Iris' POV

The first thing I feel when I move is silk, so raw that I know I cannot be dreaming. My eyes fly open, and I sit up at once. Too fast.  

"Shit!" I murmur, holding on to my head. There is a ringing sound, loud and insistent.

"Turn that off!" I groan, bringing my hands to my ears. "Please. Turn it off."

Feeling like I am going to die from the noise, I look around the room, searching for the source. But I slowly realize that nothing makes sense. Not the sound, not the decadent sheets brushing against my skin right now.

It reduces when I really start taking notice of my surroundings. The bed underneath me is huge, the gleaming wood peaking up at me from the corners. My eyes narrow as I swing my legs off the bed, noting the faint scent in the air.

Cedarwood. Leather.

I move through the huge space, my bare feet padding against the cold marble floor until I stop in front of a full-length mirror. My eyes widen when I see the red mark on the side of my neck.

"What the...." I raise my hands to it, wincing when the pain lances through me. Did Archer do this? Or was it his slimy little princess?

Of course, I can't forget what happened last night. It is still vivid in my memories, playing all over from the beginning like someone put the album on repeat. But that is all I can remember.

A sense of purpose washes through me as I move towards the door, opening it slightly to reveal a much bigger room. There is too much space with elegant furniture pushed far up the wall, so much so that I have to believe that whoever owns this building is strange.

Stepping out of the bedroom, my eyes almost pop out of their sockets. I couldn't see the whole thing standing behind that door, but from this point, it looks like I am suspended in the air.

I am in a high-rise building with windows so tall that I can see the rest of the world, from the rising sun in the sky to the earth, littered with a few men in some form of uniform. A man is standing by the window on one end, one arm resting on the glass and the other holding on to a mug, steam rising steadily away from it.

The golden hues of the sun, bathing him in its glow, make it hard to breathe.

I take a slow step back. Even if he has his back turned to me, I know who that is.

Darian McAlister.

He doesn't go to our school, but everyone knows him. And they seem to be scared of him. Maybe I should be, too.

"You're awake," he murmurs without turning around. "Good."

"Where is Archer?" I whisper, my hands unconsciously going to my neck. "What did you do to me? Where am I?"

Darian doesn't answer immediately, his silver hair catching the last of the light before he turns around slowly. My breath hitches as he looks at me, his gaze dropping to the side of my neck, and then to my eyes.

Something dark passes through his eyes. He blows out a steam of breath and looks away. And then, he chooses to answer only one of my questions.

"You are in Lycans' Haven."

A chuckle escapes my lips before I can stop it, and Darian narrows his eyes at me.

"Sorry," I whisper, pressing my hands against my mouth for a second. "I just really didn't think anyone names their houses."

He angles his head as he regards me, a little wrinkle on his forehead that fills me with the strange urge to ease it away.

"Wait. You're serious."

"I don't say jokes."

"Lycans' Haven," I begin to say, my fear of Darian still lurking around. "I think I have heard that name before."

And then, it clicks. "I read that book with Daisy. The one I found in the library."

He keeps watching me with that look in his eyes.

"But Lycans' Haven isn't a real place." I wrap my hands around my frame to keep my body from trembling.

"It is. You're standing in it."

I laugh again, awkwardly this time. "You've got to be kidding me."

He takes a long stride towards me. "Lycans don't have time to joke around."

"Fine!" I raise my hands in the air exasperatedly, too aware of the man standing in front of me. The way he stares at me makes me want to run far away from him, yet strangely, at the same time, take a step closer just to confirm the color of his eyes.

"Let's say I believe you, that the Lycans' Haven really did exist, what about this mark on my neck? Did you hit me or something? Was it Ar..."

"The next time I hear his name out of your lips will be the last time he has breath in his lungs," he growls, leaning in so closely that his warm breath fans my face. "And I mean it."

I move a step back. Something whines inside of me, mentally forcing me back to the same spot. I should fear him, but all I want to do is get closer, to breathe him in.

"If he didn't do it...."

"I did." A muscle in his jaw works. "I didn't mean to, but you were hurting yourself. I thought I was stopping it, but then..."

He stops talking.

"Stopping what?"

"You really don't know what you are, do you, Iris?"

The mark throbs again, and a tingle starts in my pulse. I laugh to shake the feeling off, to ease the tension that has settled over us.

"Do you always do that?"

"What?"

"Laugh when things are pretty serious."

I snap. "I am laughing because you expect me to believe you are a Lycan and that this is all some spooky situation. Well, if you are that, then I might as well be a werewolf."

"You are."

"Right. This has got to be a huge joke. I need to see Ar..." I stop before the name falls off my lips completely.

If Darian noticed, he doesn't give a sign as he glares at me.

