Page 3 of The Other World

To her credit, when I looked over at her, she was doing her best not to smile. I smiled back, at least she wasn’t thinking about her dead aunt, so I could take some teasing.

“Now that Tennyson is alpha, we barely had five minutes alone all summer.” I flopped down onto my bed and buried my face in the pillow.

“Well, I’m sure hewantsto… you know. I mean, you do, right?”

I lifted my head a little to glare at her. I’d been so busy worrying about whether he wanted to, whether he was avoiding me on purpose so that it wouldn’t be an issue, that I hadn’t given a lot of thought to my own feelings on the subject.

“I guess I want to,” I said. “I mean, that’s just what people do when they’re… you know…”

“Young and in love?” suggested Hannah, clasping her hands together and gazing up at the ceiling. “A fated couple whose bond has grown unbreakable through danger and suffering? A classic enemies-to-lovers Cinderella story worthy of a K-drama?”

I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand. “I was going to say ‘together’.”

Hannah shrugged. “That too. I mean you’re right, it’s what people do.” She looked so smug and self-satisfied that it gave me no doubt as to how she’d spent her time with Nikolai over the summer. Which wasn’t something I ever wanted to think about. “Well, maybe he isn’t sure you want to, since you’re not sure yourself. You should talk to him.”

“It’s fine.” I couldn’t even imagine how that conversation would go. We barely had time to discuss the weather these days, let alonethat. And if it was too awkward totalkabout it, then the actualdoingwas probably a ways off.

“Sure,” said Hannah. “It’s probably way better to just stew about it for months and get all resentful, then blurt out all your feelings while having an argument about something totally irrelevant.”

“I’m glad you agree.”

The only time I saw Tennyson over the next few days was in classes, and even then, he seemed distracted. He was always messaging someone, or making notes about something. He barely even looked at me. I knew he was busy and it was an insane amount of responsibility for a teenager who wasn’t even out of high school. And I wanted to be supportive, I really did. But I also wanted the old Tennyson back.

But of course, if he’d shirked his responsibilities, skived off his alpha duties to hang out with me, he wouldn’t have been Tennyson. I knew that. Logically, I knew that. I just also wanted to know I was still important to him. That all this pack business hadn’t totally pushed me out of the way on his list of priorities.

Finally, Thursday rolled around, which was the day we’d scheduled the room for not-wicca club, which meant I’d get him almost all to myself for an hour, at least. Hannah, Nikolai and I left our bags by the door and sat in a circle on the floor, waiting for Tennyson to show up.

“So,” Nikolai said, after we’d waited in silence for almost ten minutes. “Hannah tells me you’re about to change again. You might want to slow down there, or by the end of college you’ll be unrecognizable.”

I faked a laugh but couldn’t stop staring at the door.

“I just thought it was interesting because just after Hannah told me that, I got a message from Vucari. He wants to meet with you.”

That was enough to make me look away from the door. Vucari was a shady guy connected to Nikolai’s family, who’d helped me out one time in the past. I owed him a favor, which he’d reminded me of the last time I’d seen him, when we were trying to get the five councils to help us out with Henry and my evil dad.

“He’s ready to cash in his favor?” I asked.

Nikolai shrugged. “Seems like it.” He leaned in toward the center of our circle, as if he was about to share a secret. “Might want to keep it from Tennyson though. He doesn’t trust Vucari and wouldn’t want you meeting up with him.”

I looked back to the door, then over to the clock. Quarter past. “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,” I told him.

I would meet with Vucari, whether Tennyson liked it or not.

CHAPTER THREE

Although I wascurious about what Vucari wanted, I was also a little worried. I didn’t know much about him but if he needed a favor from me, I was fairly sure it wouldn’t be anything good.

Not that it was much of an issue. I was suddenly, overwhelmingly, busy. SATs were less than a month away and I was not prepared. I wasn’t prepared to think about the future at all, let alone college applications, which were looming. But whether I wanted to think about it or not, I had to study, and study hard. Luckily, I was surrounded by bossy people, like Althea and Hannah, who had strict study schedules and expected me to join in with them, and who didn’t tolerate any kind of slacking off.

That didn’t leave much time to sneak off and meet with shady magical folks, or even to plan how to do it. As busy as I was, Tennyson was a zillion times more so, which made it so much easier to keep the whole Vucari thing a secret from him, not to mention that I might be entering my spirit era. And if I felt a little bad about hiding things from him, I told myself that it would only add to his list of ever-growing worries, so really I was doing him a favor by keeping him in the dark.

The SATs were in the first week of October, so I crammed like crazy in the weeks leading up to it. The days passed in a blur of flash cards and sugar crashes, until finally, the test came. And then it was gone. All that preparation and it was over in just a few hours. I had no idea if I’d done okay or totally bombed, and I knew that if Ihadbombed, I’d be able to re-sit it, but I definitely didn’t want to go through all that again.

After the test, I went straight back to my room and passed out on my bed. It seemed like so long since I’d slept peacefully, without test questions chasing me through my dreams. But before I could settle nicely into a nap, Hannah and Nikolai burst into the room.

“Come on, let’s go!” said Nikolai, in an urgent whisper.

“What’s wrong?” I sat up, still sleepy but worried there’d been an emergency.

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