My Mate's Last Message Wasn't for Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Heir at the Window

Cormick asks only her name, the instructor puts her through a class, and Niles storms in to drag her to the lab. She refuses in front of everyone, and Cormick offers to pay for her place in the Rite.

"Where have you been?" Cormick Vaux said again, because I had not answered.

"In the east dorm," I said. "Same as always."

The whole class was watching us, and so was the instructor, a small woman with a drum under her arm.

Cormick looked at me for a long moment, and then he looked at his own left hand.

A pale scar ran across the palm, and the fingers were curled in.

"Your name," he said.

"Seren Strangways."

"Seren," he said, slowly.

The instructor cleared her throat. "Strangways is on my roster, Heir. Dance, junior year. She had a transfer pending to the moon-vein lab."

"Had," I said. "I withdrew it last night."

"Then you're back," the instructor said, and I could not tell if she was pleased or annoyed. "We start the half-shift drills in a minute. Find a place."

Pip had been standing at the barre the whole time with her mouth open.

I knew her from the second-year troupe, a loud girl with blonde curls who shared my dorm hall and once ate an entire pie in my bed.

She waved both arms at me until I came over.

I took the spot beside her.

"You're alive," she whispered. "You walked in here like it was nothing. I'm going to need the full story."

"Later."

"Is it true you handed Niles a funeral doll?"

"News travels."

"It's been four minutes," Pip said. "Someone ran in screaming."

The instructor beat the drum once, and the room went quiet.

A half-shift is the old dancer's hold. You let the wolf come up through the skin only as far as the shoulders and spine, and you keep the rest of yourself human.

It is hard because the wolf wants to finish.

Most of the troupe took a few seconds to find it, grunting and sweating.

Mine takes longer to start, because my change has always come slowly, in a full minute and a half where other wolves do it in an instant.

That was why I had given up dance.

Margot and Niles had told me kindly that slow was a fault.

I closed my eyes and let it come.

My shoulders broadened, and a hush of fur ran along my arms and along my back.

I felt the wolf at the edge of me, impatient, and I held it there and kept it.

Somewhere past the one-minute mark, the room had gone quiet except for my own breath.

When I opened my eyes, half the class had finished and was watching me.

The instructor said nothing, and her face changed.

Cormick stood by the window with his arms folded and had not moved.

He was not watching the slowness. He was watching me hold.

The door banged open.

Niles stood on the threshold in his lab coat, out of breath, with Margot at his shoulder.

He had put on a patient face and it fit badly.

"Seren," he said. "Come with me. We're due in the lab in ten minutes, and you've made a scene."

"I'm in class."

"You're not in class. You're in the wrong building."

I let the shift go, slowly, and the fur drew back.

My hands shook a little as they changed, and I folded them behind me.

Margot slipped past him with her eyes red.

"Seren, please. I didn't know you'd be so hurt. I only wanted you to have a nice birthday."

"The doll was a nice birthday?"

"It was a joke," she said. "It was supposed to be cute. Niles told me you liked cute things."

I looked at Niles, who looked at the floor.

"Niles said you'd like it," she said again, in a smaller voice. "I'm sorry."

It was well done. In my first life I would have comforted her.

"I accept your apology," I said. "I'm staying here."

"You can't just stay," Niles said, and now the patience had gone thin. "You've got lab hours. You've got the survey quota."

"I've got a class."

"You'll fail the lab."

"Then I'll fail it."

He took a step toward me, hand out to take my elbow.

I stepped back, and his hand closed on air.

The room was silent. Pip had stopped breathing.

"Heir Vaux," Niles said, turning to the window with a bright, stiff politeness. "I'm sorry for the interruption. She's confused. She's had a long week."

"She doesn't look confused," Cormick said.

His voice was low and level, and it carried to the back of the hall.

"Your lab will manage," he added. "Close the door on your way out."

Niles stared at him.

Then he took Margot's wrist and they left, and the door shut behind them with a click.

The instructor began to clap the drum again, and the troupe relaxed and moved.

I went back to the barre with my face hot.

When the class ended, Cormick was waiting by the exit, his coat over one arm.

"Miss Strangways."

"Heir."

"The Harvest Moon Rite is in ten weeks," he said. "I have no partner, and the last three Rites went unfinished."

"I heard."

"I'd like you to dance it with me." He paused. "Name your price."

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