Chapter 1
Ivy's POV
My best friend Bella had a cluster of mushrooms growing on her back, every color you could imagine.
They throbbed like something alive, and the smell coming off them was like nothing I'd ever smelled.
She called it Moonlight Bloom, a gift straight from Viscount Lucas himself.
If she kept that thing on her body for forty days, not one more, not one less, until it bloomed its brightest spores, the viscount would marry her and take her into his estate.
So she refused to shower. Wouldn't let a drop of water touch her.
Everyone in the pack knew me as the one who always looked out for people, and I figured she'd been cursed with dark magic. So one night while she slept, I grabbed a bucket of soapy water and a stiff brush and scrubbed that thing clean off her back.
The next morning, she ran her hand over the raw patch of skin where it used to be, grabbed a silver dagger, and drove it straight through my heart.
"You jealous bitch! You just ruined my whole future!"
Bleeding out on the floor, that's when it hit me. She never cared how disgusting that thing was, or what it was doing to her body. All she cared about was marrying into money and status.
When I opened my eyes again, I'd gone back in time.
This time around, I decided I wasn't going to stick my nose where it didn't belong. I was going to sit back and watch that mushroom grow.
"Oh my god, what IS that smell?"
Someone gags, and the sound cuts through the quiet of the morning.
My eyes shoot open. My heart slams against my ribs so hard I can barely breathe. The pain of that dagger through my chest still lingers, and cold sweat soaks through my shirt.
I'm not dead?
I lift my head and stare straight at Bella, standing in the middle of the room.
Her back is to me, and she's pulled her worn-out linen shirt down to her waist.
Between her shoulder blades sits a cluster of mushrooms in every color, glowing with an eerie light. Their caps are slick with mucus, and they pulse in rhythm with her breathing like they have a life of their own.
And with every pulse, a smell rolls through the room that words can't really describe.
What does it even smell like?
If I had to put it into words, it's like a skunk carcass left to rot for a hundred years, mixed with moldy blue cheese, topped with a handful of rotting flowers, and baked under the summer sun for a month straight. Something closer to a biological weapon.
For werewolves with noses that sharp, this is an all-out massacre.
"Bella, did you fall into a sewer or something?" One of our other friends is hanging out the window, throwing up last night's oatmeal, tears and snot running down her face.
Next to her, another friend just rolls her eyes and passes out cold on the floor, foaming at the mouth, limbs twitching.
"You guys don't get it." Bella turns around, throwing a look of pure contempt at the girl passed out on the floor and the one still gagging by the window. "Lord Lucas gave this to me himself. He said if I carry it on my body until it blooms its brightest spores, he's going to marry me and take me into his estate."
Moonlight Bloom?
I look that dripping, oozing mess over and nearly laugh.
Something that ugly gets a name like that?
Back in my last life, this same smell nearly drove me out of my mind.
Everyone knew me as the one who always looked out for people, and I couldn't stand watching my best friend get taken over by some disgusting parasite. I figured she was cursed, so that same night, while she slept, I put on three masks, choked back the urge to throw up, and scrubbed every last bit of that thing off her back with a pot of hot soapy water and a stiff brush.
I thought I was saving her.
I was wrong.
The next morning, Bella woke up, reached for her back, and found nothing there but raw, red skin where the mushrooms used to be. She completely lost it.
"You ruined my future! You jealous bitch!"
There wasn't a shred of gratitude in her, just pure, screaming rage.
She found a silver dagger from somewhere and drove it straight into my chest.
"Do you even know who Lord Lucas is? He's a noble! He was about to marry me! And because of you, because you couldn't keep your nose out of my business, my whole future just fell apart! Just die already! Die!"
