Sedition Mazzy J.

March
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Sedition
Copyright 2024 by Mazzy J. March
Digital ISBN: 979-8-89320-000-3
Print ISBN: 979-8-89320-001-0

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any
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Published by Decadent Publishing LLC

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
An Excerpt from Renegade
About Mazzy J. March
Connect with Mazzy!
I came to the Urban Rehabilitation Academy for refuge from the Light Kingdom. There was only one thing I had to do—hide my
wolves. That’s right. Wolves. Plural. As in two, which is apparently a bad thing.

Not even a whole semester, and I’ve messed up.

One of the Three Kings saw me shift. Neither of my wolves is what other shifters would call normal, but he saw my night wolf
—the one who is larger than others and whose fur shimmers with silver threads. Not exactly your typical wolf.

Now he knows, and he will tell the others. Not only will they maybe oust me for my wolf, but someone could alert the Light
Kingdom to my location.

Plus, I thought they liked me—all three of them.

One run in the woods might’ve ruined everything for me. Now for damage control—if that’s even possible.

Urban Academy Rejects: Sedition is the second story in the Urban Academy Rejects series by bestselling author Mazzy J.
March. It is a spinoff of the Urban Academy series featuring shifters and other paranormal beings who for various reasons
do not fit in with “mainstream” paranormals. Some have dark pasts, others darkness within them, but all have stories
waiting to be told and lives that could easily end far too soon. But love is key, and as always Mazzy promises an HEA—
eventually.
 The Lycan Academy
First Howling
Second Growl
Third Snarl
Jaded Love

Shifters of Consequence
Survivor
Legacy
Triumph
Dominion
Torn
Tether
Tremble
Tinsel

Academy of Fire and Ash

Betrayed by Dragons
Coveted by Dragons
Mated to Dragons

Sciathain Academy
Veiled Wings
Sullied Wings
Dawning Wings
Across the Veil

Mated in Silence
Rejected by Fate
Rejected by Blood
Rejected by Birth

Reaper’s Claw Wolf Pack

Abandoned at Birth
Forsaken Life
Endangered Heart
Heir Alight

Ridgewood Rogue Wolves Saga

Mangled
Marred
Wounded
Restored
Absolute

Shifters of the Golden Flame

Dragon Sacrifice
Dragon’s Divulgence
Dragon’s Vindication

Stars Aligned Series

Procyon
Nebula
Zenith

Academy of the Ravens

Darkened Wings
A Conspiracy
 An Unkindness
A Murder
Urban Academy
Semester One
Semester Two
Semester Three
Semester Four
Semester Five
Semester Six
Semester Seven
Semester Eight
Semester Eight.Five
Semester Nine

Urban Academy Rejects

Renegade

Mail-Order Matings
Delivered to My Mates
Delivered to My Pandas
Delivered to My Alphas
Delivered to My Koalas
Delivered to My Protectors
Delivered to My Polar Bears
Delivered to My Orcs
Delivered to My Tigers

By Mazzy J. March and Jenna M. Jett

The Conjurer Academy

Enigma
Psionic
 Sedition
Urban Academy Rejects Book 2
By
Mazzy J. March
 Chapter One
Karelis
“Karelis, is that you?” he asked. “I didn’t…is this your wolf?”
Adan. I would know the voice anywhere. My dark wolf wagged her tail and turned, unfazed by the fact that we’d been
caught. I reminded her without words, through our supernatural bond, that this meant danger. She wasn’t like the other wolves.
There were those who thought she was dangerous—feral. They would take her from us.
Run!
No matter how much she wanted to preen in front of the male, self-preservation kicked in. She took off into the darkness of
the forest, her sharp senses stopping us from ramming into a tree or tumbling into the thick mud that caked our paws and clung
to our fur. The crisp winter air burned the inside of our nose and whooshed in our ears.
We hadn’t made it far when I realized this would be less of a run than a chase.
Adan had shifted and was on our heels in seconds. Damn. He was fast. I hadn’t anticipated that. The rare times I’d been
allowed to let Night out, she was bigger and faster than everyone, so, when his muzzle came into view, I skidded to a halt,
intending to switch direction and lose him.

