Chapter 51

Zora

It was two months into my first semester at Alpha Academy that I finally was invited to my first party. Though, I wasn’t really invited. Loren was and she told me she’d rather sit at home with me than go to the party without me. So, Saturday night, after training with Maximus all morning, I agreed to let Loren do my make up and attempt (key word) to straighten my hair.

She pulled seven our eight dresses from her closet out and laid them on my bed as she sat me on her desk chair and wheeled over his massive make up cart. She sat cross legged on a stool in front of me and colored my face like a painting.

“So,” she teased. “How’s Max?”

“Fine,” I said quickly. “He’s fine.”

Loren giggled as she swept some powder onto my cheeks. “He is quite fine but I don’t know if I’d use that word for him.”

“He’s hot,” I deadpanned. “You can say it.”

“Oh he’s so hot,” Loren sighed dreamily. “And really so sweet, Zora. Our sisters are friends. I don’t think sissy’s ever said a bad word about him.”

I gnawed my lip anxiously. That was not the Maximus I knew. He was harsh and sometimes bitter and rough around the edges. Was Loren seeing something I wasn’t? Was she not blinded by the grudge I had towards Maximus for being so awful to me while I was wolfless?

“I bet he’d be really nice as a boyfriend,” Loren continued, low and soft.

Or a husband, my inner wolf said.

I startled and jerked back from Loren. This was the first time my wolf had made her prescience known since the outburst at Valentin. Loren knitted her eyebrows at me, make up brush still held in the same place it was applying shadow to my eyes.

“What?” she pressed.

“My wolf, she’s – she’s back,” I fumbled over my words.

Loren dropped her hand. “What do you mean ‘back’? She left?”

I’d forgotten that I didn’t tell Loren about my wolf’s outburst at Valentin. How could I when every bit of the outburst was because I was a fucking princess? I blinked at her before settling back into my seat.

“Yeah, sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess I forgot to tell you. She went quiet for a bit. Maybe she was embarrassed about turning sporadically.”

Her tail swished in my mind. I almost smiled, missing the sensation. I don’t get embarrassed, she said. And if I was, I certainly wouldn’t run away.

Noted, I replied, letting the smirk hit my lips.

She was back. I hadn’t realized how empty my head had felt without her. The swishing of her tail now felt like a warm embrace rather than a cool annoyance. She scoffed.

Give it a day and you’ll be annoyed again, she mused. I couldn’t help but agree with her. My wolf was a feisty one.

“Is she talking to you?” Loren asked before resuming her work on my face.

I nodded. “Does yours?”

“Sometimes,” Loren cocked her head. “She’s very energetic. Usually she babbles and I can’t quite understand it.” Loren dropped the brush she was holding for another and brought it to my lips. “My sister says it’s because our wolves are our strongest personality points, amplified. I know I’m chatty but, wow, is she chatty.”

I chuckled and gave Loren a pat on the arm. “You are chatty,” I said. “But it’s why I like you. You bring out the best in everyone.”

Loren smiled back sincerely then huffed as she dropped her brush in her case. She bracketed her hand on her hips. “I think I’m done,” she said as she spun me around to face the mirror. I gasped as I saw myself. Loren smiled as bright as the sun.

“Ta-da,” she said.

My face was caked in the best way possible. My cheeks were pink and contoured to make my bones look high and elegant. My lips were shiny and pink, plumped and sparkling even in the low light of our dorm room. She’d lined my eyes with brown kohl to make the green-yellow of them pop. Then, she’d smoked out the corners with some shadow. I felt like I was glowing.

Loren stood behind me with her hands back on her hips. “What do you wanna do with your hair?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I pulled at a stray curl. “It’s such a pain to deal with I’ll probably just braid it back off my face.”

Loren scoffed with a hand to her chest. “That would not compliment my work! How about I straighten it for you? Maja and Pietha left some products for us.”

“You’d do that?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “You’re my best friend.”

I smiled at her, our eyes locking before she went over to the cabinet and pulled out a whole basket of products. She sectioned my hair and went at it with the products then took a lightning hot straightener to it. Steam emitted from my hair but when she pulled the straightener down, it was like my hair grew out of my head that way.

“Whoa,” I said.

Loren wiggled her eyebrows. “Magiks!”

I laughed, knowing that she was kidding. The products Pietha and Maja had left were some that I’d seen before in the human stores. There was nothing magik about them. Loren continued to straighten my curls, humming as she stood behind me. I looked at my hands, my thoughts consumed by what she’d said about Maximus.

“Loren?” she hummed in reply, eyes still on my hair. I fidgeted in my seat. “Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

Loren’s perpetual smile dropped. She shook her head, more disappointed then sad. “I had a friend once who I thought was handsome,” she said. “But he didn’t see me that way. I wrote him this long letter about my feelings and he just … tossed it away. The other girls in my pack made fun of me for weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, sincerely. “That’s awful.”

Loren shrugged. “It was a harsh reality, but it made me stronger,” she said. “I learned to not put my happiness into the hands of others. Only my own.”

“I like that,” I said. Loren smiled softly. There was a beat of silence before she spoke.

“What about you?”

I frowned. “I mean no, not officially,” I said. “There was this older boy at my human school, Frankie. He and I kind of fooled around a bit but same thing as you. He didn’t really have feelings for me so it fizzled out.”

“Fooled around like … kissing?” Loren asked.

I fidgeted again. “Among other things.”

“Wow,” Loren breathed. “I’ve never done anything like that before. Just some stray kisses at parties.”

“It’s—” I paused, trying to find a word to describe sex. “Weird.”

Loren laughed, full bellied. She shook her head as she did. “That’s not what sissy said.”

“Okay then, what did you oh-so wonderful sister say?”

“She is wonderful,” Loren pointed the straightener at me in the mirror. “And don’t you forget it.” I held my hands up, giving in. Loren gave me a sly smirk before going back to her hair straightening.

“She and her friends were talking about it once,” she said. “I overheard them.They way they described it was like this magically romantic experience. Like every cell in your body was on fire and yet at the same time, ice was running over your skin. They each said there’s nothing like it.”

I snorted then clamped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I mumbled, dropping my hands back in my lap. “That is just so wildly different than what I experienced. I wonder if I was doing something wrong.”

Loren gave me a look like she didn’t know either then went back to my hair. She’d almost finished when she finally spoke again.

“You know,” she said, softly. “I bet Max would make it like that for you.”

I froze. My mouth opened and closed like a fish. I was desperately trying to not imagine what that would feel like.

The Moonbeam is not wrong, my wolf mused.

You lasted all of an hour before annoying me, I threw back. Go away.

My wolf snorted snootily before trotting off into the back of my mind and curling up to sleep. I brought my attention back to Loren. She was finishing up the final pieces of my hair, making sure my roots were as smooth as the rest of it. We made eye contact and she raised her brow.

“People on campus talk,” she said, plain as ever. “No one’s ever slept with Maximus Wolfham and been disappointed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I dead panned.

Loren put down the straightener and I looked into the mirror. If possible, I’d become even more gorgeous. I looked like the super model version of myself, all shiny and pressed. Loren smoothed a final product from my roots to my ends before huffing and setting her hands on my shoulders.

“There,” she sighed. “Another masterpiece complete. Are you ready to party?”

I looked at myself in the mirror shiny and bronzed and almost as good, if not better, than when Maja and Pietha had done me up for Mateball. A sense of confidence waved through me. I was bad-ass. I was hot. I could do anything.

“Let’s fucking party,” I replied.