. I can’t lift a finger as two more wolves with smoking snouts descend on my oldest friend in this castle and the instructor I disliked the most. Right now, they feel no different. Oona or Shepherd. They will both bleed red.

No no no.

“If you don’t stop this right now,” I tell Sin, chest heaving with the effort to break free from his compulsion, to reach them in time, “I will hate you forever.”

“At least you’ll be alive to hate me.”

The words are too familiar. It can’t be coincidence.

“How long have you been planning this?”

His jaw clenches as he stares at me. He swallows hard. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Vanessa. You—you’ll understand when you learn the truth.” When I shake my head viciously, his hands tighten again. He forces me to look at him. “I am not the villain here. All of this, I did it for—”

“Don’t you dare say me.”

His eyes narrow. “I thought you didn’t want me to lie.”

Visceral hatred pounds through me. It feels like poison. It feels corrosive. It feels different than anything I’ve ever felt—for Calix, for Evie, for the queen and the court. Even for myself. As my classmates fall around me, as I gaze into the eyes of the boy I loved, it changes me.

It devours me.

Through whatever soul connection we share, Sin feels it too. “Don’t do this, Vanessa.” His hands tremble, and his claw tears from his fingers. It pierces my gown, but not my skin. Even now, he wants to protect me, and when he speaks again, his voice hardens. “Listen to me now—hear the truth in my words—I love you. I fucking love you. This court would have torn you to shreds. You weren’t going to survive it. I told you: I would damn it all for you. For you, Vanessa, do you understand me?”

Tears blur my vision, and every word is a truth. Every word hurts. I can feel that sense of calm trying to wash over me, but I reject it. This can’t be for me. And yes, I loved him. I loved him so much it almost broke me. But—

Shepherd rights himself and Oona, pulling her beneath his arm. His gaze darts to the castle. They make a run for it, and my eyes widen as Oona trips. Instructor Shepherd glances back at her in horror. It just takes a second.

“Oona!” I scream, so loud the windows of the castle vibrate. Crack. “No!”

My foot slips forward an inch.

A gray wolf smothers her instantly, and the ground falls out from under me as their fangs sink into her chest. As they crunch through bone and come away with Oona’s heart. Bile rises up my throat. I bury my face in Sin’s chest, unable to watch, and he tries desperately to console me—to make this better—but he can’t make this better. Oona is dead.

She is dead, and her blood weeps into the earth. When I look back again, Instructor Shepherd cradles her body. The same gray wolf rends his head from his neck.

To my left, Katerina tries to flee, but the wolves are too fast. I can only watch as one slams her to the ground, rupturing her into a thousand fissures of skin and blood and bones. The wolf digs through her intestines like a sandbox. Digs and digs until she doesn’t exist anymore.

Myles is next. He dies easier still. Torn to pieces between two wolves.

Calix seizes Portia before they can slaughter her too. Eric isn’t so lucky. He’s taken out with a claw at his throat and another at his back. His spine is pulled from his body, and he crumples before his heart is yanked out. Evie’s screams explode the windows of the castle. Glass sprays over us. Cuts our skin while heartbreak wrecks Evie to the core. I ache to take her hand. To hold her. To be with anyone except Sin.

But Nettie… She hurls herself at a sable wolf and plunges a claw into their chest instead.

“Fuck you!” she yells—a war cry.

“Nettie, stop,” Evie pleads, fighting her compulsion as her spine quivers. “Nettie, come here! Stand down!” The ground rumbles from Evie’s pent-up power, but she can’t break free of the magical binds. Her tears flow faster now.

“What are you doing?” Nettie yells at Evie across the field. She yanks another heart from another wolf, the organ still beating and impaled on her claw. Dead bodies scatter the ground. Everywhere. Blood everywhere. “Help me!” Her golden eyes implore Evie to move, to fight, before flicking to me and Sin. “What the fuck is going on? Why are you all just standing—”

One of the wolves leaps—ignoring Evie’s shriek of rage, of fear—and latches onto Antionette between one word and the next. Her body jerks. She twists, spins, but Nettie doesn’t stand a chance. Not as another wolf piles on, and another and another, until her body vanishes from sight. I still see the second her soul leaves it, however, because Evie’s mouth falls open on a silent sob. As with Katerina, Nettie is simply… gone.

Dead.

A dam bursts inside my chest, a torrent of grief—of agony—at the sight of the carnage around us. At the feel of Sin’s traitorous arms around me. They still form a cage. His words form a cage. Just don’t fight. And I haven’t. I’ve worn their stupid fucking gowns, and I’ve attended their stupid fucking balls, and I’ve played the part of their pathetic docile Bitten werewolf until it’s almost killed me. Until it has killed them—all of them. Friends. Enemies. They lie on the forest floor, strewn together, red. Everything red. And I can’t take it anymore. I can’t remain frozen.

I won’t.

Glancing down at my foot, I realize the cage containing me—containing my power—has begun to crack, and my rage… my rage is the wrecking ball. “This—this is your fault,” I snarl at Sin, whose brow furrows in alarm.

