Chapter 41

Emely

"Why are you walking so fast?" My steps quickened. "Why don't you slow down?"

I was usually fast. I could keep up with everyone, especially my brother. Only today he was running so fast, probably because of the conversation with Alarik.

If there were two people in our pack who were always at each other's throats, then it was the two of them. Alarik rarely turned, but when Nash took it too far, the two of them would face each other in wolf form on the big meadow behind our house.

"You're protecting him, even though he's not part of our pack!" my brother had growled in anger when I'd turned up on the lawn thirty minutes ago to find out if Father had been watching the news. And five seconds later, a white wolf had pushed Alarik's upper body to the ground. Alarik hadn't put up with it, of course, because even though they were both betas and Alarik took things calmly, as our uncle and the Alpha's closest advisor, he was above Nash.

At some point, Nash would have to pass the alpha trial, and that wouldn't be a piece of cake for my brother.

Anyway, Alarik had also turned and beaten my stubborn brother in a heated duel.

It reminded me of when Nash had fought with Kieran and Julian and not Alarik when all four of us had roamed the woods.

And there they were again: The thoughts of someone I should let go of. And I didn't mean my best friend, who was currently spending time in the US and who I had reached by phone this morning.

Again, I tried to focus on my brother, who had arrived on campus and was walking to our spot under the oak tree with his gym bag draped over his free torso. This time, though, at a human pace.

"Nash, honestly. We have a much bigger problem now."

I had caught up with him by now.

"Hey, Nash!"

Two pretty dressed-up blondes walked past us and waved at my brother.

I would have loved to hit them, because I was getting really annoyed at how all these human girls were glued to my brother 24/7. As if it wasn't enough with Mady back then.

"And wear a T-shirt next time, for fuck's sake," I added with anger as three more girls walked past us and waved at Nash.

Nash didn't seem to notice any of this. He was just staring at the screen of his cell phone, as usual.

"Nash, what's wrong?" I pulled him by the arm and stopped.

" Nothing , Emy, okay?"

"We have to..."

"That's the problem. You always want to do something. Yes , someone's been murdered and yes , those bastards are probably behind it." He pointed across the campus to the DeLoughreys' still empty parking spaces. "But it's enough to make Father go nuts already." His jaw ground against the taut skin of his face. "At least keep your cool and wait until Father has spoken to Alarik."

Father had indeed lost it. I had arrived at his office, where he had been pacing around in a state of complete agitation, and had suddenly knocked over his chessboard. He had cursed, loudly, so that Nash and Finn had also come into the office.

Now, Nash tore himself away from me and went to the guys, where his mood seemed to change abruptly when the Jones brothers, Harry and Hunter , greeted him.

Sometimes I really didn't understand him. How could he ask me to keep my cool when Father obviously needed help?

Thoughtfully, I shook my head and turned toward the parking lot, where I had intended to go. I caught sight of my target. Of course, he was there early, and he seemed to be waiting for someone.

I gritted my teeth with suspicion.

This weird witch girl wasn't with him. Good for her.

Determined, I set off to catch him before he could notice me and quickly disappear.

He stood there like a lone wolf, watching the growing stream of students as if he had nothing better to do.

"Julian..." I called out loudly, and my brother must have heard me because I felt his gaze on the back of my neck.

"Ems," Julian said, looking past me to Nash.

I had been right.

"Your brother seems to have a problem with you talking to me."

I gave Nash a look of mock annoyance.

"Although, he probably has his reasons," Julian continued with a grin, and I automatically grinned back. I tucked my loose dark hair behind my ears, feeling sheepish.

"I'm not here to talk to you about the pack."

"How relieving."

He'd probably change his mind about that in a minute.

"The murder."

Julian immediately raised both hands.

" Oh no , Ems," he began in frustration. "I'm not going to spill any details now." Frustration spread through me. "Simply because I don't know any." Why didn't I want to believe him? "Talk to my father if you're so sensationalistic." I raised my eyebrows. "It's enough that the entire campus seems to be talking about it."

In fact, snippets of conversation had been reaching my ears since this morning, with people spreading rumors of a cold-blooded Blairville Killer or predator attacks .

Normally, I would have laughed at the rumor mill on this campus, but this time it was no joke. If only these people knew that the danger that was probably behind this was walking around this campus in ridiculous black suits.

