CHAPTER 1
YVAINE
Whoever said werewolves had gone civil—pursuing college degrees and nine-to-five jobs, leaving blood feuds and kidnappings to the history books—had clearly never been to a wereball game.
The goal was to score, buthowyou actually did it? Irrelevant.
No referees. No penalties.
Shielding my eyes, I lifted my chin toward the big, flashy screen. The score was 32–21. The Comets, my pack’s team, was smashing it.
Werewolf universities like ours played against each other over the course of a season, and the competition was beyond intense. Rabid. Almost ridiculous. Honor and pack pride, marinated in years of grudges, all collided in one muddy field.
Drumming, shouting, death threats, throats clearing to better hurl spit, animal snarls, air horns—the cacophony drowned the space, a typical wereball game soundtrack.
The arena transported you back to the days of the gladiators. Of course, the Romans had had the excuse of not knowing any better, having happened before the Middle Ages. But we did. Some tried to argue that we had improved. Evolved. I supposedthey were right; we didn’t mount our enemies’ heads on spikes anymore.Progress!
The rabid crowd roared, half-possessed by the spirits of wolves who’d died in old wars and needed more entertainment postmortem. The classic “High-land-er! Go smash them!” chant rattled our section as we all watched our captain—my very own twin brother—pull off yet another dazzling display of athleticism.
Sitting in the Comets tribune with my friends, staring down at his frame, I could very well see how Lachlan was on fire that afternoon. And not just because of his flaming red hair, or because the sun seemed to hit him like a spotlight, as if it, too, were cheering for him.
He weaved through four midfielders and sprang up, his overtrained arm cocking back and catapulting the ball. His teammate, Gaius, caught it mid-sprint. Elbows out, he plowed through two rivals before slamming a touchdown that made the stands quake.
Everyone erupted.
Everyone exceptme.
I was too busy flinching as two rivals tackled Lachlan. No protective gear stood between his milky skin and the angry punches raining down upon him.
I clutched the emergency kit resting on my knees. I’d snatched one when I left the hospital lockers earlier, but I had only now noticed that I was still in my blue clogs from the clinic.
In one motion, Lachlan twisted free. Shattering two noses with synchronized elbows, he drove his knee into another’s gut. He finished with a right hook that launched the fourth guy into orbit—and probably left him seeing stars, a few planets, and maybe a comet or two.
I clasped my hands together, the tips of my index and middle fingers pushing against my mouth.
“Don’t hurt yourself, don’t hurt yourself, don’t hurt yourself,” I whispered.
That was my stadium chant. My knees bounced, my feet tapping the floor as if possessed by a crazed foot-spirit.
“Yvaine. Research shows that a tic such as this…” Amaia—my roommate, sometimes best friend, sometimes necessary buzzkill—tipped her chin toward my legs. “…can be indicative of Tourette syndrome.”
I pouted at her. “Is that supposed to help?”
Amaia’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter. “It’s supposed to be informative.”
We were right at the back of the Comets wing, which led me to a question: Why were my shoes sticking to everything?
“They’d better win, or I’m demanding a refund.”
Losing at wereball was a disgrace. The whole pack would mourn for days. My parents once wore black for an entire month.
“We don’t pay for tickets,” Amaia reminded me. It was a rarity she even showed up to the games, free or not. Her black hair absorbed 98% of the visible light, her makeup-less, dark eyes took in 97% of surrounding details, and her lips spilled 100% words of mild disdain.
“No, but they’ll need to pay me an inconvenience fee formy anxiety.”I took a sip of my Irn-Bru, my beer substitute during a game. “Apart from the eardrum damage.”
I watched two shirtless players crouch down, their partially shifted claws stabbing into the remaining grass. They were so gigantic that they might as well have been classified as a different species. Walking steroids in tight shorts and bare feet. Every position required some degree of beastliness, with the captain at the very peak of the beast pyramid. Just looking at them, it seemed clear they were the strongest members of their pack.
The Shooting Stars—a fan club led by another one of my roommates, Tiziano—started up their chants again, with drums banging and enough energy drinks in their fandom bloodstreams to power a small town. Shouting into his megaphone, Tiziano stepped around a sack of bricks that were ready to be emptied, then picked up a barbed bat. Random car parts were laid out next to them in organized rows for maximum post-game carnage.
