Chapter 43

Julian

I would never have thought that Bayla Adams would turn my life upside down like this. Only a month ago, she had moved in next door to me and knew nothing about anyone here. She also had tried to avoid me, which I had accepted.

Three weeks later, she was suddenly confronted with the Quatura and a completely new system, and I could sense her feelings in a strange way.

Everything could change so quickly and, yes , I didn't understand a thing.

Then there was the phone call with Diana Adams a few minutes ago. I wasn't surprised that she asked me to do something like that , but it anchored all this crap deeper in my life than I wanted it to.

However, it wasn't just anyone who had asked me to keep an eye on Bayla earlier.

"Make sure she stays away from the Copelands."

And oh man , how I had empathized with that sentence.

Emely was different and hopefully wouldn't cause any more problems. She had told me that when she had followed Bayla in her wolf form, that strange feeling had kicked in for the first time, and she had automatically run in a different direction. Bayla's fear had literally gone through her bones. And it was precisely this curse, which seemed to have been on us for a week, that kept me busy day and night.

I had done some research, but what was I actually hoping for? I had also tried to talk to Julie, but it was hard to find her without her paranoid cousin, Grace.

"Try to keep her away from the other Quatura, if that's possible."

That had been the part I hadn't quite understood. Why was Ms. Adams asking such a thing of me, especially when these people were stuck to her cheek, and there was little I could do about it as a Senseque? And besides, weren't they just the right people for an inexperienced Quatura?

"You're one of the good ones. I'm glad she has you there."

The thought had been on my mind. Intensely. I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone here, but since Bayla was here, I kind of had a purpose. It didn't feel like I was babysitting her, but I couldn't describe it any better. She simply existed, and now everything was different. I didn't know how or if I should even judge this. What I did know was that I was very close to giving a Quatura a place in my life, which was pretty much the last thing I wanted.

Bayla was somehow involved, and I was probably driven by the will to protect her from having to lead a life like mine. Or it was her strange magic.

How could she let us get so close to her feelings without realizing it herself?

"Just keep an eye on her, if that's okay with you... Tell her to stay away from the forest. And by the way, it's still Diana ."

Then she'd hung up, leaving me slightly embarrassed but also overwhelmed. I didn't even know where she'd gotten my number from, but it could only have come from Dad. Anyway, now, I had Bayla Adams' number, too, and I didn't know what to do with it or whether it would even be wise to contact her.

I hadn't told Diana about the incident because that would probably have caused more trouble.

I almost felt like she wanted Bayla to have no abilities, as if she wanted her to be human .

Sometimes I thought about how different my life would be as a human. Where would I live? Would I study music like I do now? Would I let my father convince me to become a police officer? Would I want to start a family one day?

There was no question that my life would be easier.

"Bay!"

My own words brought me back to the filling campus.

It was Monday afternoon and the still-warming fall sun was high in the sky, occasionally masked by gathering cloud towers.

Bayla Adams walked across campus in black trousers, a brown knitted sweater and a dull dark brown leather backpack on her back. A few thick tomes tucked under her arm.

"It's easy to see your major," I joked, grinning in amusement at her appearance. She reminded me a little of Alarik when he was absentmindedly walking around campus or always forgot to adjust his shirt collar. Always carrying some kind of book. "I wouldn't be surprised if you became Alarik's favorite student."

Bayla, who had stopped and turned toward me, gave me an annoyed look.

With her free hand, she brushed one of her dark strands of hair behind one ear, revealing a few more of her freckles and her turquoise eye.

"If I ever get the chance to take part in his seminars..." She actually got in on my joke. "Until now, I've either been permanently ill or cursed with all this witchcraft stuff. And when I did get to the English seminar, the professor didn't show up. But maybe I'll be murdered by the Blairville Killer before then..."

I had to grin, even though there was nothing funny about that story.

Dad had left early this morning and told Mia and me that it was an emergency. An hour later, he had called me and told me that from now on I would always take Mia home straight after school. The murder of the young woman affected him deeply, and if he was so worried about Mia, it could only mean one thing: There must be a Ruisangor behind the murder.

"You shouldn't worry about it," I sighed, because it was enough for me that Emely was already so concerned about this attack. Probably because her father was hitting the roof about it.

"Everything feels surreal right now. One of those fucking ravens might as well be attacking me in the next second..." She pointed to the tower of the east wing, where most of the ravens were circling. "I'd laugh."

