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S age confounded the hell out of me. If I didn’t know why I hacked her glucose monitor, I certainly didn’t know why I had no reaction when she grabbed my hand. I didn’t like people touching me. It felt like bugs were crawling all over me if someone even brushed my hand. I felt like vomiting if someone wanted to hold it.

It was why I didn’t do relationships. It wasn’t fair to the girl. I liked sex. I was good at sex. It was a release, but I hated cuddling and I didn’t want to do it after. I had one-night stands and kicked them out immediately after so I could take a hot shower and scrub my body raw with the loofah.

But she grabbed my hand, and I didn’t feel any of that. I actually…liked it and wanted to keep doing it. I didn’t know what was happening to me and I wasn’t sure I liked it very much. I knew who I was. I was very sure of myself. This was a bit much.

I also ate after Headmaster Mykene proved magic was real and that the food wasn’t drugged. Not a lot of time had passed since my last meal, and I was not a glutton. I gave myself what my body needed.

I was starving. I didn’t think I’d ever been this hungry in my entire life. It was like it had been days since I’d eaten. Usually when I was hungry, I knew what I wanted to eat. Nothing sounded good.

I couldn’t get my favorites from back home here, but even a sandwich sounded vile. I was hungry enough that literally even that nasty soup our chef made that I loathed, but my brother loved so it was served all the time should sound good right now. I couldn’t think of literally anything that sounded good right now.

“Oh, shit did you see that?” Sage asked.

“What?”

“I saw four wolves over there.”

“Can’t be. They were hunted to extinction here,” Liam said.

This one was dumber than ball sweat, even if he could do things I couldn’t like look up at the sky and tell what time it was.

“They are probably werewolves, freci pula,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I speak a few languages, but I don’t speak that one. That had better mean something nice.”

“It’s Romanian and no, it wasn’t.”

“It’s kind of sexy, even if it was mean and I don’t know what it meant,” Sage said.

“We should focus on the wolves. Lucian is right. It’s probably werewolves. We have Arabian wolves in Egypt and I’ve camped in countries with them. Most of them are curious, but won’t approach a campsite unless you leave food out. I don’t know about werewolves, though.”

“They peeked at us and disappeared. I don’t see them now,” Sage said.

Liam kept rubbing his forehead, and I was honestly sure he had fleas or possibly head lice. He wasn’t dirty or smelling funny, but I didn’t like him.

I whipped out my phone. I should have been worried about the wolves. I didn’t know why I was obsessively checking on Sage. I shouldn’t care. I didn’t know her and the nurse took care of her before we left. I didn’t know why I did a crash course in diabetes while I waited for Headmaster Mykene to call me, either.

I went to America once and never intended to go back. It was much hotter there than it was here, but I could see a fine sheen of sweat on Sage’s brow, and she looked a little pale. She already said she thought she was the dead weight of our group, and I didn’t think that was true at all.

She hadn’t said anything about stopping to eat and she knew her body better than I did, but I really didn’t want to take the chance she was pressing herself because she didn’t want to slow us down. So, I suggested we stop and eat.

And I honestly couldn’t tell you why I cared more about her eating than me when I was this fucking ravenous.