And I shove him.

I shove him hard enough that he stumbles backward, but I don’t give him the chance to speak. I whirl to help the others—the survivors. Calix. Portia. Lyra. The queen. Though they still attempt to fight, the wolves are slowly forcing them into the middle of the clearing. Their eyes cut to mine as I charge forward to take my place amongst my court.

“Vanessa!” Sin’s voice rings out behind me. “You don’t understand—”

“Liar,” I hiss through my teeth. Because I do understand. I know exactly who to blame. Calix meets my eyes, and he seems to understand too—his gold gaze bleeds to furious red, and this time, it stays that way.

Alpha.

The realization shudders through me. Of course he is. The wolf who killed Celeste had red eyes. His eyes. He must’ve hidden them somehow. But… it all seems so insignificant now as Queen Sybil raises her clawed hands in confusion. In surrender. Her hair blows over her eyes, and sweat and blood plaster the black strands to her forehead. To her nose. She looks like a ship battered by a wave. Disheveled and broken. Anger still sharpens her voice as she tries to stride toward Sin. When the wolves block her path, snarling, suspicion dawns in her obsidian eyes. “Sinclair, son—”

“Don’t call him that.” A woman emerges from the trees, and the pack of vicious wolves lowers onto their haunches. They bow.

My heart finally stutters to a halt.

This woman looks similar to the queen, her chiseled features emphasized by a familiar shrewd scowl, but more than that… I know her. My vision narrows on her familiar face, and my head—searing pain spikes through it. I nearly double over from the shock, but Calix steadies me with his free hand.

Those dark gray eyes track the movement, swirling as riotous as any storm in the Atlantic.

The woman picks up a forgotten crown from beside a mangled corpse—Eric’s, I realize—and sets it atop her head. Stretches her neck as if to adjust to its immense weight before finding me again. She grins, revealing sharp white fangs.

The woman from the dungeon.

She isn’t human, though, isn’t some poor victim tortured by the queen, because Sinclair Severi meets her gaze reluctantly and walks toward me as he says, “Hello, Mother.”

46

Mother?” I echo.

Confusion barrels through me. A freight train smashing through my body and mind, demolishing what remains.

Mother…

That’s not possible. Sinclair is the son of Queen Sybil Severi. He… he’s…

A liar, my bones shriek. Ever since he bit me, he’s been nothing but a liar and a traitor.

Yet, even as I think it, it doesn’t feel fair. He protected me. He cared for me. I glance at him—the boy who almost became my fiancé—and he frowns in response.

“You couldn’t know yet.” He approaches slowly. Warily. The wolves part for him without hesitation. “I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know everything, but… she said you weren’t ready for it.”

“She being his mother,” the woman says, making her way toward us in a cotton sweater and jeans. The modern clothes oppose the crown and the regal way she carries herself. It almost paints a less dangerous picture until she licks her fangs. “Hello, Vanessa, darling. My name is Cora Severi. It is so lovely to see you again.”

No.

Cora Severi.

Oh god, no.

I swallow a wave of sick. The blood traitor. Calix’s mother. I glance at Calix with wide eyes. His arms fall limp, and without him to keep her standing, Portia collapses in the mud and blood. Carnage splatters her hands and soils her gauzy white dress as she sits in it, shaking. Calix doesn’t notice her terror. He doesn’t notice anything else but the woman—Cora, his mother.

“Mom?” he asks, his voice breaking on the word, betraying almost two decades of pain and trauma.

Cora laughs, however, a bark so devoid of humor—of emotion—it sounds entirely inhuman. “No.” She glances at Queen Sybil and says, “Do you want to tell them, Sister? Or shall I?”

“No,” Sybil spits. “You are dead. I left you to die.”

Sin snaps his head toward her, and a growl reverberates through him.

Cora grins at this, a sign of his obvious loyalty and unwavering obedience, and my heart sinks. Oh, Sin. I want to throttle him. I want to hurt him.

“You left me, yes, but I did not die. Do you think your betrayal was unexpected? You’ve been lusting after my crown from the moment you realized what being younger meant for you. Sybil the Spare.” Cora’s eyes darken. “I knew when I found a small glimmer of happiness that you would steal it from me.”

Sybil’s lip curls back, revealing two sharp fangs dripping with blood. “You stole it from yourself. You killed your lover.”

“I couldn’t give a fuck about my human lover. He was nothing to me,” Cora snarls. Lie, I think as hot magma engulfs my heart. She’s lying. But her eyes are hollow, totally void of any regret or grief. Her nostrils flare. “You cast me out, assuming you could force me to become a Lone Wolf, but I did not.” Cora raises her hands as if she’s conducting a great symphony, and her strange pack rises. Now that the battle has diminished, I see more of their transformation incongruities. Mismatched limbs. Crooked fingers instead of claws. Shriveled, gnarled spines. They’re… morphed. Caught between man and monster. “I merely created a family who would not abandon me.”

I gasp.

The Bitten humans—Celeste.

