Chapter 9
Viviane’s POV
My footsteps echo through the empty halls as I depart the library, my shoes emitting a slow, steady click as my weary feet carry me from another long study session. While other teenagers spend their weekends relaxing and going on dates, I spend mine holed up in the stacks, trying to make up for all the years I went without an education.
Kiera and the teachers have no idea how much my good grades cost me. Despite what my best friend thinks, academics do not come easily to me, but I’m determined to have a future beyond tears and hard labor.
I’m almost to the front door when I hear it: cheerful chatter and high girlish giggles.
Courtney, Madison, and Nerissa round the corner ahead, their faces bearing none of the happiness their voices suggest . They walk straight for me, eyes glinting and mouths twisted into smirks.
Squaring my shoulders, I prepare for what will certainly be an unpleasant encounter. “Courtney, Nerissa.” I greet them. “Thinking about transferring to Asterion?”
Courtney snorts derisively, “As if.”
“We’re here to see you, stepsister.” Nerissa’s voice is syrupy sweet, so cloying my stomach begins to ache.
“It’s Saturday.” I remind them, “How did you even know I’d be here?”
“You’re not exactly discreet.” Madison drawls, “Not with your study habits, or your social schemes.”
“Social schemes?” My tone is every bit as confused as I feel.
“You didn’t think we’d stand by and let a bottom-feeder deceive our future Alpha did you?” Nerissa sneers.
“What did you do, put him under some sort of spell with that song of yours?” Courtney adds reproachfully.
My lungs are stuttering and stalling, cutting off my air supply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do.” Madison’s lip curls with disdain. “I thought there was something fishy about you, but I didn’t know what until Nerissa told us your little secret, Mermaid.”
Blood rushes in my ears so loudly I cannot hear myself speak. “I don’t know what Nerissa told you. But I’m not a mermaid.”
“Well, you don’t smell like one,” Courtney concedes, her gray eyes positively glacial. “but there’s more than one way to tell. Isn’t there, Rissa?”
The trio exchange a look so ominous my feet act of their own accord, turning to run before my brain knows what’s happening.
“Oh no you don’t!” I don’t know who says it and I don’t care. The only things that matter are the claws digging into my arms and back, the grasping hands which drag me across the floor like a sack of potatoes. I can’t fight back, I’m frozen with fear and even if I wasn’t, I could never overpower three shifters.
They throw me into an empty classroom and slam the door shut. I crawl backwards, my palms flat against the cement floor as they close in, looming over my prone form like some sort of terrible teenage gargoyles.
“On her ankle.” Nerissa crows, “The left one.”
Madison steps forward. “Take off your clothes bottom-feeder.”
I shake my head frantically, unable to produce a sound.
Courtney shares a cruel smile with her companions, “Girls.”
On her order, all three lunge for me, ripping the clothes from my body. For a moment I think I’m thirteen again and Mordred is about to rape me. Terror and shame claw at my insides, and I have to sink my teeth my cheek to keep myself in the present. I bite down until I taste blood, and by the time I’ve escaped the flashback, I’m wearing nothing but my underwear.
“I don’t see anything.” Madison gripes, clearly disappointed.
Nerissa shakes her head gleefully. “She covers it with makeup– but feel.”
Three sets of fingers run over my brand. Nerissa is right. Covering the mark with foundation might hide it from view, but it can’t disguise the indentation carved into my skin. “Oh my gods, it’s true.” Madison exclaims.
“You vulgar little mutant.” Courtney hisses. “How dare you come here and pass yourself off as a shifter. How dare you pretend to be one of us.” As Madison and Nerissa look on, she kneels over me, her wolf so close to the surface her edges go blurry. “You don’t belong here.”
She hooks one claw beneath the chain of my nautilus necklace and rips it from my neck. “And to think you actually touched Caspian.” She shivers with disgust, “You defiled our future Alpha with your beastly little hands.”
“Oh Gods, we touched her too.” Madison waves her hands dramatically, as if trying to shake off my germs, “I feel sick.”
Courtney tosses my necklace to Nerissa, “Ugh, you take this. It’s contaminated.”
Nerissa swiftly catches it, looking back and forth between Courtney and me with hard but uncertain eyes. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“I don’t care.” Courtney rolls her eyes , shooting the other girl a condescending look. “Sell it, throw it in the bin, smash it to pieces. This filth doesn't deserve to have nice things.”
