Chapter 4
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CASSIDY’S POV
I stared at the three boys in shock.
I don't have the right words for what I saw when I looked at them.
They were tall - all three of them.
They were dressed in the academy uniform but they made it look like designer clothing. They looked alike but they weren’t identical, not really.
The one in the center had his jaw set and his eyes on Kenny. Even from where I stood, I could see the colour of his beautiful eyes – light grey. His shoulders were wide under his jacket. He held himself the way born-dominant wolves held themselves, like authority was just the natural position of his body.
The one on the left was watching the crowd, like he was studying them. His expression was neutral but there was a quality to his attention that made you feel like he already knew everything you were about to do before you did it.
The one on the right was looking at me.
He looked directly at me, not at Kenny, at me. His eyes were warmer than his brothers', a deeper color, and the way he was looking at me made my breath seize.
The collective aura coming off all three of them was dominant. It wasn’t like Kenny’s aura. No. This was something different. This was the kind of power that didn't need to push because it had nothing to prove. It simply existed, like gravity.
They were gorgeous.
They looked like models that stepped out from a magazine. No – even that description didn’t do them justice.
They looked like greek gods.
Everyone in the hallway had all stepped back about six inches without any of them appearing to notice they'd done it.
I had stepped back too, I realized.
The whispers started almost immediately.
"Who are those-"
"Exchange students, I heard-"
"Look at them-"
"Oh my god-"
The girls in the hallway gasped. Some giggled. Some fanned themselves. One of them had her phone out, then seemed to think better of it and put it away, then took it out again.
The one in the center - the one with the winter-glass eyes - had shifted his attention from Kenny to me. He was the one who said ‘hey’.
Kenny had gone very still.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The one on the left answered.
"Exchange students," he said. "We transferred in this week."
"Exchange from where?" Kenny's chin came up slightly. I knew that posture. He was about to remind them who he was, which was always the first thing Kenny did when he felt his authority questioned. "Do you know who I am?"
"You're the Alpha's son," the center one said. He didn’t look impressed at all "I know."
Kenny smiled. He stepped forward and extended his hand.
"Kenny Draven," he said. "And you are?"
The three of them looked at each other briefly.
The one on the right smiled fully then, for the first time, and it made him look even more gorgeous. The girls in the hallway swooned.
"Daren Leviathan," he said.
Everyone gasped.
The girl with the phone dropped the phone. Someone said something that wasn't quite a word. The whispering stopped.
"Casein Leviathan," the observant one said.
"Bastian," the center one said. He hadn’t taken Kenny's extended hand.
None of them did. Kenny's extended hand was still out.
He pulled it back. I watched the color shift in his face. His jaw had gone rigid. He looked at the three of them with an expression that was trying very hard to be neutral.
I was surprised too. I knew who they were.
The Leviathan brothers. Sons of the Lycan King. The highest authority in the entire werewolf world, above pack Alphas, above councils, above every hierarchy this pack operated within. And also, because the universe apparently had a sense of dramatic irony, the most famous rock band any of us had ever heard, with more fans than there were wolves in this whole territory. Their faces were on every screen and wall and the inside cover of every journal owned by anyone between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five.
Kenny Draven, Alpha's son, most popular boy in school, had just tried to pull seniority on the Lycan princes.
The silence that followed was the loudest I had ever experienced.
Then, from the main entrance, another figure appeared.
He was enormous - there was really no other word for it. he was wide in the shoulders, wide in the chest.
He was dark-skinned and had a calm expression. He was the tallest person in the building. He was the kind of man who made a room feel smaller just by entering it.
I’d never seen someone this tall or huge.
He stepped up behind the brothers and then he did something I had never seen before.
His aura spread.
It moved outward from him like a wave. It was invisible but we all felt it. The wolves nearest to it stepped back another pace. The whispering cut off completely. The girls with their phones lowered them. The boys who had been edging closer stopped where they were.
And then the aura shifted, wrapped around the brothers, wrapped around-
Me.
It settled over me like a hand laid gently on the top of my head, not heavy, not pressing, just there.
The brothers looked at me. Without saying anything, they moved. Daren - the one on the right, the one who had been looking at me - turned slightly as they passed and tilted his head toward the back of the courtyard – an invitation
I followed them.
I don't know entirely why.
We moved through the back of the courtyard, around the edge of the building, to a side exit I had never used.
The door opened and the three brothers walked through with the large man - their guard, I understood now – holding the door.
He looked at me as I passed through.
His eyes were kind. That was the most startling thing. In a face that was built to intimidate, the eyes were just kind.
I smiled at him as I passed. He smiled too.
Then the door closed behind me and they were gone.
All three of them. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t even look back. They had appeared in the middle of my public humiliation, inserted themselves between me and Kenny, and now they just…left.
What the hell just happened?
Then I looked down at my hand.
Sometime between the courtyard and the exit - I couldn't have said exactly when - something had been placed in my palm. It was a small note.
How did this get here?
I opened it.
The handwriting inside was clean and straight:
We have a proposal for you. Tonight, if you're willing. Someone will come for you at seven.
—Leviathan
- ผู้เขียน
