Hunted (War of the Covens 1)

Malek stepped right up to Caia, closing her off from the others and deliberately surrounding her with his scent. He reached out and took her hand into both of his in a flirtatious shake. “Nice to meet you.”

Okay, she could see why the human girls were falling over this one. He oozed charm and confidence and that illustrious hint of danger. If only they knew.

Fortunately, for Caia—otherwise she might have found herself in a bitch fight with Dana—she didn’t feel that explosive shiver of heat at his touch that a certain other someone had elicited. She took a step back, releasing her hand from his and giving him a polite nod. His eyes narrowed, but he covered his irritation with a smile and retreated to place an arm around Dana’s waist. She curled into him like a happy kitten and flashed her blue eyes triumphantly at Caia.

“And this is Alexa.” Jaeden indicated a girl who was so beautiful, it was almost sickening. She had long, blue-black hair and large onyx eyes. She didn’t say a word but her burning stare was enough to make the devil himself want to curl up under the bed.

Caia had been right. Not everyone was going to be as friendly as Jaeden.

“Well, guys”—Mal looked around at them all—“we better show Caia around.”

Lucien had taken care of everything. All she’d had to do was go to the office and pick up a timetable that had been produced based on her classes from her previous high school. Most of her teachers were okay. Only one, her calculus teacher, had decided to pull the “stand up and tell us about yourself” card. The students were curious; they whispered to one another, weighing her up from a distance, intrigued by her.

Caia was used to it. Irini had explained that lykans were supposed to be natural predators. In their original state when Artemis first blessed them, their hunger had gotten the best of them and they fed on humans, stealing their flesh and souls. The goddess’s plan had been for them to mate with humans to produce a superior race she could call her own—it had taken a couple hundred centuries for that to be the result—and one of her genetic gifts from way back had been special pheromones that attracted humans. At first, this had only made it easier for the wolves to hunt, but as the centuries turned, so did they.

Present-day lykans were the product of the mixed heritage of wolf and human, and so their predatory instinct had died over the centuries and they learned to control their appetites. Nowadays, it was rare for a human and lykan to mate—supernaturals put this down to the fact that humans no longer believed in the gods, and so Artemis was punishing them by refusing their entry into their wondrous world.

Still, speaking of appetites, there was the odd lykan who got off on murdering humans—they were rogue and always hunted down by their own kind. Thanks to the conflicting results of her special pheromones, Caia wasn’t surprised when no one approached her to introduce themselves.

Back at her old high school, she used to eat her lunch in her car. Here, well … she had the pack. Jaeden was in her French class just before lunch, so they made their way to the cafeteria together.

“So.” She smiled the wide smile Caia was coming to expect from this sweet girl. “How has the first morning gone at Human High?”

Caia laughed. “To be honest, not much different from before. Classes are the same, the people are the same.”

“Meaning, they don’t talk to you?”

“Exactly.”

“Ah, you know why. We’re all the same. Well … except Malek. He’s always flirting with the humans.”

As they entered the cafeteria, Caia zeroed in on the pack teenagers. They sat sprawled around a table together as other students watched them but didn’t go near them. They were looking at her as well, huddling close to whisper when they realized she was with Jaeden. Caia couldn’t understand how they were supposed to go undetected by these people when Jaeden and the others not only looked the way they did but stuck together like … well, like a pack.

Nonplussed, she grabbed a roast beef sandwich and soda, and followed Jaeden to the table. As it had been that morning, Sebastian, Finlay, and Daniel offered friendly smiles. Sebastian pulled out the chair next to him for her so she didn’t have to sit beside Malek. Dana grimaced at her presence, while Alexa didn’t even acknowledge it.

Malek smirked. “So? How was your first morning?”

“It was fine. The usual.”

“You don’t say much, do you? She”—he pointed to Dana—“never shuts up.”

“That’s what Lucien said.” Caia shrugged, frowning. Was she weird because she liked the quiet?

“What?” Dana’s mouth opened and shut like a fish, and everyone, even Alexa, laughed. Caia realized her blunder and blanched under the girl’s glare.