Chapter 4 #4

Chapter 4

~ Lancelot ~

I was on the school field before she could even finish blinking.

That isn't a figure of speech. One second, I was just slipping out of her sight; the next, I was fifty meters away in the open air. I stood with my hands on my knees, gulping down the breeze like a man who’d just surfaced from deep water. The field was empty, just grass and wind and the muffled hum of the school carrying on without me.

But I could still smell her.

It was faint now, a lingering trace, like the ghost of a scent that refused to leave. I straightened up, exhaled slowly, and told myself to get a grip.

I am a hybrid. The only one of my kind, as far as I’ve ever been able to tell—part werewolf, part something older and much harder to name. I can shift completely, or I can use my abilities without changing a single hair. I’ve spent years mastering the art of moving through the human world without leaving a footprint. I know how to be controlled. I know how to be still.

I have never, ever had a problem like this.

It started at the airport terminal. I had been passing through the concourse, minding my own business, when a girl carelessly clipped my shoulder. The second her jacket brushed mine, a shockwave tore straight through my nervous system.

To a human, she probably smells like jasmine or tuberose—sweet, heady, and pleasant. But to me? It was like pressing your face into a concentrated garden and being forced to breathe it in until your lungs burned. It hit like pure fire. My claws nearly tore through the tips of my gloves right there among hundreds of mortals, and I had to clamp my hand over my face just to stop from shifting. I had bolted like a stray animal before I lost every shred of control.

I thought it was a fluke. A one-in-a-million genetic anomaly I’d never cross paths with again.

Then, this morning happened.

I’d been sitting in English class, perfectly calm, when the air shifted. That exact same scent carried on the wind from the parking lot. Faint, but unmistakable. I tracked her without meaning to. She stepped out of a car, spoke to her brother, and walked toward the building. With every meter she covered, the scent grew louder, more insistent.

By the time she walked through the classroom doors and introduced herself as Jade Casteel, I was rigid.

By the time she sat down beside me, smelling so intoxicatingly potent it set my blood boiling, I was out of options.

So, I left. There was no version of staying that didn't end in disaster, so I retreated to the field to think.

There is something different about this girl.

I’ve been around humans my entire life. I’ve sat in crowded canteens and packed classrooms without a hitch. Humans have a scent — everything living does, but it’s usually just background noise. Static. Unremarkable.

This wasn't static. This was the only song playing in the room.

It meant something. Something I didn't have a name for yet, but I was going to figure it out — quietly, carefully, and without drawing any more attention to myself.

Now, she was walking away with her brother, and her scent was drifting across the grass on the afternoon breeze. I stood there watching her go, trying to force my brain to work logically again.

Then, I saw Arthur.

He was outside the canteen doors, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. His eyes weren't on the girl or the bullies. They were on me. And he had that look — the easy, unhurried smile that meant he’d seen everything and already knew how to use it against me.

My jaw tightened.

Arthur could read me better than anyone. He knew exactly what it meant that I had stepped in. He could sense the disruption in me the same way I could sense the smugness in him.

Last summer sat between us like a wound that had closed but never truly healed. I had cost him something — he believed that completely, and he wasn't entirely wrong and Arthur wasn't the type to forget a debt. He was patient. He was methodical. And he had just watched me act on pure instinct over a human girl I’d nearly exposed myself for at the airport.

I knew exactly what he was thinking.

She’s useful.

He was thinking that whatever drew me to her, whatever made her a "problem" for me, he could get to first. He’d get close to her. Use her to destabilize me. Make me careless. He wanted to remind everyone in LoveCreek who the true Alpha was, and who was just a visitor who needed to learn his place.

I stared at him across the field. He smiled wider, pushed off the wall, and vanished back inside without a single word.

I stood still for a long time, her scent still haunting the air around me.

Whatever she is, I thought, I will figure it out before he does.

And I will not let him near her.

~ Jade ~

The second we got through the front door and Obed retreated to his room to "study" (which I knew meant staring at the ceiling in the dark), I lunged for my phone.

I hit Ashley’s contact and paced the length of my bedroom, heart hammering.

"Tell me everything," Ashley’s voice crackled through the speaker before she even said hello. She sounded breathless, likely surrounded by half-packed suitcases and medical forms. "Did you find him? Is he a troll? Is he a god? Jade, I’m dying here."

"I found him," I whispered, dropping onto my bed. "And Ashley… he’s perfect. Like, 'romance novel hero' perfect. He’s kind, he’s got this smile that makes you forget your own name, and he’s actually nice."

"I knew it! My heart doesn't lie!"

"But," I said, leaning closer to the phone as if the walls had ears, "there’s a massive, confusing catch. He has a brother."

"A brother? Double the Fletchers, double the fun. What's the problem?"

"The problem is his name is Lancelot. Remember that weird guy I bumped into at the airport terminal who looked like he wanted to murder me? It’s him. He’s in my English class. He stared at me like I was a glitch in the universe, then he ran out of the room, then he saved Obed from a bunch of bullies by basically using Jedi mind tricks, and now he won't stop looking at me with these blue eyes that feel like they're burning holes through my head."

There was a long, stunned silence on Ashley’s end. Then, a low, mischievous giggle.

"Jade," she purred. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?"

"That I should move to another state?"

"No! One for you, and one for me! It’s destiny. We’re going to marry into the same family and spend our summers in the Italian Alps. You get the dark, broody 'Grumpy' one, and I get the 'Sunshine' one. It’s the perfect trope!"

"Ashley, he literally looks at me like I’m a foul smell," I hissed, though I couldn't help the small smile tugging at my lips.

"He’s obsessed," she insisted. "Trust me. Now, go to bed. You have a mission to continue tomorrow. Get closer to Arthur. Find out his favorite color, his blood type, and if he likes girls who are about to have major surgery."

"You're ridiculous. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some stalking to do!”

"Goodnight, Agent Casteel."

Mission 101 begins!