Chapter 3

A werewolf college.

The words hung in the office like smoke. After years of rejection, after months of searching, they had finally found a school that would take them, and it was the wrong kind of school, the worst kind. The kind that could end their lives in a second.

“Yes, young ladies,” the old man said quietly. “This school is only for wolves. I’m trapped here too.”

“Wait.” Tricia’s voice had gone thin. “Is that where the name comes from? Wolfries?”

He nodded.

“Oh my gosh.” She dropped into a chair and pressed both hands to her face. “I thought it was just a name. A normal, stupid, fancy school name. I should never have searched for a school. We could have stayed home and been uneducated and alive.”

Isla backed against the wall and shut her eyes. Why is my life made of nothing but bad luck?

“Girls, we should get your friend to a hospital,” the old man said, glancing at Remy, who was still lying motionless on the floor. “She’s been out for minutes.”

“Leave her,” Isla said wearily. “She’ll wake up when she’s done being scared. She’s just being Remy.”

Tricia lifted her head and eyed him. “So, Baldy, what do we do now?”

“Tricia,” Isla whispered. “Language.”

Tricia cleared her throat theatrically. “Sorry. What I mean is, what should we call you, sir?”

“Mr. Tip Tap.”

Tricia’s face twisted. “That’s a weird name.”

Isla glared. Tricia glared back, completely unrepentant. She was a genius, but she had never learned to stop her mouth, and she was brutally sassy even when she was terrified.

“Mr. Tip Tap,” Isla said, steadying her voice, “you said you’re like us. How did you end up trapped here?”

“So many questions.” He adjusted his glasses and almost smiled. “I’m not exactly human, my dear. I’m half human and half wolf.”

Tricia’s swivel chair rolled backward on its own as she scrambled away from him. Isla’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, please. Don’t be afraid.” He raised both hands. “I no longer have a wolf’s strength. My wolf blood is fading a little more every day. What’s left of it is the only thing that keeps the students from smelling me. I’m what they call a castolwolf, a cursed one. Castols are rare, which is why no one recognizes me. The lecturers here are trapped like I am, but they’re dark wolves, so they can’t be touched. I’m not so lucky.”

“Why not?”

“Because the one person who knows what I am is the Alpha, the owner of this school. He’s second only to the Supreme Wolf, and he is very, very dangerous.” Mr. Tip Tap’s hands began to tremble. “He’s only waiting for the last of my wolf blood to fade. When it does, he’ll devour me.”

“Wow,” Tricia whispered. She sounded close to tears.

“If you can avoid the Alpha and stay away from the other wolves,” the old man went on, “you will be about fifty percent safe.”

Fifty percent. Not eighty. Not even close to certain.

“What’s his name?” Tricia asked.

“No one knows. No one has ever seen his real face. He wears a mask at all times.” He shook his head. “As for how three human girls found this school, I can’t imagine how far you must have searched.”

Or how far someone wanted you to search, Isla thought, and the idea made her skin crawl.

“He sounds like a strange man,” she said, rubbing her temple.

“What happens if we run away?” Tricia asked. “How would they even know we’d ever been here?”

“They have ways, dear. If you value your lives, stay.”

“But...”

“Young ladies, as you can see, I’m busy.” He turned back to his screen, adjusting his glasses. “We’re done here. Please leave my office.”

On the floor, Remy let out an enormous yawn. She had gone from fainting to sleeping, and she was dribbling slightly.

“Remy. Get up,” Isla said. “We’re leaving.”

The Alpha’s car came up the drive just after noon.

Students scattered like startled birds, running for lecture halls and offices without looking back. Nobody on that campus needed to be told what the black car meant. He was strict and merciless, and no one dared cross his path.

He walked into the admin office as if he meant to tear the door off its hinges. Mr. Tip Tap flinched so hard his glasses slid off his nose. The Alpha’s presence alone could raise a man’s blood pressure.

“Tip Tap.” The voice was low and cold. “You know your days are numbered.”

“Y-yes. I know.” The old man shook in his chair. A dark stain was spreading across his trousers. “And I know what you’re going to do to me.”

“Good. Then who just left your office?”

Tip Tap’s heart lurched. He knew the Alpha had already smelled the humans. The next question would be their names and their courses, and then the girls were finished.

“Sir, I’ve been alone since morning. Nobody came in.”

The Alpha stared at him.

Then he laughed, softly, and the sound was worse than shouting.

“You’re lying to me?”

“I would never, sir, I swear...”

The Alpha slammed his hand onto the desk so hard the drawers rattled. In the next breath he had the old man by the throat, lifting him as if he weighed no more than paper.

“I smell human. Humans were in this room, and you dared lie to my face. Have you forgotten who I am? I’m not one of your cursed kind, old man. I know everything that moves in my school.”

He dropped him. Tip Tap hit the floor wheezing.

“I won’t ask you again. I’ll find them myself.” At the door he paused without turning around. “Two days, Tip Tap. Two days, and then you’re mine.”

He left like a cold wind passing out of a tomb.

The Alpha’s office was less an office than a vault. It was a large, bare room of black glass with a single chair, and no one ever came in but him. A huge screen covered one wall, showing every corridor, classroom and courtyard of the school.

He studied it for hours.

He had smelled more than one human in that office. Several, perhaps, and the scent was fresh and warm and strong. It maddened him. He wanted to find them now, to hold them, and then decide what to do. Perhaps he’d give them to the students as a feast. It would be a generous gift.

But the cameras showed him nothing. Not a single unfamiliar face.

Why would that cursed old fool bring humans into my school? he thought. Does he even know what will happen to them if the others find out?

He pressed his hands against the glass, his breathing slow and controlled, and for a moment something in his reflection flickered.

His eyes were not entirely his own.

Isla couldn’t concentrate.

The lecturer’s voice was a drone, and the words slid past her like water. All she wanted was a way out of this nightmare. Beside her, Remy’s face was stiff with fear, and even Tricia, who was pretending to be calm, kept twisting a strand of her hair around her finger until it went white.

If only Tricia had never gone looking for a school. If only they had stayed home, uneducated and safe. Learning nothing from fear was a poor way to spend a life.

They had chosen seats at the very back of the hall. The students, the werewolves, barely moved. No one turned around to borrow a pen or whisper a joke. It was as if the whole room was holding its breath.

I thought werewolves only lived in stories, Isla thought. And now I’m sitting in a room full of them.

Her brain was too crowded to hold the lecture, so she quietly switched on her phone’s voice recorder. At least she’d have something to study later, if there was a later.

That was when she noticed it.

On the back of every student’s neck, just below the hairline, was a tattoo of a wolf’s head. Same shape, same size, all of them identical.

A mark. It must be a mark of belonging, and we don’t have one.

Panic rose in her throat. She typed a frantic message to the others, and a moment later she saw Remy and Tricia pull their long hair forward over their necks, hiding the bare skin.

Isla’s hair was a short bob. It stopped at her jaw.

Tears pricked her eyes. She had never felt so unlucky.

Tricia saw her face. Without a word, she slipped off her jacket and passed it down. Isla pulled it on and turned up the collar, grateful and ashamed all at once.

Mr. Tip Tap never warned us about the tattoo. If he had, we’d have found a way out of this before we ever walked in.

And still, no one had noticed them. No one had looked. It should have been a relief, but instead it made her feel strangely invisible, like a ghost walking among the living. She almost wished for a little cold welcome, even from werewolves.

Then, in the front row, one of the students turned around.

He was young and handsome, with pale skin and dark, steady eyes, and he looked directly at her.

He didn’t look away.

Isla’s blood ran cold, and for the rest of the lecture she prayed for it to end.