He grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. 

It was good to see him like that. How long had it been since he had smiled in my presence? 

“They’re witches. You know the rules.”

“So, what? I’ve lived among them half my life. This would hardly make a difference. And besides... A couple of pretty girls. Who says no?” 

His grin widened as I boxed him another time in horror. 

He wasn’t really the playboy that my twin brother was, and he was once again making his jokes, even though I knew he could have had just as many dates. But Julian wasn’t thinking about such things. His thoughts were elsewhere. Since the incident.

His father had been having some disagreements with my father after all the drama, and had moved to town as a result. Of course, right in the witches’ territory, where we had nothing to say. So, the Bardots had been able to perfectly evade our rules and the codex until today.

If I had to live there with the witches, I would explode.

“How do you manage it?”

Julian looked at me. I noticed that his eyes still had that gleam in them. However, not as intense as back then.

Julian shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a place like any other.”

I turned away from him, and my gaze slid into the void.

“You’re moving in hostile territory.”

“Emely... Could you please stop talking about territories all the time?”

“If only it were that simple...”

Julian jumped up. He was still looking at me, but mentally he slipped away.

“Maybe we really are making it way too hard for ourselves. All the rules, the hostilities, and this flaunting of who’s better...”

I couldn’t help but look up at him, uncomprehending.

“That’s part of the rules. Otherwise, everyone would do what they want.”

In my mind, I began to imagine all that could happen without those rules. We would no longer be able to live in safety and undetected. A life on the run, like that of our ancestors. No home, the fear of being murdered every day by our bloodthirsty arch-enemies....

“Don’t they already do that anyway?” Julian laughed out, running his hand through his brown hair in a way that made it look even messier.

“No.”

Determined, I jumped up and patted the dirt off my clothes. Somehow, everything I did made me look like a freaking forest.

“There’s an order that dictates exactly your behavior. Out there, some brutal Alpha who isn’t as patient as Father would have just taken you into his pack. And if you hadn’t wanted that...” I broke off the sentence, not wanting to imagine what the other packs did to those who defied their orders.

Julian must have noticed my concern because he came over to me now and put his hands on my shoulders. His look sent a shiver down my spine. 

Up close, I could see his eyes even better. The green was not only dominant, but shimmered through the incoming light. It felt familiar.

“Emely...” he whispered softly. “I’m here, in Blairville... and not out there.”

I fell silent.

He was right. We were safe here. For now.

Slowly he took his hands from me again, and I immediately felt the cold where they had been until just a moment ago. It was the same cold I had felt in the last weeks and months of his absence.

I had been looking for explanations. And the only one who had given them to me had been my twin brother. My stomach tightened painfully at the thoughts of our last conversation, a few days ago in the woods behind our house.

“I have to go,” Julian said, and I just nodded silently. 

Julian was here and that was progress. Nash couldn’t always be right. This time, the point would go to Finn.

I looked at Julian, who had already walked a few feet.

“Wait...I’m coming with you!”

My words seemed to surprise him because he turned and looked at me with a searching gaze. But then, very slowly, a grin appeared on his face – the way I used to know him – the way it felt good, and I returned it.

“Let’s see if you’re still this slow, Bardot!”

Then I started to sprint.

Chapter 15

Bayla

“Crazy, there’s literally everything here!” Larissa exclaimed, and I couldn’t help but laugh. This was Larissa as I had always known her.

“You only eat salad anyway.”

“Hello?!” Playfully indignant, she closed the fridge and came walking over to me with a bowl of tomatoes.

She was still wearing her black jeans with holes at the knees, which flattered her slender curves and matched perfectly with the biker jacket.

If it were up to me, she’d be on a catwalk by now. But Larissa didn’t want to hear that.

I, on the other hand, was sitting here in front of my laptop with my somewhat older dark brown knitted sweater and black leggings with cozy socks, frantically searching for the e-mail with the seminar rooms that everyone but me had received.

“Well, not everyone can eat that much. And then also what she wants without gaining weight.”

With this, she looked at me with that look that I knew all too well.

“Very funny,” I replied. 

I would be happy if I had a little more on my ribs and didn’t have to look like an emaciated rabbit.