I can’t believe I did it.
Brushing my fingertips over the indentations of my words on the paper, I try to remember how I felt when I wrote them. Vague ideas like “exhilarated” and “terrified” come to me, but I can’t experience that day again, no matter how hard I imagine.It was the day my life completely changed. The day I invoked the right to leave our pack and live a mortal life for five years, instead of simply accepting the transformation and becoming a full werewolf.The intercom chimed its gentle breakfast announcement and I put my old diary back in the bedside drawer, where it’s awaited my return for the past five years. But I’m not the seventeen-year-old I was when I left. I’m a grown-up stranger in that girl’s bedroom, with its soft pink canopy bed curtains and gleaming white furniture.You just got home, I remind myself. Give it time.I go to the vanity where I spent so many teenage hours practicing my eyeliner skills and contouring my face to Kardashian perfection. Things were much simpler then, before I heard of the Right of Accord. I hurry through my makeup routine—I may have arrived in the middle of the night, but Vivianne Dixon expects her children to look “acceptable” to her standards no matter the circumstances—and dig through one of my wardrobe trunks for a silk floral peasant top and dark wash jeans.My childhood home is an outdated “modern” mansion my parents had custom built in the late eighties, long before I was born. Our kind—their kind, until I make my final decision—live long enough to make a lot of bad style choices. Mother and father have already tucked into their breakfast in the stark white, oblong dining room. The black Lucite dining table is set with square white platters of more food than we’ll eat, and mother looks up from taking a helping of mixed fruits from one of them. The cold blue light of the early morning filters down from the octagonal skylight and creates a halo of silver around her gray hair.“Darling, I didn’t expect to see you this morning. Hudson said you didn’t arrive until nearly four.” She doesn’t rise from her seat, but waits for me to lean down so she can kiss the air beside my cheek. “That’s an…interesting top.”“Thanks.” I pretend she means it, and round the table to put an arm around my father’s shoulder in a half-hug. By the time he swallows his toast and dabs his mouth with his napkin, I’m already back to my seat. I shake out my own linen napkin and smooth it over my lap. “I did get in late.”“Well, it’s a long flight from London,” father says, and it’s probably all he’ll have to say for the whole breakfast.Mother will make up for it. “Other than the delay, how was your flight?”“It was fine.” I take a croissant and some fruit, my stomach still roiling from the salmon I ate on the plane. It had not agreed with me. “I slept most of the way.”“Good. Then you won’t be too jet lagged for tonight.”“Mother—” I begin, but she doesn’t look at me, concentrating on buttering half of an English muffin. If she doesn’t look at me, she can pretend I haven’t objected.“Of course, if your flight had arrived on time, we would have been able to get you something suitable to wear.” She glances up and briefly purses her lips. “No matter. I had Tara send over a few gowns. From before she gained all that weight.”I may have been gone for five years, but I’ve seen plenty of photos of my sister on F******k. She’s gone up a single dress-size, maybe.Totally unacceptable for a daughter of Vivianne Dixon.“Look, I just got in and the ball is a lot—”“A lot of work?” Mother interrupts me. “Yes. It is. It’s what makes it an obligation. And it’s also the perfect opportunity to make a fresh debut to the pack. To show them that your little…walkabout, as it were, is finally over.”“I haven’t—” I stop myself. I’ve been in my parents’ presence for minutes and my mother has already started making me feel bonkers. I’m not about to start my first morning back with an argument.“You haven’t had time to unpack or do anything with your hair,” she says, waving her hand.I self-consciously touch my freshly straightened blonde locks.“I’ve booked Jonathan for two hours with you today,” she prattles on. “Not enough time to fix those highlights, but I’m sure he can make something out of all…”My fists clench under the table as she gestures vaguely at my problem areas. Which, to her, is all of me.“Listen…” I begin tentatively. It will do me no good to sound argumentative. “I know what a huge deal the ball is and how long everyone has prepared for it. I don’t want to drag you all down and make you look bad.”“Nonsense, puppy,” father says placidly, his eyes scanning his iPad the way he used to ignore us for the newspaper. “You could never make us look bad.”Mother chokes on her coffee and tries to pass it off as a gently teasing laugh. “Well. There was that one teensy little time.”The time I invoked my right to think for myself, to not accept the transformation as my fate. The time I dared put myself before the Dixon name.“But that’s all in the past. You’re home now.” Mother’s smile is a warning. “And Ashton has been asking about you.”My stomach curdles in a way that has nothing to do with the first-class salmon. “Oh?”“He’s never given up on you,” she goes on with a sigh. “Very romantic, if you ask me.”Or pathetic, if she asked me, but she didn’t. I keep it to myself. There’s nothing romantic about the idea of returning to my old life, my old fate, delayed by five years. I assumed that by rejecting the transformation, I effectively rejected Ashton Daniels.