I smirked.

Bay looked at me questioningly. "What do you want, Julian?"

I ran my fingers through the back of my hair, trying to find a phrase that was appropriate and, more importantly, not too awkward.

"I just wanted to check that you were okay. You were gone yesterday and didn't come home."

This time it wasn't me, but Bayla, whose lips curled into a grin.

"Am I dreaming or is Julian Bardot , my cocky neighbor, worried right now?"

I scowled at her, but couldn't help softening my features.

"I'm being serious. You've been away for a long time."

I probably sounded like her mother. If only Bayla knew that she had hired me to babysit her...

"Especially after you told me it had something to do with the Quatura Circle," I added quickly.

All of a sudden, Bay looked unsettled.

"What is it?" I asked with interest and when Bayla wanted to turn away, I hurried to her side. "Come on, tell me."

"I just don't trust them..."

"That makes two of us."

Bayla looked up at me, confused.

"Aren't you enemies?"

I realized that Bayla knew next to nothing, which was actually a good thing. The more she knew, the more stressful it could become for her. And yet there were things she simply had to know.

I quickly looked around to see if Nash and his guys were around and caught a glimpse of Emely.

I was sure she could hear every word, but I didn't want to forbid her from doing so. Ever since she was somehow involved, I was careful how I interacted with the Quatura and especially what and how I communicated with Emely.

It was bad enough that I had to deal with both fronts at all.

Bayla did the same, and her gaze lingered on Emely as well, causing her to look at me once more before turning to the guys she spent most of her time with.

She definitely enjoyed a special status as the only known female Senseque in the entire territory of Canada, next to my sister, I might add. Something like her was so damn rare in the inheritance system of these genes. It would have been a curse for me to have other male Senseque cavorting around me all the time. And with all certainty , I would keep Mia away from that crap.

"I don't know if I should be afraid of her or not," Bayla whispered softly, as if she wanted only me to hear.

"Emely is no danger to you, believe me."

I looked again at Emely, who seemed to be struggling not to turn around because she heard us. I knew that. I'm sure she didn't like what I said.

Bayla looked at me again.

"That's what someone who can turn into just such a monster tells me..."

Ouch . Her words really did hit me again and again. It was a slightly painful reminder of the truth.

"Just the fact that you haven't run away from me yet shows that your fear is weaker than your curiosity."

Bay scrutinized me with an insistent look. As so often, my gaze lingered on the different-colored eyes and the cute snub nose.

"You should try to stay away from all that witchcraft."

I was sure Diana would be proud of me right now.

"Do you think they'll give me a choice?" Her gaze was insistent, and a few cloud shadows darkened her delicate face. "They still think I'm one of them."

I almost told her that maybe that wasn't so far from the truth, but I kept my mouth shut.

All this was foreign to her. Unlike people like Julie, Grace or Vivienna, who had grown up here, Bayla was an outsider. Just like me.

"You're not one of them..." I began slowly. "Even if you could do everything they ask of you, you're not used to any of this."

She looked at me as if I had somehow understood her.

Then, all of a sudden and only in the corner of my eye, I noticed the football flying straight toward Bay and me.

I caught the ball with one hand just before it could hit Bayla.

"Wow" Bay was a bit perplexed by the speed of things. "How the hell..."

"Hey! Bardot!"

Bayla and I looked at the source of the voice.

What a jerk.

None other than Nash Copeland stood shirtless and with both arms crossed on the green open space of campus, grinning condescendingly at me.

"Good catch!" he shouted loudly, and his guys laughed.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Emely shake her head and put on her pine green Vanderwood baseball cap.

Bayla looked first at Nash, then at me.

"Do you know each other personally?"

"You bet we do," I gritted.

"Don't always flirt with the girls, Bardot!"

Again, his guys laughed.

"Don't take it personally," Bayla said, and I tried to listen to her, but Nash didn't seem to want to stop.

"I'd like to know if you can play as well as you can flirt." He looked at his friends. "So, obviously, not at all..."

"Oooh!" It came from Noah and also from a few others around us who had paused in their actions and were now looking at me and Bayla or at Nash.

"Julian, let's go."

Bayla grabbed my arm, but I stood still. More than that. I looked at Nash.

"Come on, Bardot!"

"Bardot, Bardot, Bardot!" he shouted, clapping his hands, and his friends joined in.

