But that isn’t the full truth, is it? I kissed the sorcerer, and it felt right in a way nothing else has. And now I’m noticing all the ways other touches don’t stack up.

And you are my Selene, my eternal soul mate.

Kane’s hold tightens on me. “Fuck him. Some sicko doesn’t get to tell you how to live your life.”

Yeah, this is true, but the sicko in question apparently overthrew an entire kingdom just to get his girl a summer palace.

That’s not the sort of man I want to go toe-to-toe with.

Before I can form a response, two Politia officers, a man and a woman, come around to the back of the house, their flashlights moving over the lawn.

I wave to them, just to get their attention.

The two come over to us.

I pull away from Kane, putting some needed distance between us.

“Are you Selene Bowers?” one of the officers asks.

I nod.

“Would you like to tell us why you called us out here?” the other officer asks, her eyes moving over me and Kane.

For the next thirty minutes, Kane and I recount what happened to the two Politia officers. I covertly glance at their name tags: Officer Howahkan is the man and Officer Mwangi is the woman. They contact Kane’s pack to inform them of the incident, and then I take the group of us inside my residence hall.

When we pass the house’s library, we catch sight of a witch who sits passed out on one of the wingback chairs, her legs spread and her skirt around her waist. Another woman—a shifter, I think—kneels before her, her head on the witch’s thigh. She too appears to be passed out.

Officer Howahkan clears his throat, clearly not cool with what he’s seen.

He’s obviously not attended too many events with witches. We really do party hard.

I lead the group upstairs, toward my room, skirting around a witch sitting on the landing while singing a bawdy drinking song to her fox familiar, her magenta magic swirling around her.

We head down the third-floor hallway to my room, and once I let the group inside, the officers look over the broken glass, the rumpled sheets, and Kane’s discarded shirt. And then Kane and I recount the evening’s events all over again, starting with the foiled bang session and ending with Kane shifting. The entire time we recount the events, the coven sister in the room next door has really loud, enthusiastic sex.

Good for her. Should have been me, but good for her.

We all eventually head back downstairs, passing that same witch on the landing, only now she and her familiar have fallen asleep together. The couple in the library is still passed out, and honestly, they’ll probably be there until morning.

Officer Mwangi shakes her head at all of it.

I hurriedly escort them out to the front porch before closing the door behind me and giving my sisters their privacy.

“Well, I think that’s all we need for now,” Officer Howahkan says to me and Kane. “We’ll let you know if we apprehend your attacker.”

Officer Mwangi scrutinizes me as her partner turns to her, clearly ready to wrap this up.

Her eyes, however, are fixed on me. “Weren’t you the same girl who reported the last murder?” she asks.

Um…I have zero recollection of meeting this person.

I swallow delicately. “Um. Yeah.”

Kane glances over at me, his brows rising. Officer Howahkan too stares at me with unnerving intensity.

“What a coincidence,” Officer Mwangi says, though the way she says it makes it clear she’s thinking it’s not a coincidence at all. She gives me a once-over, like I’ve just gotten way more suspicious.

I feel my hackles rise.

“Whoa,” Kane says, lifting a hand in a placating gesture. “Tonight wasn’t Selene’s fault. A man broke into her room and attacked us.”

Officer Mwangi’s attention moves to Kane, and she gives him a look like he’s gullible.

I hear an ominous growl low in Kane’s chest. I glance at him, remembering how he reacted when I ordered him around earlier this evening. And now he perceived something else as a challenge.

Just where in lycanthrope hierarchy does Kane fall?

Because he’s acting like an alpha. A possessive one too.

Officer Mwangi dips her head, and I don’t know if she means for it to be a submissive display, but it seems to satisfy Kane’s wolf, who quiets at the action.

But placating gestures or not, the damage from the officer’s words has already been done. I can sense it in the air like a sick sort of magic itself.

Somehow, between stumbling upon a corpse and getting accosted by an ancient sorcerer, the Politia has determined I’m suspicious enough to take note of.

Goddess, I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite me.

When I wake up the next morning, I smile at the sound of birds chirping in the tree outside, and for about two seconds, life is utterly blissful.

Then last night comes rushing in.

I put my hand over my eyes. Make it all go away. There are bits of yesterday I can’t remember either—getting ready, that’s gone. And there are some lost memories from the party last night, but I’m not sure if alcohol or magic is to blame for that.

Still, I remember enough. And in the sobering light of day, one detail in particular catches my attention, one I didn’t spend much time musing on last night.

We are soul mates, little witch.

I scramble off the bed, cursing when I step on broken glass from my window.

“Broken glass, stop being a bimbo. Repair yourself and mend this window.”

Really need to work on my rhymes…

As the glass levitates off the floor and fits itself back into place, I make a beeline for my bookshelf. My fingers skim over the spines of my journals.

Being a soul mate isn’t just some offhand thing. It’s an aspect of a supernatural that manifests when their magic Awakens. One that’s formally recorded and acknowledged.

So, if I were a soul mate, I would have written that down somewhere before my mind stole that information from me. It would have been too important not to.

I pull out the notebooks one by one, and frantically flip through them.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Of course there’s nothing. There wouldn’t be because I’m not a soul mate. Not to that brutal bastard.

Still, I spend over an hour sitting on the floor of my room, notebooks scattered around me, flipping through page after page of notes I wrote years ago, looking for any clue that I may be a soul mate. It’s only as I get to the earliest of my journals that I realize I didn’t keep good records until about halfway through my junior year at Peel Academy, months after my Awakening.

Regardless, what I do have is thorough enough. And not once do I find any mention of my being a soul mate.

I exhale. I know I should feel relieved, but there are those few damnable months that are unrecorded. And then there’s the fact I no longer have the memory of my Awakening, when I would’ve first learned of whether I’m a soul mate.

I rub the skin over my heart, frowning. The more I focus on it, the more I swear there may be something there.

It was just the sorcerer’s trick, nothing more.

There’s one other place I could check that would know for certain.

Peel Academy would have files on hand about my Awakening. They have them for all supernaturals who attend their boarding school. I just need to get a copy of mine.

I open my laptop and head to my email account. Once there, I send out a quick request to Peel Academy’s Records Department to forward me my official results.

Goddess, but I hope this settles things once and for all. I’m still holding on to that damnable hope that I’m right.

Otherwise, I’m screwed.

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