82 | TERRITORIAL

I let out a sigh, stretching back in the seat of the library as the dismissal bell chimes through the loudspeakers. Darine echoes my motions beside me, adding in a yawn on her way to stand. I take a moment to study her as I catch the hints of exhaustion in her movements. My friend starts packing up her notes and the textbook we’d been pouring over, looking relieved she doesn’t have to attempt to teach me anymore.

She’s wearing her pale blonde hair in a plat down her back, the thing had been neat this morning, but now there are little strands of her hair sticking out defiantly. Carefully covered-by-makeup dark spots peak out when she rubs at her eyes. I frown when I see the evidence of restless nights, not sure how I hadn’t noticed them until now. The current of curiosity spark in my head, stirring my imagination to answer the question of why Darine looks so tired when she doesn’t have nightmares haunting her.

“Do I have something on my face?” Darine asks suddenly, passing me an annoyed look as she finishes packing everything up and pulls a brighter-than-the-sun orange parka from the back of her chair. My lips purse, a silent laugh making the muscles of my stomach jump.

“No…just wondering if a certain Beta’s been keeping you awake lately.” I tell her honestly, unable to stop the knowing smirk from coating my mouth. Darine freezes, her eyes widening while an insta-blush rushes to her face. Her green-blue eyes dart from the parka to me and back, her cheeks only getting redder, the irony-sweet scent of her blood rolling from her and filling my nostrils. I shiver as thirst makes my throat tight, my gums aching a little, but I manage to keep the reflex to grab Darine and drink her dry at bay. For now.

“Your eyes- I’m sorry, Scar!” Darine almost immediately blanches, but some of the redness haunts her pale skin. The heady aroma eases off a bit and I relax my balled-up hands, rubbing the pads of my fingers along the half-moon markings in my palms.

“It’s fine, Darine.” I give her a little, close-lipped smile, knowing my fangs aren’t out, but not wanting to give them more reason for dropping. The pendant pressed against my skin warms under my shirt, reassuring me it’s still working. I let out a breath and eye my human friend as the thirst fades into the background of my mind. “You going to tell me about the shadows under your eyes?” I force a teasing tone into my voice. Darine rolls her eyes at me, but the hints of the blush darken in her cheeks.

“There’s nothing to tell.” Darine huffs, the truth ringing out in her words. I feel my eyebrows draw down in confusion. “Yuri’s been busy the last week or so.” She explains after a second, her eyes hesitantly meeting mine.

“As opposed to…?” I sing softly, coaxing a little smile from her.

Blue called off my guards after we went a whole week and a half without incident from the Revenant. Things have felt a lot calmer around town, and between the Azure’s land and the Coven. I haven’t gone back to splitting my time between Blue’s place and the Coven, mostly because Mom’s insisted on staying in Azure Pack territory for the time being because of her easier commute to Lia’s. And though I can still smell magic on her and she only occasionally seems fatigued, I worry about putting any unnecessary stress on her. So I let her do what she wants without any argument.

“We’ve been…dating?” Her nose wrinkles before she says the word ‘dating’, almost like she’s asking herself if that’s what she and Yuri have been doing. “He used to visit more, or get me to hang out with some of the…Pack.” She frowns again, but I can tell it’s more from the casual use of the Wolven term than anything else. “But lately, we haven’t hung out outside of class, and he even told me to stay away from the territory.” I relax at that, an easy smile taking hold of my mouth, making my friend’s frown become more severe.

“Oh, well, that might just have something to do with the Berner Wolven encroaching on the territory. It’s…” I search for the right word and analogy to get her to understand why this isn’t something she needs to be loosing sleep over. “Kind of like two gangs having disputes over the area they deal in. Yuri’s probably just trying to keep you out of the crossfire.” I explain, a light of understanding flaring in Darine’s eyes. “I know Blue’s working on settling things, so you have nothing to worry about.” I tell her, having every confidence that the Packs will settle soon.

