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Sy seethed.

“The vampires will flood the area soon,” Dixie said, looking around, a bit urgent now. “Let’s go.”

I was still running on adrenaline, but I would collapse as soon as it departed. I urgently needed a temporary, safe place to stay before I could think clearly and sort things out.

However—

“Are you sure?” I asked, hesitation in my eyes. I had to come clean a little. “I—stabbed Prince Louis.”

All three shifters trained their eyes on my bloody clothes. Shocked silence stretched for three and a half seconds before Luna whistled, and the panther snorted softly, no longer looking like it wanted to eat me for a midnight snack.

“How?” Luna asked, and the panther moved in closer, wanting to hear this juicy gossip.

“He was going to—” I said sulkily. “I don’t want to talk more about it.”

“The vampires should never have held you captive in their house in the first place,” Dixie said, her face turning hard. “We should’ve known and come to get you earlier. You’re one of our own.”

My chest warmed. I’d never been considered part of a pack.

“Louis would never let me go.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to bring you and your house trouble. I might just take refuge in Underhill for a while. It’ll be kind to me. You should go before the vampires come.”

I didn’t want to insult her, but I understood shifters’ strict hierarchy. She wasn’t the shifter prince, so she couldn’t really decide for her house. But I’d remember her kindness. I never forgot anyone who showed me a drop of kindness.

“Underhill isn’t kind to anyone,” Dixie said. “Hasn’t been for a millennium. Our house is the only one near its border, not because we’re the scariest predators in the realm but because we have a truce with Underhill. We don’t hunt in the dark forest, and we guard it, and its beasts don’t hunt in the academy grounds. But if you go in, Little Bob, we can’t protect you. And you won’t come out.”

Every monster thought it was the scariest. Yet I could be scarier than the scariest monsters, except for my father. Every breathing thing should fear him if they knew what he was—the true eater of the worlds.

“Dixie will get you into our house,” Luna said, then turned to gaze up at the wolf chick. These two were fucking. “She’s the beta and Prince Silas’s favorite cousin.”

That was why Bea sent them. Dixie could really help me.

“We have to go,” Dixie urged. “I bet the vampires are on the move, and we’ve overstayed Underhill’s welcome.”

Yet I felt differently than the shifters. Underhill was calling me. The wild magic wanted me to go in. It’d shield me.

Dixie turned and sprang east toward the shifters’ territory, Luna catching up with her. They were looking back, expecting me to follow. The panther would herd me. So, I ran after them, a few paces behind, with the panther bringing up the rear. When the pack picked up speed, I had no problem following suit, even in my depleted condition.

“Told you that you’re a shifter.” Dixie gave me a glance over her shoulder. “You might be a little wolf.”

I felt it the moment we reached the shifters’ territory and were enveloped by their water magic.

An olive-colored wood-and-stone building came into view, vast fountains surrounding it.

Shifters patrolled the perimeter, some in their animal forms. Most were wolves of all colors, although gray was most common. They pricked their ears and turned in our direction.

Dixie slowed to a jog, and I slowed down as well, ignoring the shifters’ suspicious stares training on me. Sy almost wanted to come out and show them that their intimidation game was child’s play.

A few of them howled.

“Wait here, Little Bob,” Dixie ordered as she paused in front of the stairs of a three-story building. “You’ll need to be initiated by Prince Silas to enter the House of Shifters.”

16

I waited on the lawn of violet grass outside the House of Shifters as Dixie entered through the door. Luna followed her in. Javier, the panther, crouched, his hostile eyes on me. I retreated a few paces and bent my knees, ready to hit the dirt and kick him with both feet should he lunge at me.

A faint puff of smoke swirled, then where the panther had been, a dark-skinned, small-eyed teenage boy took its place, butt naked. My jaw dropped. My gaze automatically darted to his lame dick.

“What are you looking at, boy?” he snarled.