"Damn it..." I pressed out. "Julian, can't you see it? That was definitely the DeLoughreys."

I was the first to say it. Neither Father nor anyone else in the pack had said anything yet, even though everyone else on campus was talking about the incident. Father had already called a meeting with his Delta and Beta men.

"And even if it was the DeLoughreys, it's none of my business."

"You're stubborn!" I snapped.

How could he be so ignorant?

I scrutinized his features, then his jawline.

Damn , he had changed so much. The soft Julian from back then had become a young, athletic man.

I looked up at Julian, slightly caught off guard, but he didn't seem to have noticed my staring.

"Hello, Julian," an all too familiar voice chirped. "Surely, you're ready for an interview?"

Without hesitation, I wheeled around to Jenny Bexley, suppressing the urge to snatch the pill out of her hand and throw it across campus.

" No , he's not ."

Jenny wanted to protest, but I pulled Julian after me, away from the parking lot and toward one of the unoccupied oak trees.

"Thanks," he mumbled.

"Always happy to help."

I couldn't smell Jenny. Literally . That girl reeked of drugstore and jumped at Julian and Nash every time she thought the two of them could provide good interview material.

"What else, Ems?"

The memory of last night brought it all back. First and foremost, the pain.

It had been a full moon, which meant that unless you were Julian Bardot and swallowed some kind of herbs, you were forced to leave your human form as a Senseque. The irony was that Julian had gotten these herbs from my uncle.

"I had this dream..." I began.

Julian raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, I scrutinized him again.

"A dream?"

"Yes, I was in a temple. It must have been a temple because there were a lot of hooded people gathered in a circle around me."

I remembered wandering through the forest with the guys and, a second later, being surrounded by ornate marble pillars.

I was about to continue when Julian looked around as if someone might be listening and then pulled me by the arm behind him toward a path that led to one of the university's many porticoes. Further away from Nash.

I looked at Julian, who had his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He looked tense.

"I had a dream, too," he said quietly as we both walked on, past gawking girls.

No matter which guy I was with, there was always one of these female students gawking as if her lunch snack was walking next to me.

"And something tells me we had the same dream."

Julian's words brought me back to the present. I paused abruptly.

"I don't know Ems, but I saw them too. Those women with hoods, and a temple. But then there was one of them right in front of me, dagger raised. And I know her." He lowered his voice even further. "It was the mayor. Amara Blair ."

My eyes widened, and my gut told me there was more to it. Because I had seen the Circle leader, too.

"Did you also wake up because you felt a pain in your back?" I asked.

Julian fell silent and then continued to look around the campus.

"Who are you looking for?" I asked. As if there was nothing more important right now. We had apparently had the same dream.

But what did that mean?

"Julian?" I waved my hand in front of his face.

"Wait..."

"What's wrong with you today?"

"Sorry, Ems, I'm trying to find Bay right now."

"Bay..." I blurted out soberly.

I told him about my nightmare, and we both realized that we had dreamed the same thing, and all he suddenly cared about was Bayla ?

"What's she got to do with it?" I asked with raised brows.

"I had a backache when I woke up, too. A scream woke me up."

He continued to look over my shoulders.

We'd definitely both had the same dream. Without a doubt.

He looked back up at me. His gaze was more insistent than usual.

"I got up and went to the window because I had such a strange gut feeling."

I no longer understood anything. But Julian just kept talking.

"She told me she had to go to the Quatura."

"Who?" I asked.

" Bayla . I sensed that she wasn't home last night. It was so strangely quiet over there."

The fact that Julian too was sleeping five meters away from a witch sent a shiver down my spine. Just the fact that he could sleep peacefully in that neighborhood was a miracle.

Julian ran a tense hand through his hair.

"I swear to you, they did something to her."

I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Julian... Let them do what they want. It's none of our business."

"You're with us..." I almost said, but I kept my mouth shut. I couldn't scare him off any more.

" No , Ems, you don't understand."

"Then explain it to me."

"I think we both saw what she saw."

By now, I was convinced that Julian had lost his mind.

"What are you talking about?"

Julian's shiny green eyes snapped open as if he had just learned something earth-shattering.

"Ems!"

He grabbed me by the shoulders, and I shuddered a little. His hands were warm, his grip firm. He himself looked worried.

