Chapter 4 The awakening

Iris' POV

Daisy's eyes are still huge as she stares at the visible mark on my neck.

"Oh! This is bad! So bad!" she groans. "And by bad, I mean in all the hot ways possible, but also in the most life-altering ways."

"Thanks for your well-detailed explanation, Daisy," I mumble, walking around her to the door. I am dressed in a different outfit than I came in with yesterday, but I know the chances of asking for my dress are non-existent.

For starters, I don't know where Darian is, and I don't think he wants me to find him. Even if I could, the building is crawling with soldiers. I will be tossed out before I move an extra inch.

"Iris," my best friend calls after me, placing her hand on mine before I twist the handle open. "I know you know nothing about the Lycans and..."

"Yeah! You're right. And up till a few minutes ago, I had no idea you knew about them too." I always thought I knew Daisy like the back of my palm. Apparently, I was wrong. I have been clueless about a lot of things.

"I can explain," she says in one breath. "But that isn't important right now. You need to understand that marking for us is sacred. It doesn't just happen to anyone, most especially the Lycans. Theirs come with precision, so if Darian marked you, even by accident, it means something."

"It doesn't mean anything." I feel a knot working its way to my throat. "He left me here. He walked away like I was nothing, after .... I probably am nothing. Hell, I couldn't even keep Archer to myself."

"Wait. What?"

So much has happened that I forget Daisy doesn't know everything.

"Archer..."

"Not here," she cuts in, then grabs my hand, pulling me with her out of the room. We walk through the long and silent hallway without making a sound, and as if falling out of the shadows, we are suddenly flanked by soldiers in the same uniform as the one I saw from the window.

None of them pay us any attention until we are outside, the morning sun settling on our skins.

And even at that, they don't stop until we cross the iron-wrought gates. They close behind us without a single groan.

"Damn! I see why this place is called a haven. It looks like luxury and the apocalypse all joined as one."

I barely hear Daisy as we walk to her car, because I keep turning back to the gates, hoping I will see him looking out of one of those high windows, his eyes locked on mine, just as they were inside.

But all I see are panes of glass glinting under the harsh glare of the sun.

Daisy doesn't say anything else throughout the ride until she pulls up in front of the apartment we share, very close to the campus. She looks at me warily as I trudge inside, leaving the door open behind me.

"Iris," she murmurs softly, just as I drop onto the couch.

"What?"

"You wanted to tell me about Archer. What happened last night? Did he show up?"

I scoot to the edge of the couch. "Tell me about yourself first. Are you a Lycan, like Darian? Is his brother a Lycan too? Is it like a family thing?"

She nods in understanding. "The book I asked you to read in the library about Lycans and werewolves, I didn't ask you to do that because I wanted to introduce you to fantasy like I'd claimed. I wanted you to know who I was...and now, who you are."

"How? I cannot be... It is impossible."

"It is possible," she pushes, coming to sit beside me. "My father has told me stories similar to yours, where a human suddenly wakes up their dormant genes inside of them. I don't know where you got it from yet, but there has to be someone."

"And you think I wouldn't have noticed?" I ask, with disdain dripping from my tone.

Daisy gives me a look as if to say she has been beside me for years, and I wasn't able to tell that she was different from me.

"Your sister and your parents are human," she confirms. "They have passed the age of shifting, so nothing can change about them. You, on the other hand..."

"What about me?"

"It's strange." Daisy rises to her feet, pacing our little living area. "You are past the age of shifting, too. Everyone starts shifting when they turn fifteen. Some delay for a year or more, but it is usually never more than three years."

"I am twenty-two, four years past shifting."

"Exactly," she murmurs, stroking her chin like she does each time she's thinking. "I have to ask the pack what this means..."

"The pack?"

"The Crystal Dome Pack. Every territory has a pack."

"I can't believe this is real," I breathe.

Daisy stops in front of me. "Focus, Iris. I am sure that the Lycan prince did not find you by accident. Did he tell you..."

"He said I called out to him."

"There has to be a connection somewhere. You shifted because of him, or he felt you because you were shifting."

I feel a migraine coming. Pressing two fingers against my temple, I get off the couch and make to go into my room.

But suddenly, the headache gets worse, slamming into my skull like a sledgehammer. I grip the couch beside me as I fall to the wooden floor.

"Iris?" Daisy appears by my side in one second, her arms nudging me. "Iris, what is wrong? What is it?"

I try to tell her that I am fine, that it will pass. But my vision slowly blurs until she becomes a tiny dot. And then I hear the voice.

Not mine. Not Daisy's.

"She knows that she's been marked. The process has begun. You need to move fast if you're going to save yourself."