Chapter 4

Sunset Pride underclassmen and the boarders from Salt Mountain and North Border gather under various trees and sit on the benches they’ve staked out as their territory.

For the hundredth time, I wish the path from the Bogs led to the plaza at the front of campus where the statue of the Great Alpha Broderick Moore stands on his pedestal overlooking the lake, front leg regally raised as if he’s about to leap into the future, polished bronze balls glinting in the sun. But it doesn’t.

It veers off so we enter campus at the back end of the student parking lot.

As soon as we turn, the pups get squirrelly. The oldest of us scramble to snatch the littlest before they stampede into the woods. I manage to nab a Scurlock even though he’s a wiggler. Bert scoops up two Samuels, throws one over each shoulder, and grabs a Nevitts by the hand.

This is the moment when the pups bolt if they’re gonna, and the nobs who speed in at the last minute don’t watch for them. Scoring a close parking space is more important than watching out for us.

Once they park, seniors head for campus—they still have coursework to grind out—but postgrads tend to loiter by their shiny new cars, bought by Daddy for acing their first internship rotation or scoring an interview with the risk assessment department.

I couldn’t handle it if they made scavengers do the two years of “continuing education,” but they don’t even try. Internships and “finishing” courses like Human-Shifter Relations are reserved for ranked wolves. They’re welcome to it.

I’m out of this place the second the last bell rings at the end of year twelve, and no one’s gonna be able to find me to do a day for a cousin who wants to cut. I’m not stepping foot past the Narrows again if I can help it.

Even now, my steps are slowing. For a bastion of bullshit and misery, Sunset Pride Academy looks pretty as a picture. Red bricks and white columns, classical mouldings and porticos. Cobblestone paths. Tall oaks with trunks wide enough to hide a passel of pups behind.

There’s a bad memory in every corner. There’s the bench beside the tot lot where Essie, Bert, and I had to sit out recess for all of nursery school and kindergarten because we wouldn’t wear shoes.

There’s the Dumpster behind the middle grades building that we were responsible for compacting on our first janitorial rotation. The job never rotated, but we never crushed down the trash like they wanted either. We’d hang out and shoot the shit until someone was sent looking for us.

Past the big buildings for the primary school and middle grades, the various academic halls are arranged around a long, perfectly manicured lawn edged with beds of low shrubs. The first time I saw Bert get his ass beaten by a nob was when he tore up the grass with his claws racing Richard to lunch in sixth grade.

A convertible blows past us, and the Scurlock I’ve got by the hand takes advantage of my momentary distraction to contort himself into a mannequin with its arms and legs twisted backwards. I have to kind of lift him on my hip and haul him the rest of the way. I try to be gentle, but the little dude isn’t making it easy.

“Only six hours, friend, and you can sleep away the morning.” The instructors don’t try to keep us awake. They only care if we’re in our desks.

“I hate it.” He loosens up and gives one last mighty flail, but at maybe forty pounds soaking wet, he’s no match for me.

“I know.” I wince as his heel nails my shin. “But hey, don’t take it out on me, eh?”

He settles a bit, but he’s still not gonna operate under his own steam. I hug him close. I remember my sister Drona dragging me here in pretty much the same way. I couldn’t bear the hours indoors, and I worried about my plants. Cassie knows herblore like the back of her hand, but she kills growing things just by looking at them.

We’re close to campus when my wolf perks up. This is weird. She’s always awake at dawn and dusk, alert for sleepy critters with their guard down, but she rarely shows sustained interest in her surroundings when we’re not in the woods. She’s a very wolfy wolf. I can’t wait to meet her.

There’s something in the air, though, that’s got her by the nose. She raises her snout and sniffs the air. Not really, not in a physical sense, but on the plane where she exists—my mind or the spirit realm or wherever—she comes to her feet, alert and alive.

What does she smell?

I inhale. Gasoline. Engine exhaust. Humans. The chemicals the nobs have sprayed on the grass to make it that bright shade of green so late in fall.

And wood.

Fresh cut wood, but not. It’s like the very essence of wood. Oh, it’s delicious. It chases away all other scents, including the cereal breath of the little guy I’m hauling like a sack of potatoes.

I could smell it all day. I could immerse my whole face in it. Throw myself backwards into it in bliss like a lady on TV into a featherbed.

What is it?

I want to eat it, but it’s not a food smell.

It’s coming from the row of cars reserved for the postgrads from the five high-ranking families. I search the groups of perfectly groomed males and females in khakis and light blue button-down shirts with their messenger bags and sunglasses on cords and fake laughs and smarmy smiles.

The future leaders of the pack.

I never look at them directly. Wouldn’t want to inadvertently challenge one of them into kicking my ass into next Sunday.

But that smell. It demands attention. It itches like a mystery. I need to know.

There.

By the black Land Rover.

One male is a bit taller and broader in the shoulders than the others. His slacks are a smidge too tight in the thigh and his biceps strain the seams of his otherwise perfectly-fitted dress shirt. There’s not a freshly-trimmed, styled hair out of place—no movement, no muss. He has the easy confidence and effortless dominance of a male surrounded by folks kissing his ass.

It’s Preston Charge.

He’s the thing that smells like pine shavings in the best possible way.

Well, isn’t that a kick in the head? It’s not enough he rules the world, he’s somehow upped his scent game from pleasant to damn near magical.

I’ve never been so disappointed in something in my life.

I sigh. The Scurlock, in a last-minute bid to avoid the inevitable, goes full deadweight on me. Just before I hoist him up under my arm, in the moment when my sleep-deprived brain is making the ponderous leap from mystery smell to problem child, I accidentally raise my eyes. They meet Preston’s.

A jolt pile drives my solar plexus.

There is a split second before I drop my gaze and bend my neck, and in that instant, his steel gray eyes flash molten silver.

And my wolf howls.