About a month into school, I was on my way to my locker when I noticed a group of vampires whispering excitedly. Unlike the students my first year, who looked at me like an annoyance when the teacher told them to welcome me, the vampires had actually obeyed Mr. Ravenwood. They’d sat with me each day at lunch, bent over backwards to be nice to me, and given me deferential treatment to the point that it made me uncomfortable. I wanted friends, not to be idolized.
“What’s going on?” I asked, stopping at Amy’s locker, where she stood with Svana and another vampire girl.
“Didn’t you hear?” Amy asked.
My heart nearly stopped at those words. I’d heard them way too many times, when girls disappeared from Ravenwood Academy to be turned into werewolves—or die.
“There she is,” the other girl hissed, grabbing my arm.
“Who?” I turned in slow motion, cold dread settling into the pit of my stomach.
And there she was. The girl I’d dreamed about before I met her, the girl who I’d low-key stalked for the entirety of my junior high years, trying to figure out what was the big deal with her. Now, she somehow managed to look awkward and dowdy even in a fresh school uniform, the shirt rumpled and buttoned crookedly, bunched just under the waistband of her skirt to form a bulge. She’d pulled her socks up to her knees, but one of them was sagging already.
But all that did nothing to detract from the attention she was getting as she scurried down the hall, chasing after a pencil she’d dropped. Every time she reached for it, it started rolling again, as if repelled by her fingers. I glanced around in alarm, wondering who was using magic on a human. My eyes settled on a group of girls I’d seen with Delilah a few years ago. Of course. Witches. Vampires could hide their teeth, and wolves could shift, but we didn’t have the kind of magic someone was using on poor Lindy.
She let out a huff of frustration and blew her overgrown bangs from her eyes, diving at the pencil with renewed determination. The witches snickered.
Without thinking, I stepped forward, planting a combat boot directly on the pencil. Lindy jerked her hand back like she thought I was trying to stomp her fingers, her eyes flying wide before she raised them to me.
“Oh my god, Lindy,” I said, my voice loud enough to carry down the hall. “Is that really you? I can’t believe you’re here!”
“Timberlyn?” she asked, her voice weak and bewildered.
“It’s me,” I said, reaching down and grabbing her hand, pulling her to her feet. “I can’t believe you go here.”
I didn’t even have to fake that part. I wasn’t sure who’d recruited her, the wolves or the vamps, but I knew one thing for sure. I wasn’t going to let people pick on her here any more than I had back home.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to my friends,” I said.
“You know this girl?” Amy asked, giving Lindy a skeptical look.
“Any friend of Timberlyn’s is a friend of ours,” Svana said, giving Lindy a warm smile. Lindy stood there gaping at her the way I must have the first time I saw her swanlike elegance, blinding smile, and all-around freakish perfection.
“H-Hi,” Lindy stammered, glancing around with increasing suspicion as everyone watched the dorky new girl being absorbed into the vampire sect. They must think we wanted her because she was human and an easy target. And damn, she did smell so freaking good. I could feel the tell-tale ache in the roots of my teeth as I caught the scent of human up close and personal. Since school started, I’d been surrounded by vampires almost every moment. The wolves still smelled good to me, but not like humans. Not like this.
“Timberlyn is my best friend,” Svana said, putting a protective arm around my shoulder and squeezing, a reminder to keep myself in check.
Viktor’s cool arm slid around my waist, and he held me just as firmly against him. “And mine,” he said. They weren’t just reminding me not to let my fangs out. They were making sure I didn’t jump on Lindy and rip her throat out to get to her blood.
Oh god, her blood…
I could hear her heartbeat, the delicious blood just gushing in her veins…
“Is this some kind of makeover beauty school?” she asked, her eyes just about popping out of her head as she took in my crew of flawless, impossibly beautiful friends.
Svana threw her head back and laughed. “No, silly,” she said in her sweet, musical voice.
“Then how come you look like that?” Lindy said to me, eyeing me suspiciously. “You were a loser at our school.”
Ouch. Well, I’d kept that little tidbit hidden for two years, but now it was out. I glanced around nervously, halfway expecting—even still—my new friends to look at me again and realize I really was a freak. But they weren’t even looking at me. The hallway had fallen silent, and everyone had backed against their lockers to let the rulers of the school do their somber parade.
As the Wolf boys approached, I tried not to look at Alarick, knowing it would break my heart the way it always did when he looked at me like a traitor. But he wasn’t looking at me.
The five boys and Brooklyn slowed as they approached, and I had a flash of deja vous as I remembered my first day here. The way they’d slowed to look at me. At least Alarick had. My heartbeat