"Then explain the shift that started last night. Tell me how I knew exactly where you were, miles away from me, without ever marking you before. And explain why your body calls out to mine even in your sleep."

Iris' POV

He is close to me now, so close that I feel the tension sizzling in the air. His words make no sense. I know what shifting means because I have read about it before. But as fiction. This...It can't be.

"My body does not call out to yours," I say calmly, even if no part of my inside is calm. Darian's presence fills every bit of me. So dark. So alluring.

His gaze lingers on that spot in my neck again, but this time, he allows his fingers to graze it slowly. When I touch it, I feel pain, but when Darian does, the feeling is different, like I am floating and can trust him to catch me if anything goes wrong.

My eyes flutter close as a lone finger traces the edge of the mark, as my body quivers under his touch, aching for more.

"Your lips say one thing," he whispers, his warm breath shooting straight into my ears. "But your body says another. What more proof do you want?"

I pull myself away from his arms, even though every inch of me wants to return to them. Instead, I walk over to the window, pressing myself against the glass to keep my feet from crossing to the other side of the room, where he stands, watching me with an unreadable expression.

"You've had a harsh night. You should rest more. I'll leave you to it."

"I don't want to rest," I shoot back. "I need to understand. If you're a Lycan, then this mark...you bit me?"

"I marked you," he asserts.

"What?"

"It was an accident."

 "Oh! Wow! What an explanation. So, what? Your teeth slipped and fell on my skin?"

The unreadable expression on his face is gone in a second. Instead, staring back at me is a mask of steel. "Don't push it, Iris," he warns coldly. "You called for me. You were in pain. I had to do something. You should be thankful you're not dead."

"I never asked for any of this. All I wanted was a nice anniversary dinner with my boyfriend. But now, I am marked by some Lycan, which is the most confusing shit I have heard in all twenty-two years of my life. And you don't even say sorry. Instead, you..."

"I don't do apologies..." he interrupts.

I am on the other side of the room before I realize the reason I pressed myself against the glass in the first place. "Then what do you do, Darian?  Mark accidentally? Hide girls up in your house?"

That's all it takes for him to snap, for that cold wall to fall apart, revealing the fierceness within. Before I can blink, he's standing in front of me, breathing the same air.

"Do not think I am harmless, Iris." His voice is reduced to a purr. A scary one. "You just got introduced to my world. You have no idea who I am, what I am holding back."

His words should send me out of this room. Instead, I find myself inching closer. I hate how much I want him right now.

"What are you holding back?" I whisper, fitting myself perfectly into his frame. It feels like something else has taken over, like I am having an out-of-body experience. "Show me."

The mark on my neck burns as Darian cups the side of my face. He brings his thumb to my bottom lip, just as he leans in. I can feel his breath hovering above my mouth.

"Darian..."

His other hand ensnares my waist, leaving me with nowhere else to go. Yet, I don't feel trapped. A tiny whimper fall from my lips. It feels natural, like an extension of my body.

Darian's eyes darken as he moves impossibly closer, and just then...

Bang! Bang!

He pushes away from me abruptly, his entire body going rigid just as my hand flies to the mark, shielding it away from view.

The door pushes open, and another familiar face walks in. Darian's brother. Zeus. They have almost the same reputation.

"You sent for me," he murmurs, barely moving his lips, an amused expression dancing in his eyes. "Although I don't think you need me right now, considering..."

"Shut up, and send for her best friend. Ask the soldiers to see them out of the haven."

And without a second glance in my direction, Darian walks out of the room. Zeus doesn't give me the attention of the day, too, stalking off after his older brother, and leaving me in the silence.

Huffing, I plop onto one of the stylish couches, burying my head in my hands. I am still trying to wrap my head around everything that has happened in the last twelve hours when the door pushes open again.

My heart picks up when I think it is Darian, but Daisy's voice follows a second later.

"Oh my God!" she squeals, even though it comes out as a whisper. "I can't believe I just saw Zeus McAlister in flesh. The moon goddess sure took her time making him, because that is one fine specimen. But that's by the way. Iris, what the hell are you doing in the Lycans' Haven?"

I have gotten so used to the quiet in this place that Daisy's arrival in all her rainbow colors burns my ears out.

I stare at her blankly. I only got to know that this place was called that less than an hour ago.

"Did you know that only those personally invited by the Lycan family get to see these walls?" she continues in her excited tone. "I have never even been in here before. No one at the school has. Yet, on the first day you shift, you magically find yourself here! Girl!"

"That is not all." I allow my hand to fall from the mark on my neck, and this time, Daisy screams for real.

"What in the name of twilight is this?"

"Darian said he marked me. Accidentally."

