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I took some deep breaths to quell the giggles and tried to concentrate on his question. My mind was a little cloudy, and honestly, I’d never felt different in the way Ezra was describing.

I’d felt myself changing and growing up in recent years, but it was the same way all teenage girls felt once boys and,gag, grown-ass men, noticed their boobs coming in. It had ramped up a lot over the past few years, especially since mine were a bit large for my smallerframe. And every once in a while, some giant creep would get really close and try to sniff me.

But Ezra was a great guard dog and would always scare them off.

A few weeks ago, the last time it’d happened, he nearly bit my head off once we’d gotten home, screaming that I needed to stop wearing perfume. Like it had been my fault in some way, as though I was deliberately trying to lure these guys in.

Mom had overheard our fight and stepped in to defend me, and then the two of them really got into it, with Ezra yelling so loudly I was afraid the neighbors would call the cops.

And the weirdest thing? I didn’t even wear perfume.

I leaned over and rested my head on his bicep, breathing him in. He didn’t wear any kind of scents, either, but I’d always liked the way he smelled. It calmed me, kept me grounded.

“Maybe this trip will be good for you, then,” I finally admitted. “I really hate seeing you so unsure about yourself. I’m going to miss you like hell, though.”

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and brought me in closer, giving me a noogie. “Gonna miss you, too.”

2

MARLOWE

Today

“Holy shit,” Elias whispered. “That’s him.”

My blood froze, and my chest constricted, as though my ribs had turned into a vice around my lungs and heart.

“What do you mean? That’s him, who? Guys… what about Ezra?”

Archer took my hands, squeezing them gently as he spoke. “The dark wolf, the shifter who helped us fight off the vampyrs… that’s him.”

No.

Archer kept talking, but it was muffled as a sudden ringing in my ear made it difficult to hear much of anything, and suddenly I was transported right back into my freshman dorm.

Ezra had been in constant contact with me during his trip at first. We didn’t go more than a day without at least a text. But in the final few weeks, his communication had begun to drop off. His phone calls had stopped, and he’d been leaving me on read. He hadn’t been posting to social media, as well.

I’d tried to chalk it up to poor cell service or a lack of Wi-Fi, but deep down, I knew the real culprit was my brother himself. Something had changed in him.

I’d felt it the moment he left this world. I’d been up late finishing a paper when a sharp pain tore through my chest, as though my soul had been cleaved in two. I hadn’t wanted to admit to myselfwhat it could’ve meant, but I couldn’t sleep or eat for days.

Then my mom called.

Even before I’d heard her try to get the news out between her own gut-wrenching sobs, I knew the truth.

Ezra was dead. Hit by a car while walking across the street in India.

It had taken years to deal with my grief, and neither my mom nor I had ever been the same afterwards.

So how could he have been alive this whole time? My brother. My twin. My best friend.

“You’re wrong,” I finally choked out, trying to shake away the lingering memories. “Ezra is dead.”

Elias looked at Camden, and then back to me, speaking slowly. “Did you ever see a body?”

“No, he was crem—” I stopped, refusing to connect the dots. They might have already drawn their conclusions, but they didn’t know Ezra like I had. “You don’t understand, if he was alive, then that meant he didn’t care about ever seeing me again. That he didn’t care how much I was suffering without him. My brother wouldn’t do that to me.”

My pack stared at me in silence, and I could read every thought clearly written across their faces—my brother was alive, he had faked his own death, and now he was a threat to me.