I spin toward the sound and come face-to-face with a medium-height guy, ruggedly handsome with insanely broad shoulders and skin the color of milk chocolate. His dark brown eyes match his curly brown hair perfectly, and he’s watching me with curiosity.

  “Uh, you know what this drink is?” Please say it’s not blood.

  The guy raises a single eyebrow at me and crosses his arms. “Come on. I was watching you after calculus, and it’s clear you’re not as naive about this school as people say.” He points back to the red drink that’s pooled up in the drain. “And you know that’s blood.”

  I swallow hard, taking a step back from the stranger’s knowing eyes. “Why would someone drink blood? It’s crazy, right?” He looks at me like I’m stupid. “Or maybe I’m the crazy one. This school has a lot of secrets.”

  He shrugs. “We don’t normally hide the more…interesting parts of ourselves, but Stella told us we needed to for your sake.” He sighs, looking almost sorry. “I can see that you’re figuring some stuff out, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the attack the other night? I heard that a krantus demon attacked a student out front Friday night. Was that you?”

  My eyebrows shoot to my forehead and it feels like the air leaves my lungs too fast. “A what demon? I tried doing some research, but I couldn’t narrow it down.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “You…know about the weird, supernatural stuff going on here?”

  To his credit, he doesn’t outright laugh at my ignorance. “Yeah, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are the only one who doesn’t know about the supernatural ‘stuff’ around Wolfe Asylum.”

  I close my eyes, ready to wake up from this crazy dream. “I’m so lost,” I whisper.

  The guy gently touches my shoulders and I open my eyes to look up at him. “You’ll find your way, Ivy. Sneaking around and spying on students may not be the way to go, though.” He chuckles warmly. “By the way, I’m Sebastian. I’m in your calc class, but I normally fade into the back. And just so you are aware, it’s not my place to out Fay, but I am a dragon shifter.”

  I take a big step back and look him up and down in shock. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Sebastian laughs again before shaking his head. “I’m not allowed to shift in the school and damage crap, but I can turn into a dragon whenever I want. I’ll show you sometime.”

  I sigh, feeling like this whole thing is a big prank. “I’m going to head to my next class and pretend the world is a normal place for a few more hours. But, thanks for your openness, Sebastian. You are probably the only person to treat me with any honesty in this whole place.”

  “Like I said. The boss told us to stay quiet, so I’m technically the only person to break the rules.” He smiles. “Either way, I’m happy to help…or hinder. Whatever way you take it.”

  ALDEN: “Can we meet up and talk? -A”

  I stare down at the text message, fighting between my heart and my head with how to respond. Alden wants to talk, but I don’t want anything to do with him if he’s not ready to tell me the truth.

  I take a deep breath and choose to tell him just that.

  ME: “That depends. Are you going to lie to me again?”

  I chew on my bottom lip as I enter the cafeteria. I’ve struggled eating all weekend, and I’ll wither away if I don’t get some food in me. I have an hour lunch break before my last class of the day, and then I’m going to confront Fay.

  I need to learn about this place and the creatures that go to school here. I’m beginning to realize that I might be the only human of them all, which terrifies me. My phone buzzes as I stand in line for a cheeseburger, stomach rumbling.

  ALDEN: “I never wanted to lie to you. Please believe me.”

  ME: “I don’t know if I can…”

  ALDEN: “I’ll do anything.”

  I take a slow breath and stuff my phone away, choosing to ignore it for a bit. My heart doesn’t need to be tugged in Alden’s direction. He showed me the wild part of himself, and then acted like I dreamt it all up. I can’t handle that right now, and my trust is wearing thin.

  I turn with my burger-filled plate and nearly slam right into the beautiful blonde girl that glared at me on my first day in the cafeteria. She’s not surrounded by her posse, but she is no less unimpressed by me.

  “Excuse you,” she says, her voice a sharp hiss.

  I glare back in her direction with very little patience for school bullies. I’ve dealt with girls like her too many times in my life. “I didn’t even touch you. I have no need to be excused.”

