“You can look,” he said with a chuckle. “I need to show you something.”
I glanced back, my eyebrow arched suspiciously.
He held up two fingers. “Completely PG. I promise.”
I looked . . . then gaped. Across his chest were three foot-long scratches. They were well-healed now, three ripples of pinkish skin, the scars of an attack.
Instinctively, I reached out my hand to touch him, before curling my fingers back into a fist. “What happened?”
“Initiation,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he meant it was a badge of honor for joining the werewolves, or it was a mark of how he’d become one. But then I remembered that he’d told me being a wolf was hereditary.
“When a wolf is old enough, he or she spends a night on a kind of journey. Like a vision quest. He—I—went into the woods. Some of the night is gone—the hours passed, but I don’t remember what I did. Some of it I remember, but a lot of those memories are just random sounds and images.”
“What sounds and images do you remember?”
He shook his head. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“Seriously?”
His expression was grim. “It’s one of the rules. My parents don’t even know what went on. Just me and”—he looked down at the scars on his chest—“me and the wolf who did this.”
“Initiation,” I repeated. “That seems kinda harsh.”
“You’re thinking like a human. Think about puppies. They learn by play fighting, biting, clawing. That’s different from the way humans learn.” He shrugged. “Same goes for werewolves. The world is a violent place.”
“Did you”—I paused, trying to figure out how to ask the question—“did you learn anything while you were out there? Have a vision, I mean? See part of your future or whatever?”
“I guess you could say I understood what it meant to be who I am.” His eyes seemed to cloud, like whatever he’d learned, he wasn’t thrilled about it.
“Is it magic?” I wondered. “I mean, they call you an Adept, and you’re a member of Enclave Three . . .”
His expression darkened. “I’m an Adept because I’m something else, something other, and something powerful. Not because I have a talent.” He looked away. I could tell that something was bothering him—something about being a werewolf—but I still wasn’t sure what it was.
What had he wanted to show me? The scars?
“What is it?” I asked.
“I need to tell you something. And it may mean something to you. It might not—but I need to tell you.”
My stomach rolled. Scout had tried to warn me about Jason; she hadn’t been specific, though. Now I wondered if I was about to get all the gory details. Did he have a girlfriend? Was he a Reaper in disguise? Had he seen me talking to Sebastian? I gnawed the edge of my lip. “Okay. Go ahead.”
“It’s a curse,” he said.
We were quiet for a moment.
“I don’t know what you mean about a ‘curse.’ ”
He shook his head, and he wouldn’t make eye contact. “It means it’s not a gift, or magic. I’m not some kind of romantic mutant. I’m not a superhero.” He looked up at me, and his eyes shifted in color—from sky blue to chartreuse—just like those of an animal in the night. His voice dropped, became a little growlier.
“There was an ancient king named Lycaon. He was cruel to gods and men alike, and he was punished by both. The gods punished him by turning him into a wolf—but only halfway. So he wasn’t really a wolf, and he wasn’t really a man. He had to live in between the two worlds, never really a part of either. Humans punished him for that.”
I reached out and took his hand, slipping my fingers into his. “So that’s where it all started?”
Jason nodded. “With Lycaon and his sons. They were my ancestors and the cause of it all. I bear the curse every day, Lily, of someone else’s guilt.”
“You told me you ran away when you found out you were a wolf. Is that why you left?”
“Part of it, yeah.” He looked up and away, out toward the city.
He was quiet a long time.
“Why do I get the sense you’re not telling me all of it?”
It took a minute for him to look back again, and when he did, there was sadness in his eyes. “I like you, Lily.”
I looked away, expecting the worst.
“I’m not human,” he finally said. “I know you saw me transform, but it’s not a full moon. If you’re there, you’ll get hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“As the moon grows larger, my control gets weaker. I can be around friends, at least until the moon is full. That’s when we run.”
“Friends?”
His eyes shifted from blue to green and back again, and my heart tripped in time. “I have feelings for you, Lily. I shouldn’t. Not when I could put you at risk. There will be a girl. A wolf my parents will choose for me.”
My head began to spin.
“That’s the real curse,” he said. “Not the fact that I transform, not even the fact that I lose control when the moon is full. The curse is the loneliness. The separation. Never really being anything except a wolf, because being something else—being human—puts everyone else at risk.”
We were quiet for a moment.
“I need you to say something.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He dropped his forehead onto mine. “Tell me it doesn’t matter.”
I blinked back tears, but what could I say to this boy? This boy with the spring blue eyes? “I guess the lesson I’ve learned over the last few weeks is that life is rarely what we think it’s going to be. So you do the best you can. Right?”
“Does that mean we’re still on for Sneak?”
I was quiet for a minute, considering my options. Best-case scenario, we just spent time together and didn’t waste time worrying about the future.
Worst-case scenario? I fell for a boy I couldn’t have, and lost my heart completely.
But I wasn’t even sixteen yet, and the future was a long way off. With all the crazy in the world—especially in my world—why not enjoy it, right?
“Yeah,” I finally said. “We can go to Sneak.”
With a victorious groan, he pulled me tightly into his arms, his body smelling of sunlight and springy cologne. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”