I jerked awake with a gasp.
For a long second I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, chest heaving, waiting for my brain to tell me where I was. Morning light was pressing hard through the small window. My alarm was screaming. Everything was achingly, confusingly normal.
My bedroom.
I was in my bedroom.
I sat up slowly and looked around the room. My desk. My mirror. My ridiculous collection of second-hand books stacked in the corner. Everything exactly where I'd left it, as though last night had simply not happened.
I looked down at myself. I was dressed in my only pair of duck patterned pajamas. I shoved off the covers tucking me in and I sat there, staring at my own foot for a long, uncomprehending moment.
It was uninjured. There wasn't a single cut or bruise.
My wide-eyes flung to the mirror. The mascara on my face had dried into streaks down both cheeks. My hair was still in last night's style, half-collapsed around my face. My nails still had Jenny's ridiculous pink glitter on them, chipped now at the edges. I raised my fingers to my nose and smelled earth. Damp leaves.
It had been real.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead and tried to put it in order. We were at the party. I ran into Cole. I punched him. I ran into the woods and got hunted like prey. I got bitten. I wasn't mad. It was so vivid, I could still feel the rawness in my throat from screaming and the phantom pain in my foot that didn't exist.
Tag. You're it.
I shuddered so hard my teeth knocked together.
I had absolutely no memory of the space between passing out and waking up this morning.
My door swung open and Head Maid's gasp cut through my thoughts. "Maisie!" Her voice rang out with stern alarm. "What did I say about mud in the house?"
I followed her gaze to the floor.
There were muddied tracks cutting from the window across the floorboards and up to my bathroom. Small footprints. My footprints.
I stared at them for a long moment.
What the hell happened to me last night?
***
Somewhere between getting into the shower and getting out, I was, once again, attacked by the deep, insidious pain beneath my ribs that reminded me that Cole Hayes still existed and was currently doing something I didn't want to think about with someone I didn't want to picture.
Who had sex at six in the morning on a school day?
I was cranky, pissed off, and severely hungover. Not even showing up at school in my newly attained 'appearance' could've taken the murder from my eyes.
"You didn't notice?" Regina was already shimmying into her Combat uniform, brows raised, entirely too awake for this hour. "He spent half the night staring at your ass like he wanted to eat it."
"Yeah, well, that is not going to happen," I said flatly.
Jenny was a different story. She was moving at half speed, eyes at half mast, walking into the bathroom door and then patting it apologetically.
"Are you still drunk?" I asked.
"I'm fine," she said, to the door.
"Jenny."
"He had a fight with Lana after you disappeared," she said, turning around carefully. "Where did you go, by the way? I looked everywhere. Made me abandon my entire night with Justin and his–" she paused, seeming to search for the word "--everything."
"Who's Justin?" I asked, deflecting, because I wasn't exactly sure where I was last night and just thinking about it worsened my headache.
"Some senior she nearly had sex with," Regina supplied, tying her shoe laces.
"He was so hot," Jenny whined mournfully, pulling her uniform over her head and immediately getting her arm stuck. "The things I would have done to that man, Maisie. The things."
We pushed out of the bathrooms and into the training hall, which was already packed with first years milling around in various states of anxiety and excitement. The seniors were easy to spot, not just because they were older, but because they were dressed in the grey tracksuits the instructors favoured.
Nerves tightened my stomach. I'd been able to avoid Combat&Defense in high school because it hadn't been mandatory, but that wasn't the case in Greymoor. More often than not, Combat involved a lot of physicality and learning to fight in our shifted form was pretty much non-negotiable.
I couldn't shift. This was about to become a disaster. Another humiliation ritual.
The sound of a whistle being blown pierces the air harshly and Instructor Warren's deep voice bolsters through the hall, "Ten lines! Twenty on each! Now!"
We scrambled to form the lines, half slamming and stepping onto each other. By the time we formed the lines, there were two seniors each assigned to each line.
Instructor Warren watched us with his thick arms crossed against his chest. "Welcome to Greymoor's Combat and Defense Training. For those who are new, I am Warren, and I will monitor your training over the next year. The initial assessment of your skills will hold in two parts. First, full transformation and back. We're timing you." He walked across, peering at us from down his nose. "Second, a timed combat drill. Ten lines. You are paired with whoever's on your left and yes, you will be timed."
I glanced to my left and froze.
Lana stood to my left, her eyes burning with anger, and I knew I was going to walk away with more bruises than those currently adorning my stomach.
Lana might look like a princess, but there was a reason no one crossed her.
"I could switch places with you," Regina offered behind me, but as soon as she did, Instructor Warren said, "No switching."
I clenched my fist.
"There will be points rewarded for this assessment and will be recorded at the end of the year, so endeavor to do your best," he added. "The fourth years will be your direct instructors for this class. They are not just the best in their classes, but in the entire country. They will drill you into shape and teach you everything they know. Know that this is an opportunity you will never stumble upon again. They will make their selections on which of you they will instruct, based on what they see. Each group of ten is allotted to one instructor." To the fourth years, he said, "You're stuck together for the year, so choose wisely."
The boy at the front of our line raised his hand. "But there are only nineteen fourth years."
Warren glanced back. "Where is Soren?" he asked the fourth years tiredly.
My ears perked up at that. Soren?
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who heard that. Excited whispers begin spreading across the hall. Getting trained by a Lycan or having any kind of access to them was like winning a damned lottery.
Not to speak of Prince Soren.
Rumours were, he was the best shifter and the strongest fighter, second only to the Queen. Getting picked by him was like getting picked by the Lycan Queen.
It rose the stakes to a sudden height and everyone was whispering.
I didn't. I didn't even stand a chance with the rest of the seniors. And I wasn't exactly sure I wanted a panty-peeking pervert as my trainer.
Cole's older sister, Adriana, stepped forward. "He… uh… said to tell you he wasn't interested."
Instructor Warren went red-faced. "And the others?"
"Same response."
Instructor Warren growled, muttering something under his breath that might have been an insult and blew the whistle violently. "Begin."