  She raises one well-manicured eyebrow and flips her long braid over her shoulder. She steps into my personal space and a light fills her blue eyes, making them look like two glowing orbs. “You have a demon in you, girl. I wonder how easily she can be squashed.”

  “Xena, back off.” Alden steps between us and places his hands on the girl, Xena’s shoulders. “What’s up with you?”

  Xena’s eyes continue to glow as she looks up at Alden and sinks against his body. “Something about our new girl screams danger, Alden. Kill her for me.” Her voice is practically a purr, and I want to either gag or start running.

  Alden growls low. “Are you serious, Xena?” He shakes her and the glow in her eyes disappears.

  Xena blinks as she looks up at Alden, still leaning on him. “What?” She looks almost confused as she glances over at me. “What do you want?”

  Alden looks over his shoulder at me with concern on his handsome face. It has been three days since I saw him last and I can’t believe how much I missed that face. What is wrong with me?

  “So,” I say, finding a small bit of bravado, fed up with this girl’s act. “She’s like you, then?” I look into Xena’s glaring eyes. “What do you turn into? A wolf? A dragon?”

  Xena scoffs and strokes her hand along Alden’s arm. “No, baby. I’m a faerie. Much better.”

  My eyebrows raise at that and I take a step back, not being able to look away from the way Xena touches Alden. Intimately.

  Alden follows my gaze to the hand on his arm and he steps away from the clinger. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Xena, but you and I need to talk. Later.”

  “Ivy,” he says gently, turning to move closer to me. “I wanted to protect you from all of this. I never wanted you to see how dark the world could be.”

  I look long and hard into his blue eyes, and I know he means what he says. “But Fay isn’t dark. Silis isn’t dark, and neither are you.” I pause, sure that this guy in front of me could never be a real monster. “Are you, Alden?”

  His face seems to take on extreme sorrow as he drops his hands by his sides and shakes his head. “Ivy, you have no idea how dark I am.”

  The last thing I hear is Alden’s voice calling my name as I leave my food behind and run to my bedroom. I can’t have this conversation. Not with him. And standing in a room full of gawking teenagers isn’t the place I want to be when I break down.

  CHAPTER 4

  I run through the halls, letting myself truly see the things around me. There are so many clues and hints, and I’ve been an idiot for missing them all. The paintings of wolves and dragons, proud and supernaturally strong. The gargoyle statues with watching eyes, and the intricate designs along the walls of creatures changing, shifting as they go.

  I burst through my bedroom door and toss my backpack across the room. I don’t care that I have another class today. The teachers have probably been lying to me too. Anger rolls through me, like no anger I’ve felt before, and fury is a feeling I know well.

  I grab my hair and cry out in frustration as I throw myself face down onto my bed. A bitter voice in my mind speaks to me. They’re all hateful liars. Evil monsters with a penchant for blood.

  I swallow the sour taste on my tongue that seems to be a side effect of that voice. It’s not my voice, and the thoughts don’t belong to me, but I know I heard it inside of myself.

  I shake my head, trying to rid myself of that hateful feeling. I know that I’ve been kept in the dark since arriving at this school, and I have every right to be pissed, but I don’t hate these people. In truth, Stella Wolfe saved me from the hellhole I was trapped in. I could never hate that bit of kindness.

  “Am I interrupting a mental breakdown?” Fay’s voice floats to me from behind, and I jerk up out of bed. She’s standing just inside the doorway with deep worry in her violet eyes, and her hair wild atop her head like she just finished running a mile or ten.

  I stand, wringing my hands together nervously. It’s now or never. “Close the door, Fay. We need to talk.”

  She cringes at my words and chews on the inside of her lip as she shuts the bedroom door and gently sets her backpack to the side. “Okay, we can talk. No biggie. We got this.” It’s as if she’s talking to herself, calming herself. She keeps her eyes on me as she moves to her bed and sits with her dainty hands resting on her poofy, poodle skirt. “What’s up, girl?”

  I half-snort, half-scoff as I eye her like she can’t be seriously asking me that question. “Really, Fay? What’s up?”

  She groans and rubs a hand through her tangled, purple hair. “Shit, you know, don’t you?”

