Page 24 of Poet & Protector

“What about Calla?” Ansel asked in a small voice. “Don’t you think she should know? She would protect you. She’ll keep your secret.”

I looked at the ground, frowning. I’d spent hours mulling over this very question. I trusted my alpha, but the more people who knew about me, the greater the risk was.

“You can tell her I’m gay if it comes up for some reason,” I said. “I don’t want you to lie to your sister, and I do trust her.”

“Okay.”

“If you do end up talking to her about it, you can tell her I’m connected with other queer wolves for support, but only in super vague terms.” I decided that was safe enough. “She’ll understand why it’s a secret and it will stop her from trying to create her own plan in our pack to shore up my self-esteem.”

Ansel blushed and toed the edge of the rug.

“Yes, I know you would have been the architect of all that if I didn’t tell you about the invitation.” I shot him a sardonic smile.

“It’s only because I love you,” he protested. “Calla loves you, too. We want you to be happy. We’ll always help you.”

“Thank you,” I said. I’d needed to hear that. So much. Every part of me felt a little bit lighter.

His gray irises flashed with mischief. “I know you can’t tell me, but I’m asking anyway. Do I know any of the wolves in your secret society?”

“Ansel,” I said sternly.

“I know, I know,” he replied. “But can you just hint if any of them are someone I know? You could blink once for yes, twice for no.”

“I’m not doing that,” I told him, and fixed my gaze on the floor.

A barrage of images flooded my mind, all of Nev. His face, his eyes, the way his fingers gripped the pen when he wrote in his notebook. I was suddenly convinced that if I so much as looked at Ansel, he’d pull the Bane’s name right out of my head.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ansel said. “I’m stopping now. You can’t blame me for being curious though.”

“I get it,” I replied. “But you also know why I can’t say anything.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Again, sorry.”

I pushed all thoughts of Nev from my mind and looked at Ansel. He was frowning.

“Hey, wait…Is this why you haven’t been responding to my messages? Did you even lose your charger?”

I stared at him, taking in his injured expression, then burst into laughter. “God, I love you, Ansel.”

Six

The Mountain School

Wednesday

NEV

Though Ms. Castillo wasn’t letting us use class time to write our poem, she did give us an additional enrichment activity ‘to help inspire us,’ sending us off in our assigned pairs to various sites on the school grounds, which she doled out by having us draw slips of paper from a hat.

“What did we get?” I asked Mason when he approached my desk.

“Roses and reflecting pool in the gardens.”

The sprawling grounds of the Mountain School included massive gardens that separated the elementary, middle, and high school buildings from each other and from the Keeper and human dormitories. Most of the garden was open space filled with trees, groves, flower beds, and lots of walking trails, but a few sections were walled off to distinguish their specialized designs or contents. The roses and reflecting pool were in one of those sections.

“That’s almost a mile away,” I grumbled, standing up. “Couldn’t she have picked locations in the building?”

Bryn and Fey passed us on their way out of the classroom.