Sage nodded, hissing like a cat at a passing girl, who scurried away, leaving Sage grinning. When she was done, she leaned back in to face me. “Every female at this school wants to marry my cousin Sawyer and be the alpha’s wife, and every single one now knows that he brought you here to join the dating pool. Watch your back.”
Then she turned and walked off, leaving me speechless and with a lump in my throat.
Join the dating pool? Holy shit, I really was in Werewolf Bachelor.
“Come on!” she snapped, and I ran after her, throwing some glares of my own as I passed. Every female here was dressed like a Barbie. Full-on high heels, dresses, slacks and silk shirts. Hair was curled and set in place and make-up was on-point. Not an eyebrow hair out of place. Meanwhile, I looked like I’d rolled out of bed and threw on whatever was closest and smelled generally clean, which wasn’t far from the truth.
I ran after Sage and followed her around a corner to a giant glass dome building marked Admissions.
She stopped at the door and faced me. “I’m a junior. I live in Lexington Hall. Suite Eleven. Try to get on my floor and I’ll take you under my wing.”
My heart pinched at her generosity and I nodded. “Thanks, girl.” I looked down at her chin out of habit and she inclined her head, smoothing her bright red hair over one shoulder and tipping my chin up to meet her eyes.
“Remember, give ‘em hell. You’re one of us now.”
With that, she turned and walked away, leaving me to stand in front of the double glass doors.
You’re one of us now. She had no way of knowing how much that meant to me.
Okay … here goes nothing.
Reaching out, I pulled the doors open and stepped inside.
Whoa.
The dome ceiling was tinted, but it still let shafts of light in, and behind it was all forest, so everywhere you looked were trees. A short, stocky woman sat behind a computer, tapping on a keyboard. When I stepped up to the counter, she looked up, and then down at my wrists, her hands freezing midair.
“Demi Calloway?”
Shit. How did she know who I was?
I nodded, about to dip my head down in embarrassment, when I remembered Sage’s advice and tipped my chin up.
“Yeah,” I told her, voice firm. She stood, walking around her desk to greet me, and the click-clack of her heels echoed throughout the hall. When she finally stood before me, she looked me up and down and a frown tugged at her lips.
“Oh dear,” she muttered, and pulled out a tablet, tapping at the screen with a stylus.
I yanked my cut off t-shirt down to cover my bellybutton, but it was no use, it sprung back up and just exposed more.
With an eyeroll, the woman walked down a hallway. “Follow me, they are waiting.”
They.
She said they.
Who was they?
My heart hammered against my ribcage as I passed a long hallway, all glass but tinted so I couldn’t see inside.
Who cleaned this place? They must keep a hundred glass cleaners on staff. Maybe I should buy stock in Windex.
I was so lost in my thoughts about how they kept fingerprints off the windows, I didn’t realize the lady had stopped, and I crashed into her back.
A growl ripped from her throat before she disguised it as a cough.
Whoa, shit.
“I’m sorry. I’m … nervous.” I gave her the truth and the anger fled from her eyes. She suddenly looked at me with compassion.
“I can imagine.” She gave me a weak smile and then opened the door, indicating I step inside.
I did, and expected her to come with me. I mean, I didn’t know this chick long, but when she closed the door and walked off back down the hall, I panicked.
Be strong.
With trepidation, I looked up at the two figures in the room.
Holy shifter.
The man standing before me was the largest male I’d ever seen. He looked like a human gorilla in size, a hulking mass of muscle so large it didn’t look natural. He appeared to be in his early forties and wore a gray linen suit. Clutched in his hands was a tablet like the woman had. I did a quick and discreet whiff and recognized the wolf smell as it hit my nostrils. Gamey and earthy, it was hard to explain.
Standing beside him was…
A witch.
I’d lived with them enough to know when I was in the presence of one. It wasn’t just the herbal smell they all seemed to carry, it was the lithe frame, the way they stood above you with their noses upturned as if they were better than you.
If either of them thought my clothing was atrocious, they didn’t show it. Instead, the huge man just stepped forward. “Miss Calloway, I’m Eugene, head of Werewolf City Security.”
Yep. I would totally give this guy the head of security job too, would hire him on the spot. He looked like he could squeeze my head between two fingers.
“Hey.” I waved stupidly. His eyes flashed to my cuff and the slightest frown pulled at his lips.
“Madam Harcourt here is going to remove your cuffs and then I’ll get you situated.”
Remove my cuffs. He said … remove.
I so badly wanted to allow the tears that were trying to spring forth to roll down my cheeks, but I sucked those little weak droplets back.
No way was I crying in front of this giant dude and the witch. I’d wait until I was alone in my room and cry under my covers like a respectable woman, dammit.
I’d worn these cuffs since as long as I could remember. They kept a very natural part of me from being free. To remove them … it was all I’d ever wanted.
The witch strode forward. “Does the room have soundproofing? This might hurt.”
I immediately backed up four paces until my back hit the wall.
Hurt. No one said anything about hurting.
The man just nodded, walking over to a wall panel, and suddenly a menu popped up on the glass. He tapped a few buttons and then nodded at the witch.
She looked at me, eyes narrowed. “You want them off or not? I have another appointment in fifteen minutes.”
Geeze, was this like a notary? She just penciled me in her little timeslot? My tongue felt like sandpaper and I swallowed hard, nodding. I did want them off, so badly.
She waved me forward and I stepped slowly toward her.
“You were born outside Werewolf City?” she asked, looking down at a paper on the glass desk beside her.
I nodded.
“When were you first cuffed?” she asked.
I swallowed hard. “My first birthday was my first set. Then a second set at age five, and this set I got when I was twelve.” I held them up.
They never hurt to take off before, when the witches changed me out for a bigger set, so I was wondering why they would now.
“They never hurt to remove before…”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s because they weren’t removing the magic in them, just changing out the metal to grow with your form. I’ll be stripping the spell that’s been attached to your body for the last…” She paused, looking at the sheet of paper, “Nineteen years. This will most definitely hurt.”
Fuck. My wolf rose to the surface then, and I knew my eyes had gone yellow. Silverish white pelts of fur rippled down my arms and the witch stepped back a pace, looking at the gorilla man, Eugene.
“She … shouldn’t be able to do that…” she said with a frown.
The pelts of fur hit the cuffs at my wrists and electricity shot up my arms, causing me to cry out.