Page 118 of Revenant

I look up from the floor, and she’s just standing there, one hip against her mahogany dresser, watching me like the howling we heard is less interesting than what I’m about to do. “You’re leaving?”

“I just remembered I left something running in the—actually, it doesn’t matter, I just gotta go. I’ll text you, okay?”

“Left something running?” She reaches over and pauses the movie, which somehow feels worse than if she’d yelled at me. “Really?”

The door to Moriah’s room swings open enough to bounce off the wall, and Pryce fills the doorway with Sage hovering just behind him with her arms crossed tight over her chest. I remind myself it’s not personal. She’s just another liability he can’t leave unattended.

“Ever heard of knocking, Visconti?” Moriah attempts to level him with a glare, but ultimately fails because he doesn’t even look at her. He looks at me, and whatever is written on his face has me off the bed before he opens his mouth.

“We need to move,” Pryce urges.

I’m reaching for my bag when another howl cuts through the glass panes, closer than the last. Moriah rushes back to the window, grabbing the curtain to quickly close it.

“You’re coming with us, Carrow,” he demands. She drops the curtain and smooths it flat as though she wasn’t just white-knuckling it thirty seconds ago.

I don’t know why he’d drag a human into this…part of me thinks she’d be safer in her room, but the howling is only getting more persistent, and right now I trust his judgment more than my own.

The hallway is mostly empty, but when we reach the common room, there’s a handful of people in it—a girl on her phone, two guys at the kitchen counter arguing about something, someone asleep on the far couch with a laptop open on his chest. It would be completely normal if it weren’t for the sound bleeding in from outside.

“Pryce.” I grab his arm, and he stops. “There are people still on campus. What do we do about—”

“We’ll handle it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Alicent.”

“Tell me what we’re walking into at least—”

“How many do you think are out there?” Pryce asks. I furrow my brows, assuming he’s talking to me, until I realize his gaze is now laser focused on Moriah.

She meets his stare head on. “Fifteen. Maybe twenty.” Her demeanor is nothing out of the ordinary, almost distracting me from the fact that she doesn’t look confused in the slightest.

The number is so specific that it knocks the air out of me. I blink. “What?”

Moriah’s eyes find mine, and she looks—guilty. Which on her face looks so foreign I almost don’t recognize her. Then something behind me pulls her attention, and I turn to find a man walking through the double doors, unhurried, jet-black hair, and the kind of smile you don’t trust on instinct. Tristan Carrow.

“Tsk. Tsk.” He exhales as if Moriah has only mildly disappointed him. “Veilcrest. A Calder.” A smile spreads across his face, aligning with the permanent one carved into his cheek. “You have been busy, little sister.”

“Call them off.” She steps forward, putting herself in front of me by half a step.

His eyes move over the group slowly, landing on the cluster of students whose attention has finally caught up to what’s happening.

“Moriah.” He almost laughs. “You know that’s not how this works.”

Pryce’s hand closes around my arm from behind before I even register he’s moved.

“Alicent Calder.” He says my name as if he’s savoring it. His hazel eyes flick to me, and it’s the same look he gave me at the club—the one that made my skin crawl an inch past polite interest. “You know…I thought you looked familiar that night. The red hair. Those eyes.” His smile deepens. “But a Calder in my club, dancing with me? I’d have been a fool to assume my sister would be so reckless.”

Pryce’s grip tightens on my arm, my stomach dropping so fast I feel it in my ankles.

“If I’d known what…or rather who was standing right in front of me,” he continues. “We’d have moved months ago. Saved everyone the trouble of this...” He gestures lazily at the common room. “Spectacle.” His demeanor changes on a dime, shifting into something that has me fighting to stay rooted in place. “Moriah, do you have any idea what you’ve cost this pack?”

Pack.

The word hooks into my chest.

Pack.