He was on me in seconds, almost predicting my next move before I decided to make it. I was a bit in awe.
And surprised as hell that Night hadn’t turned her teeth on him. She was fierce in her protection of me and had bitten one
of the guards in the Light Kingdom once when he told us to shift back. He had touched her. She lost it, and he nearly lost his
manhood. Instead, she took a chunk out of his thigh and I didn’t get to leave my room for a month.
We made our way through the forest until we were stopped not by a lack of energy but by a tall fence. Adan’s wolf let out a
low growl of warning. Lights on the other side of the fence gave Night, gave us, a good look at his wolf for the first time. He
had fur so black that it was almost blueish in the light. His green eyes were half golden. They glowed.
Adan must’ve realized he’d become the object of my attention because his wolf moved closer but he did so slowly—as
though I were the predator in this situation. Night didn’t move. She didn’t stiffen or try to back away. She invited and
welcomed the desire of this male. His want permeated the air, overwhelming the other scents of the forest.
Goddess, no. I wasn’t supposed to have a mate. It was a fact that had been drilled into me since I was a child. Shifters
with dual wolves didn’t get mates.
As Adan moved closer, he nuzzled my side with his nose. Night reciprocated, running her nose along his neck. Something
inside my chest stirred—awakened.
And then Night did something completely out of character. She bowed her head to him, and he did the same. They put their
heads down and bared their necks to each other. There was nothing I could hear but the sounds of our hearts beating. They came
to some kind of understanding there, under the moon and stars.
We sprinted through the woods until both of us were out of breath. Adan shifted. He somehow already knew that I was
Night and Night was me, but he would have questions.
I wasn’t sure I could give him answers.
He pulled on his pants, without bothering with the boxers that I saw on the ground along with his T-shirt, and got on his
knees. Night paced over to him. She allowed him to thread his fingers through our fur. Goddess, the sensation of his touch
brought me a sense of euphoria that I’d never experienced.
I melted inside.
“Goddess you are gorgeous, female. Look at you. I’ve never seen a wolf with silver strands. And they are a different
texture than your other fur. It’s almost like the gods infused them with real silver. And your eyes…”
Night tipped her muzzle this way and that, giving him a good look at her. She craved his next words. His next touch. She
would lap up every drip of praise he offered.
“Pure silver. One of a kind, just like your other half. When you’re ready, can I see Karelis? I would like to talk to her.”
A whine came from Night. Always protecting me.
“Oh, I see,” he murmured and got up. He walked a few paces and turned his back. “Go on. I won’t peek. I promise.”
I shifted and threw on the shorts and tank I had taken off before. Once I was sure all my bits were covered, I cleared my
throat. “You can turn around now, Adan.”
When he did, tingles spread down my body. Despite the chill around us, I was warm—so damned warm. “There you are.
Karelis, your wolf is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. For some reason, I felt compelled to tell him my entire life story. All the secrets. All the hidden
parts of myself.
“You tried to outrun me,” he said. “She’s fast and strong.”
I nodded. Please let him not try to pry anything else from me. No matter how much I wanted to open up, I knew that things
could go wrong. He could tell someone. The headmistress. She could tell others—the shifter council. It would then only be a
matter of time before the Light Kingdom got wind of the new female at Urban Rehabilitation Academy who had a giant black
wolf with silver strands. They would come for me.
For her.
 Chapter Two
Adan
A black wolf with silver threads through her fur. And silver eyes. I’d been a little surprised when she wanted privacy to
shift because most wolves I knew had no concerns about nudity. It made me wonder even more about her past and what got her
here. After all, we were hardly at the school for people whose lives had been the smoothest.
I’d never seen anything like her before, but I knew the moment I did that it was Karelis. Something about her spirit
translated to the wolf, but there was also something very different from any other beast I’d met before. And I wanted to know…
“Karelis, you are fascinating to me.” I reached for her hand and started for the school buildings. “Your wolf.”
“You said she’s beautiful,” she asserted. “And I thanked you.”
Ouch. Apparently she didn’t want to tell me any more, but it was hard to do the smart thing and back off. “You sure did.
Does she resemble other wolves in your pack?”
Her steps faltered, just for a second, but she was back in rhythm before I slowed down. “Oh, I don’t know. There were a
lot of different-colored wolves. Black and gray were common, I guess.”
Gray. She was anything but gray, the light catching on those silver strands as she darted into pools of sunshine between
trees. “I see. We have a variety of colors in ours as well, but not as bright as your fur. Big pack?”
“Average, I guess. Yours?”
“I guess. Depends on what you think of as average.”
“And you’re here because of computer hacking.”
Had I told her that? I was sure I hadn’t, and neither had my roommates. It wasn’t common knowledge outside my friends’
circle… “Is that what you’ve heard?” We were close to the tree line now and would be back inside the school shortly.
“I did.”
“Who said that?”
“Uh, I don’t remember. Are you saying it’s not true?”
“I plead the Fifth.”
She swung our linked hands and gave a little hop. “I see. And since this is a civil rather than criminal interrogation, I can
use that statement to assume it’s true.”
“That’s kind of convoluted logic, and I can say that without even knowing why you have knowledge of the human courts.”
She giggled. “I don’t, really, but I watch a lot of TV. Come on, Adan, tell me why you’re here.”
“I’ll go first. I did indeed hack into a human computer system in order to go to university. My pack homeschooling
education did not qualify me for admittance, even though my personal studies far exceeded their requirements.” It hurt even to
say it. I’d had such hopes when I did that. Never feeling like it was anything wrong because I knew how hard I’d worked, how
I’d stayed up late at night studying things I’d never need as a wolf shifter just to get access to the education that university could
give me.
“You wanted to learn.” She stopped walking, making me halt as well. “Adan, you have a right to your dreams, and no pack
should deny you that.”
“Thank you, but you are part of a very small minority who feels that way.”
“Hmmph. Did you actually start classes after you hacked your way in?”
I shrugged, afraid of showing too much of the emotional conflict that still surged within me. But while I didn’t meet her
gaze, I could feel it burning into me. “Yes, I started classes.”
“And how did that go?” Her level tone offered no suggestion of how she might react to my answer.
“Perfectly. I got straight As and learned a whole lot of things I wanted to know how to do. Computers can do so much for
the pack, especially if they insist on homeschooling. Because the kind of education they are getting isn’t great. Just so many
ways modern technology can help them.”
“So what happened? Wasn’t your pack glad to be getting all this helpful information and training for you?”
“It’s a long story but the short version is no. I’ll tell you the whole story some other time.”
“All right.”
We started to walk again and were nearing the buildings, and I hadn’t managed to get any information from her at all. She’d
cleverly turned the tables on me, getting me to talk about myself. “We’re just about out of time, but I still want to know more
about you.”
She offered a shy smile. “I am much more interested in you. Nothing interesting about me.” Her eyes gleamed, not silver
but another color that came and went so fast I couldn’t get a good look at them even to describe. Almost as if there was another
wolf inside her. “Now let’s get inside, okay? Before we’re missed.”
“Karelis, please?”
“I’d love to tell you more, but I can’t. If things change, you’ll be the first one I talk to, okay?”
“All right.” It wasn’t, but I couldn’t keep pushing her like this. We had time.
 Chapter Three
Karelis
While I was enjoying the learning environment of the Urban Rejects Academy—what the others called it—I didn’t like the
social environment. The sneers directed at me were unwarranted and unnecessary. I had been here less than a month, and
already they had decided I was an outcast.
They’d fucking have a conniption if they found out that I was a real pariah in the world of shifters. Two wolves inside me?
Hell, they might burn me at the stake if they found that out.
Up ahead, a group of people curled around someone, but it wasn’t until I saw the cute Mary Jane shoes that I knew who
was the butt of their jeering.
June.
“Hey!” I yelled and dropped my bag. Barging into the group, I reached for June and pushed her behind me. The fear in her
eyes was something I never wanted to see again. I knew how it felt to be bullied and mistreated, and the last thing I wanted was
to have it inflicted on someone who had been nothing but kind to me.
Honestly, I didn’t want to see harm inflicted on anyone.
“Leave her alone. Don’t you have anything else to do?” I asked. My chest heaved with angry breaths while Night snarled
under my skin, so close to the surface. She wanted to rip these girls’ heads off, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing they could
do about it.
“Now we have someone else to play with.” A girl with a severe bun stepped up to me and bumped her chest with mine.
Boob-on-boob violence. Not cool.
“You don’t want to mess with me,” Night pushed through, and I felt the phasing of my eyes from mine to hers. She saw
colors more brilliantly than I did. Shit. I had to calm down. I didn’t want Night to come out, and these bullies didn’t, either, if
they valued their next breath. She had zero tolerance for assholes. A warning snarl trilled through my chest and while their eyes
widened, they stood their ground.
“Or what?” the one in front of me ground out. Her voice was rough. Somewhere along the way she had swallowed glass.
Maybe that’s what she was so mad about.
Fuck. The last thing I wanted was a fight.
Until a fist landed on my chin. I acted without thinking. Her fist hadn’t retracted fully when I threw a jab right into her
throat. A punch like that would’ve put a human down.
The girl—I still didn’t know her name—grabbed at her throat and gasped for air. She stumbled backward, and her friends
moved to help her. I took the opportunity to drag June out of there.
We were done with high school and yet, some hadn’t moved on.
Once we were a good distance away, I pulled my friend into a stairwell. “Are you okay?” I asked, surveying her.
“It’s just a fat lip. Nothing I haven’t gotten before.”
That wasn’t true. I could see a black eye blooming, along with some swelling on her cheek. “Where’s the nurse?” I asked.
“Is there a nurse or a doctor here? A healer?”
June moved her jaw around, testing it. She must’ve gotten popped there as well. They were lucky I didn’t let Night loose.
It would’ve been the last breath they took. “A nurse. Healers work in the packs.”
I nodded. “Lead the way.”
June shook her head. “It’s okay. I don’t have to go.”
“Bullshit,” I growled back. “We’re going. If nothing else, so you don’t have to go to class until you can shift and get some
of this healed.”
She blew out a breath. “Fine. Yeah. Okay.”
We waited until the halls were clear. I might get in trouble for skipping class, but this was for a good reason.
Right?
Everything I knew about school and the rights and wrongs were constantly opposed when it came to the rules around here.
If I got in trouble, then at least it was worth it.
We made it across campus with only a few students giving us looks, but I assured June they were probably more put off by
me than her. She laughed it off, but the smiling made her groan.
“Karelis?” My name spoken by the most chill-worthy velvet voice from behind me. I looked over my shoulder, but my
priority was June and getting her out of sight and to the nurse.
“It’s Casimir,” June whispered as though I should’ve gotten on my knees in his presence.
“Hey, Cas,” I said, but my steps never faltered.
“Where are you going?” When I didn’t immediately answer, he fell into a sprint and caught up with us. When he saw
June’s face, he growled a bit. “To the nurse? I’ll come with you.”
 The nurse took June right in and said I could wait outside. She nodded to Cas. Of course everyone knew him. I mean, he
looked to be chiseled from the gods, so of course, she knew him.
He sat next to me and before I could say a word, took my jaw in his hand and turned my head this way and that. He stopped
when I faced the left and while I felt my jaw throb with the pain of the punch, it was nothing I hadn’t felt before. The guards at
the Light Kingdom weren’t always kind. “Who did this to you?” His words came out in a snarl but I knew the anger wasn’t
pointed at me.
“Bullies. The answer is always bullies. They say high school is only four years but clearly that isn’t enough for some
people.”
He huffed out a laugh but his smile was absent. What a shame. I needed his smile in that moment. My heart fluttered as his
hand stayed on my jaw but instead of removing it, he let the width of it slide down my neck and land right above my breasts.
“You can take care of yourself, but I don’t like to see this.”
“Doesn’t feel great, either.” Some students passed and giggled, probably because Cas was close to fondling me in public.
“Do I need to take care of it, Karelis? I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“No. But thank you. I take care of myself.”
Another snarl. “You don’t have to anymore.”
 Chapter Four
Casimir
When I returned to the suite, I found Adan and Blaze lounging with sandwiches and cans of energy drinks. “I missed you
both at dinner. Considering we had that stomach-challenging chili-mac casserole thing that has been appearing lately, you made
the right choice.”
Adan waved a not-peanut-butter sandwich over his ever-present laptop. “I bribed a cook for roast beef and cheddar with
horseradish mayo.”
“Don’t tease. I only ate a couple of bites and some canned corn before deciding I preferred hunger.” In general, the food
here was decent—but when it was bad, it was awful. “So eat away, friends, and don’t feel bad about leaving me out.”
Blaze looked up from his tablet and grinned. “Good. Then I guess we can eat the sandwich we got you with mustard
instead of horseradish, as you prefer.”
My mouth watered. “Are there pickles?”
Adan picked up a brown bag beside him and said, “Catch.”
I caught. Of course, when I unrolled the top, it held not only the sandwich on sourdough bread but a pickle spear and a
small container of potato salad. I hummed in pleasure, cutting it off when my friends laughed. “Sorry. I’m just hungry and with
