Betrayals

awkwardly in one hand, away from my body like a baseball bat I was afraid might bite me.

Just me. Just Dru.

The girl in the mirror was smiling a little, which I suppose meant I was, even though my face felt frozen. I cautiously put my hand down, let the sword dangle.

I stamped back to the bed and slid the swords underneath the dust ruffle with Dad’s billfold. I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know I had them. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone I’d seen Christophe, but there was one person I had to tell. If Graves wasn’t too busy running around with his new friends, if I could get him alone, he could… what could he do?

Was it even fair to dump this on him too and ask him to help me figure it out and deal with it?

Most of all, I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know I had a job now, one Christophe had given me.

And that was trying to find out who at the Schola had wanted me dead bad enough to betray Christophe as well.

So I’m not pretty or smart or any other hundred things. But I’m stubborn. And tough.

It was time to start using what I had.

CHAPTER 6

Cafeteria noise washed over me in waves. Catcalls, conversations, laughter, everyone was at breakfast. I stabbed at my scrambled eggs with a fork. The pancakes had been steaming hot and fresh; now they just sat there.

Like me, just sitting here. It was just after dusk, class started in forty-five minutes, and I was really feeling the urge to go back to bed. I mean, I’ve never loved school, and I was determined to start doing something, even if it was putting up with the stupid remedial classes.

But getting up and getting dressed, braiding my hair back, and dealing with the cafeteria was really testing that determination. My shoulder still ached from the little tango with Christophe, but not as bad as it could have. Those baths worked wonders.

A shadow fell over me. I was hard-put not to twitch. But it was just a young blond wulfen with dark eyes and a gentle face. He was pale and gripped his tray so hard his knuckles were white. He looked about ready to break something from sheer nervousness.

I seconded that emotion.

His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear whatever he was saying under the noise. The screen of steam that the food came through hissed underneath all the crowd sounds.

“What?” My fork clattered on my tray. He flinched, shoulders hunching under a blue cable-knit sweater. He was built slight and narrow-hipped for a wulfen, but long corded muscle stood out on his forearms beneath the pushed-up sweater cuffs.

“Dibs,” he croaked. “Name’s Dibs.”

I closed my mouth with a snap. I’ve seen shy all over the United States, and this kid had a bad case of it. My conscience poked at me, hard.

I pushed out the chair next to me. “Hi. I’m Dru.”

The way his face lit up, you’d have thought I’d just given him a winning lottery ticket. He dropped down, and his tray held a huge pile of raw meat slopping over the edge of a plate. I saw two T-bone steaks and a mess of hamburger, and my stomach turned over. I swallowed and reached for my coffee.

“Hi.” He scratched at his leg through his jeans and grinned. White teeth gleamed, and his hair was a buttergloss sheen. Girls would probably love him, he had the big-eyed look of a nervous deer. “I, um. Hi.”

“Hey.” I took a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Tried not to look at his plate. “So what is it?”

“What?” He looked genuinely confused.

“Nobody wants to talk to me. Why are you here?” I was glad of the company, especially since Graves was nowhere in sight. But I’ve been the new girl in schools all over the country. You don’t ever trust the first boy who wanders up to you. Or at least, you learn to look for what they might be thinking they can get out of the new kid in town.

Of course, Graves had been the first one to approach me back in the Dakotas. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. It had been lucky, I guess. Maybe.

Not so lucky for him, since he’d got bitten and ended up here.

“You looked lonely.” He hunched over his plate, his long fingers almost but not quite touching the meat. “And they bet I wouldn’t do it, since I’m sub. Sometimes you have to show them they’re wrong, even the doms.”

“Sub?” Doms? Oh boy.

“I, um, was born that way. Born, not bitten, and born sub, too.” He blinked. “You don’t know about that, huh? Graves said you knew a lot, but not some stuff.”

“He did, huh?” I shoved in another bite of egg. Dibs relaxed a little. “What else did Graves say?”

“That if anyone messed with you, he’d call “em out. He got into it the first day he got here, proved he was dom. He sleeps in a top bunk.” Even though he was showing his teeth, Dibs’ expression was gentle. He scooped up one of the steaks and bit into it, teeth scissoring effortlessly through.

Isn’t that interesting. “And you don’t?” I played with a line of syrup on my plate, dragging fork tines through it and swirling.

“There’re lots of beds, but not every wulf sleeps in one. It’s complicated.” He took another massive bite. The meat splorched a little, and I felt distinctly queasy.

Deal with it, Dru.

But I remembered a werwulf’s teeth tearing through flesh and grinding down on Graves’ shoulder, and the thought made me feel green all over. Not a nice springtime green, either.

“Hey, dogboy!” A yell from a passing djamphir, one of Irving’s friends, a slim dark- haired kid in a red shirt and jeans, slouching past with that eerie gracefulness. “Put your dish on the floor!” He sneered a little as he passed, elegantly.

Dibs hunched up even further, and the ball of acid inside my chest boiled up as if something had been dropped in it. I slid my chair back, my legs tensing, but Dibs’ hand came down on my wrist with surprising strength.

“Just let it go,” he whispered under the crowd noise. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does.” I tried to pull my hand away. “It means something.”

A ripple ran through the caf. I turned my head, keeping the djamphir in sight. He dropped down at Irving’s table, one of the prime spots of cafeteria real estate, and laughed. His friends were laughing too. My braid bumped my back as I tried to pull away from Dibs again.

Mark. Memory served up the djamphir’s name just as my free hand curled into a fist. I’m pretty sure his name is Mark. He even looks like a Mark. Go figure.

“Wow. You really do care.” He laughed, a shaky little sound. “Just let it roll off. I’m not upset, see? You’ll just make trouble if you say anything. Keep your head down.”

The tension simmered down a notch, but it didn’t leave me. My shoulders were a rigid bar under my T-shirt and hoodie, and I’d lost every ounce of appetite I’d had.

“You don’t argue with them.” He let go of me, finger by finger. “Not over a wulf. They won’t make it hard for you, get it? They’ll make it hard for me. But don’t worry, the doms will take care of it. Sooner or later. They always do.”

“Jesus.” I let out a long, shaky breath. It had bothered me before, the dismissive way Christophe treated Graves; as if he was somehow tainted. Somehow less. It bothered me here, too, the djamphir were the top of the food chain.

I’d thought things would be different somehow. I’d thought the Real World didn’t play petty bullshit high school games. But here, it was just the same old thing. It was depressing. Could you ever get away from it?

But picking a fight the day I’d decided to turn over a new leaf wasn’t a good idea. I should start this out