She rolled her eyes and kicked the cigarette away on the pavement.

I had to talk to her about this. Julian would only worry more.

“Is she with you right now?”

“Yes.”

“Could you hand her over, please?” Julian sounded annoyed.

“He wants to talk to you,” I said and handed Mia the cell phone, but she refused it.

“Mia?! Are you there?”

“Take it,” I said, and she clutched the phone in her hand.

“What the hell! Mia!” I heard Julian say loudly through my phone. “What are you thinking? You're fifteen! This is a fucking club!”

I immediately thought of all the things Julian and Nash had done when they were fifteen. How many parties they'd been to at that point. What they had tried. But they had never smoked.

“Yes Julian, I'm old enough. You don't always have to tell me what to do!” I raised an eyebrow and looked at her in surprise. She was still as cheeky as ever and, above all, she was still so stubborn. “Shall I remind you who's been looking after our father since everything just got worse?”

Mia seemed to be getting angry. Her eyes began to glow yellow.

I quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching us, but most people were busy with other things. Besides, Mia was still too young to transform. Although, she didn't have long before she too would undergo her first transformation and would rise from Omega to Delta.

It was obvious that she had to get out of the witch district, away from the stress at home and into the pack. Her behavior screamed for attention and the urge to prove herself. She would be in good hands with the others, but it was more a question of circumstances and the attitude of her family as to whether she would come to us.

“Give me Emely, please!”

I was back in the present and looked at Mia, who held out her cell phone to me, eyes rolling. She no longer seemed as shy as before, but defiant. She was probably annoyed with Julian and even more annoyed with me.

“Ems?”

“Yes?” I asked calmly. Fuss was out of place in this situation.

“Could you look after Mia?”

Now I rolled my eyes, just like Mia had a few seconds ago, and she had to grin. Her grin reminded me of Julian's, even though they didn't really look alike.

“I'll be right there.”

Julian had to be worried about her. A lot.

“Hurry up, Bardot,” I said with irony and heard a laugh from the other side of the phone.

“Thank you, I'll see you in a few minutes.”

Then he hung up and left me with Mia outside the club.

“Did you have to do that?” Mia snapped and kicked the sign next to us, whose metal bent in the middle and made a couple of smoking teenagers jump back.

“Mia!” I hissed and pulled her further away.

Her strength didn’t surprise me. She was a female Senseque, as her father and mother had both been Senseque. Only then was there a chance that a female Senseque would be born.

“What?! Let me do what I want, I'm old enough.” She looked at me with glowing eyes.

“You should be careful not to turn,” I joked, amused by her temper.

She widened her eyes. “I'm not turning. I'm not a murderer!”

I widened my eyes. “What was that you said?”

“I know what it does to you guys!” she hissed sternly. “You must be responsible for the murder on the border of Fogs Forest!”

I wanted to object, but she didn't let me.

“I can see what it's doing to Julian. And even though it's slowly getting better, I don't want anyone in this family to have to go through that kind of crap again.”

She kicked another sign, which completely collapsed. Then she leaned against the wall, annoyed, to light a joint. But I didn't let it get that far. I snatched the crap thing out of her hand and threw it far away into the grass, next to the unmown meadow at the edge of the parking lot. Then I approached her.

“Listen to me now. If there's anything more dangerous than transforming, it's not doing it. All that energy building up in your body, all that frustration.” I paused and looked at her startled face to make sure she understood me. “It's a part of us. It's a gift. Especially for females like us. And a gift like that is made to be used.” I moved even closer. “And I'll tell you this. You can't suppress what is part of you for long. It will come out sooner or later. And if you fight back, it will only become more dangerous.”

Mia looked at me in silence. She no longer protested.

I kept my distance again and leaned my head back to breathe in the cool night air.

Suddenly, I felt a strange tingling sensation on the back of my neck, which made me look around. My gaze fell on the dense forest behind the parking lot, which lay in complete blackness through the night. I didn't notice anything unusual, but the feeling didn't go away either.

Inside, the club was booming and somehow the music seemed louder now.

I tried to see the positive side of the situation, namely that I didn't have to sit there somewhere between all the noise and all the sweaty people and communicate under the shattering bass.

And then, out of nowhere, I felt a sharp pain in my neck like I'd never felt before. Like teeth were digging into my flesh. Next, the images raced through my head, but they were too fast. The pain was too intense for me to perceive anything other than it. Until finally a very familiar voice came through to me.

“Ems!” Someone shook me. “Ems! Where is she?!”

“Who are you talking about, Julian?” it came distantly from Mia, who stared at me in horror.

“Emely! Where's Bay?!”

Chapter 65

Julie

“And third, don't forget you have our numbers. Just in case anything should happen.”

Larissa looked at me insistently, her hands on my shoulders. The physical contact with her no longer bothered me, because my head was all about Erik and how I was going to survive this meet-up without scaring him off.