Chapter 7 Morning After Regrets (Ember's POV)
The walk back to campus felt endless. Every shadow made me jump, every rustling leaf sounded like footsteps. Trey's jacket hung loose around my shoulders, smelling of something uniquely him that made my stomach flip.
What the hell had I just done?
I'd slept with Trey Jarred. The guy who'd humiliated me in front of the entire school less than forty-eight hours ago. The guy whose eyes had flashed gold while we were tangled together in the grass. The guy who was apparently the same kind of monster I was becoming.
My fingers traced my lips, still swollen from his kisses. My body ached in unfamiliar places, a constant reminder of what we'd done. What I'd let happen.
No. Not let happen. What I'd wanted to happen.
The mate bond. That's what Ms. Silvermoon had called it, though she hadn't explained it in detail. But now I understood. That pull toward Trey, that electric current that ran through me whenever he was near, it wasn't just attraction. It was something primal, something that bypassed logic and reason entirely.
I reached the edge of campus as the sky began to lighten from black to deep purple. Another hour and students would start waking up for early morning practices. I needed to get back to my room, shower, pretend none of this had happened.
The dorm building loomed ahead, its gothic architecture looking more menacing than usual in the pre-dawn light. I slipped through the side entrance, grateful that Sage had given me her key card months ago for nights when I stayed late at the gym.
The hallways were silent except for the soft hum of the heating system. My footsteps seemed deafening on the hardwood floors despite my attempts to move quietly. Every door I passed felt like a potential witness, every shadow a threat.
Third floor. Almost there.
I fumbled with the key card at our door, my hands shaking so badly it took three tries to get it to work. The lock clicked open with a sound that seemed to echo down the entire hallway.
Please let Sage be asleep. Please let me have time to figure out what to say.
But when I pushed open the door, I knew immediately that prayer wouldn't be answered.
The room was dark except for the glow of Sage's laptop screen. She sat on my bed, not hers, mine...her legs crossed and her face illuminated by the blue light. And in her hand, dangling from its silver chain, was the pendant Ms. Silvermoon had given me.
"Sage." My voice came out strangled. "What are you doing up?"
She didn't answer immediately. Just watched me with those hazel eyes that suddenly seemed to see everything. When she finally spoke, her voice was flat, emotionless.
"You smell like him."
I froze in the doorway. "What?"
"Like sex and wolves and lies." She stood slowly, the pendant swinging from her fingers like a pendulum. "Where were you, Em?"
"I was just..." The lie died on my tongue. There was no point. She already knew.
"Just what? Out for a midnight stroll in nothing but Trey Jarred's jacket?" She took a step closer, and I could see the hurt beneath her anger. "I've been sitting here for three hours, Em. Three hours wondering if you were dead in a ditch somewhere. Three hours imagining all the ways those football assholes might have gotten to you."
"I'm sorry." The words felt inadequate. "I didn't mean to worry you."
"Worry me?" Her laugh was bitter. "I was terrified. Do you have any idea what's happening at this school? What you're caught up in?"
"I'm starting to figure it out."
"Are you?" She held up the pendant, letting it catch the laptop light. "Because this is serious protection magic, Em. The kind my grandmother used to make before she died. The kind that costs years off your life to create." Her voice cracked slightly. "Ms. Silvermoon gave you something incredibly powerful, and you just left it sitting on your nightstand like it was a piece of costume jewelry."
Guilt twisted in my stomach. "I forgot it. Everything happened so fast and I just..."
"You forgot the one thing keeping you hidden from people who want you dead?" Sage's voice rose slightly before she caught herself, glancing at the door. When she spoke again, it was barely above a whisper. "Jesus, Ember. What were you thinking?"
I moved into the room, closing the door softly behind me. "I wasn't thinking. That's the problem."
"No, the problem is you don't trust me." She dropped the pendant on my bed like it burned her fingers. "I've been your best friend for three years. Three years of watching your back, covering for you, pretending I didn't notice all the weird shit that happens around you. And you couldn't tell me the truth?"
"You knew?" The words came out sharper than I intended. "This whole time, you knew what I was?"
"I knew you were different. I knew there was something supernatural about you." She moved to her laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard. "My family founded Thornfield Academy in 1847. Want to know why?"
I shook my head, but she continued anyway.
"To monitor supernatural bloodlines. To keep track of which families were producing viable offspring, which packs were growing too powerful, which threats needed to be contained." She turned the screen toward me. "The Whitmore family has been doing this for seven generations. We're not witches, Em. We're custodians. Guardians. And I've known about supernatural beings my entire life."
The screen showed what looked like a family tree, but instead of names and dates, there were symbols and notations I didn't understand. Crescent moons, stars, intricate patterns that seemed to shift when I looked at them too long.
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. Because you didn't trust me enough to ask." She pulled up another window, this one showing security footage. "Want to know what I was doing while you were off screwing Trey Jarred in the woods?"
Heat flooded my cheeks. "Sage..."
