Page 357

“No,” Cody replied more calmly than I remembered him from campus, where he was constantly making comments, humming tunes, or fidgeting with something in his hands. “Your mother is a Quatura. If you were a Senseque, you would have to be male.”

Surprised, I looked back at him.

He was still staring at the horizon, rubbing his hands as if he were cold, which, as far as I knew, was hardly possible for a Senseque, and only now did I notice the black eyes he had scribbled on his hand.

“Alarik mentioned that most of the pack aren’t familiar with the rules of genetic inheritance,” I thought aloud.

Cody gave a soft chuckle and looked down at the approaching water ahead of us, the smile still playing on his lips.

“Three years ago, he left some old church records from Blairville on the Copelands' salon table in the living room.” He nodded with a fixed gaze, as if lost in memory. “It got me into researching supernatural family trees.” He glanced at me briefly, the right corner of his mouth lifted thoughtfully, giving me a chance to study his boyish, well-defined face. “All Senseque Quatura bonds ended with the birth of male babies, which I later found in the Alpha’s pack books.”

My eyebrows rose.

“The Alpha let you read his books?”

“Emely…” he explained, his eyes lost in the void, letting his left hand wander up his right arm, where his band-aid-covered fingertips began to play with an enamel pin in the shape of a Molotov cocktail.

“But I don't know. It's just a theory. I have moments now and then when I get carried away,” he laughed, and I had to smile, knowing what he meant, because once I became fascinated by something, I quickly lost myself in it. “Before I lose interest and my mind jumps to the next thing.”

I nodded, watching as he squatted down and began drawing geometric shapes in the sand with one of his fingers.

“And currently, I’m wondering why Alarik is hiding you with us.”

I couldn’t help but stare at him.

“I don’t intend to endanger the pack, and I don’t know what I am, so…”

“It's okay.” He stood up again, smiled, then pressed his lips together and looked back at the horizon. “I know how it feels to not really belong.”

My gaze fixed on the young man, whom I had always thought of as a solid, inseparable part of the pack. But if you looked closely, you could see signs that he didn't quite fit in with the confrontational, muscular men who handled footballs so carelessly on campus that I wondered how the historic window panes were still intact and no one had lost their head to those devilish balls yet.

“I want to belong,” I clarified, watching the breaking waves in the sea splash foam into the air, listening to the party music and the boisterous laughter from the beach, where the fairy lights were burning in the distance. “I’d like to know what I am.”

All I wanted in this confusing life in my crowded, chaotic head was clarity.

“A raven summoner.”

I looked up at him, following his gaze.

“They follow you everywhere.”

He turned, crouched down, and pointed his finger at one of the black birds that had landed on the sandy beach.

The black-feathered creature dodged Cody's finger, hopped back and forth, and finally snapped at it with its massive beak, causing Cody to immediately recoil and shake his finger with a pained expression.

“Damn, why do they always have to peck?”

I grinned until I noticed the blood on his index finger.

These animals were sneaky little killers, and I had no doubt that they would eat a human being in a swarm, as cunning as they were, following you in large numbers through this town...

Cody stood up, pulled a dinosaur band-aid out of his jacket pocket, and wrapped it around his finger.

Strange guy, but something about his manner made the smirk stick to my lips until I let his words melt in my memory and my expression smoothed out.

“Are you watching me?”

He looked up.