The Fae Asked If I Was Human, Now the Alpha Wants the Truth novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Warden

The dean makes Bram Mira's warden and she refuses to be sent home, so she accepts his ten-pace rule; that night her marks come back for him alone.

The tall boy stopped in front of me and looked at my neck for a long moment.

"Collar down," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Pull your collar down. Please."

The please came out stiff.

I tugged my collar aside with two fingers.

My skin was smooth and ordinary, with a thin pink line where the crest pin had pressed.

"Nothing there," I said.

"There was," said Ilyan, leaning on a pillar to watch. "Everyone saw it, Bram."

So that was his name.

Bram did not turn around.

"Everyone saw a crest fail," he said, loud enough for the whole hall. "A cheap pin broke. It happens. Go to your classes."

Nobody moved for a second.

Then the hall slowly filled with talk again, and the fae girls went back to their cupcake.

A woman in a grey suit came down the staircase with a tablet under her arm and a ring of keys at her belt.

She was the dean, and she studied me without blinking.

"Miss Quennell," she said. "Walk with me."

Her office was at the top of the east tower, and a fire was burning in the grate.

It was the first fire I had ever sat near without leaning away.

"Our human student wears a crest for a reason," the dean said. "It keeps her safe from certain appetites on this campus. Yours has failed on the first day."

"Then give me a new one," I said.

"I would, if I could explain why it failed."

She turned her tablet so I could see a page with the Thackwray crest at the top.

"Under our rules, a failed crest makes a student a warden case. A senior is assigned to keep within ten paces of her until the cause is found. Mr. Thackwray has volunteered."

"Volunteered," I repeated.

Bram stood by the window with his arms folded, looking at the dark hills instead of me.

"Nobody else asked," he said.

"I didn't ask either," I said. "I'd like to be moved to another warden."

"Request denied," said Bram.

"By who?"

"By me. I'm head of the wardens."

The dean cleared her throat.

"There is another option, Miss Quennell. I can send you home on tomorrow's shuttle with your scholarship intact for next year."

I almost laughed.

"Home is a group home with a bunk bed and a curfew. They told me to leave on my eighteenth birthday, which was two weeks ago. They let me stay until the term started as a favor."

Nobody said anything.

"I'm not going back," I said. "What are the terms?"

The dean tapped her tablet.

"Ten paces. Mr. Thackwray keeps within ten paces of you whenever you are outside your room. You report anything strange your skin or the pin does, immediately and truthfully."

"And if I don't?"

"Then it ends and you go on the shuttle."

I looked at Bram.

For the first time he looked at me directly.

His eyes were grey and very steady, and they did not look cold up close.

They looked tired, and very careful.

"You'll tell me the truth," he said.

"If you keep your ten paces," I said.

"Agreed."

"Agreed," I said, and signed the page where the dean pointed.

Bram walked me to the girls' dorm.

He stayed exactly ten paces behind me the whole way, counting under his breath and looking like he hated every step.

At my door, a small black-haired girl was sitting cross-legged on the other bed with her shoes off.

"You're my roommate," she said. "I saw it all from the balcony. You were incredible."

"I was terrified," I said.

"Same thing. I'm Posy."

I laughed and the tightness in my chest let go a little.

That night I washed my face and went to brush my teeth.

The bathroom mirror was old and spotted at the edges.

I leaned in to check the pink line on my neck.

My skin glowed gold.

Slowly the lines drew themselves across my collarbone again, bright and clear in the glass.

I held very still.

Then the bathroom door opened a hand's width, because I hadn't locked it, and Bram stood in the gap.

The gold in the mirror flared white-hot.

He saw it.

I saw him see it.

"Get out," I said.

He didn't move.

"No," he said, in a voice I had not heard from him before. "Not yet."

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