Cora did it. She bit them. She bit all of them. My eyes flick from the pack of wolves back to Cora’s venomous scowl, and suddenly the lack of humanity makes sense. She sacrificed her soul.

“Sin,” I whisper, the words spilling from numb lips, “what have you done?”

Instead of answering, he extends an anguished hand toward me, fear washing over him. True, palpable terror at his own actions. But Cora strolls over to us and swats away that hand, pulling him toward her. “Son,” she says. “You did it.”

The melodic adoration is a lie, however, even if her words are not. I can feel it.

She cups his face and presses a maternal kiss to his cheeks. “I am so proud of you.”

“It… it wasn’t meant to be this way,” he repeats, ripping himself from her grasp. He stumbles back to my side, and Cora tracks the movement. Our closeness. Her gaze narrows, and she licks her lips before forcing another grin.

“They did not surrender,” Cora says simply. “That was their choice.”

Sybil shoves past the strange wolves, hurling one away from her with remarkable strength while the rest remain frozen in silent observation. Cora commands them not to attack, even as her sister walks up with her claws drawn, sliding in front of Sin as if to protect him. “There was no way for you to know,” Sybil says, colder than ever before. “There was no way for you to know about the babies.”

The babies.

Sin tenses beside me. And Calix—his chest heaves. His knuckles crack, but he resists the change, his eyes rapt on Cora’s and Sybil’s faces.

Cora raises a brow. “You think I would not know my own child from the other? You think I would disregard my own blood and bone like you have done?” Cora steps up to Sybil—they’re the same height. The same shade of pale rage. Neither backs down, and it’s like standing in the midst of a minefield, waiting for the impending explosion. Because it is going to come. This isn’t over. The battle… the ambush… It wasn’t the end. I want to take Sin’s hand; I need his reassurance the way I need air, but… he’s not my Sin anymore. He can’t reassure me now.

“What are you talking about?” Calix turns to his cousin, stricken. Shaking his head as if to clear it. “What does my mother—what does she mean? What the fuck is going on here?”

Cora glances behind Sybil, in time to see Calix storm past the wolves. Portia stays crouching in the mud, and Lyra joins her there. Evie remains compelled outside the circle. The wolves don’t care about the girls, though. They watch Calix, their necks craning to follow his stiff movements. Cora glowers at him, even as Sin reaches out to his cousin. “Calix—”

Calix snaps his arm away from the prince’s grasp. And then—his gaze collides with mine. It softens. “You weren’t involved?” he asks. I manage to shake my head, and he looks to Evie next. “You?” he asks her, and she blinks tearfully.

“I didn’t… I didn’t want to,” she sputters. I’ve never heard Evie sound so undone before. “Cora snatched me on the beach. She brought me back to a dark cave, and she—she compelled me.” Evie’s red-hot eyes flick to mine, and fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “I couldn’t say anything. But…” She shivers against the compulsion now. “She promised. She promised they wouldn’t be hurt.”

Calix curses.

“I swore to save those who surrendered,” Cora says, shrugging and gesturing to the few survivors, “and I have kept my word, have I not?”

Evie snarls, and I—I can’t stay silent another second. “They died. They all died.”

Cora pivots slowly, tilting her head as she studies me intently. Her eyes rove from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, and something—hungry shifts within them. I’ve seen the same look in Sybil’s eyes a million times. “And yet… you remain alive.” She waves a magnanimous hand. “A gift from yours truly.”

The hair on my neck lifts, despite how Sin laces his fingers through mine and squeezes. I can’t look at him. I never want to look at him again. How could he be so stupid?

As if sharing the same thought, Calix glares between his aunt and cousin. “Explain yourselves,” he growls.

The wolf nearest him moves closer, hackles raised. Their back left leg is missing.

Cora glides forward to pat his cheek. “I would watch your tone if I were you.”

“I’m terrified,” he deadpans, and I can practically see his defenses rising. Sin’s betrayal—and Cora’s and Sybil’s—surprised him, but he won’t let them have the upper hand again. He won’t let them see his hurt.

Her nails curl into his cheek. “You think you’re so brave, don’t you, Calix? So strong. You’re a general. A Protector. You fought for a queen who refused to acknowledge your existence. You defended a prince who has everything you’ve ever wanted.” Her eyes flick to me with a knowing gleam, but that—that isn’t possible. She can’t know. She returns her attention to Calix, who looks as if he’s turned to stone. “You’ve poured every bit of your soul into this court, and how did they repay you? Oh wait—they didn’t want you either.” Blood wells beneath her fingers now, but Calix refuses to flinch. To blink. She smiles—sharp and white and cruel. “You are so like your father.”

Then she shoves his face away, and he yields a single step. “You’ll die like him too,” she says flatly. At the agitated look on Sin’s face, however, she sighs. “But for my son’s sake, I’ll indulge you.”

We all wait on bated breath as she straightens her crown, smooths her hair.

“For fuck’s sake, Mother,” Sin snaps.

