Please say yes.
Having another wolf at school would be amazing, especially this wolf.
Wolf Boy and Wolf Girl ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after in banishment.
He shook his head slowly. “Just visiting.”
Fuck.
I peered out at the parking lot to see two huge dudes standing on either side of a black SUV that was pulled up to the curb. They had their hands out, stilled at their sides like they were going to pull a weapon on me for talking to this guy. He must work for the alpha and be here on business or something.
“From Werewolf City?” I pried.
I was slightly desperate to know everything about the place my parents were banished from.
His eyes slowly transformed from orange to yellow, and then to that striking bright blue as his wolf fully retreated. The blue of his eyes held a sorrow I couldn’t place, a brokenness I felt in myself and recognized in him. It was just a flash and then it was gone. What could this perfect specimen possibly have experienced to be broken inside? This guy was insanely hot, movie-star hot. My wolf liked him immediately, but I was pretty sure she would like any decent looking male of her same species. We couldn’t afford to be picky in a place like this.
He nodded slowly. “Why are you here?”
Shame burned my cheeks. I didn’t answer, and dawning understanding lit up his face as his gaze fell to the cuffs on my wrists.
“Banished?” he asked, confused. I nodded and his lips turned into a frown. “Do they hurt much?” He pointed one meaty paw at my wrists and I chuckled.
“Only like I’m being burned alive.”
A possessive growl ripped from his throat and I stumbled backward a few paces, not expecting it. He opened his mouth to speak, then the doors opened and the school administrator, Mr. Darkworth, stepped out. He was short for a fey, just a touch over six feet tall, and the wolf next to me had a few inches on him.
“Sawyer, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”
Sawyer.
Why was that name familiar?
When Mr. Darkworth saw me there, he looked startled. “Demi, I trust you are behaving?” He glared down his nose at me.
I tucked a chunk of long blond hair behind my ear and nodded. “Just, getting … a bit of fresh air, sir.”
I moved to go back inside, taking this as my cue to bolt, when Sawyer’s hand snaked out and grabbed me gently by the upper arm. My heart jumped into my throat at his touch, his eyes blazing yellow as I looked up at him.
“Do you like it here?” His voice was gruff, his wolf close.
I snort-laughed. “Are you serious?”
How could I be happy here? As a wolf I needed to live among my kind or I’d go crazy. Thank God for Mom and Dad or I would have to be put down. No one liked living here, on the outskirts of Magic City, crammed in with the humans. It was fucking awful.
He released my arm, blinked twice, eyes flashing from yellow back to blue as if shaking off his wolf.
Mr. Darkworth frowned. “Shall we, son?” He motioned Sawyer into the double doors that led to his office, and I took the other set back to class.
When I sat down, I noticed Raven had gathered up the contents of my bookbag and placed it on my seat. I gave her a smile of thanks and then spent the rest of the class staring at a spot on the wall and wondering what the fuck just happened and who that guy Sawyer was.
The next few hours, Sawyer filled my every thought. He saw me lose my shit and howl. How embarrassing … and he was here “visiting.” That was vague as fuck. I told Raven about it at lunch and she was all ears.
“How old was he?” She leaned forward, twirling a blue chunk of hair between her fingers.
I shrugged. “Older than me but not by much. Maybe twenty-one?”
“Want me to do a spell and find out why he was here?” Her eyes glittered and I grinned.
“Nah, I like the mystery,” I said. “I’ll brew on it for years, wondering where the man of my dreams went before I settle down and marry a human.”
Raven snickered. “You sure?” She motioned over to Isaacs’s table. “He’d take you back in a heartbeat.”
I clamped a hand over her mouth. “We do not speak of the time I hooked up with a fey, okay?” Peeling my fingers from her mouth one by one, she laughed.
“You said you liked it,” she reminded me.
I pulled a chicken tender from my plate and pointed it at her throat. “Speak another word of this and die.”
Isaac was hot, but he had a weird foot fetish thing, and I wasn’t feeling the pointy ears. It was a phase and Raven knew that.
“Maybe he’s on socials. Sawyer, any last name?” Raven pulled out her phone, ready to detective the fuck out of this guy.
“Nope. Just Sawyer.” I peered over her shoulder as she typed Sawyer into Instagram and started to scroll through profiles. We were about halfway down the page when the cafeteria doors burst open. Four hulking males fanned out and scanned the crowd, and one female with bright red hair brought up the rear.
I didn’t need to smell them to know they were werewolves. I could see it in their stances, the way they sniffed the air and searched the cafeteria with yellow eyes.
Oh fuck.
What did I do? I shrank in my seat, trying to disappear, when one of them looked directly at me. A quick scan told me none of them were Sawyer.
Maybe he went back and asked the alpha about a girl named Demi who was cast out of the pack, and they said I shouldn’t be allowed to go to school here, or maybe—
“Demi Calloway?”
I held my breath as terror rushed through me. “Yes?” I squeaked.
The dude hovering over me was jacked, a huge wolf, who I now recognized as one of the guys waiting by the car this morning in the school parking lot. There was a gun at his hip, likely filled with silver bullets, and a vampire stake in a holster at his thigh. This dude wasn’t fucking around.
He handed me a letter with a golden wax seal. Legit it had a wax seal like this was 1601.
I gulped, taking the letter. “Thanks.” I attempted to shove it in my bag and prayed he’d go away.
“Open it,” the wolf growled.
Crap.
The whole cafeteria was watching me now. Even the lunch lady looked nervous for me.
Tearing the seal, bits of gold wax falling into my lap, I rolled the letter open and scanned it. Typed in an italic font was a letter addressed to me.
Demi Calloway,
You are hereby cordially invited to attend Sterling Hill Collegiate Academy of Werewolf Sciences. Werewolf Law 301.6 states that all unmated females ages 18-22 must be present the year the future alpha chooses his mate.
Sincerely,
Werewolf City alpha in residence, Curt Hudson
What the what! My heart hammered in my chest as I noticed messy handwriting scrawled a personal note at the bottom.
P.S. This was the only way I could legally get you out of there.
Sawyer Hudson.
My stomach dropped, my mouth going dry.
Sawyer Hudson.
Sawyer.
Hudson.
Curt Hudson was alpha of Werewolf City, which meant … Sawyer was the fucking alpha’s son. I’d met the alpha’s son and now I was being invited back to Werewolf City because he was choosing a mate? What in the actual hell was happening?