Page 58 of Moon Cursed

I breathed hard, straining to keep my calm. I felt exposed and vulnerable, and not just because I was standing there stark naked. The last time Badr and I were in these woods, I spilled my deepest secrets and heartache out to him, and he buried me alive.

I moved as Badr moved, keeping him in my sights at all times. He found my caution amusing if his widening smirk was anything to go by.

“What’s a wolf trap doing out here?”

I frowned, thrown by the off-topic question. Surely he wanted to shout, bitch, and moan about me ending his brother’s life, so he could justify giving me a slow, suffocating, agonizing death. “What?”

“What. Is. A. Wolf. Trap. Doing. Out. Here?” he repeated, saying it slow like he was speaking to a moron. “No wolf would ever put something like that out here. Which means we have an enemy.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“And if it was a wolf, there has to be a reason they’d make our own woods unsafe for the rest of us,” he continued. “Almost like they’re booby-trapping this area so that they can hide something.”

“I said I’d look into it.” My face gave no reaction. Booby-trapping the area to hide something was exactly why I had my metal wolf friend create a dozen of the vile things. I couldn’t have anyone stumbling over the alpha voice killer. It was my biggest advantage in the coming war, and if I couldn’t watch it all day, then I needed an alarm system to the tune of loud, ear-piercing screams.

If only I’d realized Paxton was getting so close.

“Are you sure?” Badr cocked his mud-covered head. “You’ve probably got too much on your plate, Headmistress. Let me just run and get Vice Headmistress Ash—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” I burst out. “You didn’t cover yourself in manure and perfectly time your entrance so that you can blather on to me about wolf traps! What are you doing here, Badr? Why the fuck did you come back?”

“Ah, good question.” He rocked back on his heels, dropping his shoulder against a tree trunk. “The truth is I wasn’t going to come back. After avenging my brother and getting rid of you for good, I went at the gate—ready to rip it apart with my fangs if that’s what it took to get out of here, but then”—he clicked his tongue—“it just swung open.”

I slowly inched back, wishing I could just run. It wasn’t a full moon night, so Badr couldn’t lay a finger on me, but it’s not like a sun wolf needed to. All he had to do was blind me, and I’d be back in the grave.

It was awful. Looking right at him would be the end of me, but looking away and letting him get the jump on me would achieve the same end. The only thing to do was run, but my sprint through the woods tired my wolf out, and she was already not at her best.

I need to think of a way out of this one. Think, Daze. Think!

“—when I heard thatyou didn’t die.” A vicious, dangerous edge bled into his voice. “You were still alive and plotting your insane take-over-the-world garbage. I knew I had to stop youagainbut I didn’t know how until Orion called.”

“What?” I halted my slow retreat. “Orion?”

“That’s right.” Badr was beaming like a kid at Christmas. “He’s still a little PO’d about you framing him for murder and landing him in prison. Anyway, he called me up and told me there’s a new vice in the school, and she—only she—is in charge of your fates.”

Oh no...

“You can’t punish us. You can’t scold us.” Every word and every step brought him closer. “You can’t expel us. You can’t stop us,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s over, Volana. Give up now because burning up projection equipment was only the beginning.”

“Wait, you did that!”

“Of course not.” He shrugged, moving away and allowing me to breathe. “I’m no fire wolf. Orion blew it up.”

My jaw dropped, even though, honestly, that was the most obvious explanation. “How could he do that? How canyoulook so fucking smug about it! Do you have any idea how big a deal that was for the omegas? No, not just them—for everyone! Only clan leaders can propose the laws for the council to vote on. This was going to be a huge step forward in equal—”

“Who are you putting on this show for!” Badr roared, eyes bugging.

I jerked, stomach shooting up in my throat.

“It’s me you’re talking to! There’s no one else around. There’s no one else who cares! Quit with the bullshit, Volana! You care about equality like a terrorist cares about world peace!” The dried mud around his mouth cracked with the force of his bellows. “Tonight was just another round in your long fucking con game!”

“That’s not true!” Suddenly, I was screaming just as loud. “For fuck’s sake, Badr! Everything I told you that night was the truth. We want the same things! Vengeance for Castor and a safe world for Hope!”

He snorted so hard, he blew mud off his upper lip. “Oh, please. Enough with the fake-baby bullshit. That kid doesn’t even exist.”

“I can literally get my phone and show you pictures of her right now, jackass!”

Badr scoffed again. “You’ll show me pictures of a baby. That doesn’t mean she’s yours, and it damn sure doesn’t mean she’s Castor’s.”

---