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."

Iris' POV

The buzz of students chatting in the hallway carries over to me, louder than usual. But I have gotten used to that part of the new me. Today, I have a new destination in mind, my face locked in utter concentration.

"Are you sure you are fine?" Daisy asks for the umpteenth time. "What if the headache comes back?"

"I'm fine, Daisy. Your dad said so himself. At least, now that I know I have a longer life span than the average human, I don't think a mere headache is going to make me drop dead."

"This isn't about the headache, and you know it." The urgency in Daisy's tone makes me halt. "There's something else, right?"

"Daisy, I told you already. It was just for a few minutes. I can barely remember what it felt like."

"When you opened your eyes, you were shocked, like you'd seen something..."

Daisy doesn't know how close to the truth she is, but for some reason, I don't want to tell her what I heard. Even though I am still learning the ropes of this world I have been plunged into, while keeping my family away from it, those words I heard sounded ominous.

I could feel the danger rippling through space. Nobody else needed to feel that with me.

If only Darian would talk to me.

I haven't seen him since the last time, which was over a week ago. If I don't have heightened senses, and if the mark on my neck isn't still so visible, currently covered by a scarf, I just might have thought I imagined every single thing that happened.

He has returned to the shadows, his name living only on the lips of the students. But I still feel him, in the pulsing of the mark, in my wolf in the middle of the night, and those days when all I want to do is head to the Lycans' Haven to see him.

My best friend has kept me from doing that. She says the Lycan kind isn't the most amicable.

The person I have been searching for finally comes into view. He is heading to the cafeteria, walking alone as usual. Everyone seems to avoid him, but he looks just fine with that.

I am about to head in his direction when suddenly, someone blocks my path.

"Iris, have you been avoiding me?"

I look up at him, narrowing my gaze. "Avoiding you? Why would I do that?"

Archer sighs dramatically, and in this moment, I wonder what I saw in him in the first place. "What happened on the night of our anniversary? You were totally off your hinges. I was scared you would hurt her."

I scoff. "So, you're here to talk to me because of her."

He steps closer. "I know that you've always thought we would end up together, but I was only with you because I didn't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me?" I cannot find the pain that crosses my chest each time we have this conversation. Instead, I feel so indifferent. "Archer, you have been hurting me for years. You have never been faithful to me, yet I tolerated it. I thought...Hell, I was so stupid."

He stops, realization dawning on him. "What are you saying?"

"Go be with Sabine. I don't care."

 "Iris," he laughs with unease. "I know you are in love with me, but..."

"But Sabine is your mate."

His head jerks up in surprise.

"And I was in love with you, Archer. A feeling I regret right now. Standing in front of you makes me want to gag."

That is when I remember that Daisy is right by my side. She chokes out in a fit of laughter, earning a glare from Archer. But he knows better than to touch the Beta's daughter.

"Iris, how did you..."

"I don't have time to explain anything to you," I say in a hurry, just as I catch the loner disappearing into a corner.

"I'll catch up with you, Daisy!" I call above my shoulders as I increase my pace, praying he hasn't left.

I meet him leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone. When I stand in front of him, he looks up, not because he has the time to entertain a conversation, but because no one in this entire college speaks to him.

The McAlister brothers are held to a different standard, and I have always thought it had something to do with their looks. Now, I know better.

He blinks, putting his phone away slowly. "Are you lost?"

"I need you to help me talk to your brother," I pour out in one breath, before I can lose the confidence I have barely gathered.

A smirk graces his flawless features, and a mischievous glint appears in his eyes. "What has Zeus done again?"

"Not Zeus. Shit! How many brothers do you have?"

"Three." He has a lazy smile now. "Zeus is usually the troublemaker, if you're not counting me."

"Darian," I whisper. The mere mention of his name makes my skin crawl in want. "I need to see him."

Adrian raises a brow. "The Lycan prince. You sure set your standard high, girl."

"Adrian, please. It's really important. I ..." Adrian angles his head, and for a second, I actually think he can see through the scarf on my neck. "I really have to talk to him, and I know I can't come into the Lycans' Haven without an invitation."

He leans in closer, and I can see the striking resemblance he has to Darian. They all have god-like features, like the moon goddess took an extra day to make them.

"You're pretty," he says casually as he pulls away, like he is talking about the weather. "So, you won't get mad when I tell you not to get all hung up on Darian."

"Why?"

"He is the Lycan Prince. He has duties that he has to fulfil."

Adrian pulls himself off the wall. "And he is the coldest McAlister. All he knows how to do is ruin everything in his path."