  I open my mouth to tell her what I know, but the bedroom door flies open and Silis practically falls into our room, yelling. “Don’t kill her, Ivy! She had no choice!”

  Fay and I both stare at the boy with wide eyes, and I hold my hands up in question. “Who exactly was I going to kill?”

  His bright green eyes land on mine, and he hurriedly glances between me and Fay, letting out a long sigh before rambling like a maniac. “Oh, thank the goddess. I walked by a group of kids gossiping, and they said the new girl was attacked in the cafeteria by Xena. One of them said the school’s secret is out and you were dangerous and you went running to your room all angry like you were about to murder someone! I hurried up here as fast as I could to stop you from acting out at Fay for lying to you because she didn’t have a choice!”

  Fay gasps. “You were attacked, Ivy?”

  I gape at the panting boy, absolutely flabbergasted by the way high school drama filters through the school. “Okay, first of all, I am not going to murder anyone. Xena did act all crazy to me in the cafeteria, but I wasn’t attacked because Alden pulled her back. Not that I would have let that witch touch me anyways.” I look between my two friends. “Oh, right. Wrong term. The faerie.”

  “Shit,” Fay says again, at the same time Silis says, “Oh boy.”

  I sit back on my bed, my eyes flicking from Fay to Silis and back, waiting for them to start talking. My stomach growls in the silent room and I curse under my breath at its timing.

  Silis claps his hands together before pulling a cellphone from his pocket. “Okay, we need to have a long talk, but not while my girl is starving. I’m ordering pizza.”

  My mouth waters at the idea. “Wait, we can order room service?”

  Fay rolls her eyes. “We can’t, but the headmistress’s son can do whatever the hell he wants, right Si?” He grins and then starts chattering through the phone, ordering enough pizza for ten people.

  I look wide-eyed at Fay. “Silis is Stella’s son?” She nods. Which means Alden is also her son… I think back to that kiss that Stella dropped on Alden’s cheek, and shame tugs at me. I was so jealous for no reason. Another thought strikes me. “Woah, does that mean Silis and Stella can shift into wolves like Alden?”

  Fay’s violet eyes go wide this time, and Silis hangs up the phone, turning to me. “It’s a long story, Ivy. Do you really want to know everything? After this, your life is going to change.”

  I swallow hard, contemplating his question. “Yes, I want to know it all. My life got flipped around when I was fourteen, then again just a month ago, and all over again when Stella pulled me from juvie. I can handle change. Plus, what’s a few more nightmares?”

  Silis looks at Fay, and she pats the bed beside her for him to take a seat. He obeys, a sheepish grin on his freckled face. “Okay, first of all, tell us everything you know. Including how you found out that my brother is a wolf shifter.”

  The pizza arrives as I’m finishing up my story about the incident in the cafeteria at lunch. There’s enough for us each to have our own full box of pizza, so we settle on the floor and dig in.

  I’ve been talking for a half hour about all of the crazy things that have happened over the last week. About the times I was hurt, or nearly hurt by the boy who turned out to be a krantus demon, I still don’t know what that is. How Alden jumped in and saved me, and I passed out only to wake up in his arms where he told me I was sleepwalking. About the moment I saw Fay drinking blood and my encounter with Sebastian by the drink machine. And then my cafeteria run-in.

  Mouth full of pepperoni pizza, Silis shakes his head. “What a week, huh?”

  “And you really saw me drinking blood?” Fay asks, picking pineapples off of a pizza slice. “Ugh, I’m so bad at being sneaky.”

  I sit back, already on my third slice of pizza, and I let my eyes land on my roommate. “So, you drink blood, and you eat food. There are faeries, wolf shifters, dragon shifters, and demons in the school that I know of. What are you?”

  Fay sits up straight and flips her hair back. “Well, I am part seer, and part vampire. A straight-down-the-middle mix.”

  I stop chewing, looking my friend up and down. “What? There are mixed supernaturals? And did you say vampire? Like a walking-dead creature of the night that sucks blood and lives for eternity?”