The desire to cry is so great I think I’m going to be sick.
The insults don’t bother me; I’ve heard them all before. These girls aren’t creative enough to come up with anything the Pear Reapers didn’t think of at one point or another.
But I care about that necklace.
My family smuggled it through generations of imprisonment. My father left it to me and my mother bribed countless guards to keep it safe. It was my first gift, the first thing I ever owned, and the only connection I have to my lineage. I would choose it over everything I have now – my books, my clothes, our apartment.
“Please.” I beg, knowing it’s a mistake to reveal its importance, but unable to help myself. “Not that – take anything else.”
The girls look down their noses at me with utter revulsion, “Think of it as payment for our trouble.” Courtney grimaces. “It’s the least we deserve. I’m going to have to shower ten times to rid myself of your stink.”
As one they spin on their heels, stalking out the door in a haughty line and pulling it shut behind them. I don’t know where they got a key, but the door clicks locked behind them.
I’m trapped.
I look around for my clothes, eager to cover my exposed body, but they’re nowhere to be found.
They took my clothes.
Caspian’s POV
Anticipation floods my body as car engines roar to life around me. The day is fading fast, a few stubborn rays of sunlight reluctantly sinking below the horizon. As soon as the last succumbs we’ll begin, and it’s moving much too slowly for my taste.
“You’re crazy.” Chase complains, leaning down to the window. “It’s rush hour. You’re going to get caught – and in my car no less.”
“Well I can’t exactly race on my bike,” I reply. “And it wouldn’t be any fun if there was no chance of getting caught – that’s half the point.”
“As I said, Crazy” Chase quips, eyeing the man holding the starter pistol, “Just don’t crash it all right?”
“Oh come on, have a little faith.” I laugh.
“I do have faith.” He jokes, “I have faith you’ll choose winning over everything – including my car.”
I’m about to reply when my wolf suddenly rises to the surface, overwrought with agitation and aggression that has nothing to do with the race. My shaking hands leap to the steering wheel and my knuckles go white with strain. I grit my teeth – now fangs– snarling savagely as I attempt to reign my wolf in.
This isn’t right. The only time my wolf gets like this is before a fight – but I’m not angry, and there is no threat to neutralize. As he roars in my head, rabid to take action, I realize this isn’t about me.
“Caspian?” Chase has wisely backed away from the car, but concern is plastered across his face, “What is it?”
I manage to exit the car without ripping the door off its hinges or tearing the leather interior to shreds, “Something is wrong.” I growl, fighting the change, my muscles rippling and limbs vibrating dangerously.
“What? What’s wrong?” Chase asks calmly, pulling out the steady voice he always uses to bring me down from a temper.
“Viviane.” It’s the only thing I can say, assuming the vicious sound that bursts from my lips can be considered speech. “I have to go.”
Chase follows me through the crowd of dispersing onlookers, all fleeing when they see the look on my face. “Slow down, what about the race?”
“I don’t care about the race, you do it.” I hurl the words over my shoulder as I swing my leg over my motorcycle, immediately starting it and kicking the side stand so forcefully it goes flying.
I’m gone before he can reply, uncertain where I’m headed or what I’ll find when I get there. All I know is that my mate needs me – and she needs me now.
Viviane’s POV
I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying on the floor when I feel it; the strangest sensation, like pure electricity sparking every nerve ending I possess. I”ve never felt anything like it, and I have no idea why it’s happening.
I’m not sure I like it, it’s exciting and alarming at once; both pleasurable and frightening. I don’t even realize the way my body relaxes as I try to sort through the unfamiliar feelings. By the time I hear Caspian’s footsteps, I’ve reached such a state of calm I’ve almost forgotten my terrible situation.
I don’t know how I can differentiate Caspian’s footsteps from anyone else’s, but I know it’s him. He’s getting closer, and suddenly I realize this isn’t actually the first time I’ve felt this way. It hasn’t been as strong and I haven’t been nearly as aware of it– but then again, I’ve always been distracted by something else when it happens. This is the first time I’ve been able to simply feel, to listen to my body.
Or it was.
Now the same distraction that pulled my attention in the past is hammering on the door and shouting my name.
Panic overrides any and all good feeling.
I’m trapped, almost naked, the meanest girls in school know my secret, and now the future Alpha who thinks I’m his mate is about to break down the door to get to me.
Could things get any worse?