"I was monitoring the campus security feeds." She clicked play, and the grainy black-and-white footage came to life.
Four figures moved through the frame, their bodies low to the ground, their movements too fluid to be entirely human. They circled the forest perimeter in a coordinated pattern that made my blood run cold.
"Who is that?"
"Knox Ravencrest and three of his pack mates." Sage's voice was clinical now, detached. "They were hunting, Em. Looking for something. Looking for you."
My legs suddenly felt weak. I sank onto my bed, staring at the screen as the figures continued their patrol. "How do you know they were looking for me?"
"Because I heard them." She pulled up an audio file, her finger hovering over the play button. "The cameras have sound. Not great quality, but good enough."
She pressed play.
Static crackled through the laptop speakers, then a voice I recognized as Knox's came through, rough and urgent.
"...has to be around here somewhere. Her scent trail leads this way."
Another voice, one I didn't recognize: "Maybe she went back to campus?"
"No." Knox again. "She's still out here. I can feel it."
"Trey should be back by now." A third voice. "If he hasn't checked in..."
"Then we assume the worst and continue the hunt." Knox's voice turned cold. "The Alpha gave us our orders. Find her. Kill her. End the prophecy before it can begin."
The audio cut off, leaving only the sound of my own ragged breathing.
"They were looking for you to kill you, Em." Sage closed the laptop with a sharp snap. "While you were doing God knows what with their future Alpha, his cousin was literally hunting you like an animal."
"Trey didn't know." The words tumbled out defensively. "He wouldn't have..."
"Wouldn't have what? Let his pack mates murder you?" She laughed, the sound harsh in the quiet room. "Em, he's one of them. Whatever happened between you two tonight, that doesn't change the fact that his pack sees you as a threat."
"He found me." The confession spilled out before I could stop it. "In the forest. I'd transformed... I don't know how, I don't remember doing it, but I woke up naked and he was there."
Sage went very still. "And?"
"And he gave me his jacket. He was kind. He apologized for humiliating me at the assembly." I couldn't meet her eyes. "Then he kissed me and I... we..."
"Jesus Christ, Ember." She pressed her palms against her eyes. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? He could have killed you. Should have killed you, based on that audio."
"But he didn't." I stood up, moving to the window. Dawn was breaking properly now, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. "Something happened between us. Something I can't explain. Ms. Silvermoon called it a mate bond."
The silence that followed was deafening. When Sage finally spoke, her voice was barely audible.
"A mate bond? Em, do you know what that means?"
"Not really."
"It means you're supernaturally tied to him. For life." She moved to stand beside me at the window. "It means his wolf recognizes you as his perfect match, his other half. It means breaking that bond could literally destroy you both."
My hands gripped the windowsill hard enough to hurt. "That's not possible. We barely know each other."
"Supernatural bonds don't care about logic or compatibility or how well you know someone." She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, and some of the anger had drained from her voice. "They just are. And if Trey Jarred is your mate, then you're both in more danger than I thought."
"Why?"
"Because if his pack finds out he's bonded to the girl they're trying to kill, they'll see it as a betrayal." She squeezed my shoulder. "Em, mate bonds are sacred in wolf culture. But so is pack loyalty. Trey's going to have to choose between you and everything he's ever known."
I thought about the way he'd looked at me in the moonlight, the desperation in his kisses, the way he'd held me like I was something precious. "What if he chooses wrong?"
"Then we figure out how to keep you alive anyway." Sage pulled me into a hug, and I felt some of the tension in my chest release. "I'm sorry I was angry. I was just scared."
"I'm sorry I didn't trust you." I hugged her back, grateful for her solid presence. "I should have told you everything."
"Yeah, you should have." She pulled back, her expression serious again. "But we don't have time for a lengthy emotional reconciliation. We need to focus on keeping you safe."
"How?"
She moved back to her laptop, pulling up a new window. "First, you wear that pendant every single second. Sleep in it, shower in it, never take it off. It's the only thing masking your supernatural signature right now."
I picked up the pendant from where she'd dropped it on my bed, fastening it around my neck. The moment the silver touched my skin, I felt a subtle shift, like a veil dropping over me.
"Second, we need to figure out exactly what you are and what you're capable of." Sage's fingers flew over the keyboard. "Ms. Silvermoon called you the last of the Silvermoon bloodline. I need to research what that means, what powers you might develop."
"And third?"
She looked up at me, her expression grim. "Third, we figure out who we can trust. Because right now, the list is very short."
"You think Trey might betray me?"
"I think Trey is in an impossible position. And people in impossible positions make desperate choices." She closed the laptop. "We need allies, Em. People who want to keep you alive for reasons that have nothing to do with prophecies or pack politics."
I thought about the way Knox and his pack mates had circled the forest, hunting me like prey. Thought about the audio recording, the cold determination in Knox's voice when he'd said they needed to end the prophecy.
"What if there is no one like that?"
"Then we make our own pack." Sage's smile was fierce and determined. "You, me, and anyone else brave enough or crazy enough to stand against the established order."