Demetrius wasted away in his room. Days melted into nights then days again with the boy flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. It had been a while since he attended school and a while since he let himself out into the world. Even the most recent hunt was avoided. The boy couldn’t bear to eat; he could barely manage the occasional trip downstairs to assure his mother he was still breathing. His failures—despite the insistence of his mother—weighed on him like an anchor pulling him down into the deep ocean where he could be drowned by an overwhelming sense of guilt and inadequacy. Everyone made it seem like such a small matter, something he should’ve been able to shrug off and keep moving. The fact that he couldn’t was yet another crippling blow and for each day he remained in bed, the feelings intensified. It’d been over a week since he last laid eyes on Jamie. His sudden and unorthodox resignation meant he was no longer entitled to information. He couldn’t deman

Sarah sprinted, triggering Cassidy into defence. His sister shot to his side in what was ultimately a miscalculated move. Neither had read the situation correctly. The boy had never been her target. With his sister out of the way, it left a clear line to Jamie. In one swift motion, Sarah yanked her from the bed and tugged her close. “No unauthorised transformations, is that right?” “Sarah, w—what are you doing?” Jamie asked, struggling to free herself from her friend’s inexorable grasp. “He doesn’t get to keep you, too.” The girl’s response was barely a whisper. The fur along her arms and face receded and her eyes returned to their warm brown in show of her returning control but where those features diminished, her will to carry out her plan had not. Sarah looked to him. “If she becomes like me, you…you have to kill her or let her run away, right?” “It’s not that simple,” Demetrius said, struggling to get his words out. The little energy he h

The hand at his shoulder attempted to ground him. It yanked him back, shoving him to the floor and away from the girl that lay motionless on the table.            “Apologies, Alexiel, but as we’ve mentioned, the girl is of some importance.” Carlton stepped over the boy he’d just thrown to the ground and moved to stand before Jamie. The man pressed two fingers just beneath her jaw, satisfied after a moment’s wait. “Good. Have the medics brought in, we may yet save her.”            Demetrius remained on the floor, dumbstruck. His mind was beginning to catch up to the frenzy his body had fallen into, several thoughts bombarding him at once. While it was guilt and disgust that fought bitterly to be at the fore, it was confusion that held the position. He’d felt it, the moment her heart had given its final beat. The

Jamie crossed the room to the balcony unfollowed. She leaned against the railing, looking out into the night and, for a moment, neither Demetrius nor or her mother knew what to say. There were too many things she’d said that didn’t sit well with him, things that weighed his eyebrows into a crease and sent his mind into a tizzy of its own insatiable curiosity. In the end, it was the girl who broke the silence.             “If you won’t let me have a taste, I’d like to be taken hunting. That’s what you call it, right?” She looked over her shoulder at them. “Demetrius, will you take me?”             “Maybe your mother should—”             “It’s not necessary; she’s done enough.” Jamie turned to face him completely, searching his gaze with intrusive, eyes of silver. “You won’t?”  

The sun had begun to break free of the horizon when the pair returned to the house. Following the hunt, Demetrius had allowed Jamie to remain in the plains for no other reason than her desire to stay a while longer to enjoy the feeling of the wind on her cheeks and the grass beneath her toes. The boy came to the unsettling realisation that he would arrest the very stars in the heavens if it would make her smile.            It was dangerous business being so endeared to someone; it had already proven itself problematic. His superiors had caught on to the effect she had on him and were not opposed to exploiting that weakness for their own gains.            The pair found her mother sitting on the chair she’d moved to the bed; she hadn’t moved since they left. Her eyes, once laced with worry, filled themselves with relief as they walked in from the b