“Don’t even try it next time, Finn!”
I had to laugh, and, to be honest, I laughed at him.
At sixteen years old, he was just two years younger than me and still landing with too much speed. No wonder he ended up on the ground where he was at that moment.
“Laugh all you want,” Finn pressed out, finally giving it up.
Grinning, I took a step toward him and was about to hold out my hand, but immediately regretted it because he pulled me to him on the ground with a sweeping motion.
“Hey!”
Luckily, I wasn’t wearing my best jeans, but a pair of khaki cargo pants. Out here, clothes got dirty fast. Especially with the others.
“That’s what you get!” he laughed out loud.
Sometimes, I wondered if I deserved to call this naughty brat my half-brother.
I stayed lying next to him in the dirt. I didn’t care about the grass stains and dust now, either.
A look through the open canopy told me that it was already later than expected. The sun had turned the sky slightly purple, and the massive cloud towers, common for this time of year in Blairville, looked as if they were hiding dark castles.
“Still trying to convince your crush?”
Annoyed, I punched Finn in the side.
“We’re just friends,” I said bitingly, though that sentence really upset me. Were we really still friends? Or was I just still telling myself that?
Julian and I had spent so much time together when we were kids. Together with Nash and Kieran, we had made the forest unsafe and had romped around on our property. Time had flown by. But it had never driven us apart. Then, three years ago, everything had begun to fall apart.
I told myself, day after day, that I could still save it. But maybe it was all an illusion, and I just imagined that Julian still had any interest in our friendship. He didn’t care about anything anymore. Simply nothing.
This was exactly why I had wondered why he had signed up with us at Vanderwood, as my uncle had told me.
“You know... Sooner or later, he’ll come around,” Finn said.
I turned my head toward him.
Of the three siblings, he looked the most like father, with his caramel blond curls. I often wondered what his mother looked like. She had been a human.
It was customary for Senseque men to find a human wife since female Senseque, like my mother, were rare. And since humans were not allowed to know of our existence, the Senseque fathers took the children, always boys, and raised them alone with the help of the pack.
Only now did I realize what he had said.
“How can you be so sure?” I dug deeper.
“Because so far, they’ve all come. Every single one of them.”
The chirping of the crickets relaxed me a bit, and I let all the frustration out of me in one breath, letting the wind brush through my hair, trying to stay in the moment, which I couldn’t.
Finn was right. However, Julian was not like everyone else. He was different.
Broken, yet resilient.
“You shouldn’t get so caught up in this. It’s the Alpha’s job to recruit. Or don’t you trust Father?”
I jumped up and looked down at Finn.
He must have seen the horror on my face because he immediately started laughing again.
“Oh man, Emy. I was just kidding.”
Finally, he rose too and looked at me, part amused, part examining.
It wasn’t a joke. I knew that for a fact.
He was accusing me of not being submissive to the Alpha. But that was not true. I would never betray my family and do independent shit that could harm the whole pack or the highest Code. Right now, when Father had so much to do, I would do my best to serve the Code as he was doing.
“Finn, this is not funny. You should watch what you say.”
“Why are you being like this?” he growled before grinning again.
Then I whispered softly. “Because we’re being overheard.”
Finn looked around abruptly, and I glanced in the direction from which I had heard the soft rustling. That had definitely not been a squirrel.
I snorted.
It was Nash.
