Chapter 4

I was already arranging my things in my suitcase when the door opened.

Priya didn't knock. She just came in and closed the door behind her and stood there for a second like she was deciding something. Then she crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed and turned on the small lamp on the nightstand and looked at me.

"What are you doing? Why are you arranging your things back in your suitcase?" she asked, looking at me like she knew what was going on in my head.

"My manager called last night, and there are some issues that require my attention, and I can't do it from here," I told her, not wanting to tell her I overheard her and her mom.

She already knew I had heard. I could see it on her face.

"How much?" she said, not beating around the bush.

"Enough."

She nodded slowly. She looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, I'm going to tell you everything, and I need you to just let me get through it before you say anything."

I didn't respond. I sat on the bed and waited.

"You know how I've always been the one who hears things before everyone else. In school, remember when I heard the fire alarm two seconds before it went off and you thought I was messing with you." She stopped. "That wasn't nothing, Zara. I hear everything. I smell everything. I see in the dark without trying. I have since I was a child, and I've been careful my whole time in the city to make sure you never really noticed."

The room felt very small suddenly.

"Priya."

"Let me finish." She pressed her hands together in her lap. "My family, this town, these people. We're not like you. The world is not as you know it to be; there are many supernatural beings living among humans. I am a werewolf, Zara, and I know how that sounds, and I know you're about to panic, but I need you to stay with me."

I stared at her like she had grown two heads already.

I had known Priya for seven years. I had shared food with her, cried in front of her, and called her from a hallway floor two days ago. Seven years of knowing someone's face, and I was looking at her right now like she was a stranger. I expected something but not this.

"Say something," she said.

"Are you kidding me, werewolves?" I said, laughing, but she wasn't.

"You're serious."

"Yes."

"You're actually...."

"Yes."

I got up. I didn't know where I was planning to go; the room wasn't big enough to go anywhere; I just needed to be on my feet. I stood in the middle of the floor and pressed my hand to my mouth and thought about the woman on the pavement who said I smelled strange. The man on the bicycle. Priya's mother's face. Not a human.

"They were all looking at me because they could smell that I wasn't one of them," I said.

"Yes."

"And the whole town is...."

"Most of it."

I sat back down on the bed because my legs made the decision before I did. "I need to leave Priya. I need to go home."

"I know that's what you're feeling right now. But Zara, you are safe. Nobody here is going to hurt you; I would never have brought you somewhere you weren't safe."

"You brought a human," I said, and my voice came out strange, "into a werewolf town without telling me."

She flinched. "I know."

"Why?"

"Because you needed to get out of the city and you needed me, and this is where I am." She reached over and took my hand. Her grip was firm. "And because I have been your best friend for seven years and I was not going to let you sit in that apartment alone."

I looked at her hand on mine. Same hands I had seen a thousand times.

"And you brought me here why? You could have taken me somewhere else or just let me be," I said, pacing around the room.

"I know."

"This is actually insane."

"I know Zara."

We sat there. The lamp made a small yellow circle around us, and outside the window, Wrenfield was completely dark and completely quiet.

"What happens now?" I said finally.

"Tonight there's a ceremony. A festival. The alpha's first son is choosing his mate, and the whole town will be there." She hesitated. "I think it would be better if you came than if you stayed here alone. People already know you're here. If they see you at the festival, with me, under my family's protection, it tells them something."

"What does it tell them?"

"That you're not a threat. That you belong to someone here." She stood up and went to her bag and pulled out a folded piece of clothing. A dress, dark green, simple. "Wear this. My scent is on it; it'll cover yours enough that people won't react the way they did in town today."

I took the dress from her. Held it.

A mate-choosing ceremony. In a werewolf town. Wearing my best friend's clothes so I smelled like her instead of like myself.

Two days ago I was sitting on a kitchen floor crying over Marcus, but now I am here. I still feel like all of this is one big bad dream.

"Priya," I said.

"Yeah."

"You owe me an enormous explanation."

"I know," she said. "I'll give you all of it. But put the dress on first."