our stash low, I wasn’t sure if I’d get much of anything tonight.”
“Well, don’t let us keep you from eating.” Blaze took another bite of his and spoke around it. “Did you at least get to sit
with anyone special?”
The happiness from the sandwich faded for the moment, and I set it down beside me. “No because the person you refer to
is in the nurse’s office. At least I think she and June are still there.”
Adan shoved his laptop aside and leapt to his feet. “Then why are you here instead of there? Why didn’t you come and get
us?”
Blaze asked the important question. “Are they okay?”
“They are a little shaken up and bruised. Some of the girls in this school seem to have gotten good at bullying, and Karelis
rescued her. She took a hit or two in the process.”
“I want their names.” Adan’s eyes gleamed. “This cannot continue.”
“What are you going to do? Go and beat them up yourself and get kicked out or worse?” I would have done it myself if I
thought it would help. “They’re okay for the moment, and they didn’t tell me who did it. I waited with Karelis while June got
patched up, and she didn’t say. She thinks they can handle it.”
I’d left shortly thereafter when the nurse came out and said only one visitor could come sit with June. But I’d have
preferred to stay and watch over them.
“It’s late now, and just about everyone is going to be in their rooms, and I don’t want to upset the girls more than they
already are, but tomorrow, we will find out.” Blaze finished the last bit of his sandwich and crumpled the bag. “Anything else
interesting going on? Or horrifying?”
“Actually, yes,” Adan spoke up. “I went for a run with Karelis the other night.”
“You what?” Blaze yelped. “And…tell us everything that happened.”
I settled on the sofa, ready to hear more about the fascinating person who had managed to captivate all three of us. And I
wasn’t even sure she knew that. “Come on, Adan. You’ve got our full attention.”
“She is extraordinary. Coal black streaked with silver strands. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and her eyes…as if
they were made of quicksilver. The same as her fur but not, if that makes any sense, and I’m guessing it couldn’t.”
Blaze sighed. “It does. But I want to see it for myself. So you had a run together.”
“And it was so much more than just an ordinary run in the forest. She’s graceful and elegant and fast. But it was as if she
didn’t feel comfortable, had me turn around when she shifted. Not that I planned to ogle her or anything. But it all seems to be a
part of her mystery.”
“Mystery?” I chewed my lip a moment. “Did you have a chance to talk together?”
“I tried, but when I asked about her, she turned it on me and I never found out a thing about her. I think it’s important that
we protect her, but how can we if we don’t even know what might be a threat to her?”
“Does she understand how the three of us feel?” I asked. “Did you get a sense of that?”
“I got a sense of someone who was super fun to run with and is gorgeous and smart and far more clever than I am. She did
not want to tell me about her past. Why?”
“She doesn’t trust us?” Blaze said it softly, but it made us all stop.
After a long moment, Adan nodded. “Not completely, but maybe if we do come right out and tell her of our feelings.
Honestly and openly.”
“Does she even want to hear it?” Blaze flopped back in his seat. “Isn’t this supposed to be easier? Everyone says when
you meet your mate, it’s just bam and that’s it. Could they be wrong?”
“It isn’t wrong for me. I want to bring her right in and begin our life together, but we don’t know a thing about her past.
Maybe she comes from a pack where they do things differently? I’ve heard of some who don’t believe in fateds.”
“And maybe we need to keep a closer eye on both our girl and her friend,” I said.
 Chapter Five
Karelis
Turned out, I didn’t get in trouble for bringing June to the nurse. In fact, they gave me a pass that excused me from the next
class. The nurse said she was glad I was there to help her and that deserved a break from classes. I walked with June to the
forest where she shifted and emerged good as new. She didn’t even question why I didn’t shift with her.
The next morning, she had to face the others again, but this time, I wasn’t giving them any opportunity to gang up on my
friend. Whenever I could, I made sure she was fine in between classes, and she was doing her best to stay away.
People sucked ass.
“I think Casimir was following me today,” she said as we changed from our school uniforms and into more casual clothes
to go to dinner.
“Huh?” I asked. My wolves rose up inside me, not liking Cas’s attention on any other female. I quickly quelled them with
the knowledge that June was my friend. She wasn’t taking anyone from me. Especially anyone who didn’t belong to me.
“Calm down. I think he was looking out for me like you were. No mating vibes. Just friendly.”
I snorted. “Didn’t realize I was calmed up.”
“You let out a little growl.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s kind of cute that he was looking out for you.”
She grabbed her shoes and put them on. “I honestly thought maybe you asked him to.”
“I didn’t. What would make you think Casimir would do anything I suggested?”
She nailed me with a stare. “Seriously? The Three Kings have their eyes on you, no matter where we are. You must have
noticed.”
I had. No matter where I went on campus, there was a King there. Walking toward me—away from me. On the other side
of the common area or the dining hall. But still, I felt their eyes on me. My entire body warmed just thinking about it. “Let’s go
eat. No more boy talk. We need to fuel up.”
We had planned to go on an unsanctioned adventure around campus that night. It had been a while since we had ventured
beyond the dorms at night, and it was high time for something that gave me a little adrenaline. Because my life and running from
having my wolf torn from me wasn’t enough, apparently. It had been a bit since anything weird happened that we needed to be
afraid of. Whatever it was, it seemed to be over. Maybe…
We ate quickly, and on our way out, I couldn’t help but pause at the table where the Three Kings sat. I bent down to Cas’s
ear level and whispered, “Thanks for watching out for June.”
Cas shuddered. “It was for you.” He leaned into me. “You looked so concerned. I know you can take care of yourself, but
you were worried.”
How did he know? A question for another time.
I wanted to touch him and have him touch me again, but it was a crowded dining hall, and I shouldn’t have been leading
him on. He didn’t know what I was or the secrets buried deep within me. “Good night.”
He repeated my goodbye and I waved to the others. June and I were about to put ourselves in danger and it might be the
last time I saw those three.
Wouldn’t that be a damned shame.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked in a whisper-shout as we beelined for the dorm rooms. Our unsavory plans for the night
included unsanctioned traipsing around campus and darting from shadow to shadow, seeing what tales they had to tell, but we
also had studying to complete. If we were going to get into trouble, which we were a magnet for, then at least we should have
good grades to tug on like a lifesaver.
“Are you chickening out?” she asked with a shit-eating grin on her face. “If we can survive those bullies, then we can get
through a night of trouble. Besides, we kind of owe it to ourselves. I, for one, need some fresh air. It’s like they pump dejection
and misery through the air flow.”
Huh. I thought I was the only one who smelled that.
We spent the evening alternating between studying and glancing at the clock. About ten minutes before nine, we slammed
our books shut and put on our shoes. Running shoes. Because there would certainly be some sort of sprint for our lives. I could
feel it in my chest.
A crashing wave of relief hit me as the night air sank into my lungs. I stuffed my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie
after pulling up the hood to shield my ears from the biting wind. There was nothing exciting or grandiose about our stroll
through campus, other than the adrenaline pumping through my veins at the thought of getting caught, but it was a break from the
norm. From feeling confined in the dorm and classrooms.
Once we’d explored around the betweens and dark recesses of the school only to find more air and silence, plus the
random couple doing anything but studying in the night, we decided to make our way back to our dorm room. It was sort of
disappointing but needed.
We’d cut across the common area when I heard footsteps behind us. My heart stammered underneath my sternum at the
thought we’d been caught.
June blew out a long breath and whipped around. “Okay. You caught us.”
When I repeated her actions, wanting to know who had been smart enough to find us, it was to find—nothing and no one.
My shifter ears picked up hushed breathing, and Night let out a low rumble in my chest, warning me of danger.
“Let’s go,” I said, tugging on June’s wrist.
“There’s no one. I thought… I swore I heard…”
“I know. Come on. Now.”
We speed-walked through the arched walkways that connected the dining hall to the dorms and classroom buildings, but
the footsteps behind us closed in—the breathing more ragged. Night sensed whatever was behind us was hungry. Hungry for
what? My stomach tangled in knots. I’d been found. The Light Kingdom loved to play with their victims and those they called
“friends.” Control was their game. Manipulation and fear were their tactics. They stalked slowly and methodically, like a
demon knocking on a table for a family who just moved into a haunted house and dared a seance. Small ticks that turned into
big pushes while you weren’t paying attention.
I’d lived through almost two decades of fear—constant chest-clinging fear, and I refused to live that that any longer. In a
surge of bravery, I turned again and demanded, “Who are you?”
The steps stopped, but something flared in the distance.
Lights. Lavender and violet coming from the sky or the ground or out of nowhere. A tingling in my chest reminded me I’d
seen these before. The first night Blaze and I made real contact. The night one of the students was murdered. I dug my fingers
into June’s wrist. “We have to get to the dorm. Now. Run like your life depends on it.”
“The lights,” June whispered. Her eyes were wide and vacant—her mouth a large O.
“Yeah. Lights. Move your ass, June,” I yelled in her ear and finally gripped her attention fully.
We ran as fast as we could. The steps followed. They grew harder and louder with each stomp. So did the breathing. It
grew more harsh, more ragged the more we ran. Whoever was behind us was closing in as I saw our dorm room down the
hallway.
“Go in. Go in!”
We both barreled through the door and slammed it behind us. We locked the puny knob and threw the dead bolt. June and I
moved in sync, pushing her dresser in front of the door while the grunts and groans reverberated from the other side and
underneath the door.
It was right outside—whatever it was.
A pulse of bravery made me lean into the door and press my ear against it. Heavy breathing and a moan came from the
person or thing huffing on the other side, but it made no move to push the door or try to break it down. Somehow I knew that it
had that capability. That it could’ve crushed us if it wanted to.
It was playing with us. Playing a game.
I stumbled back at the scratching of claws on the door.
“What the hell is it doing?” June whispered. She shivered, her chin wobbling. Her cheeks were reddened from the run and
the wind, and her fists were balled at her sides.
“I don’t know. Maybe it will…” And then, earthquaking steps moved down the hallway and clomped down the stairs,
leaving silence.
“It’s gone,” we both mumbled at the same time.
We stood there for a long time before deciding the coast was clear. We went to bed that night, clinging to our thin
comforters.
We didn’t move the dresser.
Not an inch.
“How did nobody else hear this?” June muttered. “Not even the guys?”
“I don’t know.” But somehow that made it way creepier.
For now, no more going out and exploring.
 Chapter Six
Blaze
“Hey, Brother.” I had to go quite a ways from the building so my call would not be picked up by security. I wasn’t sure
how they managed it, but I’d seen a few of my classmates get caught with cellphones, and I didn’t need any more trouble than I
found without trying. Texting seemed to work out, but calls within the building were risky. And this early, with the sun not quite
ready to rise, was the best time.
For some reason I’d never been able to figure out, I was a target here. There were students convicted of crimes sitting
opposite me in shifter history and some whose wolves were known to bite who could only shift under very confined
circumstances. And then of course the bullies who had been picking on June and Karelis. Yet, for all the times I sat in the admin
waiting area, anticipating what I might be accused of this time, I rarely saw those a person might reasonably expect to find
there. The class troublemakers seemed to avoid any kind of penalty for what they did.
Or maybe it was just my timing and justice did prevail occasionally. It was possible.
“Blaze? Did I lose you?” Asher asked.
Oops! Got caught woolgathering. “No, I’m here. How are you and your mates?”
“Raven is doubling up on classes, trying to get finished at the academy as soon as possible. Onyx is assistant managering
at the Midnight, and the two of them are keeping me on my toes.”
“I have no doubt. Meeting them at the holidays had me very jealous of you, I have to admit. I hope I made a good
impression on them.”
“You look just like me. How could they think anything else but that you’re screaming hot?”
“I’d argue, but I can’t think of a way to do it without making myself look bad, too.”
“The pain of twinning.” He laughed. “But since I know what a pain it is to call me, what’s up? You’re not just phoning to
tell me I’m lucky to have my mates.”
“Are you implying that I don’t keep in touch?” It was so easy to fall into the banter we always had, no matter how long we
were apart. But it was also hard not to let the resentment for that separation bleed through. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, it’s
good to hear your voice.”
“You, too, Blaze. I wish they’d hurry up and realize you belong here with the rest of us. I hate to think of you alone in that
place.”
Such disparagement of the educational facility I currently occupied. Shame I felt the same—or worse. He only knew what
he heard from me and a few others in our social circle who had spent time at Urban Rejects. But I had a reason for calling.
“I’m not alone.”
“Oh right. I didn’t mean your roommates weren’t good friends.”
“Not them I’m talking about.” I swallowed hard. Was this too soon? I hadn’t even told Karelis in so many words what I
was about to express to my brother. But he was as much a part of me as my wolf. And when something very important
happened, I needed him to know. If we were closer together, sometimes he seemed to understand as if via osmosis. We didn’t
quite read one another’s mind or have access to them as some mates did. It was different…but hard to explain.