“Your mother,” she says to Calix without missing a beat, “switched our babies upon the birth of Sinclair. As per our bargain, I brought him to Castle Severi on the morning of his delivery, and Sybil took him in. She saw the deep red of his eyes and immediately realized his strength would be a threat to her and her rule.” She clasps her hands behind her back, nudging aside Katerina’s body to stroll around the circle. “All the while, she was nursing her own son. A boy born frail and feeble, months premature, with the yellow eyes of a Beta.”

Cora’s gray eyes deepen as she speaks, further and further, until they begin to bleed black. “She switched you. My true son is Sinclair Severi. You are Sybil’s true son. You have both been lied to for your entire lives, all because my sister couldn’t bear for her reign to end due to a Beta’s innate weakness.” Cora waves a hand to Calix as if congratulating him. “She was wrong, of course. She’s never believed that eyes can change. I’ve seen it for myself, however. When a queen ascends to power, her eyes blacken. And when a queen is forsaken”—her voice sharpens—“they become darkest gray. There isn’t a queen in history who has ever given birth to anything but an Alpha.”

Calix blinks his molten red eyes, and Sybil recoils, dropping her gaze as if unable to look at him. As if she—fears him. Her son.

Calix is her son. I let her words wash over me, hardly able to believe them, but… they’re true. Every word is true. If not for Sin’s hand in mine, I’d stagger backward. Because that means—

Calix is the Crown Prince of the Wolf Queen’s Court.

He doesn’t seem to be breathing.

Sin’s pulse spikes, however, and he clenches his jaw as if he wants to speak. And suddenly I understand—Sybil betrayed him too. The woman he thought was his mother. His life, his crown, his title—they’ve all been a lie. I gape between him and Calix before turning toward the two sisters who have held the fate of this continent in their very hands for decades. Calix is not the traitor’s son. Sin is… and he…

“Why would you do this?” Sybil speaks tightly—her face white with fury—staring at Sin as if she’d never seen him before. I empathize. “I raised you as if you were my own. I gave you everything—”

“And you could have taken it all away,” he explodes, unable to stand silent any longer. The anger rippling off him is like nothing I’ve ever felt. This is no longer the haughty and indifferent facade he’s worn so often in court. It’s not the boy who told jokes and made me laugh with his cousin, or the boy who held me tight and kept me safe behind closed doors. “At any time, if I ever failed you, you could’ve cast me aside—just like you did your own sister. Just like you did your own son.” He gestures wildly to Cora and Calix in turn. “You ruined Calix’s life. Just look at him.” His eyes blaze. “I mean it. Fucking look at him, Sybil.”

Her entire body trembles as if she might charge him. She still doesn’t look at Calix, however. “You cannot compel a queen,” she seethes.

He sneers at her. “You can’t do it, can you? All this time, he’s grown up right here, under your nose, and you’ve treated him like shit because of your own guilty conscience. It wasn’t enough to make you do better, though. You let him believe he killed his own father.”

He shakes his head in disgust. In disdain. “You’ve never loved anyone. Not even me—don’t try to deny it. Everyone is disposable. Everything you’ve done has been for you. For your power. For this corrupt fucking kingdom. I am sick of your lies and torment.”

“And you’re not queen anymore,” Cora adds sweetly. “The time has come, dear sister, to answer for your crimes.” She jerks her chin, and the wolves press closer. Saliva drips from their fangs. Then she stops. Turns. “Wait—I’m being rude. Sin, darling?” She crosses the circle to seize his hands, forcing him to drop mine. “Would you like to do the honors?”

He frowns in confusion. “But we discussed this. We’re—we’re casting her out, not killing her. She deserves the fate she gave you.”

“And allow her to escape it too? I don’t think so.” This close, I can scent the rot in her heart. She smells like death. “Trust me, Sin,” she croons, and widens her arms to encompass Calix too. “This is the only path forward for our family.”

“You’re full of shit,” Calix says.

“Oh? Does this mean you don’t want the honors either?”

When Calix bares his fangs, I glance at Sybil, who glares back. Unrepentant. “What about you, Vanessa?” Cora murmurs. She stands directly in front of me now, and my chest constricts as she touches my hair. “The Severi boys aren’t the only victims of my sister’s treachery. Shall you kill her, or shall I?”

I jerk my head away. “The queen didn’t kill all these people.”

Behind us, Evie lifts her face. Portia and Lyra have joined her. They wrap their arms around her shoulders. Cora’s smile hardens. “When a wolf is cornered, it has no choice but to bite.” Then, softer still, “I’ve tasted your rage, Vanessa. It would be easy for you to kill her. You might even enjoy it.”

And those eyes—I’ve seen those eyes before. They feel familiar in a way I can’t explain, as if they’ve peered into my very soul. I repress a shiver. Dread curls up my spine. “Like you?”

She stares at me for another long moment before turning away.

“Fair enough.”

