“I’m glad you found your way to me as well, Alarik. We need to clarify some matters that, according to my son, have been going on behind our backs.”

The Alpha sounded calm, but there was anger in his voice.

Bastien glanced at the white gold Rolex that was on his wrist and matched his dark blond hair. I had given it to him five years ago to make room in my collection.

“We have to go. Nicolaj is waiting.” 

If you kept Nicolaj waiting, you had messed it up with him. There was only one among us who could afford that. And that was Bastien.

Even though I knew that Nicolaj was not waiting, but was currently on a business trip to Toronto, I was grateful to my mentor for ending this ridiculous conversation.

I rose from the couch and buttoned my suit jacket, whereupon my blood brothers did the same.

Nash just snorted disdainfully, but I ignored his threatening looks. Because even if they seemed so, he wasn’t. Not here on a campus full of humans.

“If there will be a single incident that has anything to do with your boys in the smallest way, three de-registrations from Vanderwood University will follow!”

The Alpha’s words sounded harsh, but I would not break the rules. After all, they also corresponded to the interests of our clan leader, who I did not want to mess with at any price in the world. However, I was worried about Miles.

Bastien didn’t answer and went to the door, where the English professor was still standing, gazing firmly into his eyes. 

We followed Bastien and a short time later we found ourselves back in the large stairwell of Vanderwood.

No one said a thing, because we all knew that the Copelands could overhear every word from that distance.

I was still wondering about the meeting of Prof. Copeland and Bastien. Everyone my mentor was involved with worked in his department or was dead.

“Did you see their faces? As if they wanted to get their asses kicked,” Miles laughed with a grin, tying his hair into an undercut man bun.

“And that’s exactly what they won’t get,” Bastien warned him. “That’s what they want. For you to make a misstep.”

“Should we tell Nicolaj about this?” Laurent asked, visibly tense.

I listened up.

“Nicolaj has other problems,” Bastien countered intently.

“Maybe we should, Bastien. They were verbally attacking us,” David, who had been quiet the whole time, agreed.

David, the platinum blond blood brother to my left, was best at this of the three of us. Staying calm and waiting it out. Observing the situation as we had learned to do. He had always been thoughtful. On top of that, he had strong powers.

Miles liked to tease him about it, even though we both had respect for the fact that he could do telekinesis. Something usually only the Air Quatura could do.

“We can’t run to our leader every time we have a problem like the children of Nickolas Copeland.”

Bastien was right. We would not act like those dogs.

“Surely you must have noticed the tension that exists between the Alpha and his brother.”

My mentor said nothing back to Laurent’s statement.

“It proves that you should be careful what you hide from the clan head if you don’t want him to get suspicious.”

Laurent sounded serious, yet he remained composed because Bastien was above him, and what he said could have consequences for his job in our family dynasty. Every word. 

I knew that Bastien didn’t care about this rule of power because he was different from us. He had never wanted power, or control. Not like Nicolaj. But he was good at hiding what he really wanted.

“It just proves that the pack obviously has problems within its own ranks.” Bastien murmured with a strained expression.

Whenever Copelands were involved, there were unnecessary problems.

First, they had come to Blairville almost 250 years ago, becoming a thorn in the side not only of us, but also of the Quatura, because their kind existed solely to eradicate ours. And now, under the rules of the Quatura, they already owned the largest third of the island, and they still didn’t have enough, trying not to give in to their murderous urge to wipe us out.

Nicolaj had warned us that the Senseque did not want the peace treaty any more than our clan did – if you excluded Bastien, Camille, and Laurent. 

I decided to stay away from them, hoping that I would only encounter them in English class. Inwardly, however, I already suspected that it would not stay that way.

Chapter 20

Julian

What the...?

I had thought it couldn’t get any worse, but here I was, in front of me, the brood of the DeLoughrey clan. At the latest, the smell that had been in the air for about five minutes had given them away. And it had awakened a memory in me. That of the day I had gone into the woods.

“Not only did they put us in the cabin with the mutts, they put us in a room with one of them,” the brown-haired one with the undercut man bun laughed in amusement, crossing the room at a speed that could clearly only be attributed to the Ruisangors. He dropped onto one of the uncovered beds and looked around, visibly unimpressed.

I was still standing there, rooted to the spot, unable to say anything in response.

What were these people doing here? In this house...in this room? Had Nash not wanted to talk to his father?

“Leave us alone, and we’ll do the same,” the blond guy finally said, darting over to one of the windows and pulling his cell phone out of his pocket as if he were bored. He was walking normally, unlike his friend, since that too was actually part of the rules when you were in another territory. But anyway, there were no normal humans here at the moment.

The silent one with the pitch-black hair still stood in the doorway and eyed me suspiciously with his dark eyes. 

Did I look that threatening?

Something inside me wanted to confront him, but I skillfully suppressed this urge. I didn’t want to be kicked out of university on day one. Even though I would have liked nothing more than that. After all, it was my father who had sent me to this jail.

“And tell your friend not to get too cocky about his position as the Alpha’s son,” the brown-haired one added. 

“Nash is not my friend,” I snorted in disdain. “And I’m not one of them either...”

Now all three of them looked at me with suspicion. They showed little emotion. Something they were known for.

“If you don’t belong to them, then who do you belong to?” the black-haired one asked. He sounded distrustful.

“Just to be clear, I’m not part of the pack,” I added.