“I know, Blaze,” he said. “Tell me about her. Or them?”
“Her. But she is also my friends’ mate.” I glanced back toward the school, wondering how much time I had before
someone missed me or security noticed me. “And I’m not sure she feels the same.”
“That’s tough. But if she’s really your mate—the plural your—then she will figure it out eventually.”
“She is. But your relationship is so smooth. Raven and Onyx adore you and each other.” He and his mates were a little
different from the reverse harem situation we were facing.
He choked and I heard a female voice, Raven I thought, asking him if he was all right before he came back on the line.
“Smooth? You have met my mates. They fought the very idea of coming together with me for quite a while. Kind of hurt my
feelings, actually.”
“Give me the phone,” I heard, this time from Onyx. “Hello, brother-in-law. If you have met your mate, don’t let her get
away. I know for shifters it’s supposed to be a no-brainer meet-and-mate, but Raven didn’t feel that way.” And Onyx was the
descendant of the Goddess Circe, not a shifter but magical nonetheless. “And I had my reservations. I agree with Asher that she
will come around, but maybe if you and the others are open and honest, you can save time. I regret every minute we missed
before we all accepted one another in this family.”
We talked for a bit longer, but there was starting to be activity in the building, windows lighting up as students got up and
ready for the day, and I had to say goodbye before I had no shadows to hide in. Talking to my twin always gave me a lift, and
this time was no different. I felt encouraged and decided to stop by Karelis’ room on the way to ours. See if she’d like to have
breakfast together. Slipping into the building by a side door that rarely got used—and that I’d propped ajar with a handy rock—
I headed through the hallways to the one where both our room and our mate’s were located. Open and honest. Time to tell our
mate exactly what was going on with her and with us. If she was our mate, she’d have to recognize the truth, right?
My hand was raised to knock when I saw the streak of blood on the wood of her door. What the?
Taking a step back from the door, I strove to steady my breathing before I punched right through the bloodstain on our
mate’s door. It was more than a stain, rather a row of streaks that were not only the reddish brown of drying blood but also
appeared to have been scratched into the finish. The handle appeared undisturbed, but how could something like this have
happened without us hearing? Something with claws had tried to get into their room. Had it been silent?
 Chapter Seven
Adan
I opened the door to our suite only to find Blaze standing in front of our mate’s, across the hallway. His body vibrated with
tension, and he did not turn away from whatever he was staring at. “Blaze? Is something wrong?”
I woke up to find his bedroom door open and no sign of him in the suite, which probably meant he’d snuck out to call his
brother, as he did from time to time. Being an identical twin was a bond that I’d never be lucky or unlucky enough to
understand. I knew it was painful for him to be separated from Asher, and no matter how much Cas and I valued our friendship,
we would never be his twin.
But now, I wondered how long he’d been standing there in front of Karelis’ door with his hand in the air. And he wasn’t
answering me.
“What’s up?” Cas asked from behind me. “Are we all going to visit our mate?”
“I don’t know.” Moving forward, I took Blaze’s arm. “You’re scaring me, bro.”
He shuddered and stepped back. “I’m pretty scared myself. Look.”
“Oh hell.” I leaned in and reached out to trace the lines. “Are the girls all right?”
“The door is still closed,” Blaze said, shrugging me off. “But I haven’t knocked yet.”
“Well why not?” Cas briskly rapped. “Karelis!”
After a heart-rending few seconds, the knob turned and June appeared in the opening, bedhead not her friend. “What is all
the caterwauling about? We were up very late because of the…oh, you’ve seen it.”
“Where is Karelis?” Blaze demanded.
“I’m right here.” She appeared behind her friend. “And I—it really happened, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” June stepped back. “You were hoping, huh?”
“So much.”
Glancing from one to the other, I didn’t like the glassy look in their eyes. Whatever happened, it had them really shaken up.
“Listen, instead of standing here in the doorway, why don’t we go get some breakfast and you two can fill us in?”
“All right—” Karelis began.
“I have an early class,” June interrupted, “and a test, which I have not studied for. So, I’ll leave it to my roomie to give
you all the details.”
We agreed to meet Karelis outside the room in a half hour, after we’d all had a chance to clean up and get dressed, and
soon we were seated at a table in the dining room. It was early enough that we’d been able to find a corner where nobody was
too close. “All right,” I said, taking one of her hands across the table. “Spill it, and don’t leave out a single detail.”
“I’ll try. We decided to get outside and explore a little, just to be out of the buildings. So we waited until it was quiet and
everyone was in their rooms then we snuck outside.”
Every part of me wanted to tell her what a mistake that was, how much danger she and her friend put themselves in, how
we’d never be able to live without her. But I contained myself and let her continue until she got all the way to the end. As she
described their movements, chills ran up and down my spine.
“Don’t you know how dangerous it was to be out there like that? What did you hope to accomplish?” Blaze asked.
“I…we just wanted to get out of this place for a while and maybe even get a clue as to what was going on. But we also
thought that it was all over, whatever it was.”
“It’s not. You saw the lights, and last time we saw them, someone died.” It was a bald statement, but Cas was right. “Do
you know what would happen to us if we lost you?”
She shrugged. “No, not really, but nothing did. We made it back, and I promise I’ll be more careful in the future. What do
you think it was that made those marks on the door?”
“Other than claws? And claws much bigger than on any wolf I’ve ever seen? Not a clue,” Blaze told her.
We talked on for a while, but I could see we were losing her. She didn’t eat any of her breakfast and soon said she had to
get ready for class and left, taking her coffee with her.
I watched her exit the dining room. “We can’t leave them alone.”
“After what happened, you still think they will put themselves in danger? Those claws could have…I don’t want to think
of it.” Cas was cutting up pancakes as if he hated them.
“We’re going to have to shadow them.” The moment Blaze finished, I was on my feet.
“Good idea. I’ll start now.” Halfway out the door, I heard Cas call, “And ask her out, while you’re at it.”
A group of girls had just come in and were headed toward me, but I cut around them and darted out into the hallway,
looking left and right. Karelis was just disappearing into the distance, and I caught up to her outside a classroom door.
“Do you have a minute before you go in?” I took her arm and drew her away before she had a chance to reply. “I need to
ask you something.”
 “I already said I’d be careful. Now, I need to get into class. If this professor closes the door, nobody can go in and I’ll get
an absence.”
“Would you like to go out sometime?” The words spilled out before I even planned them. She was going to think I was
crazy.
“Go where? We can’t leave campus, and not even the buildings right now. As you all pointed out.”
“Just say yes, and it will work itself out.”
“I really have to go.” She tugged at her arm.
“Please?”
“Fine.” She pulled again, and I let her free. “But I have to go.” She made it in just before the door closed. But she said yes!
 Chapter Eight
Karelis
I lurched forward in my seat, nearly face-planting into my soup. Someone had kicked me in the back. I stood and whirled
around on the assailant, but there was a group of them—giggling. “Who was it?” I asked June without facing her. Somehow my
best friend knew I was talking to her.
“I didn’t see which one did it. They are all fucking cowards.”
Growls and snarls resounded around the packed dining hall, and I looked for the three boys that haunted my fantasies, for a
lifeline.
I never looked to anyone for help—ever.
A teacher I’d never seen before came through the doors and spoke as though this whole ordeal and maybe his life was one
big annoyance. “Ladies, finish your meals and then return to studying. If you need something extra to do, I can assign more
work.” He waved his hand between us. The other girls scattered, but this was nowhere near finished between us.
“You know why we’re getting picked on, right?” June said.
I had an inkling, but I didn’t dare speak the words. “Tell me what you think.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s just us.” June and I ate for a while in silence, while the others returned to their conversations. We
had started in on our apple crumble when Blaze, Casimir, and Adan came in together. For once, none of them had been
watching over us. Goddess, those men knew how to make an entrance without a bead of sweat or trying at all.
“That’s why you’re in trouble.” June giggled.
“What?”
“You know what, or whom. They’ve been in this room a total of seven seconds, and six of those they have been looking at
you. Every girl in this place wants them.”
“Shouldn’t they be waiting for their mates?” Those females didn’t realize how lucky they were. They had a mate or mates
out there, yearning for them. I didn’t have that. Shifters like me didn’t have mates.
“Aren’t you?” she asked. “Maybe they are your…”
“Please don’t finish that sentence. I don’t get mates.” The words tumbled from my mouth, though I wanted them to stay
thoughts in my head. “Never mind.”
“You know you can trust me, right?” I heard June’s words but my gaze was trained on their movements—the men in
question. Blaze and the others sat down, but it was him who paused to meet my stare. He winked at me and I swore my thighs
went up in flames.
I let her words settle in. Neither Night nor Sol felt any dishonesty in them. She was right. I could trust her.
The truth was, I needed someone to bare my soul to. My secrets were bitty creatures chomping away at the good parts of
me—always starving for more. “Can we go talk in our room?” I asked.
“Yeah. Let me grab two coffees. I feel like it’s going to be a long night.”
My insides shook as I waited for her come back from her coffee run. I waited right outside the dining hall. Adan rose from
his seat, taking in the scene and, as we walked back to the dorms, I knew he was following. They were always around—
making sure we were okay, with the exception of our nighttime excursions.
Once we got to our room, my core twisted. I wanted to run to Adan. My skin ached with the need for some touch. Shifters
craved the touch of others, but I had been denied that grace so often that it was rare the need arose. Still, when those three
males were around, I wanted to be held more than ever.
“I can’t have a mate,” I blurted, needing the sharpness of it out of my brain. It was always cutting me, reopening the
wound.
“You…what? Who told you that? All shifters have a fated mate, don’t we?” June handed me one of the coffees and sat
down on her bed.
“There’s a reason.” I shook with fear. Telling her who and what I was put her in danger. Only if she told someone, but my
instinct knew she wouldn’t. “I–I’m not like other shifters. I… Shit. This is hard.”
June moved to sit next to me. She gave me a side hug. Goddess, I bet she didn’t know how long it had been since someone
gave me affection. “You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you. I know you, Karelis. Whatever it is, I’ll still be here.”
I nearly cried as the sincerity of her words funneled into me. “I have two wolves.”
Her eyes widened. “Two? That’s so cool. I’ve never heard of that. Wait, no, I have. A dual-shifter. I think it’s in one of the
books. A blessing from the moon goddess.”
“Mine isn’t a blessing. I wasn’t born with one of them.”
The shock on her face was expected, but the smile was not. “Pause. Rewind. Tell me everything.”
“Wait,” I said, holding my hand up. “Why aren’t you running, screaming, and demanding a new roommate?”
“Because being normal is overrated. Like I said, tell me everything.”
 My heart’s burdens lightened by half that night. I told her everything from where I came from to the night I didn’t
remember, the horrid nightmare that left me with no parents and a second wolf named Night.
“Are you ever going to let me see them? Your wolves?” June asked as we wound down the night close to midnight. We
were tucked into our beds but still wide awake. A sliver of fear remained that she would wake up the next morning and wonder
if she should still be friends with me, but I was glad to have taken the chance.
Friendships meant you took the chance of trusting another. At least, that’s what I thought. I hadn’t really had troves of
friends at my disposal over my lifetime.
“Let’s sleep on it,” I replied, yawning.
She is pack. She is friend. I will not kill her.
“Hey, Karelis,” she said, her words slurring together. We really did need to get to sleep.
“What?” I asked with a laugh.
“You deserve a mate. Those people are full of bullshit. Every shifter has a mate—even freaks like us. Or in your case,
mates.”
 Chapter Nine
Karelis
He needed to actually study? Somehow that surprised me, though we had just been in the library, not studying. Casimir
spoke confidently and never minced words. I would have bet my fur he was the type who went to class but never had to do
extra studying. He simply soaked up the knowledge and then went in and aced the test.
“You haven’t had any more trouble?” he asked as we walked together. He had naturally taken the long way back to the
dorms. Not that I minded. I was honestly hoping that he would pull me into one of the dark corners and kiss me again. We’d
only shared the one kiss, but my lips missed his all the same.
“No. Probably because you three have been on duty all the time. Though I’m not sure if you’re looking out for me or for
June.”
He laced his fingers with mine. I sucked in a breath as tendrils of energy flowed between us. A lot like the electricity that
pulsed between Blaze and me, but this was less frantic, calmer and steadier. “Both. But mostly you. We look after June because
she’s important to you.”
Well, damn.
“Thank you. It’s your fault, you know.” I was teasing, really, but Cas stopped and tugged on my hand.
“What do you mean? The bullying is our fault?” His platinum eyebrows were drawn together above his perfect nose. He
stepped forward and pressed me against the hardness of the concrete bricks behind me.
“I was kidding, Cas. Wait, is it okay if I call you that?” I watched as my breaths came out as puffs of fog, my warmth
against the cold night air.
Casimir’s piercing blue eyes met mine and then dipped to my lips. “You can call me whatever you want, sweetheart.
Whatever you want. Now, answer my question. You think you getting hassled is our fault?”
