IRIS Word spreads faster than wildfire on campus. Darian McAllister’s birthday is this Friday. And for once, it isn’t shrouded in complete secrecy. The buzz is almost unbearable. Whispers trail through lecture halls, across dorm hallways, over steaming cups of coffee and library desks. Even the professors seem unusually alert, as if trying to sniff out an invitation for themselves. It’s not every day the future Alpha of the most powerful Lycan bloodline opens the door, even a little, to the public. And “public,” in this case, still means powerful families, heirs to empires, the rich, the elite, the dangerous. But still. The idea that someone like me, regular, scholarship-reliant, human-Iris-who’s-not-so-human-anymore, could be on the guest list? It flips the entire hierarchy upside

