Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“What?” He reeled back, eyes bugging. “No! No one said anything about beating anyone up!”
“Good,” I said, freeing my arm from Nia’s tugging grip. “Then let’s drop the threats and make this simple. You want me to leave. I want to stay. So, let’s settle this the easy way.” I pointed to the shots game. “If you win, I leave the party. I win, I stay.”
Badr hummed, bobbing his head. “Reasonable terms. There’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t make deals with my brother’s killer.” He flicked over my shoulder. “Edric.”
I didn’t have a chance to reply. A gust of wind lifted me off my feet, and threw me out the open door. It slammed shut and locked before I crashed into the wall and collapsed like Jenga.
I scrambled to my feet cursing and debating whether or not I would kick that damn door off the hinges and beat Edric with it. Crashing the party tonight had the double purpose of showing the school, Ava, and my fates that they were not getting to me. They were also the setup for another false alibi.
Letting it go, I took off before Nia came after me. “Enjoy it, number two, you get one more night of fun.”
It was just as well that my douchewad jerk of a fate threw me out and reminded me that I have other things on my agenda. I didn’t have the weapon I needed for my ultimate endgame, so it was time to create one. The poison. The unbeatable poison.
Wolfsbane.
The most effective weapon against us. When the wolfsbane flower is distilled, it creates an odorless, colorless, tasteless poison that we can’t see or smell coming.
For that reason, wolfsbane wasn’t grown in any werewolf community anywhere, ever, in the whole world. They damn sure didn’t have a patch growing out in the Corvin Academy gardens.
There was a zero percent chance that I would find wolfsbane anywhere on the grounds. The obvious answer was for me to have picked the wolfsbane while I was hiding out in the mundane world and smuggle it in, but I knew I’d be under intense scrutiny. Dagem would have me, my stuff, and my room searched whenever the mood struck her, and how would I explain keeping a highly lethal plant on the nightstand?
My only option was to get my hands on wolfsbane while being trapped within the gates of the academy.
Lucia and I brainstormed the best way to do that, and if I couldn’t scratch a name off my first list that night, then I’d scratch a step off my second.
I phased as far and fast from Nia as I could, slipping through walls with ease. Fresh, glorious night air washed over me, and I shifted in a blink, giving my wolf control with complete abandon.
This would end one way. My victory was inevitable.
In a few short months, the alpha council would be dead, leaving Wolf Nation without her leaders and an empty throne begging to be mine.
Wolf Nation would have her first queen.
LATER THAT NIGHT, I slipped back into my dorm room—bone weary.
Step one of the poison plan turned out not to be quick or simple, but it was finally done. Hopefully my long night trampling through the woods wasn’t for nothing.
I crossed the threshold and halted. “Sitting alone in my room in the dark? That takes creepy to a whole other level.”
The lamp flicked on, illuminating the strong, muscled figure reclining in my armchair.
“Edric.” I crossed to the other side of the room to the fireplace, keeping him in my sights the entire time. “Something I can do for you?”
“Where were you?” Edric cocked his head. “You showed up at that party to make sure you were seen, and then you disappeared.”
“I believe you meant to say and then you were thrown out.”
He smiled enigmatically. “Answer the question.”
“No.”
We stared at each other—the silence pressing down like an anvil on my forehead.
“Why are you here, Volana?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” I crossed to my wardrobe, picking out my nightclothes for bed. “You’re the one breaking into women’s bedrooms in the middle of the night. How many of my panties did you sniff your way through before I came in?”
“Ten,” he rebounded without skipping a beat. “Orion was right. You’re like a cherry sundae drizzled with honey. Too bad I wasn’t in the detention hall when you were setting up your fake alibi. I would’ve devoured you whole.”
“Oh, yeah— W-well, you— Uh—” I snapped my stuttering mouth shut, face flaming. I wasn’t expecting that reply at all.
Edric chuckled. “Hmm. That’s an interesting reaction. You’re a lot more prudish than I was expecting for a girl who drops her pants in the middle of a classroom.”
I spun around, slamming the wardrobe shut. “Thank you for that observation. Let me gift you something in return. That’s the door,” I snapped, pointing to it. “Enjoy the smack on the ass when it hits you on the way out.”