If he knew the whole truth, he would never speak a word to me again.

“Yes, damn it, I’m saying you’re acting like someone from the Tenebris Order!”

His eyes turned a threatening red and I would have loved to do like that rude mutt in the bar, but I reminded myself to be reasonable. We ruled our emotions, not them us.

“Miles, enough is enough...” David began again.

“The Order of Tenebris is doing exactly the same thing you are!” Miles looked at me angrily. “And we have a way of not living like those lawless bastards, and yet you’re still doing it.” He banged on the table, and a loud crack sounded. “I’m sure Nicolaj encouraged you to do it – or he did!”

I felt the anger boiling over. “I do it because I can control myself!”

I had gone too far. At least for Miles, who sped toward me and pinned me against the wall. His eyes glowed menacingly.

“Miles! That’s enough! That wasn’t our plan,” I admonished placatingly, pushing Miles backwards and walking with my hands in my pockets to the window through which the sun was still shining. But I stood so that it reached just to my covered chest level.

“No one here is a member of the Order of Tenebris. You should hear yourself talk. It’s unbearable!” I added annoyed, knowing that there were far worse things than being a part of the Order.

Miles didn’t say anything more, and I knew he was struggling with his emotions right now. As usual. And gradually I was getting fed up with it.

“Let’s focus on other things instead. Miles, I’m sure you’ve got a plan to really kick some mutts’ butts...”

This time I wondered about my words, since I tried to avoid such problems on principle. But it seemed like a welcome distraction from the life I had outside of this campus.

I felt Miles start to move and appear next to me within a split second.

I didn’t have to look over at him to know that he hadn’t finished discussing the matter. On the contrary. The fire of aggression was blazing inside him. Something he had definitely inherited from his father.

“Do you have a plan?” David asked with interest, and when I turned around, he was leaning casually against a table on which colorful pictures and posters lay neatly sorted.

This room had to belong to the Faculty of Arts.

I caught myself staring at the pictures for too long, as if they were calling out to me. And then I wondered what my life would have been like as an art student – a thought I quickly dismissed because I wasn’t. I had duties and tasks that set me apart from the others. There was no place for such things in my life, just like all the things Miles wallowed in every day.

“I mean, we could just cut down their oak tree...” Miles suggested.

“And have her entire pack stuck to our cheek with it? Hardly.”

David was right. That would have been too obvious. And sooner or later, Nicolaj would find out. Something my blood brothers shouldn't have to deal with.

“Now comes a boring Adrian version, I’m sure.”

Even if it didn’t sound like it, Miles really tried to keep himself under control and forget about the conversation from before. Because even though it was just us here, we had to function flawlessly out there. Anything we screwed up here, sooner or later, we wouldn’t be able to manage in front of the clan either. Emotional outbursts of any kind were a disgrace for every Ruisangor. Because feelings meant weakness.

Bastien and Camille often tried to look past it, reasoning that he was the youngest of us at twenty and that I should keep an eye on him at the age of twenty-six. I obeyed, even though I had better things to do than babysit Miles. He would never grow up, even if he had eternity to do so. It would take a miracle for that to happen, and I didn’t believe in such things.

I sighed.

“Maybe we should just leave it alone. We would get nothing but stress with such provocations. And besides...don’t you think we should stand above things?” David finally said, and normally I would have agreed with his opinion, but this time I had my own objectives. And as long as we let those miserable dogs make us look stupid, no one here would show us respect.

“Good one, David,” Miles laughed with his hands up. “This place is boring as hell, and the dogs really need to be walked. So, get your shit together and defend our honor.”

“I think I have an idea.” I was too quiet, even if they could have heard me through ten walls.

David shook his head. “I still wonder why Bastien had the glorious idea of letting you come here.”

Miles eyed David suspiciously, braced his hands at his sides, and turned to me energetically. “And that idea would be?”

Chapter 26

Julie

When I entered the molecular biology seminar room in the west wing, the first thing I noticed was the many girls excitedly whispering to each other in the best seats.

At Blairville High, I had always been the only girl in science classes.

What if I had ended up in the wrong room?

I backed up to check the sign outside the entrance to make sure I was in the right place, and when I read molecular biology, I stepped back into the room, shaking my head and trying to ignore the horde of girls.

It didn’t slip my mind that they were all human. Among them was Penny Bexley, the little sister of reporter gossip Jenny. Penny had been in my year at Blairville High and, even then, had shown little interest in her family’s radio station and more in biology. A wonder she had managed to minor in biology. As far as I knew, the sensationalist Bexley family had forced their youngest into majoring in media, just like Jenny, who seemed to be completely absorbed in it.

When Penny spotted me, she smiled shyly. Quickly, I looked away.

I let my gaze wander around the seminar room.

The course, including me, consisted of just thirteen people, and I was unusually late because Grace had tried to talk me into combining economics with law at the last minute.

I had already given up my passions when I chose economics as my major, giving up computer science and chemistry.

And over my dead body would I find myself squeezed into a lecture with even more Copelands and DeLoughreys.

My spirits plummeted when I spotted Amber Smith and Kelly Hepburn at the very front of the second row of seats. You’d think they’d be less toxic without Vivienna, but Amber was the walking devil personified, even nastier than Vivienna, in my opinion, and the reason Vivi had become that way in the first place. And Kelly was the epitome of annoying. Her pink Barbie outfit was just icing on the cake.

I didn’t know how Amber, of all people, could care about biology, but she did. Maybe it was due to her element: Earth.

But Kelly? I knew why Barbie was here. Because of Amber.

When Amber spotted me, she stopped her banter and eyed me condescendingly from the side.

Again, I quickly looked away, trying to calm my pulse, and looked around for an empty seat.

Great. Three seats were still available. One was the one in the very back next to Noah, a brown-haired Senseque who was already inspecting me like he wanted to end my life, one was next to Amber and Kelly, and the last one was the seat next to the second and last guy in this seminar: David DeLoughrey.

Amber demonstratively placed her Michael Kors bag, studded with obsidian-colored rhinestones, on the chair next to her, and my inner tension grew immediately.

I was screwed.

While the Ruisangors didn’t hate us as much as they hated the Senseque, they didn’t trust us. And neither did we trust them. They didn’t just want a piece of the pie, they wanted to buy up the whole town. And we wanted them to leave the city because their existence was a threat to humanity.