Chapter 2

Chapter 2

~ Alyssa ~

By seven o'clock, every dress I owned was lying on my bed, and every single one of them was trash.

The blue one had a stain on the hip that no amount of scrubbing would lift. The black one was two sizes too big because it had belonged to my mother. The flowered one made me look like I was going to Sunday service. I held each of them up in front of the cracked mirror on my wardrobe door and wanted to scream.

"You look beautiful, my girl," Grandma said from her chair in the corner, for the fifth time.

"Grandma, you said that about the flowered one."

"And I meant it." She smiled, her hands busy tying bundles of dried sage and thyme for tomorrow's market stall. The whole house smelled of her herbs, bitter and green and comforting, the smell of every day of my life. "Any boy who doesn't see it is blind."

I didn't believe her. Grandmothers were supposed to say things like that.

The front door banged open, and Rebecca Andrew swept in like she owned the place, a garment bag slung over one shoulder.

"Put that rag down," she ordered before she even said hello. "I am not letting my best friend walk into an Alpha party looking like a church usher."

"Hello to you too, Becca."

She kissed Grandma's cheek, dropped onto my bed and unzipped the bag with a flourish. "Xavier called me. He gave me this mandate to dress you properly."

Of course he did.

Rebecca and I had been best friends since we were seven, two poor girls from the same crooked street, sharing sweets and secrets and dreams of getting out. She had a wolf, a small grey she-wolf she was fiercely proud of, but her family belonged to no pack that mattered. When I won the scholarship to Terracotta Valley, she had hugged me and cried, and then, a week later, she had said very quietly, "Must be nice." I pretended I hadn't heard it. I didn’t want her to ever feel bad for not getting the scholarship too.

She pulled out a dress and held it up, and my mouth fell open.

It was silver. Not grey, not glittery, but silver like moonlight on water, thin straps and a soft fall of fabric that ended just above the knee.

"Becca, no. Where did you even get this?"

"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to." She pushed it into my arms. "Bathroom. Now."

Ten minutes later, I stepped out and barely recognized the girl in the mirror. The silver caught my brown skin and made it glow. It skimmed my waist and made my legs look endless. Rebecca twisted my hair up into a loose knot, tugged a few curls free around my face, and stepped back.

For a second she just stared at me, and something flickered across her face that I couldn't read.

Then she smiled. "Ditrian Regulus is going to choke."

"Ditrian Regulus doesn't know I exist," I said. "Unless he needs someone to laugh at."

"Tonight he will," she said, and her voice had a strange edge to it. "Trust me."

Grandma stood up slowly, and came to stand in front of me. She touched my cheek with her rough, herb-stained fingers, and her eyes went soft.

"Be home before moonset," she said quietly. "Promise me, Alyssa."

"Grandma, I don't even have a wolf. The moon can't do anything to me."

"Promise me."

There was something in her voice I had never heard before. I hugged her tightly and breathed in the sage and thyme on her clothes.

"I promise."

I spent the very last money in my purse on a ride to the lake. There was no way I could take two buses and walk a forest road in a dress like this, so I told myself it was worth it and tried not to think about the lunches I would skip next week to make up for it.

The Regulus lake lodge sat at the edge of the pack's private forest, a sprawling house of dark timber and glass that glowed gold against the trees. Bonfires burned along the shore of the lake. Expensive cars lined the gravel drive, music thumped through the open doors, and the air smelled of woodsmoke, pine, and the wild musk of a hundred young wolves waiting for the moon to climb high enough to run.

I stood at the gate for a long moment with my heart in my throat.

Then I walked in.

I had barely reached the edge of the firelight when I felt it, that prickling at the back of my neck. I looked up.

Ditrian was standing beside the biggest bonfire, a drink in one hand, his black shirt open at the collar. The flames painted his face in gold and shadow. He had been laughing at something Austin said, but the laugh died on his lips the moment he saw me.

He didn't look away.

For three years, he had looked through me like glass. Now his eyes moved over me slowly, from the knot of my hair to the silver at my knees and back up again, and I watched the grey of them flash gold. The music, the fire, the crowd, all of it seemed to fall away until there was nothing left but that look.

My heart slammed against my ribs. Was this what it felt like to finally be seen by him?

"Damn!" Austin said loudly, following his gaze. "Is that Regulus's little Bunny?"

A few people laughed. Ditrian still didn't look away.

Then Delilah stepped in front of him, cupped his face in both hands, and kissed him long and deep, her eyes open and fixed on me the entire time.

I turned away fast, my cheeks burning, and pushed through the crowd until I found a quiet corner of the wooden veranda, half hidden behind a stack of chairs. I squeezed myself into it and pulled out my phone. The screen was cracked across one corner and it switched itself off whenever it got too hot, so I prayed it would hold on long enough for one message.

‘Where are you? I'm here.’ I texted Xavier.

The reply came quickly.

Lys, I'm so sorry. My father flew in tonight without warning. He's talking about sending me to train with an allied pack in the Scottish Highlands. I can't leave right now. I'll call you later, I promise.

I read it twice, and my stomach dropped.

Scotland. My only friend in that school, the only rich, kind boy I knew, the one person I had secretly counted on if I couldn't find work after graduation, or if I never made it to college at all. And I was stuck alone at a Moon Run, in a borrowed dress, surrounded by wolves who had spent three years treating me like prey.

I had to get out of here.

I stood and was halfway toward the steps when a heavy iron clang rang across the shore. I spun around. Two pack warriors, built like walls, had swung the lodge gates shut and were standing in front of them with their arms crossed.

Austin climbed onto a table on the veranda, raising a bottle over his head.

"The gates are sealed until moonset!" he roared. "Nobody leaves and nobody runs until we've had some fun. It's game time!"

The crowd surged forward, screaming, and pushed me back against the wall.

Sealed until moonset? What the hell?

"Truth or dare!" Austin shouted. "Wolf rules!"

Right. The game. Of course it was the game.