I was a high school student by day and a wood nymph guardian at night. While I wasn’t actively hunting this bastard, I was guarding against him. Looking for him at every turn. For the next few weeks, my wolves and I spent hours at night checking to see if there was any indication that Harold had left the forest that Francis was in the process of claiming and spreading out either in the town or into our forest.
I had a feeling I was going to need to do more to combat this monster than what I was doing, though. I mean, Francis had essentially told me to stay out of “her” woods, but it didn’t belong to her. It wasn’t her ancestral lands or anything. If that forest could give her energy and powers the way that mine could me, I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be so powerful, but then, there wasn't a lot I could do to stop her and also focus on school.
The mood was light as we made our way to the prom. Everyone was laughing and joking around. My heart was a little heavy as I thought about Ben, but Sam’s good at making me laugh, so I was distracted.We were almost to the high school when something else occurred to me. “The last time we all went to a dance, it didn’t end up being a very good night.” I meant all of us except for Sam, of course.“It was a great night until Sam entered the picture,” Brice said with a teasing tone.“Don’t worry. I only have eyes for you tonight, Harlow Nightingale,” he said with a flirty wink in that voice he uses when he’s trying to be so charming that it’s funny.I couldn’t help but smile, but the feeling I had in my s
I had to figure out who this new blonde girl was. She was driving me crazy. Every time I turned around, there she was, smiling at me like a freaking Jack-o-lantern. As soon as I had a chance, I pulled Raven aside. “What is up with you, Harlow?” she asked me. “You’re so intense tonight!”“That girl that Ben’s been dancing with, the blonde. Who is she?” I was glaring at her as I spoke, and she had the audacity to smile right at me.“I have no idea,” Raven said. ‘Why do you care? It’s not like they’re dating.”“No, I don’t care that she’s with Ben. I mean, I do, but that’s not why I’m asking. She keeps giving me this creepy grin, and I think there’s something weird about her, that’s all.”
I let go of Sam and went off with Raven so that she could tell me what was going on with the creepy blonde girl. I hope that’s what she needed to talk to me about, anyway. If it was something else, I was probably going to regret asking. “What’s going on?” I asked her.“Okay, so that girl’s name is Hannah. She hardly speaks, and she said that she’s new. That’s like all she’d say. It’s so weird. I asked Ben about her, and he said that she’d come with Jimmy. So I asked Jimmy about her, and he said that she didn’t come with him. He thought she’d come with Ben. So I told Ben that, and he just sort of shrugged it off, but I think there’s something… creepy about her.”“Right?” I said. “That’s exactly what I said! Weird.” The last girl I met wh
“What the actual hell?” I asked, squinting across the room to look at this Hannah chick’s mouth. I looked around for one of my packmates to see if they were seeing what I was seeing, too, but there was no one nearby. “Damn it. Where are my friends when I need them?” They were all over by the table where we’d been sitting, chatting it up while I was staring at some sort of a fang-toothed interloper who couldn’t stop grinning at me.I turned back to look at Hannah, but whatever I saw before was gone. This just wasn’t right. I had to be able to trust my eyes, and my eyes told me she had some really sharp teeth a minute ago. So what happened to them?I found myself walking across the dance floor on my way to speak to her when suddenly Sam was in front of me. I almost ran into him but was glad I didn’t because I
The dance floor at the prom erupted in screams and running as Jimmy staggered around with his hand pressed to his neck. Hannah, the girl who had just bitten the bejesus out of him, was still standing where she’d been when the incident had occurred, with bright crimson blood running down her chin.She had bit the hell out of that poor guy.I got up out of my seat, flying over the crowd, and landed in front of her. “What the hell are you?” I demanded. She was still smiling, but rather than just the two fangs I’d seen earlier, she had a whole mouth full of razor sharp teeth. They were long and pointy and there seemed to be more than one row of them. If Jaws the shark could fit in a ballgown, this is what his mouth would look like.Hannah did not answer me, but slowly, she began to change f
Prom night had not gone as expected. Just as the night of the homecoming dance had not gone as planned. Thankfully, this was the last dance we would have in high school, so maybe there would be less opportunities for craziness to ensue.Somehow, I doubted that, though. Craziness seemed to follow me wherever I went.After the wood nymph/vampire girl attacked Jimmy, and I made sure that he was fine, we got the blood cleaned up off of the floor, and debated what to do next.The chaperones had all scattered when the kids did, so there wasn’t anyone left in the gym other than my pack and a few of Jimmy’s friends who hadn’t run off and abandoned him. I was exhausted so I went over to the table where we had been sitting earlier and collapsed in one of the chairs.
It was quiet in the limo on the way home. None of us knew what to say about anything that had happened that night. I had blood on my clothes. Ben did, too, but he didn’t ride back with us. He’d shifted as soon as he got off school property, and Joshua brought his suit home.We had six weeks of school left. Graduation was coming up. I’d already applied at my online school of choice and been accepted. But I couldn’t help thinking about how this wood nymph business had the possibility of interrupting all of that.I was planning on going to Europe over the summer, too, to try to win back my ancestral homes. I just didn’t know how I’d have time to do that if I had to keep fighting monsters in my back yard.My thoughts just kept returning to how in the world did we get rid o
Sam never backs down from a challenge. I’d asked him to show me that he loved me, so that’s exactly what he did. He scooped me up off of the couch and carried me up the two flights of stairs from the movie room in the basement to my bedroom. Once we were in my room with the door closed, he laid me down on the bed and kissed me in a way that made my toes curl. I began to peel his suit off of him, pulling his jacket off first and then losing his tie. I broke away from his mouth long enough to take his tie off of him, and then his mouth was on mine again, our tongues tangled together. My fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as his hand slipped beneath my shirt. I managed to get his buttons undone and tugged his shirt out of his pants as his mouth went to my neck. I traced the defined muscles of his pecs down to his abdomen as he pulled my shirt off over