When she approaches her sister, neither one of them cowers. Sybil even lifts her chin. “This court functions as one part of a whole, and you have wrecked it. Just what do you believe you’ll lead? The ruins?” She gestures to Queen Jae, to King Zhiyu and Prince Eric. “The other six courts won’t let you get away with murdering regents. There are rules, Cora, that you continue to break. You won’t escape their payment forever.”

Cora snarls directly in her face. “They couldn’t escape mine. They betrayed me. They stole my crown, they stole my sister, and they turned you against me—all so you could sit on my throne.” She thrusts her arms outward, gesturing to her Bitten wolves, who hang on her every word. “Let them come. Let the courts try to steal it again. I assure you, I will be ready. The strongest always survives.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Once sisters, now enemies.

No one in the forest seems to breathe; there is only one ending. As if sensing the same, Sybil extends her neck.

“Do it, then.” No fear touches her scent. Just anger—at Sin’s betrayal, at her crown on Cora’s head, at the slaughtered court around us. She has nothing left. Maybe Sin was right; maybe she never loved anything at all, or maybe she’s too proud to show us now.

Like Calix, she’ll never show a sign of weakness.

“No, no,” Cora says. “That’s too good for you. You’ll die just like everyone else.”

Sin takes a step forward. “Mother—”

Without another word, her wolves attack, and Sybil Severi hits the ground with a mundane thud. Her body broken. Her blood red.

Just like everyone else.

A sob lodges in my throat—not for the queen, but for all the dead around us. For Calix. For Sin. For Evie and Portia and Lyra. It’s futile. We have nothing left either. We are outnumbered, surrounded, without a hope.

“Don’t look so glum, darling.” Supremely satisfied, Cora crouches to pet one of her wolves. “If you knew the torture we’ve all been subjected to, living in this certifiable asylum our entire lives, perhaps you’d come to understand our purpose.”

“I’ve lived here too.” At her casual tone, rage seeps further through the hollows of my grief. “But I would never partake in a massacre—”

Cora laughs again, and the sound daggers into my chest. “Vanessa, honey, don’t you see? You did partake. Without you, I wouldn’t have gleaned half the information I required to lay my siege.” And then she flattens me. Twists the dagger and bleeds me out in front of the remaining court. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you had so many nightmares? I’ll admit. It was impressive to watch you fight them. You would notice the little inconsistencies, but you never quite had the capability to overcome them. My son is very strong.”

I blink at her. “Wh-what?” Then I whirl to face Sin before she can answer, my heart pounding. “What is she talking about?”

Haven’t you ever wondered why you had so many nightmares?

“It was the only way.” He moves to grab my wrist, to pull me closer, but I leap away from him, crashing into Calix, who catches me with a hand on my back. “You… Vanessa, you had to know. About this court. About the queen. You needed to be aware of the dangers, but I couldn’t talk to you publicly. I could hardly be seen with you.” Then, lower, softer, “I’m sorry.”

His words, his tone, they slice to the bone.

“What are you talking about, Sin?” My chest heaves, and my voice rises. He’s looking at me as if I should empathize—as if I should forgive him—but I… I can’t.

It was impressive to watch you fight them.

I understand. Before they can explain it to me, before they can say the word, the realization has started to form. Dreamweaver.

My power is the same as my mother’s.

That puzzle—the one I’ve been trying to put together for months now—finally clicks into place. All along the piece I was missing… was Sinclair.

“Y-you planted dreams in my brain?” I ask in horror.

“I needed you to hate them as much as I hated them. I couldn’t tell you everything—not about my mother’s survival or about my birth—but those dreams I showed you weren’t wholly lies, Vanessa. This court has been capable of so much worse. Just look at what has already happened.” He gestures to the sunburst scar on my hand. “I never hurt you like they did. The blood, the explosion… it was all a dream. You were never in any danger from me. I was just trying to protect you, and I still am.”

My blood freezes in my veins, and my hands instinctively clench into fists. The threats hadn’t been Evie. The blood, the mirror… Every single one happened right when I’d woken up—when I thought I’d woken up. And the dungeon. The stupid fucking dungeon with its false doorway and its cages and the human prisoners who weren’t prisoners at all. Who… who might not have even existed. It rushes through me in a blast of heat. A blast of lies.

“You… you’re a liar,” I hiss, stepping back to Calix’s side. His hand remains, a touchstone to the present, the only thing anchoring me to this moment. “How? How could you do this to me?”

“He already told you”—Cora rises at last after wiping blood from the mangled wolf’s lip—“we needed you, and you are magnificent, darling. Our dearest Bitten, transformed through my son’s own soul, with a gift more deadly than you yet realize—with powers more deadly. Those purple eyes aren’t purely aesthetic, darling. You broke an Alpha’s compulsion. If my sister had been a more competent leader, she would have used you, honed you. Of course, under my tutelage—”

Tears burn my eyes until her hateful face blurs. “I would rather die.”

“Don’t be a hero, darling.” She waves a clawed hand at the bodies littering the forest, stepping over Eric’s spine. “They’re vastly overrated.” Evie sobs, and at the sound of it, Cora frowns, as if in confusion. “Why are you still sniveling? Move, Princess, and join your pack.”