  Silis laughs and nearly chokes on his food, but Fay nods and shrugs at the same time. “Yes, and sort of. Supernaturals used to stay within their own species, but they started to mix over four hundred years ago. My dad is a pure-blood vamp, and my mom is a full-blood seer. Vampires were never dead to begin with, but they did used to live for thousands of years. Since I am half, I will live longer than humans, but not forever. And I can eat food, but I still need blood in my diet to keep from getting sick.”

  “I need to write all of this down,” I say, but I don’t reach for my notebook. “So, what about the seer side of you? Can you see into the future?”

  She shrugs again. “I’m working on that, but I haven’t had my first vision yet. Seers are what humans know as witches. I can do a little bit of magic, and I can sense things that others can’t. Sometimes it’s approaching danger or knowing when the weather will change. Nothing crazy.”

  I shake my head, in awe. “Wow, I don’t even know how to process this information. I mean, you seem so…human. Sorry if that’s an insult.”

  Fay laughs softly. “Not an insult. I’ve had to hide the magical sides of myself from you. Stella knew that you grew up in the human world, so she asked the students and faculty to act human until she could teach you about us. I don’t think she expected you to get attacked and start snooping on your own.”

  “Yeah,” Silis adds. “I still don’t know why the krantus demon targeted you. He wasn’t a student here, so he must’ve sensed something in you that he didn’t like. They can track people from a long distance, without ever meeting the person to begin with. He had to have caught your trail in Sacramento.”

  “Right, explain what a krantus demon is. I know he had these crazy curved horns and hair all over his body. His teeth were sharp and large, seriously scary.”

  Silis thinks for a moment. “Have you ever heard of the scary Christmas story of the Krampus?” I shake my head. “Well, Krampus was a legend, supposed to be a creature that attacks naughty kids at Christmas time, sometimes eating them or stealing them away from their beds. This is basically our krantus demon.”

  I balk at that. “So, I was attacked by a Christmas demon who thought I was on the naughty list?”

  Fay and Silis both chuckle, and Silis shakes his head. “No, not exactly. That was just the human legend. The krantus demon does detect darkness in a person, but they don’t hunt children at Christmas time. They hunt year-round, and they only hunt supernaturals, specifically those with evil souls that the krantus demon can feed off of.”

  “But, why me then?” I ask, more confused than ever.

  Fay shrugs. “We don’t know. I can sense danger, but I don’t feel that when I’m around you.”

  “And I’m not a supernatural,” I say. Both of them look at one another with worry. “What? I’m not, right? I would know.”

  Fay leans forward and lays a hand on my knee. “Actually, Ivy. You are half wolf shifter, and half human.”

  It’s about time to freak out. I jump to my feet and hold my hands out, even though I don’t know why. “Hold on a damn minute. I’m a human, guys. Born in Colorado to two ordinary human parents. Raised in a school of ordinary human people.”

  They both stand up with me. Silis takes a step toward me. “I know it sounds crazy, but this happens sometimes. Your parents were probably human, but at least one of them had wolf shifter blood in their lineage that they passed to you. Stella is a wolf too, so she saw it in you the moment she laid eyes on you. She says you’re a wolf shifter, hands down.”

  I think about that strange voice in my mind. Maybe they’re right. I’ve always felt different, wilder and more temperamental than other kids. Maybe that voice in my head is that wolf side of me. I close my eyes, really feeling for that entity for the first time. It’s like another being lives within me, squirming behind the human part, trying to break free.

  I open my eyes. “Holy crap. Holy crap!”

  CHAPTER 5

  “I’m sorry, Ivy.” Fay says, watching my mental breakdown. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I shake my head. “No, don’t be sorry. I will just need time to process, I think.” I steady my breathing and turn to Silis. “So, wait. You said Stella was your mom, and she’s a wolf shifter. Doesn’t that mean you’re a wolf too?”

  Silis grimaces. “Well, that’s another story altogether.” He pauses. “I’m a faerie. I was orphaned when I was five. My parents were killed, and Stella found me in a human orphanage. She knew I was fae, and she had no hopes of having kids of her own, so she adopted me. She brought me to the school to live with her and her father, the headmaster of the school at that time. They treated me like I was their own, and Stella has ever since.” He smiles sweetly, and I’m so glad for him.