“I thought he would have found a mate by now.” Hoped. I hoped he had found a mate by now. But if he didn’t…“No. He’s never renounced his claim on you, even after your little tantrum.”“It wasn’t a tantrum, it was—” I stop myself, force another smile, and subdue my sigh of frustration. “I just hoped he would have moved on and found happiness, rather than waiting around for me.”“I suppose that’s guilt you’ll simply have to live with.” Mother’s words pointedly imply that my former fiancé isn’t the only person I should feel badly about inconveniencing. “It’s possible he’s forgiven you.”“And it’s possible he hasn’t, and he’ll mention that tonight, in front of everyone,” Father adds helpfully.Mother nods. “A bridge you’ll need to cross when we come to it, Bailey. You publicly humiliated the poor man.”He was a poor boy, then, and at the time, I did feel terrible about invoking the right. But he had a choice. He could have invoked the right himself and come with me, if he really wanted to be together.Thankfully, he didn’t.“And if he decides to humiliate me in return with a public rejection tonight, I can accept that.” Besides, ending our engagement is the least he can do for both of us.“He wouldn’t dare,” Mother reassures me. “The Fealty Rite is too important to risk making a scene.”Another warning. I’m not to fuck anything up for her, tonight. I already destroyed her carefully cultivated image in front of the pack.Hudson, the thrall Mother and Father hired as our butler right before I left for London, enters, pushing a cart bearing two trays covered by silver domes.It’s a myth that werewolves can’t touch silver.Mother sits back as he places the plate in front of her and lifts the lid. A human heart, glistening with congealed blood, rest on a bed of lettuce. Mother gasps in delight and softly claps her hands in appreciation. “Bravo, Hudson. I don’t know where you keep finding these perfect little morsels.”“A trade secret, ma’am.” He retrieves the other platter and sets it in front of father, lifting the dome to reveal a nearly identical meal. Father mutters a thank you, and both my parents take up their silverware and tuck in, traditional breakfasts forgotten.It’s a sight I’ve seen hundreds of times, before every religious ceremony and full moon over the course of my entire life. But after five years living among the humans, I view the organs a bit more personally.As in, they were once people.Either I hide my disgust well or my mother ignores it. She cuts a slice from the heart in front of her and nods toward my plate. “Well. Eat up. We have a busy day.”I choke my down croissant. My dread at the thought of the ball, of seeing Ashton again? Much harder to swallow.Toronto has no shortage of impressive houses, but Aconitum Hall is in a class of its own. Built long before the skyscrapers and urban planning, the city has crept up to the mansion’s tower walls and tiered gardens, preserving it as a fairytale castle out of time. And since the very first stone was set into the foundation, it’s been the traditional home of our pack leader.It’s Buckingham Palace but packed full of werewolves.But it doesn’t look much like the Queen’s house. Aconitum Hall was built in early gothic revival style, which I know only from taking the tour more than once on school trips. It could easily be mistaken for a cathedral at first glance. There are spires on some of the conical tower roofs and a ton of gargoyles. Two of them leer down at us through the sunroof of the car as we pull beneath the porte cochere.“First, we’re received by the king. When everyone has arrived, dinner will be served,” Mother repeats for me, as if I somehow forgot on the drive. “After that, d
"Mother, head down, nudges me and I remember to curtsey, wobbling a little. I can’t blame it all on being out of practice. The new king is so handsome he’s knocked the wind out of me.“Rise,” the new king says, and his accent makes me homesick for London. “Do you remain faithful to the pack?”I keep my eyes downcast as the three of us answer the ritual question. “Yes, my king and my pack leader.”“And do you submit to the word of your king and pack leader?”I can’t help but glance up, and heat floods my face as I find he’s looking at me while the three of us respond. When I tear my gaze quickly away, I still feel his willing me to meet it again. There’s a confidence about him that has nothing to do with his position, an aura that fills the space between us and makes the air heavy as I breathe it into my lungs.“Yes, my king and my pack leader,” squeaks from my throat. I can barely catch my breath; I wonder how many people have passed out in front of him.“Do you surrender your will fo
“Not everyone,” Clare whispers, nodding toward a table near ours, but I don’t recognize any of the people seated at it. Our way of life doesn’t allow me to overlook them; I memorize who is seated near whom, taking in every face.“Oh, look,” Mother announces suddenly as a thrall waiter approaches. “Dessert.”Tara shoots me an expression that promises we’ll talk later.And we do. After dinner becomes drinks and dancing, my sisters and I leave for the restroom and “get lost” along the way, stepping into a windowed alcove to talk, unencumbered by their mates.“Look, Mother doesn’t want to talk about it and Father will never admit it, but Greater London is occupying the Toronto pack. King Victor made a huge mistake by taking his children out of the line of succession before securing a new heir.”“But why did the pack depose him? Because they didn’t like who he married?” Such a thing is unheard of in modern times.“Because he knew she had illegal dealings with the Manhattan pack,” Tara expl