Evie’s knees collapse as her compulsion finally breaks.

And—because I can’t do anything else, can’t escape this waking nightmare—I turn my back on Cora and Sin, stalking over to her. I help Portia and Lyra lift her to her feet, checking each of them for injury. Though Evie weeps silently, the rest seem unharmed. “Are you okay?” I whisper to them.

“You ask all the wrong questions, you know,” Lyra whispers right back. Repeating the words she said in the lagoon. In the dream. “You miss all the answers even as they’re in front of you”—a pause—“but the universe spins along as it should.”

Cora’s gaze fixes on the Oracle now, and I resist the urge to step in front of her. To shield her. “Aren’t you a precious thing?” Cora touches the tip of her fang in contemplation, and blood wells from the wound on her finger. It heals twice as fast as anything I’ve seen before. “Our latest Oracle. Tell me, have you predicted this great victory?”

Lyra inclines her head, her voice a strange mixture of ethereal and guttural. “I have known this day would come since the stars chose me to speak for them. I have seen all that you will do, Cora Severi, just as the Oracle before me knew the same, and the one before that.”

“Cute.” Cora prowls forward to tip Lyra’s head backward, a claw nearly slicing across Lyra’s throat as she examines the prophetess. “Then you must have seen what comes next.”

Lyra smiles sweetly, and her sapphire eyes gleam with knowledge. It feels ominous. Like a threat. “The Ascension must be completed.”

“No.” Cora releases her with a sinister smile. “I do not obey the stars anymore; the stars obey me.”

A beat of silence descends at her words.

Cora seems to relish it—she relishes how Evie cannot tear her gaze away from Nettie, how Portia drops to her knees beside a man with flowers in his hair. How Lyra looks past us all to the dawn, while Calix and Sin stare at each other. Neither willing to move. Neither willing to speak.

Our hope is gone because of her. She stole it from us. Isolated us. We have nowhere to go except to her. To this castle of bones she has built on a landslide of blood-soaked lies.

“Swear your allegiances to this court,” she says, extending her arms, “to me as your queen and my son as your Alpha. Forsake those you lost, and prosper in our new reign.”

The wolves around us begin to paw at the earth with restless energy. Their howls echo through the forest as the sun creeps over the trees. It casts brutal light on what happened here. There is no hiding from it. There is no running.

Together, our gazes rise to Cora.

And instinctively, I know they’re feeling the same. Evie, Portia, Lyra, even Calix—in this moment, we are one. Our pasts no longer exist. There is only our future. We are still surrounded. We are still outnumbered. We have no other choice.

Except—we do. There is always a choice, and I am making this one. I will not cower. I will not be afraid.

When I look at Calix, he looks back at me. In his bloodred eyes, I see the same fire of vengeance igniting. Sinclair manipulated me, he used me, he lied to me—to all of us—and now I’m going to do the same to him. I’m going to make him regret the day he turned me into this monster. Calix and I will reclaim the castle. We will reclaim our futures.

We will kill them both.

“Vanessa,” Sin murmurs, holding out a hand. His brow furrows just slightly—just enough to betray his hesitation. He glances at Calix, and his frown deepens. “Come here. Please, come here.”

So I do. Repressing a smile, I approach him and his mother. I take his hand, and I entwine my fingers through his. “I will align with you, Cora Severi. I swear my allegiance to your court, with you as my queen.”

Beside me, Sin visibly relaxes. He presses his forehead to mine with a sigh of relief. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.” His lips brush my hair, and I want to recoil. But I don’t. “I love you, Vanessa.”

I gaze up at him as the wolves finish howling, as the sun breaks across the clearing, and lay a soft palm on his chest. His heart beats gently against me. It reminds me that he can be broken.

“I love you too, Sin.”

Just as he taught me, I lie.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It’s strange writing this. For twelve years, I tried so hard to publish a book, and for twelve years, it seemed that I would not only never fulfill my dream but also never be able to publicly express gratitude to the people who helped me along the way. Not until this moment. There are so many of you to thank, friends and family who pulled me from the despair of rejection after rejection, who read manuscript after manuscript, who kept telling me I’m good enough, I’ll get there. And now we’re here. Together. None of this would have been possible without you.

Jordan, what can I say about the man I’ve shared half my life with? We’ve grown from teenagers to adults; we’ve seen each other at our worsts and bests, and you have not only stayed but worked so hard for us—for our family—every step of the way. Two years ago, you could hardly boil pasta without burning the pot and ruining dinner. The day I began working toward my first deadline, you learned how to cook and made delicious dinners nightly, all while balancing your own two jobs. Thank you. Thank you for reading my first manuscript, and thank you for reading this newest one. Thank you for wiping away my tears after those thousand rejections and vowing that they wouldn’t be the end of my career. Thank you for believing in me when I couldn’t believe in myself. It’s been a long, hard road, but it was always easier with you by my side.

