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A couple of hours later,somebody howled in the forest. The howls passed on, from one wolf to another, until my wolf whimpered. Something was badly wrong.
I rushed outside. I wasn’t the only one. Alison was already crying, clinging to Victor for support. Perdita reached me and wrapped her arm around my mid-section. I watched everyone as though I wasn’t a part of it, as though I wasn’t feeling the same dread.
Perdita’s heart raced so loud, it made me anxious.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything, only stared at the woods.
We waited for a long time, more and more people joining us, until Dominic appeared through the trees, Mara’s limp form in his arms. Tears ran down his cheeks like water. He had been raised with Mara, I remembered. He knew her better than most of us. For the first time I noticed the similarity in their colouring. They were probably blood related. A sharp pain inside streamed and bloomed until my entire body was shaking.
“She’s dead,” he said weakly. “It was one ofthem. That girl, the daughter of the landscaper. She was near the body. I caught her scent. Her smell is all over Mara.”
And then he fell to his knees in his grief.
Chapter 23
Margo
Something hitmy window so hard that the frame trembled. I looked up from my book in surprise. I should have been asleep hours ago, but I’d been too anxious, and I hadn’t bothered to take a tablet until I was ready to lay down.
Warily, I moved to the window and looked outside. Dorian. My stomach turned over with a mix of nervousness and excitement. How had he known which room was mine?
I shoved the window open. “What the hell?” I whispered as loudly as I dared.
He didn’t hesitate. As I watched in astonishment, he climbed up the drainpipe and into my window.
I stepped back in surprise as he loomed over me, his eyes flashing with anger, of all things. “Are you… okay?”
“Did you kill her?” he said harshly. “Or do you know who did?”
That wasn’t what I was expecting. “Excuse me?”
He closed the space between us. “Tell me you’re not involved, Margo.Please.” He gripped my arms, pulled me to him, and sniffed my neck.
“What are youdoing?” I wriggled, desperately trying to get out of his grasp, even attempting the self defence moves he had taught me, but he held on with an unnaturally tight grip. What was the point of taking a class if it didn’t help me? Or was that the point? My breathing grew laboured. “Letgo.”
He sniffed my hair, his fingers pinching into my skin.
“You’re hurting me!”
He let go. “You were wearing these clothes today,” he said under his breath. I had a feeling he was talking to himself rather than me. “There’s no death on you. You couldn’t have gotten close enough.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I shoved him. “Are you completely mad?”
“Why were you in the woods?” he asked then faltered, running his hands through his hair. His fingers were shaking. “He never said it was the woods. What was I thinking? I should have listened to them talk first.”
“Seriously, are you insane? What the hell are you doing in my room at,” I looked at the clock, “three in the morning, muttering to yourself like a headcase? Get out! Now.”
“No.” He sat on the floor and pulled me down to face him, his hands gripping my wrists frustratingly securely. “Tell me what you are.”
I stopped struggling. That was the question that had been at the back of my mind most of my life. Notwhowas I, butwhatwas I?
“What are you?” he said urgently. “This is important.”
I swallowed hard. “Is that a trick question?”
