Another laugh. “Well, you get used to that. I forget you haven’t been around males, they’re all huge but yeah I suppose Lucien is one of the largest, he’d have to be to be Alpha, there are the Elders though and maybe Mal and you’re just about to meet him.” She had an endearing way of rushing one sentence into the other as if afraid she wouldn’t have time to discuss everything she obviously wanted to.
“Mal?”
“Malek,” she explained. “He’s Morgan and Natalia’s oldest son.”
Caia looked at her blankly. She couldn’t put names to faces quite yet.
“Mal,” Jaeden insisted. “You’ll recognize him when you see him; huge, dark and kind of twisted.”
The vague image of a lykan she’d noticed standing heads above others in the living room last night flitted across her mind. “Actually I think I know who you’re talking about. He goes to school?” she asked incredulously.
“Uh-huh. All the human girls are in love with him.”
“And you?”
Jaeden sneered. “No thank you. He’s so arrogant. You think Lucien’s bad? Ugh. Mal messes around with Dana. Watch out for her by the way.”
“Dana?”
“Yeah, you’re going to meet her. She’s Daniel’s twin sister, and you’ll meet him, too.”
“Anyone else I should know about?” Suddenly she was extremely nervous. She forgot that there were pack members her age, other than Jaeden, that she’d have to see every day. Would they all be as friendly as Jaeden? Somehow she didn’t think so.
“There’s Sebastian. He’s the same age as the twins, so is Mal. Their little brother Finlay too, he’s fifteen.”
“So … you’re a senior, like me?”
“Yeah, so is Alexa. But, you know, we eat lunch with Mal, the twins, and Sebastian as well. So, you’ll have nearly all of us to keep you company.”
That’s not what Caia was worried about.
Jaeden was full of questions about her life in isolation with Irini, and Caia tried to answer as many as possible, but the girl was like a machine gun. Before she knew it they were pulling into a parking lot behind a large, modern school building. There were lots of kids already buzzing around; the air filled with the scent of teenage pheromones. Caia blew out air between her lips. Although Lucien had come up with an excuse no doubt the school thought it incredibly inconvenient her transferring one semester away from graduation. It wasn’t going to interfere with her school work, but she had a 3.8 G.P.A. and had scored a 1250 on her SAT’s last year, which meant she would have to go another round of explaining to teacher’s why she hadn’t applied to any colleges. Irini had told her she couldn’t because they didn’t know when the pack would call them home, and since she didn’t know where home was going to be, she couldn’t even apply for a college nearby. However, Dimitri had told her there was a community college here. Joy.
Yup, she sighed, feeling the twinge of disappointment again that she wouldn’t be able to go off and enjoy the thrill of college life elsewhere.
“Here we are.” Jaeden smiled at her. Her eyes suddenly softened when she took in her expression. “You’ll be fine. I promise. And if people think it’s weird that you’re transferring at such... well... a weird and pointless time in your high school education then we’ll do what we usually do. Ignore their very existence.”
Caia smiled tremulously, grateful to the girl. Her immediate acceptance of her into the pack was going to get her through what she guessed was going to be a rough first year. She took a deep breath, her nostrils filling up with those icky pheromones and a hint of damp earth scents mixed with individual fragrances she would soon come to identify with the other pack members her age.
They were close.
“I hope you’re right.” She blew out her breath and got out of the car.
“I’m always right,” Jaeden teased. “Come on, the guys will be waiting,”
Jaeden led her across the parking lot towards a group of teenagers standing around a Ford SUV.
“Jaeden?” she asked, as her eyes wandered over the group. She recognized, due to his immense height and build for a sixteen year old, what could only be Malek. He was standing in the center with five other teenagers crowded around him.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know why Lucien pulled me out of school and back to the pack now? Doesn’t it seem like a stupid time? Couldn’t he have waited until after graduation?”
Jaeden smiled. “I heard my dad talking about this with Mom.”
“You were eavesdropping?”
She shrugged, and grinned cheekily. “Well... anyway, I heard him say that Lucien wanted you to connect as much as possible with the pack. He thought a semester at school with lykans your own age would do that.”
“I guess that makes sense.” In actuality she wasn’t entirely convinced by that excuse but it was just then that Mal looked up as they approached and any overhanging anxieties she had over Lucien’s reasoning disappeared. She felt Mal’s black eyes burn through her from head to foot. He murmured something to the others and they all turned towards her. Caia was struck by disbelief that humans could possibly think these ‘kids’ were just like them. They moved with an unbelievable grace that bordered on predatory.
“He’s doing it again,” Jaeden grumbled.
“Huh?”
“Looking at you like you’re a snack.”
Caia was confused. Who? What? “Huh?”
“Didn’t you see the way Mal was looking at you last night? You’re fresh meat, baby.”
Caia winced at the thought. From what Irini had told her, when pack males turned sixteen they were fully matured (somehow she doubted that) and were more than welcome to start sniffing around the females to find a possible mate. Vice versa for the females. Caia had no intention of becoming involved in this part of the lykan life cycle.