Don't do it. I heard Emely in my head. She was trying to communicate with me, but I cut the connection.

Neither Nash nor her father had put an alpha bond on me, but Emely somehow always made it into my head.

"Hold this," I said, taking off my shirt to hand it to Bayla, who accepted it, partly confused, partly overwhelmed.

Again, people cheered as I ran onto the field in just my sweatpants to show Nash how to play properly.

We'd practiced together for years in high school, until it had been over for me.

Now Nash looked at me with a condescending grin, as if he'd forgotten those days, and divided his guys into two teams. Hunter and Noah came to me.

Of course , he sent the one who probably liked me the least and one who couldn't really play, even though he was very well trained.

What we were going to play here wasn't a real football game, but something similar, a silly little game, part of the pack duels.

I threw the ball to one of the guys from my team on Nash's side, got into position and ignored all the people gathered around us, some of whom had their cell phones out.

"Let's go!" one of the guys on the edge of the imaginary pitch shouted.

The ball flew up into the air, and with a leap, I caught it just in time to run for it. The crowd cheered, but I didn't really care. I ran straight at Nash, who was standing there with his legs wide and focused, ready to tackle me to the ground.

Just at the right second, I ducked, slid under his outstretched arms, rolled and kept running until I reached the finish line and pushed the ball to the ground. Loud clapping and cheering filled the campus.

Only Nash looked at me with a grumpy expression. Apparently, he hadn't expected me to be in such good shape.

"Come on, Nash!" one of the guys I didn't know called out, probably a newbie.

Immediately, people on the outside joined in to cheer Nash on.

I briefly looked for Bayla, who seemed a little distrustful of the game.

We repositioned ourselves and one of Nash's team members stood behind me on the right, holding the football.

"Go!" the blonde guy on the sideline shouted, and the ball flew over my head to Nash, who was standing about 30 meters away from me. He threw himself up to catch the ball.

The crowd cheered as he immediately took off running.

I concentrated on his steps, his movement and his muscles.

However, just in front of me, something happened that I hadn't expected.

Nash didn't seem to want to avoid me, instead he rammed me so hard on the shoulder that I flew to the ground. A murmur went through the crowd as I stayed on the ground a little longer, twisting in pain.

But I got up.

In the corner of my eye, I saw that more people had their cell phone cameras out.

I looked at Nash, who was grinning slyly at me.

I didn't know when he'd started acting like this, but I knew he'd become a real bastard over the years. He was definitely no longer the quiet boy of three years ago who wrote poetry alongside all the sport and mostly stayed out of all pack affairs. He had become one of them.

Back then, I had thought we were so different because I had always been the rowdy wild one who broke all the rules. I would never have thought that we could become even more different by turning the tide.

"Take your place!" the blonde Senseque guy shouted from the edge of the pitch.

We got into position.

But Nash wanted to get something off his chest.

"Don't be so weak this time, Bardot!" He looked at me challengingly. "Your mother would turn in her grave if she saw what you've become."

My whole body tensed up. I dropped the ball, and slowly, my hands clenched into fists. I felt the anger creeping into every fiber of my body. With a deep, angry roar, I threw myself at Nash.

His words had been a mistake. He would pay for it.

I yanked him to the ground and my fists smashed down on his face. Blood sprayed from his nose onto his tense upper body.

Nash didn't just lie there. He threw me off him with force.

I jumped up and immediately sat on him again.

My fists hammered at him and helped to suppress the emerging transformation.

"Julian! Stop it!"

Emely stood next to us and pulled on my arm. I pushed her away. A little too hard, because she stumbled back.

I looked back at her to make sure I hadn't hurt her, but then Nash's fist hit me right in the face and I felt the taste of metal in my mouth.

Nash pinned me to the ground and went to punch, his face covered in blood, his hair all mussed up, and he was pulled off me.

I was about to jump up and lunge at Nash again when Hunter and Emely grabbed me from behind.

"Boys!" Alarik stood between the two of us, arms outstretched, his jaw tense. "Enough!"

He gave us both angry looks. Then he looked into the crowd.

"Stop filming! Damn it!" he shouted loud and clear and the crowd seemed to disperse immediately.

"And you two!" He looked first at Nash, then at me, his eyes still full of anger mixed with disappointment. "In my office!"

I had never seen Alarik as angry as he was now. I had grown up with him on the Copeland estate and had gotten to know him there as the quiet and idealistic, as well as a bit of a nutty professor.