“Wait,” Darine’s eyebrows drag back down as she processes what I’ve said. “Are they going to have a shoot-out or something?”

“No,” I laugh, letting my head tip back as the sound bubbles from my stomach. For a few seconds, I feel incredibly light, missing the carefree way I can just laugh when I’m not struggling to keep the word from spinning apart. “Maybe a treaty if they get stuff situated. At worst,” I hesitate as the mirth drains from me. “There could be a dominance fight.” It’s something I’ve been worrying about myself. Darine’s expression warps into a more worried one and the scent of fear rolls off her the way the smell of her human blood had a moment ago. The animal in me takes careful note, predatory instinct reminding me I’m not normal - in any sense of the word. “Don’t worry about it.” I tell my friend gently, reaching over to pat her arm. “The Azures are the most dominant Pack I’ve met in a while. Not to mention the largest.” It’s the truth. Most Packs stay small, ten to fifty in the larger cities, rarely getting larger than two-hundred, and normally keeping to the Wolven-only mentality. The Azures are much larger, their territory may be relatively small, but they have a lot of Pack members, and at least half of them aren’t Wolven.

“But then why is the other Pack even challenging them?” Darine brings up the worrisome point I’ve been asking myself ever since Blue came clean about the Berner situation. I chew on my bottom lip as I mull that all-too-important question in my head.

“We should get going before they kick us out.” I dodge the question, getting to my feet and shoving my notebook into my backpack. Darine says nothing for a long minute, the situation has her emotions bleeding into her scent and making me feel twitchy. I roll my shoulders, realizing I haven’t been out on a hunt or really even changed into my wolf form in months. Suddenly, my skin feels too tight and restrictive. “C’mon, we need to get out of here.” I repeat, shrugging on my backpack and striding out the library entrance before Darine can argue. My friend follows me, catching up by jogging, and wearing that eye-searing parka.

“Did you want to hang out or something?” Darine asks, the hints of hope brightening her tone and scent. I smile, quirking an eyebrow at my friend. “I’m so bored.” She whines, latching onto my arm and giving me one of her ridiculous pouts.

“Fine.” I grumble, trying hard to keep a straight face. We glance at each other and burst into laughter. As we walk to the parking lot, we’re all but holding each other up, still barking laughter. Our voices echo off the surroundings and bounce back, ringing brightly in my ears. We’re guffawing so hard my eyes are filled with tears, relying solely on memory to get us through the lot that’s mostly empty.

It’s the only excuse I have for not noticing the shit we’ve just stepped in.

A low growl raises the hair on the back of my neck, my laughter dying almost instantly. Without thinking twice, I shove Darine behind me, hunching my shoulders and letting a snarl tear up my throat as my lips peel back over my teeth. Five wolves form a semi-circle around us, a few feet from Darine’s also orange vehicle. A man is sitting in the driver’s seat of my friend’s car, nonchalantly smoothing his hands over the steering wheel and completely ignoring the Wolven around us.

He’s a thirty-something, business-looking guy in an expensive-type of suit that shows he not only has a sense of style, but the litheness that comes with being part animal. The pale-blonde of his short hair almost completely echoes the shade Darine’s is, and is slicked back from his face. His eyes are a shocking pale gold that makes my inner wolf growl on principle. He’s not Wolven. This shocks the hell out of me as I glare at him, but so much suddenly makes sense.

Of course, no sane Wolven would challenge such a large Pack as the Azures, not when they’ve got allies like Hale. Only an outsider would be so power-hungry as to try to shake loose some land from another Pack. The feral scent of shifter is so heavy in the that it’s hard to pick apart the scents of the Wolven from this other shifter, but as I open up my senses, I find I don’t have to smell him to know what he is. His eyes change as they slowly trace up and down my body.

I’ve never met one before, but I know with the same certainty I know my own name, this man is a feline-shifter. Which means Darine and I are in deep shit.