London, I hope this book embarrasses you greatly. The amount of kissing contained in its pages will truly horrify you—but I know you’ll tell me you’re proud of me anyway. Thank you for being such a kind, compassionate kid. Thank you for having grace whenever work ran late, or when I was tired or sick. But most of all, thank you for inspiring me. Your imagination and creativity are just two of the many wonderful things about you. I hope you hold on to them forever. I hope you chase your dreams.

Dad, Nanny, and Grandpa, thank you for taking me to the library so much in my youth. My love of reading started with the three of you, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without it—this book wouldn’t exist without you. Scott, every single book I checked out from the library, you read. From Hush, Hush to The Mortal Instruments to the Gallagher Girls. Thank you for teaching me to love what I love without guilt. Aunt Heather and Uncle Nelson, thank you for being the first people to celebrate every win. Bella, thank you for being my muse, for keeping me fun, and for being such a thoughtful, sweet young woman. Wendy, thank you for being another mother to me, and for taking me in when you didn’t have to. Chloe, thank you for Disney trips, beach adventures, and getting lost with me. You’re a true sister.

Abigail Carlson, thank you for the FaceTime calls, for the TikTok streaks, for the professional makeup applications, advice, and constant laughter. You make my world a much brighter place, and I can’t wait to see everything you accomplish. You are so enormously talented, and your writing is ultracompelling. Lindsay Bilgram, you were my first friend in the writing community, and I couldn’t have made a better one. I don’t know how I ever lived without you. Thank you for reading my worst manuscripts and telling me you loved them; thank you for long talks on my freezing couch, for trusting me with your own words, and for showing up whenever I need you. You are so insanely talented, and your prose is a work of art. My friends, I love you both dearly, and I can’t wait to be in both your acknowledgments someday.

Thank you to Sasha Peyton Smith, Isabel Ibañez, Rebecca Ross, and Adalyn Grace for being extremely wise and the most giving. Publishing would’ve been impossible without your guidance. Thank you for being role models in every way. Maggie Rapier, thank you for the long voice messages, the beautiful letters, and for being the best debut buddy around. Your generosity knows no bounds. Diya Mishra, thank you for the phone calls, for checking up on me, and for being exceedingly thoughtful. You’re a gold-standard friend. Isabella Ogbolumani, thank you for your never-ending belief, support, and friendship. Meghan Bridge, thank you for being a dear friend, and for loving Mila as much as I did. Destiny Murtaugh, thank you for years of friendship, support, and hilarious TikTok edits. Élise LB, thank you for your internet savvy and kindness. Valerie Brizinskaya, thank you for the breathtaking art and love. J. Elle, thank you for being Bitten’s first true reader, and for making my dreams come true. And thank you, of course, to Stephanie Garber, who is my favorite author first and foremost, who inspired me to keep going whenever I wanted to give up, and who was kind, helpful, and so gracious throughout my entire journey to publication. They say never meet your heroes, but I am forever glad I met you.

Thank you especially to Emily Sylvan Kim, my wonderful agent who took a chance on me when no one else did. Emily, you are tremendously lovely to work with, and you made this process so much more fun than I imagined it could be. Thank you, a million times over, for being a warrior every single day. You are the greatest.

Thank you to my fantastic team at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers! I cannot believe I am at such a magical publishing house, but I owe it all to Ruqayyah Daud, my fantastic editor, who never gave up on me. Ruqayyah, you are wildly intelligent and positively hilarious with the keenest eye for story. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you’ve done and continue to do. You are my publishing fairy godmother. Thank you also to Alvina Ling, Jackie Engel, and Megan Tingley—it’s an honor to work with such seasoned professionals who’re behind some of my favorite novels. Thank you also to Hannah Klein—my incredible publicist—and Bill Grace, Andie Divelbiss, and Savannah Kennelly—experts at marketing. Even more gratitude to Victoria Stapleton, Danielle Cantarella, Lindsay Walter-Greaney, Elizabeth Starr Baer, and Martina Rethman, as well as to my glorious cover designers, Sasha Illingworth and Patrick Hulse. Thank you to my amazing cover artist, Katt Phatt—you made my fantasies a reality, and I couldn’t be more appreciative. And a huge thank-you to Molly Powell at Hodderscape. I am blown away by everything all of you, across the world, have done for me and for this book. When I first received word that Bitten would be going global, I fell to my knees crying on my front porch. It’s one of my fondest memories.

Thank you to Team Werewolf for going above and beyond—the community we built will always hold a special place in my heart; you are the backbone of this book—and to my Instagram friends who boosted every post, cheered me on in my DMs, and gave me a soft place to land after every fall. I love you all. You didn’t have to take a chance on me, but you did.

A massive, incredibly ginormous, very loud THANK-YOU to Shelby Mahurin, my best friend, my better half, my soulmate. It’s my turn to finally write you an acknowledgment. You made me laugh when all I could do was cry. You made me smile when all I could do was frown. You held my hand through the very worst of life and never once thought about dropping it. Most of all, you inspired me to keep going. Thank you. Every single word I write is for you. Every trope, every joke, every kiss—it’s all for you. Thank you for being my critique partner. Thank you for being my life partner. You always knew you’d be reading this one day, and I hate to say you were right. But you were. About everything. I love you.