I rolled my eyes, trying to make light of the situation. “June said it was because the Three Kings have never paid attention
to a female at the academy. They say you three pay no attention to females and that I’m the first one. The rest of the female
population are not pleased—that’s putting it lightly.”
“They still call us that? So stupid. I don’t even know how that started. But…they’re right about the rest.”
My heart beat so hard, a drum in my chest, that I was sure he could hear it, and I was about to wake up the rest of the
students with the sound. “Why?” I asked.
“No one sparked our interest. I have never looked at a woman twice until you. You, Karelis, I can’t stop myself from
looking at you. You draw me in. Pull me closer like a magnet. You’ve got a tether on me and I don’t want to break it.”
He rocked his hips against mine, showing me that he was most definitely interested.
“You barely know me,” I whispered.
“I know. But I want to. I want to know all of you.” Goddess, he had a tone that made it seem like he wasn’t only talking
about my personality, and his hardness against my thigh confirmed it.
“I want that, too,” I responded, even with the warning from the Light Kingdom echoing in the back of my mind.
“Good. But, for tonight, let’s get you back to your dorm.”
We continued to walk hand in hand, but soon after, the hairs on the back of my neck rose and goose bumps filled my skin.
There was someone following us again. Scratch that. Following me again.
Cas didn’t show any sign that he heard or felt anything so for the most part, I ignored the feeling, though it wasn’t without
effort.
Once we got to the stairs that led to my floor, he slowed down. “I’m not ready. I said I wanted to get you back to the dorms
but that’s not true at all. You make me lose my clear thinking, Karelis. You’re a menace.”
I laughed and turned. “What time is it?”
He looked at his phone. “We have twelve minutes until curfew.” He cocked his head sideways. “You don’t have a phone?”
I shook my head. “No. Um, where I came from—we weren’t allowed phones.” Not a lie, just a serious generalization of
the truth.
“Would you be opposed to having one?” he asked.
“No. But I don’t have the money right now. I can’t get a job or anything.”
He made a humph sound. “If we got you one, would you accept it?”
Gifts weren’t really something I was used to. “I’m not sure.”
He caressed my arm with his hand, gently kneading the skin. “If you did, we could text. I could get to know you despite
these stupid curfews.”
“Maybe on a loan?” I suggested. “Less of a gift—more of a borrow.”
He chuckled. “That’s a good compromise. I’ll take care of it. Before we go…can I kiss you again? Last time, we were
interrupted.”
 “Yes,” I breathed.
His warm lips met mine as he gripped my waist and drew me closer until my chest brushed against his but only because I
was a step up from him. I wound my arms around his neck, pulling him closer and he let out a moan.
Maybe I was doing this right.
He pushed at my lips with his tongue and I opened for him. My fingers found the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. When I
whimpered, he pulled back and broke the kiss, leaving me heaving for my next breath. “I’m being irresponsible. Let’s get you
back to your room.”
“Are you sure?” I teased. “We can take the risk.”
He chuckled. “You tempt me, female. You truly do but I’m trying to be good here. Come on. Let’s go.”
My room was only a few feet away, and he kept me under the safety of his arm the whole way.
Then I remembered Adan. I might be a curse in the eyes of some, but I was no betrayer. “I need to tell you something,” I
broached.
“You can tell me anything.”
“Adan asked me on a date, and I accepted.”
Cas pouted but then chuckled. “Hmm, and you thought I would be upset.”
“No. Yes. I wanted to be honest with you. That’s all.”
He nodded and kissed my forehead. “Thank you for being honest. Here’s my truth. I don’t mind sharing. Adan is one of my
best friends, and so is Blaze. Now, get on in. I’m looking forward to our date.”
I turned around, opening the door but paused. “Wait, our date?” I asked but realized that Casimir was already gone.
 Chapter Ten
Karelis
“There’s no point in you graduating from the Urban Rehabilitation Academy unless you have become a better citizen in the
shifter community. You were sent here in the first place because you didn’t adhere to the responsibilities of a contributing
member of our race.”
Those two sentences shut the mouths of every student who had ignored the suit-wearing professor at the front of the
gymnasium. Our classes for the afternoon had been canceled for a school-wide seminar.
They used the word seminar.
I immediately got squirmy. Boredom seeped in before I got there.
June and I sat near the top of the bleachers. She had been waiting for me at the door while people nudged her with their
elbows like they didn’t see a whole-ass person standing there. People treated each other like speed bumps sometimes, and it
sucked.
Casimir, Adan, and Blaze sat behind us, and June hit my leg with hers. “Not one word,” I growled, and all four of them
laughed.
The first bullet point was how we had to follow the rules of the pack before the rules of the human community. How
different this place was from the Light Kingdom. They didn’t have any care or desire to follow the rules of humans. Then again,
they believed themselves more blessed than any other creature, human and shifter alike, so that was no surprise.
“I forgot how much I hate this fucking lecture,” Blaze snarled.
“Good thing this is our last one,” Adan said.
Talk about reality slapping me in the face.
There were so many things against me pursuing these men, but I found myself unable to resist them. My wolves were both
crazy about all three of them. I’d read about them in the books that had been snuck into my room by my keepers, those whose
allegiance lay with my parents. But I couldn’t shake the words of the leadership, always telling me that I was a fluke—that
Night was a curse—that a shifter like me didn’t have mates.
Add to that the fact that they were all graduating the academy this year. While they said that they would make a way to see
me, a part of me believed those were pretty promises. Fun to entertain but never kept.
The professor went on and on about how we should make sure to keep a good balance between being shifters while also
keeping up good appearances among the humans. If we chose to live in a place where humans abounded, then we had to follow
their rules, both spoken and unspoken.
While there was the Urban Rehabilitation Academy for us rebels and rejects while we were young, once we were older,
there were more severe consequences to be determined by the Shifter Council. The thought alone made a shiver rip through me.
The Shifter Council, what I knew of them, were understanding but only to a point.
“They think that just because we made a mistake or two while we were young, we are destined to be vermin for the rest of
our lives. This way, by giving us the lecture every year, they can at least go to sleep at night knowing they tried.” Adan’s
mockery of the professor’s tone made June and I giggle a bit. His impersonation was spot-on.
It also earned us a stern glare from the headmistress sitting at the side of the professor, pacing left and right while he made
his judgments and ran his thumbs underneath his suspenders.
Pompous ass.
“Bending the rules to my will is fun though,” Blaze said close to my ear. “Making them submit.”
A thrill passed through me at his words. I dared to glance over my shoulder to see his gorgeous face. He had the audacity
to wink at me, making my core pulse with want.
The Three Kings were brimming with audacity.
“What kind of thoughts are running around in that head of yours, Karelis? We were only talking about the rules, after all,”
Adan said, his voice low and sultry.
June slapped her hand over her mouth while I tried not to fall down the bleachers. My spine seemed to have lost all its
structure.
“You three are menaces,” I said a little too loudly, causing a hush over the entire room, including the pompous ass right in
the middle of his sermon disguised as a lecture.
“Something to say, Ms. Sol?” he asked. Everyone turned around and stared at me, some giggling, some already whispering
about me.
“No. Just agreeing with everything,” I stammered.
“Good. Let’s continue with silence.” The man continued on, extolling his rules and structure, and the students faced
forward again. The guys went quiet, but one of them toyed with the ends of my hair. Which one, I didn’t know. My mind blurred
out the lecture after some time and I, instead, focused on the students around me. Despite our differences, we were all brothers
and sisters of the same supernatural race. They weren’t unlike any other people of our age. After all, the only way to get ahead
in life was to make mistakes, tumble with trouble, run far, far the fuck away from those who threatened to rip away at my soul.
The difference was, the others didn’t get caught. They hid their secrets better. Under lies and gaslighting or hiding behind
their own shadows.
At least those around me were owning their downfalls, their so-called shortcomings.
By the end of the lecture, I was at death’s door. Boredom was soul draining, and the professor’s attempt at fearmongering
was utterly the most bland and dull lesson I’d endured yet—or probably ever would—until next year.
“Karelis, here.” Adan put something in my hands. “Put that in your bag. Quickly, while your back is turned.”
I pulled my bag around to the front and slipped the phone into it, zipping it shut afterward. They had pulled it off.
“It’s a loan,” I reaffirmed, jutting my chin out for effect.
“Of course,” Adan said. “There will be plenty of time for gifts.”
 Chapter Eleven
Adan
“It’s not enough just to take her to the roof or anywhere else on campus.” Our mate deserved more on our first date
together.
“She does, but security has really stepped up, and I am not sure we can even find a way out of here anymore.” Casimir’s
frustration came through in his tone, a frustration I shared.
“What do you think she’d enjoy doing? Dinner? A movie? Hiking?” I opened my laptop and brought up a blank document.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s make a list.” It was just the two of us in the suite at the moment. “Then when Blaze gets back, maybe he’ll have
some ideas to add.” Blaze was off somewhere getting yelled at as usual.
“If he’s even in the mood to discuss it after whatever they’re putting him through this time.” They really did make a
scapegoat of him, and our “antics” at the seminar had resulted in his being called in to the office. I was amazed they didn’t just
give him his own room there where they could summon him for easier chastising.
I went over to our snack cabinet and pulled out a bottle of water. It wasn’t cold, but without a refrigerator, we’d have to go
to the other end of campus for ice. Twisting the cap, I considered the options in the area. “If we were in the city like Blaze’s
brother, we could do so many things.”
“We could go for a run?” he suggested. “Let our wolves out somewhere?”
“Maybe. I’ll add it to the list, but I thought it would be nice to do something where we could talk the whole time and that
wouldn’t mess up her makeup and hair.”
He chuckled. “You are a considerate mate. I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“I know dating shifters isn’t always about fussing, but she’s pretty and maybe she’d like to be able to use all those girly
things. A friend once said they are like armor for girls, and with a triple date with the three of us, she probably needs all the
armor she can get.”
“I’m not sure that’s strictly true,” Cas mused, “but if she does go to a lot of trouble for our date, she might appreciate it not
getting all messed up. I don’t get the impression she’s going to just agree we are her mates and take us home to bed, either.”
“She must have spent a lot of time with humans. Blaze says we have to woo her. Is that even a thing with humans
anymore?”
“No idea. But our mate deserves the best of everything we can give her. And our options are really limited here, so we
have to do what we can to show her how much we value her.”
I studied the list I had started of possible dates. “Assuming we can manage to get off campus at all, most of the traditional
dating things are miles away. The nearest theater, for example is…where is a theater?”
“Guessing near the Urban Academy?”
I backed out the movie as an idea. “And there’s not a fancy restaurant anywhere nearby, either.”
“No. That’s true.”
We brainstormed for another half hour or so, but our location was not exactly dating central. When they built this fortress,
they were thinking more prison than school, and had deliberately chosen an area that while not too far from civilization, as the
crow flies, was difficult to get to and involved a lot of winding roads for anyone without wings.
“Are you sure she’ll want to get all gussied up for the date? We could run somewhere and take clothes in a bag in our
mouths.” Cas blew out a breath. “Maybe?”
“What do you think? She’s going on a date with us for the first time. Have you met a female before? We can’t take the
chance that she will show up looking even more amazing and have us say ‘okay, let’s strip and here’s a bag for your dress to be
all crumpled up in.’”
“And it would take longer than we probably have.”
“The only place I can come up with that we can ‘go somewhere’ to is that diner off the highway. And it’s hardly nice
enough. She deserves the best.”
I did a search for other restaurants or venues we could pull off in a few hours but…nothing. “Diner it is, then, but how do
we get there?”
 Chapter Twelve
Blaze
I ran into Karelis and June in the hallway outside our rooms. They had their heads together and were whispering about
something, but when I lifted a hand to wave, they jerked apart and giggled.
“Good evening, ladies. Want to share the joke? I hope it’s not about me.” I batted my eyelashes. “I’m the sensitive type.”
“Of course not,” Karelis blurted. “We were talking about…about…” She chewed her lip, gaze darting to her friend.
“History class,” June asserted. “There was a funny joke someone was passing around.”
“And?” I arched a brow, knowing when I was being had.
“I suddenly can’t remember the punchline,” June said. “Well, I have homework. You two have fun.” She opened their door
and slipped inside, closing it firmly behind her.
“I have homework, too,” Karelis murmured. “I’ll see you later, then?” Her hand was on the doorknob, but I covered it with
mine and drew her away.
“Before you go, I wanted to make sure you understood something about our date.”
“Our date…”
“You do know it was an invitation to go on a date with all three of us?”
“Wow. Okay.” She hovered by the door another minute then rose on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek. “I think that will be
okay. Where are we going so I know what to wear?”
An outfit. She was going to want to know what to wear, so we’d better have it be worth her trouble. I wasn’t sure what the
guys had come up with, but I had at least one element of our evening nailed down. Looking at our mate’s closed door, I shook
my head. That could have gone way worse.

I found the other guys hunched over Adan’s laptop, frowning. He looked up when I came in. “We’ve figured out where we
can take Karelis, but we have no way to get there.”
And this was my piece of the puzzle.
“I just ran into Karelis, and I told her the date was with all three of us.”
“She didn’t know?” Adan looked aghast. “I thought I—”
“And I mentioned it when we were… She really didn’t know?” Cas asked.
“I had a feeling, so I brought it up and she said okay. I’ve been feeling like I needed to talk to her about being mates, but it
seemed important to start with mentioning we are all taking her out. So, where are we going?”
“Nowhere if we can’t find transportation.” Cas sank back onto the sofa. “You know that diner off the highway?”
“Yeah.”
Adan nodded. “Basically, it’s the only place we could come up with that we stood a chance of getting to and getting back
within a few hours. But that’s only if we can get transportation. We considered a run—”
“But Adan was afraid she’d be all fixed up and resent having to carry her clothes in a bag.”
“A bag?” I tried not to laugh. “What female could resist that idea. Also, she’s already planning her outfit.”
“Aha! See?” Adan’s triumph lasted just a moment before he sank back down. “But with no way to get there, we’re back to
square one. I suppose we could do a picnic on the roof.”
“I don’t think that’s a really great way for us to show our mate how we want to treat her,” Cas protested.
“Well, it’s not like the diner is going to be the most exciting thing she’s ever done,” Adan said. “Are we that bad as dates?
We can’t even take her anywhere off campus without making her carry her clothes in her mouth in a bag? After she’s gone to all
the trouble to pick something out? And she’s willing to go out with us even though she doesn’t seem to have a clue we are her
mates. She deserves something wonderful.”
I plopped into the armchair and watched them go back and forth. They had a way of arguing with no malice, and I’d never
yet seen them not come to a resolution in the past. But they hadn’t really given me a chance to tell them my news, and I had the
key they needed. Finally, I stood up and struck a dramatic pose. “If you’re done?” I waited for them to stop and look at me.
“Yeah?” Adan asked. “Since we’re getting nowhere, I guess we are. We can’t ask our mate to shift and run cross country to
the diner, so we’ll either have to do the picnic on the roof or nothing.”
“Or…maybe I have a way to make it all work.” Okay, I probably sounded smug. But that wasn’t the end of the world.
“And what is that?” Cas crossed his arms over his chest.
“One of the night janitors owes me a favor, and I asked him if I could use his car for an evening.”
“What did you do for him?” Adan asked.
“Is that what you got from what I was saying?”
“It’s not what I got. We have transportation. And we can take our mate out for an evening anywhere but this place. Great
job, Blaze.” Cas hopped to his feet. “Now I’ve got to figure out what to wear.”
Another random document with
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 Sawney, &c.

An’ when he rides Auld Reckie through,

To bless you wi’ a kingly view,
Let him smell your ‘Gardy Loo’ (peculiar to the Old Town),
Sawney, &c.

The successful royal visit to Scotland led to some REVERSAL OF

happy results. On Monday, May 24th, 1824, the Earl ATTAINDERS.
of Liverpool rose to inform the House of Lords that he had the king’s
command to present bills for restoring the honours of several
families which had been forfeited by attainder. The royal visit to
Scotland, the first which any king had made since the Revolution,
had led certain persons of undoubted loyalty to be relieved from the
effects of the attainder which, he would not dispute, had been justly
levelled against their disloyal ancestors. The king was gracious, the
Crown was discreet. Four peerages had been selected for
restoration, viz., the Earldom of Mar, in the person of John Erskine;
the Viscountship of Kenmure (John Gordon); the Earldom of Perth
and Viscountship of Strathallan to James Drummond; and the title of
Lord Nairn to William Nairn. It was also proposed to reverse the
attainder of Lord Stafford.
The Earl of Lauderdale warned the Government to be quite sure
that James Drummond had any claims, before they restored the
above two titles. The Earl of Radnor thought the proceeding a very
extraordinary one. Ultimately the Bill was read a first time.
On June 4th, the Commons agreed to a DEBATE IN
proposition from the Lords that, considering Mr. THE
Erskine’s age and infirmity, the Bill to restore him to COMMONS.
the forfeited earldom should be proceeded with. Mr.
Erskine was unable to come up to London to take the indispensable
preparatory oaths. He found ready grace from an unanimous House.
When, ten days later, the Bills were read a second time in the
Commons, the restoration of the blood of Stafford (attainted in 1680)
was recognised as an act of justice; that of the Jacobite peers as
one of grace and favour. Captain Bruce expressed the pain he felt
that while this grace and favour cleared the taint in the blood of the
lineal descendants of those who had forfeited title and estates, such
grace was kept from descendants of collaterals; and but for this
prohibition he himself would now be Lord Burleigh. To which Lord
Binning added the remark that, by old Scottish law, the claims of a
collateral branch were not estreated by forfeiture.
Mr. Peel rejoined that there were only two courses—
indiscriminate reversal of all the attainders, or impartial selection. As
to the first, some of the lineal descendants did not desire restoration,
on considerations of property. Government, he said, had selected
those respecting whom no doubt existed with regard to the original
patent; and he spoke with reverence of the earldom of Mar, which
existed prior to any records of parliament.
The result was that king and parliament at Westminster, in this
year 1824, restored the following forfeited titles:—Erskine, Lord
Erskine, Earl of Mar; Gordon, Lord Lochinvar and Viscount Kenmure;
Nairn, Lord Nairn; and Drummond, Lord Maderty, Drummond of
Cromlix, and Viscount Strathallan. The Viscount Strathallan restored
this year was a descendant of the viscount who was slain at
Culloden, but who was styled in the Whig London papers as ‘Mr.
Drummond.’
A minor incident, yet a characteristic one, may A
here be mentioned. The power which in 1808 had TRANSPONTIN
prohibited the counterfeit presentment on the stage of E PLAY.
Charles Edward, could not obstruct those of George
III. and all his family, in 1824, at the ‘Coburg.’ This house, being in
Surrey, was beyond the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain’s office.
The drama, acted in defiance of him and of good taste, was called
‘George the Third, the Father of his People.’ The defunct king (acted
by Bengough, who singularly resembled him), and the deceased
Queen Charlotte, with her inseparable snuff-box, next delighted the
Transpontines with their gracious presence; but tenfold more delight
and amusement were caused by the presence of all the living
members of the royal family. In noticing this singular piece, the
‘Morning Chronicle’ gave a Jacobite (or perhaps a Jacobin) flavour to
its criticism. The title, it argued, was disrespectful to George IV. It is
always the king on the throne who is the Father of his People.
George III., therefore, should have been styled the Grandfather of
his People! Again, in the drama, the latter is called ‘the best of kings,’
a designation which is the right of the king in possession; therefore,
said the ‘Chronicle,’ George III. was ‘the second best,’ or the author
might have called him ‘the best but one.’
It is a singular coincidence that the same year in
THE BODY OF
which four Jacobite peerages were relieved from JAMES THE
attainder, the remains of James II. were discovered at SECOND.
St. Germain. The body was for many years
‘deposited’ in the chapel of the English Benedictines, Paris—body,
minus heart, brains, and bowels, entombed in various places, to
which places English Jacobites used to resort as to holy shrines. The
leaders of civilisation, at the outbreak of the Revolution, smashed the
urns containing brains, &c., and scattered the contents. The body at
the Benedictines was treated with similar indignity; but, in a mutilated
form, it was privately interred at St. Germain. No mark was set on
the place, and it was forgotten, but was discovered this year in the
course of rebuilding a part of the church. Information of this
discovery was sent to London by our ambassador, to whom orders
were sent from Downing Street to see the remains re-interred with
every religious ceremony that could manifest respect.
On the 7th of September, the Paris papers CEREMONY
announced that a solemn mass would be celebrated AT ST.
on the 9th, and invited the attendance of all British GERMAIN.
subjects on this solemn occasion. Now, this invitation
of the Paris authorities to British subjects to attend the funeral
service in honour of the re-depositing of what remained of the body
of James II., puzzled rather than excited the London journals. Writers
therein protested against this service, if thereby the legitimate right of
the Stuarts was recognised, or confession was made that service for
the dead could get a soul in or out of purgatory. Sly hits were made
against Lord Eldon, the keeper of the king’s conscience, for ordering
such a mass at a period when he was in the habit of toasting the
Protestant ascendency. Many persons—the most of them, it is to be
hoped, moved by praiseworthy sympathies—went from London to be
present at the ceremony. It was solemn and dignified. Distinguished
persons, bearing familiar names of the old Jacobite times, were
present. Marshal Macdonald and the Duke of Fitz-James were
amongst them. By a curious coincidence, the British ambassador in
France was then a Stuart—Sir Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart
de Rothesay. He placed a royal diadem of gold beneath a black
crape veil, on the coffin, and this graceful act of homage was in
appropriate harmony with the restoration, as far as it could be
effected, of the descendants of those who had suffered in the
Jacobite cause, to the long forfeited titles of their ancestors.
It really now seemed as if the curtain had fallen on SOMETHING
the great Jacobite drama, and that it would not be NEW.
possible to cause it to rise again for an additional act
or for a farce succeeding to the tragic drama. In the year 1826,
indeed, there was a little graceful episode, namely, the restoration of
the titles of Ogilvie, Lord Ogilvie and Earl of Airly; of Dalzell, Lord
Dalzell and Earl of Carnwath; and of Sutherland, Lord Duffus. But,
not only while these acts of grace were being enacted, but for many
years before and many years afterwards, a course of action was
being taken which was intended to revive the whole question, and to
put on the stage the old Jacobite play, with alterations,
improvements, new actors, and an entirely new dénouement.
London did not become aware of this till about the year 1847. In
Scotland, however, there had long been expectancy raised of
‘something new,’ which will appear in Jacobite incidents under
Queen Victoria.
 CHAPTER XVII.