"Did she touch you?"

I could only stare at him questioningly. Wherever his thoughts were, they were far away from mine. I didn't understand him at all.

"Touch me?"

Julian looked around again before continuing.

"Remember last week when I told you about the incident with her eyes in the forest?"

I nodded. How could I have forgotten a single detail from last week?

"You said you saw it, too."

Again, I nodded, remembering the day I'd looked into her glowing eyes.

I swallowed.

"In the forest, she had touched me and for a moment she had blocked out everything around me. That feeling... I can't really describe it."

"As if you had arrived home," I added, shocked by my own memories.

Julian looked at me in silence.

"Do you think she put a spell on us?"

"If she did, it wasn't on purpose..." Julian whispered thoughtfully.

A slight anger was gathering in my chest.

Bayla Adams had cursed me and Julian. A damn witch had gotten inside our heads. Whether on purpose or not didn't matter .

I clenched my fists.

"Ems..." He loosened his hands on my shoulders and ran them down my arms, where he paused, bringing me fully back to him.

My heart began to leap.

If he only knew the effect, he had on my emotions...

I looked him in the eyes.

"Please don't do anything rash."

I suppressed the burgeoning anger, but it came back. I took a step back from his manipulative hands and hoped he didn't take it personally.

"But I don't want a witch going into our heads whenever she wants and making us feel her pain," I snapped.

"I'll find out what that means, Ems. Don't worry about it for now and leave it to me."

"Whatever..."

I snorted and decided to go back to Nash and the others in the pack. It was important that I was somewhere where I could let off steam without messing things up with Julian. At the same time, I was stunned.

How had one of them managed to get into my head? Didn't they only control the four elements?

When we reached the others, Nash looked at me with scrutiny. Hopefully, he hadn't overheard. Otherwise, not only would I be screwed, but Bayla as well. Then Julian would probably get involved somehow, and the other witches...

"God! Why is everything so complicated?"

I kicked the tree like it was its fault.

"Hey, Emely, are you okay?"

Irritated, I turned around, straight to Hunter.

Hunter was tall, not as tall as Nash, but he was at least as trained. His former Afro was now trimmed short. Patterns had been shaved into the sides, emphasizing his facial features.

I sometimes wondered if he had roots in Jamaica because his father was definitely not from here. And his brothers, Harry and Joshua, looked the same.

Most of the pack had roots here or in other parts of North America. Some were descendants of the former Esadowa tribe members, which you couldn't tell by looking at most of the pack members. In the Copeland family, in particular, the indigenous features had become somewhat blurred, and I was always amazed at how much Nash looked like our father and I looked like our mother. She had belonged to one of the last Esadowas, and now I wore her dark black-brown hair, bronze skin, and dark eyes.

"You seem a little shaken up since last night."

"Just a few annoying witches..." I replied, and we both grinned at each other.

"You should do more with us again and not deal with things that get you down inside," Hunter said a little more calmly now.

" Exactly , your brother is far too weak in the games without you," Noah laughed.

His light brown hair showed just as little of the Esadowa gene, earning him an annoyed look from Nash.

Cody, the smallest of the group with the darkest hair, patted Noah on the shoulder with a laugh.

None of them showed that they had heard the news. Because that's what our Alpha had ordered through our bond.

"What's that supposed to mean? Huh? " I crossed my hands in front of my chest.

That you haven't been hunting with us for a long time. Hunter replied in my head so that only I could hear it.

Sending messages to others through our bond. To one or more pack members. Something we often did, especially in our friend group.

Communicating with others in the pack using this method was only possible if the alpha had previously placed his alpha bond on you, something only an Alpha or someone with the alpha bond could do.

People who were not part of the pack could not send messages to others. This protected the pack from enemies and strengthened the authoritarian bond that originated from the Alpha himself.

In the beginning, especially for young Senseque, it was often difficult to control this and even experienced Senseque sometimes unintentionally shared their emotions and thoughts through this bond when they were too emotional.

I looked into Hunter's dark brown eyes and sighed.

"Tomorrow we're going hunting," I shouted loudly, and all the guys started cheering.

"Who would have thought that?" Hunter said with a slightly raised eyebrow.

I grinned.

How could he think I would just let hunting slip like that?

I was a Copeland, and I was an Esadowa. Nothing could ever separate me from my nature.