"Of course, I know what a mark is when I see one," she goes off, fanning herself with her hand dramatically. "But how did you end up getting marked by the Lycan prince?"

Iris' POV

Daisy's eyes are still huge as she stares at the visible mark on my neck.

"Oh! This is bad! So bad!" she groans. "And by bad, I mean in all the hot ways possible, but also in the most life-altering ways."

"Thanks for your well-detailed explanation, Daisy," I mumble, walking around her to the door. I am dressed in a different outfit than I came in with yesterday, but I know the chances of asking for my dress are non-existent.

For starters, I don't know where Darian is, and I don't think he wants me to find him. Even if I could, the building is crawling with soldiers. I will be tossed out before I move an extra inch.

"Iris," my best friend calls after me, placing her hand on mine before I twist the handle open. "I know you know nothing about the Lycans and..."

"Yeah! You're right. And up till a few minutes ago, I had no idea you knew about them too." I always thought I knew Daisy like the back of my palm. Apparently, I was wrong. I have been clueless about a lot of things.

"I can explain," she says in one breath. "But that isn't important right now. You need to understand that marking for us is sacred. It doesn't just happen to anyone, most especially the Lycans. Theirs come with precision, so if Darian marked you, even by accident, it means something."

"It doesn't mean anything." I feel a knot working its way to my throat. "He left me here. He walked away like I was nothing, after .... I probably am nothing. Hell, I couldn't even keep Archer to myself."

"Wait. What?"

So much has happened that I forget Daisy doesn't know everything.

"Archer..."

"Not here," she cuts in, then grabs my hand, pulling me with her out of the room. We walk through the long and silent hallway without making a sound, and as if falling out of the shadows, we are suddenly flanked by soldiers in the same uniform as the one I saw from the window.

None of them pay us any attention until we are outside, the morning sun settling on our skins.

And even at that, they don't stop until we cross the iron-wrought gates. They close behind us without a single groan.

"Damn! I see why this place is called a haven. It looks like luxury and the apocalypse all joined as one."

I barely hear Daisy as we walk to her car, because I keep turning back to the gates, hoping I will see him looking out of one of those high windows, his eyes locked on mine, just as they were inside.

But all I see are panes of glass glinting under the harsh glare of the sun.

Daisy doesn't say anything else throughout the ride until she pulls up in front of the apartment we share, very close to the campus. She looks at me warily as I trudge inside, leaving the door open behind me.

"Iris," she murmurs softly, just as I drop onto the couch.

"What?"

"You wanted to tell me about Archer. What happened last night? Did he show up?"

I scoot to the edge of the couch. "Tell me about yourself first. Are you a Lycan, like Darian? Is his brother a Lycan too? Is it like a family thing?"

She nods in understanding. "The book I asked you to read in the library about Lycans and werewolves, I didn't ask you to do that because I wanted to introduce you to fantasy like I'd claimed. I wanted you to know who I was...and now, who you are."

"How? I cannot be... It is impossible."

"It is possible," she pushes, coming to sit beside me. "My father has told me stories similar to yours, where a human suddenly wakes up their dormant genes inside of them. I don't know where you got it from yet, but there has to be someone."

"And you think I wouldn't have noticed?" I ask, with disdain dripping from my tone.

Daisy gives me a look as if to say she has been beside me for years, and I wasn't able to tell that she was different from me.

"Your sister and your parents are human," she confirms. "They have passed the age of shifting, so nothing can change about them. You, on the other hand..."

"What about me?"

"It's strange." Daisy rises to her feet, pacing our little living area. "You are past the age of shifting, too. Everyone starts shifting when they turn fifteen. Some delay for a year or more, but it is usually never more than three years."

"I am twenty-two, four years past shifting."

"Exactly," she murmurs, stroking her chin like she does each time she's thinking. "I have to ask the pack what this means..."

"The pack?"

"The Crystal Dome Pack. Every territory has a pack."

"I can't believe this is real," I breathe.

Daisy stops in front of me. "Focus, Iris. I am sure that the Lycan prince did not find you by accident. Did he tell you..."

"He said I called out to him."

"There has to be a connection somewhere. You shifted because of him, or he felt you because you were shifting."

I feel a migraine coming. Pressing two fingers against my temple, I get off the couch and make to go into my room.

But suddenly, the headache gets worse, slamming into my skull like a sledgehammer. I grip the couch beside me as I fall to the wooden floor.

"Iris?" Daisy appears by my side in one second, her arms nudging me. "Iris, what is wrong? What is it?"

I try to tell her that I am fine, that it will pass. But my vision slowly blurs until she becomes a tiny dot. And then I hear the voice.

Not mine. Not Daisy's.

"She knows that she's been marked. The process has begun. You need to move fast if you're going to save yourself."