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“I mean, yeah, but you know about my past, and Connor is just… too perfect.”

Alice speaks very slowly like I’m a moron that’s not getting her point. “Why complicate it? He knows you’re not together, right?”

I sink onto the couch, slouching next to her, my exhausted body humming. “It already feels complicated.”

Alice nudges me. “Okay, answer me this. What would you do if you saw Connor kissing someone else?”

I glance at her, truly stumped. “I don’t know.”

“You’d at least be conflicted, right?”

I shrug. “I guess. I don’t know. But, Alice, he wants more. He wants a… relationship.”

“He’s obviously happy with the situation at the moment. Enjoy it for now and deal with the rest of it later.” I sigh, and Alice chuckles. “Want me to run interference with him until you figure it out?”

“Interference?”

“You know, do you want me to come up with some reasons why you can’t see him? It might take the pressure off.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

Alice holds her pinky finger up in the air between us. “Here is to Summer figuring out which is more powerful, her commitment issues or her libido!”

I roll my eyes but link my pinky with hers and laugh, finally relaxing. “Okay, whatever. Are we going out tonight?”

Alice pretends to think as she pulls out her phone. I don’t miss that the first thing on her screen is the invite to the shifter house party tonight. She quickly closes it and scrolls through her phone. “Sorcerers mixer, no. Incubusstudy session? Gods, no. Huh…” She scrolls back to the shifter invite. “There’s a party at the shifter house. It’ll be lame, but it’s better than the other options.”

I give her a knowing look. “You want to go party with the shifters?”

“Ew, no. But they usually have a ton of booze, and it’ll be packed with loads of guys.” Alice tries to hide her blush with her hair. I roll my eyes.

“Shifter house it is. Can’t wait for archaic rules and female oppression.” That was one of the consistent things I’d read when studying Nhang, the realm of therianthropes. Even with its ever-changing landscape, climates, and varying factions, one ideology resonated through each shifter group, no matter how much they differed from each other.Might makes right.

“Oh, they’re not that bad anymore…” Her words trail off when she meets my gaze. “What?”

“I am once again going to remind you that vampires and shifters are natural enemies,” I tease, trying to get under her skin. It is a common thing to see vampires and shifters facing off, both in classes and outside of them. Alice is the only one who doesn’t seem to care.

“Please. I loathe them,” Alice asserts, dragging out the word. I don’t need to be an angel to know she is lying.

“I’m sure you do,” I say and stand up, heading toward my room. My smirk widens when I hear her frustrated growl. I stop short, noticing a man’s hoodie on the floor. Glancing back at her, I bend and pick it up. On the back, there are the signs for alpha, beta, and omega. Alpha and omega are white, and the beta symbol is blue. I slowly turn to face her.

“Alice?”

Alice watches me in horror, her mouth opening and closing.

“You’re fucking a shifter, aren’t you?”

Alice bristles, standing up and clenching her fists. “Okay, first of all…” She walks around the couch and snatches the hoodie from me. “Maybe. And second of all, maybe I’m fucking more than one of them.”

I burst out laughing. “Never change.”

Alice blinks and then starts to laugh, too.

23

Summer

Iread through my assignment for ancient runes and start tracing them on my pad. Ignis. I pick up my small dagger and prick my finger, carefully writing the archaic Latin on my skin. As my blood dries, the rune turns iridescent. Holding out my hand, I focus on the rune drawn onto my arm and snap my fingers. A small flame flickers above my thumb, and my lips twitch as I open my hand. I let the tiny flame dance through my fingers, controlling it with my mind. Too quickly, the rune fades and the flame dies.