He hugs me so tightly, I almost can’t breathe; his arms are rock hard at my back. Leaning down close, he says softly, “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come back.”Alarm bells go off in my mind. I step back from him and tilt my head, pretending to check my immovable hairdo to avoid looking him in the eye.“You’ve been gone for five years,” he says, suddenly pragmatic. “You might not feel the same way toward me that you did before you left.”How do you know what I felt for you? I almost snap.My memory drifts back to the day he knocked on my bedroom door, startling me with his presence in my house, startling me more with the announcement that my father signed a mating pact. Ashton and I barely knew each other; though we were both educated at the private academy all children of the Toronto pack attend, we weren’t friends. We barely spoke to each other before he approached my father.To this day, I’m still not sure what Ashton truly sought from our engagement. Maybe it was a rash decision ma
Nathaniel Frost, King of the Toronto pack, guides me smoothly from my fiancé’s side. It’s that easy for him to simply overwhelm me and render me helpless. It’s dizzying, almost exhilarating, definitely terrifying.“I haven’t tangoed often,” I manage to warn him as he pulls me far too close.“It isn’t my strong suit, either,” he quips, though his feet prove he’s lying as they somehow manage to avoid my clumsy ones. “Don’t expect any dips or fancy footwork.”I snort; I can’t help myself. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, that’s about ninety percent of the tango.”“You’re wrong,” he informs me. “And while we’re dancing, call me Nathan.”My mouth drops open. I quickly compose myself and try to shock my brain into remembering what, exactly, my body should be doing. Step, step, step, close. Step, step, step, close. Maybe all those dance lessons Mother forced us to take really were a practical choice. If Vivianne Dixon ever imagined that her daughter would be tangoing with the Pack Leader
“Please,” I whisper as his lips tease my jaw.“Grovel before your king,” he commands, and I fall to the floor with a cry as pain shocks through my knees. He offers me no comfort. “I said ‘grovel’.”He plants his shoe firmly on my shoulder and exerts steady pressure, until my burning skin meets the freezing marble. Then he strolls in a circle around me, every second of silence building my anticipation. What will he tell me to do next? What will he make me do next?And when, oh please, when will he make me do it? I can’t bear the wait, can’t stand the way the stone warms as it leeches the heat from my body.He kneels behind me and grips my hips, pulling them back, sliding my upper body along the floor with painful resistance. He grinds against me, still fully clothed, and I know my juices are smearing across the front of his trousers. He’s so hard and so big, and I’m totally at his mercy. Only a zipper and his self-control stand between us.He jerks a fistful of my hair and I let out a
Ryan, however, has changed. When I left, he was a chubby, baby-faced Black kid with a penchant for blue lipstick and metal band t-shirts with illegible fonts on them. He grew up into a broad-shouldered dad-type who, yes, is wearing a band t-shirt, but who is also comfortable cooking dinner at a stove with twelve burners.If they saw how people live outside the pack…“So, it’s a marriage of convenience, then? Just to dodge the Dave?” That’s a little depressing. “You know, I always thought you were gay, Ryan. I just thought you were afraid to come out.”“Oh, I am,” he answers without hesitation. “It’s not just a marriage of convenience for Hannah. She’s helping me out, too.”“And the fertility clinic helped us out, as well.” Hannah picks up her half-empty beer bottle and tips the neck toward me.“The gay dude and the asexual woman somehow had trouble conceiving,” Ryan says with mock regret.“Wow, I feel like an asshole for not knowing any of this,” I admit.“You’re the one who invoked t
“They are! I don’t even know what’s going on in the pack. I haven’t talked to anyone for five years. I come back and there’s all of this political scandal happening, and now my best friends are accusing me of being a spy or something.” This is too much. I rise from my stool. “You know what, I’m gonna pass on dinner. Thanks, though. You have a lovely home.”“Don’t be like that,” Hannah huffs.Ryan holds up a plate. “But it just got done.”I stop at the kitchen door. “Why do you even want me in your house if I’m so suspicious?”“Because you’re our friend, dummy.” Ryan puts the plate on the island. “But you’ve been gone for five years. You’re out of practice.”“Out of practice?”“The pack is a different now. If we don’t know who to trust, you don’t, either. And one stray word…” Hannah’s expression falls. “I’m not afraid you’re going to run out and betray us. I’m afraid that until you’ve been here longer than a week, you might get yourself—or someone else—in trouble without even knowing y