sometimes, things were calm, but at other times, the wrong thing could blow things in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
Out of all my mates, being mated to Kane was probably the hardest. He was, by far, the most complicated of the five. And then there was also the fact that he was one of the three most powerful werewolves, one of the three most powerful Alphas, in the entire world. For some reason, it was extremely overwhelming to be mated to him knowing that.
And yet, I absolutely loved every second of the challenges it presented.
Kane was like fire to me. When we were together, our souls were able to ignite a spark. But if we weren’t careful enough, I knew it could burn both of us in the end.
And I was earth. The thing about earth is that it needs each of its elements. Without water, it will go into a drought. Without wind, the earth will get too hot or too cold. And without fire, the earth would be overgrown with vegetarian.
Put in more simple terms, I needed each of my mates, and I didn’t want to choose. Not now or ever.
Chapter 27
The end of the school year festival was in full swing when my mates and I arrived.
“I want a corndog,” Rhys commented as he headed off in the direction of the food stands.
“I’m hungry, too,” Aiden said, following after him.
“Let’s all meet back here for the fireworks show,” Theo suggested.
“Okay, sounds good to me,” I agreed with a nod.
Theo kissed me on the cheek before following after the others.
When I glanced over at Kane, I noticed that he was glaring at Theo’s back as he walked away.
Then Kane walked over to me and, leaning in real close, kissed me on the lips.
When he pulled away, I was breathless.
I wasn’t sure what it was, but my heart felt sort of funny as I walked away from not just one but all of them.
I had a strange feeling, but I couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.
Pushing the weird feeling to the back of my mind, I scanned the area for Maddie and spotted her exactly where I knew she would be: the food stands. She and Branden were already chowing down on funnel cakes when we approached them.
“Thank god you’re finally here. So, listen. I’ve been thinking,” she said as I approached her, “and we have to actually see each other this summer. Seriously. It would be our third summer not seeing each other if we don’t, and I just don’t think I can survive another completely Raven-less summer.”
“I don’t think I can survive a Maddie-less summer, either,” I replied with a grin.
“I don’t think I can survive a summer without either of you,” Vince said as he joined us. He and Julie were holding hands.
“Hey, Raven.” She smiled at me.
“Hey. Do you guys have any fun plans this summer?” I asked them.
“We’re going to live in Hawaii.”
“What? Here I was so excited about the acting camp I’m going to for a few weeks in Los Angeles, and you guys are going to Hawaii?” Maddie just gaped at her. “I’m majorly jeally.”
“I just inherited a house from my grandmother,” Julie explained.
“Can we please come visit you?” Branden asked.
“I’m pretty sure we can arrange that,” Julie replied.
“Summer reunion in Hawaii!” Maddie hopped up and down like a bunny with excitement. “You and the Darken have to come, too.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Even though I wanted to be able to say, for sure, that we would make it happen, I wasn’t about to get my hopes up, either. The past two summers, my mates and I had made fun and exciting plans, and they had never ended up working out. Something always happened to get in the way of the plans we tried to make. I was going to try to do everything in my power to make a fun summer actually happen for once, but I was afraid that it just wasn’t in the cards for us.
I realized then that the bad feeling I’d felt just moments before was beginning to set in. I couldn’t seem to put my finger on what it was exactly, but I was pretty sure that everything was about to go downhill… and fast.
I tried to tell myself that I was only being paranoid, that this was some sort of PTSD. But deep down, I didn’t think that was it. I was pretty sure this was my wolfy intuition trying to