No mating for her.
No. Uh-uh, Haaades no.
“Hey guys.” Jaeden smiled as she drew up to them, standing as close to Caia as possible. She was surprised by how comforted she was by this small gesture of protection. “You all remember Cy, right?”
“Jae.” A tall blonde stepped forward first smiling widely, his eyes twinkling as he turned to Caia. “Hey Caia, I’m Sebastian.”
Caia was somewhat transfixed by him at first; he had this feral quality to all his movements, and of all the lykans she had met thus far he was quite simply the most beautiful - if it was possible to describe someone so masculine as such. The contrast between the smooth, aristocratic sculpturing of his face, and the sinewy wildness of his physique was intimidating; in fact he bordered on damn right scary, except for the gentle light that played in his eyes. Finally, Caia managed to nod back with a smile in acknowledgment, and was quickly introduced to them all. Finlay was the smallest - being only fifteen - as well as the shyest of the lykans surrounding her. The red-headed Daniel was as friendly as Sebastian, whereas his twin was practically spitting, her eyes flicking between Caia and Malek in outrage. Malek had stepped right up to Caia, closing her off from the others and deliberately surrounding her with his scent. He had reached out and taken her hand into both of his in a flirtatious shake. “Nice to finally meet you one on one,” his voice rumbled.
OK, she could see why the human girls were falling over this one. He oozed charm and confidence and that illustrious hint of danger. If only they knew.
Fortunately for Caia - otherwise she might have found herself in a bitch fight with Dana - she didn’t feel that explosive shiver of heat at his touch that a certain other someone had created. Instead she took a step back, releasing her hand from his and giving him a polite nod. His eyes narrowed but he covered his irritation with a smile, and stepped back to place an arm around Dana’s waist. She curled into him like a happy kitten and flashed her blue eyes triumphantly at Caia.
“And this is Alexa.” Jaeden indicated a girl who was so outrageously gorgeous it was almost sickening. She had long blue-black hair and large onyx eyes. She didn’t say a word but her burning stare was enough to make the devil himself want to curl up and hide under the bed.
Caia had been right. Not everyone was going to be as friendly as Jaeden.
“Well guys,” Mal was looking around at them all, “We better show Caia around.”
Lucien had taken care of everything. All she’d had to do was go to the school office and pick up a timetable that had been produced based on the classes she was taking at her previous high school. Most of her teachers were OK. Only one of them, her calculus teacher, had decided to pull the ‘stand up and tell us about yourself’ card. The students were curious about her; they whispered to one another, the girls narrowing their eyes in instant dislike, the guys smiling and nudging at each other. Caia was used to this. Irini had explained that lykans were supposed to be natural predators. In their original state, when Artemis had first blessed them, their hunger had gotten the best of them and they had fed on humans, stealing their flesh and soul. The goddess’ plan had been for them to mate with humans to produce a superior race she could call her own – it had taken a couple hundred of centuries for that to be the result – and one of her genetic gifts from way back then had been special pheromones that attracted humans. At first this had only made it easier for the wolves to hunt them but as the centuries turned so did they. Present day lykans were the product of the mixed heritage of lykan and human, and so their predatory instinct had died over the centuries; in other words they had learned to control their appetites. Nowadays it was rare for a human and a lykan to mate – supernaturals put this down to the fact that the humans no longer believed in the gods, and so Artemis was punishing them by refusing their entry into their wondrous world. Still, speaking of appetites, there was of course the odd lykan who got off on murdering humans - they were rogue, and always hunted down by their own kind. So thanks to the conflicting results of her special pheromones, Caia wasn’t surprised when no one approached her to introduce themselves.
Back at her old high school she used to eat lunch in her car. Here, well, she had the pack.
Jaeden was in her French class just before lunch so they made their way to the cafeteria together.
“So,” she smiled the wide smile Caia was coming to expect from this sweet girl, “How has the first morning gone at Human High?”
Caia laughed. “To be honest... not much different than before; classes are the same and the people are the same.”
“Meaning… they don’t talk to you?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh you know why. We’re all the same. Well … except Malek. He’s always flirting with the humans.”
As they entered the cafeteria she zeroed in on the pack teenagers. They were sitting sprawled around a table together as other students looked at them, but didn’t go near them. They were looking at her as well, huddling close to whisper when they realized she was with Jaeden. Caia couldn’t understand how they were supposed to go undetected by these people when Jaeden and the others not only looked the way they did, but stuck together like … well, like a pack. Nonplussed, she grabbed a roast beef sandwich and soda and followed Jaeden to the table. As it had been that morning, Sebastian, Finlay, and Daniel offered friendly smiles; Sebastian pulling out the chair next to him for her so she didn’t have to sit beside Malek. Dana grimaced at her presence, while Alexa didn’t even acknowledge it.