Marked by the Alpha's Hatred

Chapter 2: In Which I Learn I Might Be Cursed, or Special, Possibly Both

Rhea found me exactly four minutes later, based on how many times she called my name before actually locating me in the dark, which was eleven. I counted. It gave my brain something to do besides replay the sound of the crowd gasping.

"Elara. Elara! Oh my gods, are you..." She skidded to a stop at the tree line, took one look at my face, and said, very calmly, in the voice she usually reserved for talking someone off a roof, "Your eyes are doing a thing."

"I noticed."

"They're doing a scary movie thing. Like, possessed doll energy."

"I noticed, Rhea. I have working eyes. Had. Currently have concerning eyes."

She grabbed my face with both hands and tilted it toward the moonlight like she was checking produce for bruises at the market, turning my head left, then right, muttering something under her breath that might have been a prayer or might have been a grocery list.

Rhea has always been the practical one between us. Half blood, sharp tongued, allergic to nonsense unless she happens to be the one causing it, in which case the nonsense is somehow completely reasonable. We grew up two houses apart, and by age seven she had appointed herself my official translator to the rest of the pack, mostly because I tended to go quiet around people and she tended to never go quiet at all. It worked out.

"Okay." She let go of my face and took a step back, hands up like she was trying to calm a spooked animal, which, fair. "Don't panic."

"I'm not panicking."

"I'm going to panic a little," she said, ignoring me entirely.

"Cool. Panic away. I'll wait."

"No wolf has black eyes, Elara. Not even Alphas. Not even the old Alphas, the really scary ones from the histories, the ones with the terrifying names nobody names their kids after anymore."

"Great. So what, I'm defective in a brand new way now? Upgraded defect. Deluxe edition."

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it."

"I was thinking it a little," she admitted, and at least she had the decency to look guilty about it.

Behind us, back toward the square, the ceremony music started up again, tinny and cheerful through the trees, because apparently my public emotional demolition had only been the opening act, and the real party continued without me. Typical. I get rejected by an Alpha with the emotional depth of a doorknob and everyone just goes back to the snack table like nothing happened. I hoped someone spilled punch on his boots. I hoped it was a lot of punch.

My wrist started to burn. Not metaphorically. Actual heat, sudden and sharp, like I'd pressed it flat against a stove. I gasped and yanked up my sleeve, and there, on the pale skin of my inner wrist, was a mark I had never seen before in my life. A crescent moon wrapped around what looked like a wolf's eye, dark as a bruise, faintly raised like a scar that had healed wrong, and definitely, definitely not something you get in the gift bag at a rejection ceremony.

Rhea stared at it. Then at me. Then back at it, leaning in close enough that her nose nearly touched my skin.

"Okay," she said slowly, in the tone of someone talking themselves into a decision. "New plan. We go back to my place. I will try to remember every old wolf legend my grandmother ever told me, which admittedly is not many because I mostly zoned out, and you will sit very still and not shift into anything with teeth."

"I don't even know how to shift. Nobody teaches the omega how to shift. There wasn't a class."

"Yeah, well." She looped her arm through mine, firm, like she thought I might actually bolt back toward the square and start a second, much worse scene. "Tonight seems like a real learning opportunity, then. Silver lining."

"You're really committed to finding a silver lining in the worst night of my life."

"Somebody has to. You're too busy having black eyes."

We started walking, deeper into the woods, away from the party, away from Kade's stupid perfect jaw, away from a pack that had spent nineteen years treating me like a rumor they'd rather not confirm. My wrist kept pulsing faintly under my sleeve, warm, almost patient, like it knew something I didn't and was in no hurry to tell me.