Page 9 of Wolf Trial

I gave him a double thumbs up.

“Good for you, buddy,” Nose Ring Girl said, turning away from him to follow Mortem.

With a glance at the blonde and Fioranna, my allies in this deadly world, I followed.

CHAPTER 6

SADIE

Iwas ushered into a room with the blonde maybe-vampire, which wasn’t ideal, but it beat being alone. I was practically shaking with energy and adrenaline, my head overflowing thoughts, and she hadn’t had to eat and drink to stay in this place, which meant she was from here. Which meant she had answers.

The room was bigger than I expected, pretty generous for kidnappers. Two four-poster beds had been carved from cherry wood, each sitting on a platform and draped with heavy velvet curtains patterned with the same colours and sigils as the banners in the dining hall.

I had no choice but to look at those symbols now, and they didn’t exactly inspire confidence. A fang, a dagger, a sword, a vial, and a sun. I decided I’d be House Sunny Disposition, and hope my roommate didn’t turn out to be House Stab You In The Back.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, leaning against the bed on the left and pleasantly surprised that the mattress wasn’t rock hard. I had no luggage to unpack, no bags of essentials, not even my phone.

Thanks a lot, Gran.

My roommate sunk onto her bed with a sigh and cast her gaze around the room, looking for something. Whatever it was, she didn’t see it on the narrow, mullioned windows on the far wall, or the second doorway that—fingers crossed—led to a bathroom, but we each had a chest of drawers and that’s where her attention settled.

I slid off the bed and went to my drawers at the same time she searched hers, finding basic cotton underwear, black tops in different sizes, and folded leather pants that gave me hardcore Buffy and Xena vibes. I might not want to kill wolves, or go through a rigorous training regime, but I could get behind the fashion. Anything was better than my work uniform at this point.

I grabbed a long-sleeved black shirt and something close to leggings, and turned back to find my roommate had dug a pad of paper and pencil from the bottom drawer. She held it out so I could see it, a tentative smile on her heart-shaped face.

I’m Elix, the paper said. And just beneath it, the letters fainter, as if she’d written them with a lighter hand, unsure, it said: I don’t speak.

“Oh.” I blinked, realising she hadn’t said a word all night. “Don’t worry, I never shut up, so I’ll speak enough for the two of us.”

Her smile grew into something more real, less hesitant.

I mirrored her smile, even if I kinda wanted to run into the bathroom and scream in the shower. Something told me that would scare off my new friend.1 “Can I ask you a question?”

If I can ask you one, she wrote.

“What’s a twin?”

The child of a vampire and a human. Vampires see us as a lesser species. Humans hate us.

“Oh.” I tried to control my expression. “Damn.”

Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, your roommate is a vampire, but don’t freak out.

I don’t have to drink blood unless I choose to, she explained, writing quickly. I won’t bite you, don’t worry.

I blinked. “Who’s worried? Not me. I’m so chill. I’m the most unworried a person has ever been.”

She winced, but held up her pad again, and I laughed. What is Direct Sports Shoes?

“It’s a shoe shop where I work. Awful place. Do not recommend.”

You sell shoes?

“I used to,” I mused, glancing at the richly appointed room, the golden light spilling from sconces on the wall—not fire or electric, I could see from up close. Instead the light seemed to pool within the metal uplighter of its own accord. No lightbulb, no flame. I stared for a long, long moment, then realised I’d been in the middle of talking. “I guess I just quit,” I said with a wry smile, facing Elix again.

It hit me then that the only person who’d care that I was missing was my boss when I didn’t turn up for my shift. That was pretty fucking sad, that the only thing I’d left behind was a job I hated and a Gran who’d washed her hands of me.

That’s better than my last job, Elix wrote, sighing as she sat on the edge of her bed. I mirrored her movement, stretching my legs in front of me and wincing at the throb that shot through each knee.