Inevitably Yours

After Carl’s admission, I avoided him. I knew he wanted to talk more about it, and I had no interest in doing so. There was nothing to talk about. I stopped eating lunch in the lunch room, instead hanging out in the band room or Mr. Ganbar’s classroom. The end of the year was fast approaching which meant AP tests, then Senior week.

After spring break, all the juniors and seniors got a notice about prom. No one knew why but there were plenty of rumors floating around. The event that usually kicked off Senior Week was now being pushed up by a few weeks.

I couldn’t decide whether or not I would go to prom. My grandmother gave me some money for a dress, and I had a little saved. But I didn’t want to be there with anyone but Michael. I casually brought it up a few times on the phone, but he stayed pretty evasive about it; I had just hoped he would finally commit to returning.

One morning, I came to school early to work on the Calc assignments. For some reason, Calc 2 seemed way more manageable than Calc 1. There were four other girls in the class, and we all usually rounded up to study together. Most of the time, they ended up passing my work around to figure out what they did wrong.

“Hey guys,” I said, coming over to the work table.

“Q, what color is your dress?” Aaron asked.

“Uh, dress?” I said, looking down. The hoodie and jeans I wore were far from a dress.

“Prom,” Kayleigh said. “What color is your prom dress?”

“I don’t have one,” I told them, taking my seat.

“Why not?” Aaron asked.

I shrugged. “ I guess I wasn’t sure if I was going. No one to go with,” I said.

“Not even Carl? Aren’t you two like inseparable?” Stephanie asked.

“Not so much,” I frowned.

“Go with us, then,” Kayleigh said. I raised an eyebrow. “Well, none of us had groups to go with, so we all decided to go together. Nerds unite and all that.” Kayleigh was the least nerdy of all of us being the captain of the cheerleading team.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It’ll be fun. No pressure. I don’t even have a date,” Aaron smiled.

“Please,” Kayleigh and Stephanie said.

“Okay, I guess,” I said.

“Yay!” they all cheered.

–

ME

| guess im goin dress shoppin this weekend

MMICHAEL

That motherfucker. Lawrence changed the date of prom to the same day as our challenge. After talking to Quinn about the date change, my dad came in with the mail. He looked at me with a weird expression and handed me a large envelope addressed to me. Then I saw who it was from and understood why he was looking at me like that. Lawrence sent it to me. I turned it over slowly like it was a trap. The back had the wax seal of Stary Pack affixed, so I grabbed a knife to open the envelope. Inside was a prom flyer.

Join us for Stary High School’s Prom:

Stary Nights | Under The Stars

It had Quinn’s class year and the date. Like Quinn said, it was the date we’d agreed to for the challenge. I turned the envelope over in my hand, and a ticket fell out of it with a note.

“I didn’t want you to have to make the trip to Stary twice, so I made sure your two big nights this year were one and the same. I might even let you go once you’re my Beta, assuming you live that long. See you soon.

All my love,

Lawrence”

“f**k him,” Eros growled. “He’s not going to survive the challenge.”

Quinn didn’t know, and neither did anyone else. He wanted to kill or own me and ruin Quinn’s life all in the same night. That’s fine, but I wasn’t going to let him. Instead, I was determined to make this the most magical night I could for her. For now, I just wanted to do something normal like dress shopping with my girlfriend without thinking about having to come back to kill someone.

–

When the weekend came, I went out to one of my favorite clearings in the woods, where I let Eros out often. It was quiet, and no one ever bothered me there. I wanted my little date to go uninterrupted, so I could focus on my love.

MATE“Tell her it will look stunning on the floor while we mark her,” Eros chimed in. “I get to meet her wolf soon!”

“Simmer down, boy,” I laughed. “Agreed, though. Much better on the floor. I can’t wait to see her wolf. I bet she’s as beautiful as Quinn if she really is blue.”

Eros was buzzing with energy, as excited as I was for what was to come. We both tried not to think about what we would have to do to get to her.

MATE