Page 15 of Forsaken

I gaze up to see that Ebon is gone. Relief flows through me, though it sucks that I missed her face when she saw the purple dye. “Mia Adams. Daybreak,” I tell her.

The sound of stirring stops, and Grace turns, regarding me.

“What?” I ask her. It’s as if she knows me or something.

“Sorry, that was rude.” She moves over to me, setting the plastic bowl filled with black dye on the countertop. “I recognize your name. Since I’m staff here, we get periodic emails about who’s enrolled. I learn the names in case they come by my salon.”

I’ve already guessed it before she can finish talking. She’s seen my name for a long damn time. “Yeah,” I say, my voice hoarser than I mean it to be.

“Well, I have one rule in my shop, Mia: We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.” She flashes me a pleasant smile, and I instantly like her. I’m used to people forcing the subject of mates on me, so to have a mate-free conversation would be amazing.

She sections off my hair and gets to work. Honestly, I always did okay with my hair, but it’s nice to have someone else do it. I’m hoping it will make the statement that I want it to. My mom will be the only one who’ll have a coronary about it; especially since I’ll be sporting it during the Winter Solstice festivities.

Grace and I have an easy conversation moving forward, despite the fact that everything I’ve known for the past year is wrapped up in Greystone. I’m so out of it when it comes to popular songs and trends, but she never makes me feel like I’ve been living under a rock. By the time she’s washed both the bleach and the black out of my hair, we’re laughing together like old friends.

My gaze widens as I peer at the blonde strands rimming the crown of my head. “I know,” she says. “I’ll hurry up and put the purple in it.”

She sections off my hair, then twists it on top of my head with a clip while she retreats to the counter to mix the dye. We go back and forth on the color until it’s the perfect shade of bright purple. “You know,” I tell her. “I hope this doesn’t offend you, but I didn’t even know Greystone had a salon in it until my friend Kinsey told me.”

Her face puckers. “I’ve noticed some of the advisors don’t bring their students here. It’s sad. It’s not supposed to be a beauty contest or anything, but you know when you go to get your hair done, and maybe put on a little makeup, and you just feel amazing? That’s what the intention of this was.” She lowers her voice. “Some of the advisors have petitioned to cut this from the school’s offerings, but I’ve been trying my hardest to keep it here.”

“Could guys come, too?”

“Yeah, I can cut men’s hair. Hell, I’ll even put eyeliner on a guy.” She nibbles her lip. “That can be hot.”

A picture of Nathan sneaks into my head with eyeliner rimming his gorgeous, dark lashes, and I get what she’s saying. That could look amazing on the right guy.

It would look horrendous on Sean. Absolutely awful.

The hairdresser clears her throat and starts to shift from foot to foot. The agitation coming off her unnerves even me. I’m about to ask her what’s wrong when she lets out a full-body sigh that sounds as if it came not just from her toes but the roots in the ground underneath the cement at our feet. She talks to herself briefly, murmuring unintelligible words, before she meets my gaze in the mirror with a frown. “I lied to you about where I saw your name.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “I mean, I have seen it on the roster for a long time, but I was accidentally cc’d on an email from Lydia to the pack advisors. It was in regard to you.”

Okay. Color me intrigued. Grace never misses a beat as she paints the purple on my strands, making sure they’re drowning in dye.

“I saw that you were being given a time limit, and my heart just broke,” she says, glassy eyes greeting mine as she moves in front of me. Even though we’re in the room alone, her voice is barely audible, and she shifts her gaze from side to side like she expects someone to be listening in on us. “Ever since I got that email, I’ve been thinking about you and this rumor I heard.” She fiddles with the bracelets at her wrist. “I heard there’s an area just outside of Twilight Pack where people are more friendly to rejected mates—Ferals,” she says, lowering her voice even more like she’s cursing in a preschool. “That’s all I know about it. But when I read that email, I thought that if I were you, I’d want information like that. Just in case.”

Shit. Twilight Pack. Their alpha heir is the most notable shifter to have ever been rejected. In fact, there was a rumor that his brother made the heir’s mate reject him just so he could take over their pack.

Pretty fucked up if you ask me, but I wouldn’t put anything past anybody at this point.

“I don’t know how true it is,” Grace says. “You know, forget I said anything.” She raises a shaking hand to put the last of the purple dye on my hair.

“Thank you.” I lock gazes with her in the mirror and smile. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

She shakes off the awkwardness. “It won’t, because you’re going to look like a hot rock star as soon as you walk out of this salon.”

7

“Ugh, I can’t believe you guys get to leave,” Nadia complains, then snaps her mouth shut a second later. An immediate blush colors her cheeks. “Sorry, I know that sounds petty coming from me.”

I give her a small smile. After she gushed about my hair, I told her why I had decided on a change. “Trust me, I think we all want to leave here as soon as we arrive.”

I push some eggs around my plate. People are staring, and I assume it’s because of the hair, but a little part of me believes they all know I’m thirteen days away from going Feral.

Thirteen-motherfucking-days. Fuck me.

Nadia bites her lip—a sure sign that she wants to ask a question but doesn’t know how to pose it. “Spit it out,” I tell her. Love the girl, but she’s too sweet for her own good.

“Well, I was just wondering if you think you can do it? Get Sean, I mean.” She shakes her head. “It’s stupid that he rejected you in the first place, so I think you can. As soon as he spends time with you, he’s going to come to his senses. I know it.”

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