“A what?”

Julian looked at me with a serious frown. “If you ever wondered if vampires existed, you met one yesterday.”

“What?”

That was the only thing I could say in response.

First, I was chased by a werewolf, then my mum's cult tried to convince me I was a witch, and now fucking vampires wanted to kill me?

“Just give me a minute to process this.”

I lowered my head against the white window frame behind me, hearing the soft crackling of crumbling paint.

“Is there anything else I should know? Unicorns, goblins, maybe even dragons?” I joked, though by now I couldn't assume it was fun. Who knew what was out there?

Julian laughed and sat down in the floor-to-ceiling window frame. “Not that I would know.”

“Hybrids?” I asked jokingly, because the question of whether werewolves and witches could have children together was still on my mind after the conversation with Alarik.

Maybe he didn’t know the whole truth.

“There's no such thing.” Julian seemed to scrutinize me, so I looked down at the grass, which grew quite lush on our side, while the Bardots had mowed theirs. “Ask your mum, she's researching something like that.”

I looked up.

“How do you know that?” I asked, confused.

Mum worked at the DeLoughrey Science Center as a molecular biologist, but she hadn't told me what she was working on.

Why would Julian of all people know that?

“Dad and her know each other from the old days,” he reminded me and stroked his hair briefly, trying to fix it, but it remained messy. “I've heard them talking about work.”

Great, more secrets.

“I feel like even my neighbors know my mum better than I do,” I sighed, disappointed in her again. I was still angry that she had reacted in such a sensitive way to the book yesterday.

“You shouldn't hold it against her.”

I raised my eyebrows.

That was easy for Julian to say. He didn't know what it felt like when a parent lied all the time and yet everyone else knew what was going on.

“I'm sure she had her reasons for leaving back then, and just the fact that she'd had the chance to get away from here, even if only for a while...” He paused and stared at our front yard. “If I had the chance, I wouldn't do it any other way.”

I looked at him.

He was staring at his hands, lost in thought, the veins running elegantly beneath his skin.

“Then, why don't you just leave? What's holding you here?”

He laughed as if I'd made a joke.

“Won't the pack let you go?”

He looked up again.

“I have nothing to do with them, and that's the way it's going to stay. They allow me to live in peace as long as I live in this area of Blairville. But if I leave this territory, I will be forced to join their pack or another one.”

I'd noticed he had something against the Copelands because he cut himself off from them. He had assured me that he was different. Did he mean that?

“Aren't you friends with Emely?”

He laughed dryly.

“We get on well, but since I've been out of there, I try to keep it that way.”

I'd seen the two of them together on campus a few times and wondered how deep their friendship went and if they were really just friends.

I would ask him about it again later, because even a blind man could tell that Emely was seeking his company.

“Why did you leave?” I asked instead.

“You ask a lot of questions, don't you?” Julian looked at me insistently, and I had to keep my grin in check.

“This is all new to me, and I'd at least like to understand it,” I sighed.

Of course, I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, but learning a bit more in the meantime wasn't a bad idea either. Who knew, maybe it could save my life sooner or later. If I had known about those vampires, I would never have gone into that damn forest. Never!

“Normally, each species minds its own business. And normally we wouldn't even talk to each other, because you're a Quatura, and I'm a Senseque.”

What a poor excuse. Here I was being pigeonholed again.

“First of all, I'm not one of them.”

He laughed.

“What?” I asked demandingly.

“It's just funny how we both don't want to belong to our species. And believe me... Life here can really suck. Once you belong somewhere, you have duties to fulfill.”

The last thing I wanted to do was fulfill any duties for this sect.

I wondered whether such a wolf pack also functioned like a cult, whether they had their own temple and also performed such rituals at the full moon. I wondered if they howled at the moon together.

“Do you transform on the full moon?”

Julian's expression became more serious. “Normally, we do. I don't.”