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“Don't tell me you're willing to accept your fate.” Julie stood up and walked over to Bayla and Larissa. “I won't. I'm tired of being a puppet on the Council's strings.”

A puppet...

The Alpha's daughter.

This pain was the only one that penetrated deeper than the one Miles left in my chest.

“It all just sounds so... utopian,” I explained, looking at the girls with uncertainty.

I didn’t want to destroy their dreams, but they were just too optimistic.

“Give it a try,” Bayla pleaded with an urgent look. “You want to finally know what Alarik is hiding.”

Bayla had me wrapped around her finger. But without Miles' words, she wouldn't have gotten this far.

“One chance,” I clarified, and I thought I saw a purple flicker in Bayla’s eyes as she began to smile like a Cheshire cat.

Miles appeared next to her and gave Bayla a high five.

“The bike is mine for the next week, sis,” he laughed with a smug grin at Larissa, who glared at him in annoyance.

My jaw dropped.

“You guys were betting?”

I looked more at Miles than at anyone else and earned the expression I always got from him whenever the two of us were competing.

“We always bet on your predictable reactions.”

He had actually believed I would say yes. That was the last straw.

“Anyway... We thought we’d give ourselves code names, like the former members.”

Miles looked at Bayla with amusement. “That’s the part I think is silly.”

“They did it too,” she argued. “So that no one would find out who they were. And even if we'll never need it, it has symbolic value.”

“Then I want you to address me as Your Majesty from now on,” Miles quipped, and I already regretted saying yes.

“How about Arrogant Snob?” I suggested, and he glared at me challengingly.

“If Adrian were here, that would be the perfect name for him,” Larissa snorted, and Miles patted her on the shoulder.

“Be glad he’s not here. He’d be even harder to crack than her.”

My eyes widened, and as if Miles had been waiting for that, the grin slid back across his face while he strode back to the window, smugly satisfied.

I was a game to him. Again.

Couldn't he take anything seriously for once?

“I think everyone should choose a name that suits them,” Bayla began. “Nothing silly, understood?”

“The world is serious enough. Can't we call each other cartoon characters?”

Miles was like a little boy in the body of a man who was far too attractive. And it annoyed me to no end. He reminded me of Cody, except that Cody was the opposite of arrogant and smug.

If Cody were here, he would have loved everything about this secret society thing, and I regretted at that moment having said no to his movie nights every time, because to this day I still didn't understand how people could like cartoons.