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“I’m trying, but you’ve got to give her time. She’s going through a bit of an adjustment period.”
I snorted. “Adjustment? That’s what you’re calling this?”
“Adjusting is your only option. You won’t like what happens if you fail.”
“That sounded pretty close to a threat,” Axel said. He moved to stand between Mr. Dawson and I.
After what Meredith said about Dastien’s punishment, I knew what he might mean. Scared didn’t even scratch the surface of what I was feeling, but that didn’t mean I could put my brother in danger. I’d already asked too much of him. No way was I risking one of these wolves biting him. “Go home, Axel. I’ll figure it out. I’ll be fine.”
“No way, Tess. I don’t like it,” he said.
“Me neither.” I hugged him.
He gripped me tighter and whispered in my ear. “I’ve been with the cousins. We’re working on getting you out of here. Just sit tight for a few weeks. I’m not forgetting about you.”
Our cousins couldn’t do anything, but if it made him feel better, then it was good he had the distraction. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said in a normal voice. “Don’t let them push you around.”
I nodded as he let me go.
I didn’t wait for Axel to leave or for Mr. Dawson to escort me back to my room. I was a big girl, and it was past time for me to put on my big girl panties. I’d make the best of a bad situation or die trying. Maybe for real. Which was terrifying, but life had never exactly been easy for me. This was more old hat than anything else.
If only I could actually convince myself that it was old hat, then I’d be in a much better place.
And damned Dastien. He was driving me crazy. Why wouldn’t he even look at me?
Chapter Seventeen
The sun peeked through the curtains. I threw the covers over my head. If I stayed in bed, then there could be hope that yesterday had been a crazy fever-induced dream. Or maybe someone had slipped something into my drink and I’d hallucinated the whole thing.
It was easy to pretend underneath the familiar feel of my old white cotton sheets. I touched the hole on the corner that had ripped when I trusted Axel to do my laundry once. Any second, he’d come in here and annoy me.
An inhumanly loud beeping chafed my ears.
A groan and a few bangs came from Meredith’s room before the alarm clicked off.
No such luck. Guess I’d better deal with the day.
I threw the sheets off. I appreciated what they’d done, trying to make me feel at home, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t my home.
Running away didn’t work. I was left with only one option.
Time to face reality.
I pulled myself from the safety of my bed, and quickly showered. Meredith walked into the bathroom as I was wrapping a towel around myself. She mumbled something unintelligible and flipped the shower back on.
Someone definitely wasn’t a morning person.
I went back to my room to get changed, trying to ignore the fact that I was touching a million and one things and had exactly zero visions was getting increasingly harder. But I had bigger things to worry about. I started opening drawers as I considered my outfit options.
The kids I had seen last night were made of hotness. There was no way my short, curvy, Latina frame could compete. I dug through my clothes, trying and failing miserably to ignore the scent that covered everything. I decided to keep it simple with jeans, a black KMFDM T-shirt that fell off one shoulder, and a pair of yellow neon and gray kicks. No flip-flops for me. There was no risk of me shifting. The question was—gloves or no gloves?
I fingered a pair of cobalt ones. I felt naked without them, but did I really need them?
My visions could come back, any second. They had to. I grabbed the gloves and shoved them in my back pocket.
I made my bed as I waited for Meredith. Mom always said I was a little too much of a neat freak, but I felt more at ease about the parts of my life that I couldn’t control when the ones I could control were in order. Lord knew my life was out of my hands right now.