And finally, thank you to the girls who came before Vanessa: Summer, Rebecca, Shayler, Lily, Alessa, Semira, Kalei, Sofia, Rose, Hazel, Ivy, Harpy, and Mila. This book only exists because you existed first. Thank you for everything you gave me. I’ll never forget you.

Discover Your Next Great Read

Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors.

Tap here to learn more.

Love YA? Join NOVL Nation:

theNOVL.com/enewsletter

Booked all week.

theNOVL.com

Instagram.com/TheNovl

TikTok.com/@TheNovl

X.com/theNOVL

Facebook.com/TheNovl

Author photo by Shelby Mahurin

JORDAN STEPHANIE GRAY
is a longtime daydreamer and writer of the fantastical and romantic. In her free time, she can be found curled up with her pugs and under a pile of discarded knitting needles, paint sets, bakeware, gardening gloves, and more from the graveyard of hobbies that seemed fun but turned out to be near impossible for her to master. She also enjoys teasing her middle schooler about how much kissing is in her books (a lot). Bitten is her debut novel. Jordan invites you to visit her at jordanstephaniegray.com.

PRAISE FOR BITTEN

“Luminous and exhilarating…Bitten casts a spell with the first page. Full of all my favorite things—a heroine I would fight for, a world brimming with magic, and a romance that sizzles—this book will sink its teeth into you”

—REBECCA ROSS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divine Rivals

“A deliciously dark and viciously sexy romance. You will want to devour Jordan Gray’s stunning paranormal debut. But beware—this book bites back.”

—STEPHANIE GARBER, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy

“An enchanting start to your newest fantasy addiction. Get ready to sink your fangs into a debut that’s as alluring as it is cutting, full of deadly magic, betrayal, and characters that bite. Readers will have a howling good time.”

—ADALYN GRACE, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Belladonna series

“A wonderfully imaginative tale of cutthroat politics and deadly romance revels in its nostalgic evocations of classic paranormal YA. Packed with suspense, intrigue, humor, and heart, Bitten is destined to be a beloved YA classic.”

—AVA REID, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning

“Darkly alluring with a forbidden romance, Bitten is a captivating read, perfect for anyone who loves their stories with banter, bite, and a brooding hero.”

—ISABEL IBAÑEZ, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Secrets of the Nile duology

“A dark and sexy romance. Jordan Gray weaves a vicious yet whimsical world filled with vibrant characters, knife-sharp banter, and deadly secrets. An explosive start to an addictive new series!”

—SHELBY MAHURIN, New York Times bestselling author of the Serpent & Dove trilogy

“Pulse-pounding, nail (claw)-biting, violent, and passionate, Bitten is a thrill ride!”

—SARAH BETH DURST, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

“A delectable and dark paranormal escape, Bitten captivates with deadly court politics, scorching-hot romance, and breathtaking twists that leave you craving more. Meet your newest obsession.”

—KATHERINE QUINN, New York Times bestselling author of To Kill A Shadow

“With its propulsive writing and compelling romance, Bitten is reminiscent of the sort of young adult fantasy that made me fall in love with reading. Fans of the romantasy genre will eat up every brooding, bloody bite.”

—KELLY ANDREW, New York Times bestselling author of Your Blood, My Bones

“Bitten is a deliciously romantic masterclass in escapist fantasy and angst. Prepare to be obsessed.”

—J. ELLE, New York Times bestselling author of House of Marionne series

“Bitten is absolutely addictive, with forbidden romance, twisty intrigue, and a nostalgic paranormal flair that romance fans will love.”

—HANNAH WHITTEN, bestselling author of the Wilderwood duology

“Debut author Gray whisks the reader into a world of werewolves that is as dazzling as it is deadly. With court intrigue, betrayal, and plenty of romance, Bitten is a book to be devoured.”

—RACHEL GRIFFIN, New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches

“At once ruthless and sparkling, readers will find swoony romance, heart-stopping action, and a heroine worth rooting for. I was up well into the night, completely unable to put it down.”

—SASHA PEYTON SMITH, New York Times bestselling author of The Witch Haven series

“A ferociously romantic debut steeped in raw grief and unapologetic rage, Bitten will devour your heart and linger in the space left behind.”

—MAGGIE RAPIER, author of Soulgazer

“Magical, dangerous, and romantic. The world is thoughtfully crafted, the characters relatable and intriguingly layered.”

—M. K. LOBB, author of the Seven Faceless Saints duology

“In a whirlwind of magic and mystery, Bitten is a dazzling foray into the dangerous world of wolves. A novel like this comes once in a blood moon.”

—RACHEL MOORE, author of Us in Ruins and The Library of Shadows

“The werewolves are back, and we are here for it! Gray has woven together a story full of fangs, romance, and a fierce heroine looking for vengeance.”

—ZOULFA KATOUH, bestselling and award-winning author of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow