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I sighed into the phone. “I can’t.”

“
Yes, you can. Is he worth all of this, Tessa? Is he worth possibly losing your life over or getting seriously hurt? I understand teen love, trust me, I do, but you’ve only been with him for a few months. How can you be so sure this is what you want?” Her voice cracked when she spoke, and I could picture her eyes filling with tears.

I thought for a moment before responding. Even though we had only been together for almost four months now, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I loved him. Besides, what else was I supposed to do, go back to Breckwater where there was no one else like me and pretend to still be normal? I couldn’t run away from this situation—I couldn’t run away from Jace simply because I was scared. I’d never forgive myself if I did that.

“
Yes, Jace is worth it,” I insisted.

We talked for a little while longer before hanging up. My throat felt thick as I fought to hold back my tears while saying goodbye. A light knock on the door startled me.

“
Tessa, you awake?” Jace whispered from the other side.

“
Come in,” I answered.

Jace walked in and closed the door behind him before padding across the hardwood floor toward the bed.

“
I set the alarm on my phone before I went to bed last night so I could wake up early to spend some time with you before my mother and Greta snag you away.” He grinned, folding the comforter and sheets back so he could slide in bed beside me.

“
Who’s Greta and why would she and your mother want to snag me for anything?” I asked, perplexed and a little worried as I snuggled up into the crook of his arm.

“
Greta is a really sweet old lady I’m sure will love you, and she also makes everyone’s traditional robes. You’ll have to be fitted for yours today. And I’m sure my mother will be there to boss Greta around,” Jace said, wrapping his arm around me.

“
Great,” I said sarcastically, dreading the day already and it hadn’t even fully begun.

* * *

Jace only stayed for a little while longer before heading back to his room. After he’d left I gathered my things and headed out into the hall in search of one of those five bathrooms I’d seen yesterday.

“
Can I help you?” a voice boomed from behind me.

I spun to face Nicholas, already dressed in what I presumed to be rich people golfing clothes, holding a mug of coffee.

“
I was just looking for a bathroom,” I said, shifting on my feet.

That same curious gleam entered his stare, and I found myself straitening my back and meeting his gaze dead on. Nervous butterflies broke into flight in the pit of my stomach as he continued to match my stare unwavering.

“
You know, I think I’m going to like you. There’s a little bit of fire in you, I see it, and I’m sure you’re going to surprise my wife during the Ordeal with Shelby. And that, my dear, is something I’m looking forward to seeing.” He smirked, shocking me entirely. “Bathroom is the next door on your left.”

I stood, staring after him, speechless. My lips twisted into a tiny smile at the thought of Jace’s father having confidence in me, then I made my way to the bathroom for a hot shower.

* * *

“
Hold still,” Greta, a sixtyish, short, round woman with loose gray ringlets down to the middle of her back and pale green eyes, said to me for the fourth time with a needle between her lips.

I held my breath, hoping she didn’t stick me this time.

“
Silver really does nothing for you. On Shelby this robe looks spectacular—it brings out the white-blond streaks of her hair and is shocking against her blue eyes. On you though, it merely blanches your skin… almost making you appear sickly,” Vivian said, her eyes trailing over every inch of me, judging.

One of my eyebrows shot up at her words. Jace’s mother was a bitch. A conclusion I’d finally come to without any guilt.

“
Okay, dear, I think I’ve gotten everything tacked where it needs to be hemmed. You can go ahead and slip out of that and back into your clothes,” Greta said, finally.

Vivian huffed as I began to strip out of the robe carefully, and I did my best to ignore her. For the last few hours she’d done nothing besides cut me down, and I wanted nothing more than to tell her exactly what I thought of her. A few choice words flashed through my mind as I slid my sweater back over my head. They disappeared as a light knock sounded on the door.

“
Come in,” Vivian said, taking command over the room I’d been told was mine. Anger burned beneath my skin directed toward her, and I wondered if this was how things would always be between us, even after I won the right to stand beside her son.

Surely not. Hopefully?

“
Hey, are you guys finished with my girl yet? I’d like to take her out to lunch,” Jace asked as he strolled into the room.

I smiled at him
and
his words as a smugness rolled through me.

“
She’s all yours,” Greta answered him.

I stepped around Vivian and took Jace’s outstretched hand.

“
Where exactly are you headed to?” Vivian questioned.

“
I figured I’d take Tessa to the best pizza joint in town, Max’s On Main.”

“
Such good bread sticks,” Greta agreed, folding the robe carefully.

“
Well, have fun,” Vivian said, a calculating gleam in her eyes.

* * *

Max’s On Main was a small, red-bricked pizza place on Main Street with a neon yellow sign. As soon as I stepped out of the car my nose was filled with the warm, garlicky scent of hot bread sticks and melted mozzarella. It only got better once we’d walked inside—I could practically taste the food in the air.

We grabbed a booth near the back of the pizzeria and ordered ourselves a couple of Coke’s along with a pepperoni and extra cheese pizza.

“
So this is the best pizza place in town, huh?” I asked, swirling my straw around in my cup.

“
Yes, it is,” Jace said matter-of-factly. “Just wait ‘til you taste their crust.”

A well-known giggle floated to my ears and I cringed inside. Shelby and two girls, who I figured were her little minions, strolled to sit at the table beside our booth. It had been a little over a month since my last run in with Shelby and to say that I could have gone forever without seeing her again was an understatement.

“
Oh, hi, Jace. Glad to see you two made it to town all right,” Shelby said, looking directly at me with a sneer. “Tessa, this is Avery and Jolene. Girls… this is Tessa.”

Both girls turned to glare at me, sizing me up. Obviously determining I was not a threat to Shelby. They both flashed me a tight-lipped smirk. I’d thought Shelby was intimidating, but combined with her friends, Shelby was utterly superior. Not only did she act like a queen bee, she was the queen bee. It was clear from the way her friends played off her every move.

I matched each of their stares and flashed them a mirrored smile. I couldn’t decide which girl seemed more menacing—Avery with her long slender legs, flowing fire-red hair, creamy skin, and sky-blue eyes, or Jolene with her perfect cocoa complexion, kinky black curls, and exotic honey-colored eyes.

Tension sharpened Jace’s features. “All right, Shelby, what are you doing here? You hate pizza, especially Max’s.”

“
Oh, I don’t know… I just got off the phone with your mother and suddenly had the worst craving for some pizza,” Shelby said, and her little friends giggled like idiotic hyenas.

I hated the smug gleam in Shelby’s eyes. I hated how close her table was to our booth. I hated Jace’s mother for telling Shelby where we were.

“
You’re pathetic,” I whispered under my breath, then took a long swig of my Coke.

Shelby’s face fell. “What did you just call me?”

I bit the end of my straw and smiled, loving seeing her taken aback in front of her friends. “Please, we all know you heard me. Don’t pretend.”

I didn’t know where that came from. I didn’t even know why I had said it. All I knew was that the look on Shelby’s face was priceless.

Our waitress walked over to our booth with a smile, carrying a pitcher of Coke. “Refill, honey?” she asked just before reaching us.

The next instant happened in slow motion. Shelby’s lips twisted into a wicked grin as she stuck her foot out, tripping the happy-go-lucky thirty-something waitress and causing her to spill ice-cold Coke all down the front of me.

Avery and Jolene cackled along with Shelby as the waitress attempted to mop me up with a wad full of napkins from her apron.

“
I’m so sorry, really I am. I don’t know what happened,” she added, glaring in Shelby’s direction.

“
It’s okay,” I said, scooping ice from in my lap and back into the now empty pitcher.

“
Can we get our pizza to go, please?” Jace asked through gritted teeth.

The waitress stared at him, obviously thinking he was angry at her. “Sure, not a problem. I’ll be right back with some more napkins, too.”

“
Thank you,” I called after her.

“
Oops,” Shelby said with a shrug of her shoulders.

My blood boiled. I could tell Jace felt the same as I did. I wanted to grab a handful of ice and chuck it at Shelby, but that would make me no better than her.

As our waitress came back with another stack of napkins and our pizza already in its to-go box Jace stood and took it from her. He pulled out his wallet and paid her before taking my hand and leading me out of Max’s On Main.

I glanced over my shoulder at Shelby and her sickeningly beautiful friends and flashed her a wicked grin. I burned this moment into my memory and filed it away with all of the others in which I’d loathed Shelby. They would become my fuel for tomorrow night. Shelby would get what was hers all right. She’d finally catch up with karma.

CHAPTER TWENTY- TWO

Jace took me to a little park beside a creek that was in the middle of nowhere to eat our pizza. He took off his long-sleeved shirt and gave it to me, keeping only his white T-shirt on beneath. I peeled off my soaking wet sweater and gladly changed into his shirt, inhaling the scent of his cologne that clung to the fabric and relishing in the warmth he’d left behind. We didn’t talk about Shelby and what had happened at the little pizzeria and I was glad. Instead, we talked about tomorrow night, leaving every part involving Shelby out.

“
So, do you think you’re ready to become a nudist in public?” Jace asked before taking another large bite of his pizza slice.

“
What?” I asked, nearly choking on a gewy piece of cheese.

Jace chuckled and flashed me a devilish look. “Well what did you think we do, go into little cubicles in the woods to undress and then change?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, of course not.” I just hadn’t thought far enough ahead to realize I’d be undressing in front of a group of strangers. “How many members did you say there were?”

“
Forty-seven, including the kids.”

My heart slammed against my ribcage.
Kids
, I’d forgotten about them. “Will the kids there, too?” Surely not. I mean wouldn’t that be considered child porn in some way or at the very least child abuse?

Jace laughed out loud in that rich laugh of his I loved, the one that seemed to take all of the breath from my lungs. “No way. All of the kids will be at home.”

“
By themselves? What, do you guys hire human nannies or something?” I wondered, shocked at the thought of leaving someone the age of Corey home alone for an entire night.

“
The older kids stay with them. We don’t change for the first time until the moon of our eighteenth birthday,” Jace answered with a grin, obviously enjoying my theory.

“
Oh.” I blushed, embarrassed by how little I knew of what I was and my own kind.

I took another bite of my pizza as silence surrounded us. A cold breeze wisped my hair around my face and I shivered slightly. It was strange how little the cold weather seemed to bother me. The temperature was thirty-nine degrees but to me it felt about fifty-nine. I attributed some of it to sitting in the direct sunlight, but I knew most of it was because of my feverish wolf self due to the full moon tomorrow night.

“
What is this ceremony between us going to be like?” I asked, unable to stand the silence anymore and preferring to talk about something that would take place
after
the Ordeal with Shelby, getting myself in the mindset of winning. If the key to a successful life was to imagine yourself overcoming whatever it was you were currently up against in life, then imagining myself standing beside Jace at the ceremony was a must. And in order to do that properly, I needed some more details.

“
Different than what you’re expecting, I’m sure,” Jace said.

“
And how do you even know what I’m expecting?” I countered.

“
You’re easy to read.” Jace winked. “You’re expecting to see some barbaric, animalistic, traditionalist, boring ceremony right?”

I smiled and looked at him from beneath my lashes while I grabbed another slice of pizza from the box. “Right.”

“
Well, it’s nothing like that.” Jace’s lips twisted into a crooked smile and his eyes softened. “It’s something beautiful actually and more along the lines of a wedding between the two of us with a few simple words.”