BILLIE“Cabin”, he called it.Try “rustic mansion.”This huge building on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean could be called nothing else.Twelve bedrooms. It has twelve bedrooms. A billiard/games room with a pool table, a chess board already set up, and table tennis. A theater room. A library with two levels. An indoor spa with a jacuzzi big enough for all of us. A formal dining room, and a breakfast room. And a big, beautiful room filled with soft fabrics, soothing colors, cushions, weighted blankets, and the biggest bed I'd ever seen, round, right in the middle and low to the floor. I asked Fleming about the mystery room.“It’s a nesting room. If you're a group with an omega, it's comforting to nest in a big pile with soft blankets and just commune with each other.”“We've never done it,” Tristan says, “But I've seen the tendency in you to nest down into a spot on the couch or in Thorne’s sensory room. It's an Omega trait that may not be getting met for you.”It all looked so
TRISTANSpring Break couldn't have better timing. The Administration simply closed up early and called it “safety reasons”. As usual, they were being vague with our security. Sometimes I think the Administration is just smart enough to know no one can really control a large group of werewolves on the top end of adolescence, but at least they make a good show of trying.Now if only we didn't have to wait for the Full Moon to take any meaningful action. My father and his friends did what they could, but President Spader was adamant it was a freedom of speech issue. There was a meeting on the books to hold a vote of no confidence…after the Spring Break. In the meantime, the Board could do nothing. Also in the meantime, Billie is coming back into heat. The symptoms are so obvious (trembling, sweating, flushed skin) that Enid asked her if she would like a natural heat suppressant for her comfort. She said no before I could run my stupid mouth. Heat suppression, natural or not, can mess wi
BILLIELater that night, I wake up in bed to a very strange feeling that I'm being called. It’s after midnight, Tristan is on patrol. Sophie and Rachel are sound asleep here with me. I cautiously walk out into the hall, feeling eerily half awake.“Billie, go to the common room and open the laptop,” I hear very distinctly, but no one is there. I do as the voice says. As I open the laptop, Agnes pops up on screen. “Good,” she says. “We have a strong mindlink. Are you alone, Billie?”“Yes. What's happening?”“We just need to know if what’s happening to you–your situation–is completely consensual. That's a lot of werewolves for one Omega.”“It’s not like that. Tristan and I are fated mates. I became their Omega for protection, and they don’t normally…I mean, the orgy thing isn't our scene. Exactly. But to answer your question, yes, I'm here of my own free will, no one’s coerced me.”She nods to herself. “I thought as much, with as strong an aura as yours, but we had to check. We offer sa
BILLIEWe decide to set up in Tristan’s dark, red-walled, leather and wood-filled study. Books cover almost every surface. Security footage of the Rock House plays on a screen. There's a fireplace and leather chairs.We've maneuvered chairs until we're happy with the seating, and Dom, Fleming, Phantom, Tristan, and I–Sophie and Rachel off-camera with Raven and Thorne and sworn to silence–pile into them, the shortest–me–in front.On the screen in front of us, two honest-to-the-moon-goddess witches with oddly stylish small pointy black hats pinned to their hair sit in front of what looks like a bajillion exotic plants. The brunette one wears thick black cat's eye glasses and a black turtleneck dress and matching sweater with buttons down the front. The redhead wears a black and gray tweed capelet with a gray blouse and a black pencil skirt, with a watch pinned to the capelet which she immediately looks at when we sit down.“On time, good sign,” she states. “I'm Enid. This is Agnes. We a
BILLIE The afternoon of the flyers, and all the next day, Tristan and Dominic are in constant contact with their fathers, who in turn are in and out of meetings. They're alumni, major donors, and on the board of regents for the school, so they decide if President Spader is doing his job. The word is that he had a meeting with Hyde, Lunacy, and their sympathizers to “have a dialogue”, and that's not going well with the board. The board wants all anti-human hate stamped out. The mayor and town council of Meridian are in on it too, due to some so far isolated acts of hate against the human townies. “The problem is,” Fleming says, “if they expel Hyde for hate speech, it's Spader all over again.” “They have to do something, classes can't indefinitely be canceled,” Rachel says. “Get this,” Raven says, holding the daily student newspaper, “the Children of Diana came out against anti-human hate.” “Well, at least we don't have to worry about that group of witches,” Fleming says. The
BILLIEThe flyers are everywhere the next morning. Stapled to bulletin boards, inside the Student Union, pasted on telephone poles like band advertisements, blowing in the grass like tumbleweeds:“TRADITIONALIST DOCTRINEAlphas are infallible.Ranked wolves are above unranked wolves.Human women should be kept as omega slaves for breeding.Human women are inferior in every way to male and female werewolves and should be treated as such for their own good.Human women are promiscuous so it is okay to use them as breeders with more than one werewolf. Only ranked wolves should be allowed in college. Unranked wolves are happier doing manual labor.The University should go back to a curriculum that taught werewolf superiority, not treaties and diplomacy.Werewolves have a physical advantage and should use it.Female werewolves should always be Lunas, and be protected and pampered. They should be allowed to go to college but only to compete for alphas’ attentions. They should be chosen as