He was usually very patient. But his nerves must have been so shattered by what had just happened that he was now out of his mind with rage.

His huge office seemed much more peaceful than the atmosphere was at the moment, with the large windows overlooking the campus letting in the soft light.

Nash was sitting in one of the chairs in front of Alarik's oak desk with a compress over his eyebrow and some tissues held to his nose.

I had sat down on the couch, trying to suppress my transformation, but the dark veins on my arm wouldn't go away.

If Alarik hadn't been here, I probably would have torn Nash into a thousand pieces. I would have become the beast that lay dormant deep inside me. Because mentioning my mother was below dignity, even for someone like him!

"What on earth has gotten into you out there?"

Alarik had taken off his tailored suit jacket, which he had probably worn for a special occasion, and was only wearing the dark blue shirt with the black vest over it.

He stood in front of us with both hands on the desk and then grabbed his head.

"You should have seen yourselves! Like animals… On the verge of your transformation!"

He sounded more stressed than usual.

"I'm already under observation. And you know what kind of light that could shed on the university or the pack, especially in the eyes of the Quatura!"

"Fuck the pack," I snorted, glaring provocatively at Alarik.

Nash looked angrily at me as if he would have liked to tear me to pieces now, too.

"Julian, you almost turned!" Alarik looked at me with a furrowed brow, as if I were a child, you didn't know what else to do with so that it would finally listen. "What you're doing can't go on for much longer."

He had given me the herbs, helped me. He contradicted himself.

"As long as you live in this town, your behavior endangers the pack!"

I thought he would have made a better alpha than Nickolas because he had always been much more concerned with the pack's stability. When something didn't look good for the pack, he had taken care of it. He even managed Nash's father's territory, and when there had been conflicts, he had always intervened. Even the newcomers had always been trained by him back then.

Emely had told me years ago that Nickolas' and Alarik's father had wanted to make him Alpha, but Alarik had refused.

He was also trying to assess the dangers of my behavior for the stability of the pack, and it was really annoying. That look on his face alone. As if he was worried about me . He actually gave me that feeling over and over again, and I hated it. And yet he kept letting my behavior slide.

That was his weak point. The reason why he had never been able to become Alpha. For him, the pack didn't come first. It had always been the Vanderwood.

"Nash, I want you to stop provoking him."

Nash looked at Alarik, stunned. "I..."

"No! Enough! I'm not going to argue with you. What you did back there, both of you ..." He looked back and forth between us. "That was way beneath you!"

"You're always defending him, even though he's not even looking at the pack with his ass. Don't you forget the rules, either!" Then Nash looked at me, again with that hostile look in his blue eyes. "I'm fed up with his presence!"

He stood up and pushed the armchair back so that its massive little legs scraped across the old wooden floorboards which only existed in the lifted part of the office.

Then he disappeared through the door out into the halls without another word.

The door slammed shut.

Alarik stood motionless for a few seconds, probably lost in thought. Then he shook his head, laughed quietly and came over to me, sitting down on the couch opposite me.

"You're endangering others with this behavior."

His look was serious as one of his brown curls fell into his forehead.

I looked at him blankly. Everything inside me felt even more upset.

Somewhere, I knew he was right, but my mind was fighting it.

"I can't let my body take control," I said seriously. "You know that..." I looked at him in desperation. "You've seen what we're capable of. You know what I've done!" I squeezed out in agony and my eyes narrowed in hatred for myself.

Alarik swallowed barely perceptibly and eyed me silently.

"I don't belong to the pack because I don't want to belong ..."

I looked deep into his eyes.

Mine were probably already in the first stage of transformation.

I jumped up abruptly.

"I wish every day that this beast inside me wasn't a part of me!"

My voice trembled. My heart slowly tightened.

"Every damn day I wish it had taken me! Me! Not her! " The trembling of my body turned into a tear running down my bloodied cheek.

I looked at Alarik. He looked at the ground.

I couldn't take it anymore. It was too much. I had to go running, somewhere . I wanted to get as far away as possible. Somewhere north, where it was colder, quieter, where I was alone with myself and my thoughts, far away from anyone I could hurt in any way .

I hurried to the door.

"Julian..."

I paused and looked at Alarik, who was looking at me with a pained expression.

"What you did out there earlier..." He looked at me sympathetically. "I wouldn't have done it any differently."