VICTORIA.
eorge Selwyn excused himself for going to see Simon
Fraser Lord Lovat lose his head at the block, by going
to see it sewn on again. That last head sacrificed wore
a title which was the first restored by Her Majesty after
her accession. Old Lovat’s son, whom his father forced
into rebellion, and whom that exemplary parent would have hanged,
if he could have saved his own life by it, became a distinguished
General in the British service. General Fraser and his half-brother
Archibald died, without surviving heirs. Old Lovat was the thirteenth
lord, leaving a title under attainder. As early as 1825, Sir Thomas
Fraser of Lovat and Strichen claimed the ancient barony as a son of
the sixth lord, who died in 1557. Their Lordships at Westminster had
made no progress towards making the claimant a Baron, when Her
Majesty ascended the throne. The Queen settled the claim at once
by creating Sir Thomas Fraser, Baron Lovat in the United Kingdom.
The new Lord Lovat, however, still coveted the older and therefore
grander dignity. He persisted in asserting his right to possess the
Scottish title, in spite of the attainder which smote the lord who was
beheaded on Tower Hill. After twenty years’ consideration, the Peers
at Westminster were advised that the assertion was a correct one;
and, in 1857, they acceded to his demand. That was exactly three
hundred years after the death of the sixth lord, through whom the
claimant asserted his right to the title.
In a way something similar was another restoration
OLD
of a Jacobite title effected in London. Of all the lords JACOBITE
who were tried for their lives (1716 and 1746 TITLES.
included), there was not one who bore himself so
gallantly as the son of the illustrious House of Seton, the Earl of
Wintoun. All the Jacobite peers who pleaded guilty, petitioned for
mercy, and returned to a treasonable outspokenness, when they
failed to obtain forgiveness for an avowed crime. Even brave
Balmerino cried peccavi! and got nothing by it. But noble Wintoun
pleaded that he was not guilty in fighting on what he considered the
just side; when he was condemned to death he refused to beg for his
life; and he showed his contempt for the Act of Grace, by anticipating
it in an act of his own,—escaping from the Tower to the continent. He
was the fifth earl, and his attainder barred the way to any heir of his
own. But, in 1840, the fifteenth Earl of Eglinton proved his descent
from a preceding earl, of whom he was forthwith served heir male
general, and a new dignity was added to the roll of Lord Eglinton’s
titles.
In the following year, the Committee of Privileges
MORE
went to the work of restoration of Jacobite forfeitures RESTORATION
with unusual alacrity. On their advice, an Act of S.
Parliament was passed which declared that Mr.
William Constable Maxwell, of Nithsdale and Everingham, and all the
other descendants of William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale and Lord
Herries, were restored in blood. There the Act left them. As far as
they were of the blood of Winifred Herbert, noble daughter of the
House of Pembroke, the ill-requited wife of the puling peer whom
she rescued from death, their blood was free from all taint, in spite of
any Act. Mr. Maxwell could not claim the earldom, but the way was
open for him to the barony once held by the unworthy earl, and in
1850, he was the acknowledged Lord Herries.
Three years later, Her Majesty despatched a ‘special command
and recommendation’ to Parliament, which was speedily obeyed. It
was to the effect that the Parliament should restore George
Drummond to the forfeited Jacobite titles of Earl of Perth and
Viscount Melfort the dignities of Lord Drummond of Stobhall, Lord
Drummond of Montifex, and Lord Drummond of Bickerton,
Castlemaine, and Galstoun, and to the exercise of the hereditary
offices of Thane of Lennox and Steward of Strathearn. The peer who
in 1824 advised Lord Liverpool to be sure he had got hold of the right
Mr. Drummond, when recommending one for restoration to the
peerage, had some reason for the course taken by him. However, in
this case, where there are so many Drummonds, Parliament could
hardly have been mistaken. That body having fulfilled the Queen’s
‘command and recommendation,’ Her Majesty gave her assent; and
then, as if the better to identify the Drummond who was restored to
so many titles, record was gravely made that ‘born in 1807, he was
baptised at St. Marylebone Church,’ Hogarth’s church, of course.
In 1855 the act of attainder which had struck the Earl of Southesk
(Lord Carnegie) for the share he took in the little affair (which
intended a good deal) in 1718, was quietly reversed, at Westminster,
where it had been originally passed.
Not so quietly was effected the next business THE
entailed on Parliament, by the Jacobite rebellion,—or, CROMARTIE
rather, the business was assumed by Her Majesty TITLE.
herself, if any business can be assumed by an
irresponsible sovereign whose ministers have to answer for
everything done in that sovereign’s name. The title of Earl of
Cromartie (with its inferior titles once worn by the head of the house
of Mackenzie) was, and still is, under attainder. But there was a great
heiress, Miss Annie Hay Mackenzie, who, in 1849, married the Duke
of Sutherland. In 1861, the queen created this lady Countess of
Cromartie, Viscountess Tarbat of Tarbat, Baroness Castlehaven, and
Baroness Macleod of Castle Leod, in her own right, with limitation of
succession to her second son Francis and his heirs;—the elder
succeeding to the Dukedom.
The latest restoration was by legal process. Among the minor
unfortunates whose Jacobitism was punished by forfeiture, was a
Lord Balfour of Burleigh. In 1869, Mr. Bruce, of Kennett,
Clackmannan, gained his suit to Parliament, and recovered that
resonant title; and it is said that the modern Balfour of Burleigh has
in his veins the blood of Bruce;—which, after all, is not so honest or
so legitimately royal as that of Baliol.
With regard to Jacobite peerages, ‘Experience has TITLES
shown that in the absence of a Resolution and UNDER
Judgment of the House of Lords, it is a dangerous ATTAINDER.
thing to say, without qualification, who represents a
Peerage. The Duchess of Sutherland is Countess of Cromartie, as
the Earl of Errol is Baron Kilmarnock, not in the Peerage of Scotland,
but that of the United Kingdom, in virtue of a recent creation. Each of
the Scottish Peerages held by the three Jacobite Noblemen is still
open to any Nobleman who can establish a right thereto, and obtain
a reversal of the Attainder.’ (‘Notes and Queries,’ Jan. 11, 1873, p.
45.) As to the heir to the title of Balmerino, we find that Captain John
Elphinstone, R.N. (Admiral Elphinstone of the Russian Navy,—the
hero of Tchesme), left a son, William, also a captain in the Czar’s
navy, whose son, Alexander Francis, Captain R.N., and a noble of
Livonia (born 1799), claimed to be heir to the title of Balmerino, were
the attainder removed. All his sons were in the British naval or
military service, in which they and other members of the baronial
house greatly distinguished themselves.
While some of the above titles were being relieved FITZ-
from the obloquy which had been brought upon them PRETENDERS.
by the Jacobitism of former wearers, and no one was
dreaming, except in some out-of-the-way corner of the Scottish
highlands, that the Jacobites had still, and had never ceased to
have, a king of their own, a strange, wild, story was developing itself,
which had a remarkably ridiculous, not to say impudent, object for its
motive. To make it understandable, the reader is asked to go a few
years back, in order to comprehend a mystery, in which the
‘Quarterly Review’ of June, 1847, in an article sometimes attributed
to the Rt. Hon. John Wilson Croker, but more correctly to Mr.
Lockhart, smashed all that was mysterious.
In the year 1800 (October 2nd), Admiral John Carter Allen (or
Allan), Admiral of the White, died at his house in Devonshire Place,
London. Such is the record in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine.’ In the
succeeding number, a correspondent describes him as an old
Westminster scholar, a brave sailor, a Whig well looked upon by the
Rockingham party, and of such good blood as to induce Lord
Hillsborough to believe that he was the legal male heir to the
earldom of Errol.
The admiral was twice married and had two sons. By his will,
dated February, 1800, he bequeathed to the elder, ‘Captain John
Allen, of His Majesty’s navy,’ 2,200l.; to the younger, ‘Thomas Allen,
third Lieutenant in His Majesty’s navy,’ 100l. The reader is
respectfully requested to keep this lieutenant, Thomas Allen, alone in
view. He may turn out to be a very unexpected personage.
Lieutenant Thomas, in 1792, married, at ADMIRAL
Godalming, Katherine Manning, the second daughter ALLEN’S SON
of the vicar. This would seem to have been a suitable AND
marriage; but it has been suggested that it may have GRANDSONS.
appeared unsuitable in the eyes of the admiral, and that, for this
reason, he bequeathed his younger son only 100l. But whatever the
reason for such disproportion may have been, the lieutenant’s
marriage produced two sons, John Hay Allen and Charles Stuart
Allen. The younger gentleman married, in November, 1822, in
London, Anne, daughter of the late John Beresford, Esq., M.P. In the
record of this marriage, the bridegroom is styled ‘youngest son of
Thomas Hay Allen.’ In the same year, the lieutenant’s elder son
published a volume of poems (Hookham), which, however, excited
no attention, though it contained dark allusions to some romantic
history. The father, Thomas, the lieutenant, seems to have been
much on and about the Western isles of Scotland, as well as on the
mainland. There existed there a fond superstition that Charles
Edward would appear in some representative of his race, very near
akin to himself. The lieutenant must have been an impressionable
man. He died about the year 1831, and he must have revealed
previously a secret to his sons, who, in such case, kept it long under
consideration, till, probably out of filial respect for his veracity, they
manifested their belief in the revelation, and, in 1847, declared
themselves to be, the elder, John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart; the
younger, Charles Edward Stuart. Their father, Lieutenant Thomas
Allen, son of the old Admiral of the White, must have imparted to
them the not uninteresting circumstance, that he was the legitimate
son of the young Chevalier, and that all faithful Scots and Jacobites
had yet a king. Long after the lieutenant’s death, a book was
published in London (1847), by Dolman, the Roman Catholic
publisher, of Bond Street, of which the two brothers were joint
authors, in which the words you have yet a king, implied that John
Sobieski S. Stuart was the individual who had sole right to wear the
crown of his ancestors. But this momentous book was preceded by
others.
Mr. John Hay Allen, as before stated, first
WORKING
appeared in literature in 1822. His volume of poems THROUGH
bore those names. Twenty years later, in 1842, the LITERATURE.
same gentleman edited, under the assumed name of
John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart, the ‘Vestiarium Scoticum,’ the
transcript from a MS. alleged to have been formerly in the Scots
College at Douay; with a learned introduction and illustrative notes.
This folio, at the time, made no particular sensation. It was followed,
in 1845, by a work, in which the elder brother was assisted by the
younger, namely, ‘Costume and History of the Clans,’ with three
dozen lithographs, in imperial folio; the cheapest edition was priced
at six guineas. Some were much dearer. Two years later, a work very
different in intention, was published by the Roman Catholic publisher
Dolman, of Bond Street, who had Blackwood of Edinburgh and
London as his colleague. The title of this book was ‘Tales of the Last
Century, or Sketches of the Romance of History between the years
1746 and 1846,’ by John Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart. There
is a dedication ‘To Marie Stuart, by her father and uncle.’
As Sketches of the Romance of History, the writers
THE
might have meant that they were not dealing with ROMANCE OF
reality. But such seemingly was not their meaning. THE STORY.
They made a serious step towards asserting that the
elder brother was rightful heir to the throne of the Stuarts; and that if
Jacobites and Ultramontanists should ever be in search of such an
heir, after upsetting the present ‘happy establishment,’ he was to be
found at his lodgings, prepared to wear the crown, with Jacobite
instincts and Ultramontane ferocity. Of course, this was not said in
words. It is rather implied in the three sketches which make up the
romance of ‘Tales of the Last Century.’
The Tales illustrate the claims of the Chevalier John Sobieski
Stuart, after this fashion.—The ‘young Pretender’ married in 1772,
Louise, Princess of Stolberg Gœdern, and grand-daughter of the
Jacobite Earl of Aylesbury, who after his liberation from the Tower, in
1688, for his political principles, settled in Brussels, and there
married (his second wife) a lady of the ancient family of Argentain.
The daughter and only child of this marriage wedded with the Prince
of Horne. Louisa of Stolberg, the youngest child of the last named
union, married Charles Edward in 1772, when she was not yet
twenty, and he was fifty-two. According to the ‘Tales of the Last
Century,’ Louisa became the mother of a son, in 1773. The alleged
event was kept a profound secret, and the child was as secretly
carried on board an English man of war! commanded by
Commodore O’Halleran, who, if he had his rights, was not only
foster-father to the mysterious infant, but also Earl of Strathgowrie!
Admiral Allen, it will be remembered, was thought to be heir to the
earldom of Errol.
It may here be observed, by way of recovering
‘RED EAGLE.’
breath, that if there ever had been a son of this
luckless couple, the fact would have been proudly trumpeted to the
world. The event the most eagerly desired by the Jacobites was the
birth of an heir to the Stuarts. Had such an heir been born, to
conceal the fact from the adherents of the House of Stuart would
have been an act of stark madness. Such insanity would have simply
authorised the House of Hanover to repudiate the claimant, if he
ever should assume that character.—To return to the romance of
history:—
The infant prince received by the commodore was brought up by
him as his own son. The young adventurer was trained to the sea,
and he cruised among the western isles of Scotland. He appears in
the romance as the Red Eagle; by those who know him he is treated
with ‘Your Highness’ and ‘My Lord;’ and, like Lieut. Thomas Allen
himself, he contracts a marriage with a lady, which is reckoned as a
misalliance by those who are acquainted with his real history. He
drops mysterious hints that the Stuart line is not so near extinction as
it was generally thought to be. The better to carry the race on, the
Red Eagle left, in 1831, two sons, the Chevaliers John and Charles
Stuart, the former being also known as the Comte d’Albanie; and
both, no doubt, sincerely believing in the rigmarole story of Lieut.
Thomas Allen, alias Red Eagle, alias legitimate son of Charles
Edward, the young Chevalier!
 The ‘Tales of the Last Century’ do not say this in as
‘TALES OF
many words. The book leaves a good deal to the THE LAST
imagination. The hero fades out of the romance CENTURY.’
something like Hiawatha, sailing into the mist after the
setting sun. There is abundance of melodramatic business and
properties throughout. There is mysterious scenery, appropriate
music, serious and comic actors, complex machinery, ships of war
sailing over impossible waters and looking as spectral as
Vanderdecken’s ghastly vessel,—with booming of guns, harmonised
voices of choristers, cheers of supers, and numerous other
attractions in a dramatic way. There is nothing ‘dangerous’ in the
book, though one gentleman does venture on the following Jacobite
outburst:—‘Oh! if I had lived when you did—or yet, if he who is gone
should rise again from the marble of St. Peter’s,—I am a Highlander
and my father’s son,—I would have no king but Tearlach Righ nan
Gael,’—no other king but Charlie.
In another page, one of the actors puts a sensible query, and
adds a silly remark on the present condition of the Stuart cause:
—‘Wonderful!—but why such mystery?—why?—for what should the
birth of an heir to the House of Stuart be thus concealed? It had—it
yet has friends (in Europe), and its interests must ever be identified
with those of France, Spain, and Rome.’ Of this sort of thing, though
there be little, there is more than enough; but the reader, as he
proceeds, has an opportunity of conceiving a high opinion of Red
Eagle’s common sense, and of fully agreeing with him at least in one
observation which is put in the following form: ‘Woman!’ said the
Tolair, ‘this is no time for bombast and juggling!’ The old Admiral
Carter Allen never indulged in either. In his will the gallant sailor calls
John and Thomas Allen his sons. He does not call Thomas his foster
son. Prince Charles Edward spoke of no child in his will but his
illegitimate daughter, the Duchess of Albany. The Cardinal of York
took the nominal title of king at his brother’s death; and received the
duchess into his house. At her death, in 1789, the Crown jewels,
which James II. had carried off from England, came into the
cardinal’s possession; and these, at the beginning of the present
century, he generously surrendered to George III. The cardinal was
well assured that no legitimate heir of his brother had ever existed.
 The assurance that there was one, however,
continued to be made, and that the sons of Tolair THE LEVER
OF POETRY.
were as poetical as they were princely was next
asserted.
In 1848, Mr. Dolman, of London (conjointly with POETICAL
Blackwood), published a poetical manifestation by the POLITICS.
Count, John Sobieski Stuart, and his brother, Charles
Edward. It had an innocent look, but a mysterious purpose. Its title is,
‘Lays of the Deer Forest.’ The Lays are dedicated to Louisa
Sobieska Stuart, by her father and uncle. The second volume,
consisting of ‘Notes,’ is dedicated to a Charles Edward Stuart, by his
father and uncle. There is something of a poetical fire in the Lays;
and much interesting matter on deer-stalking and other sporting
subjects in the Notes. The spirit is thoroughly anti-English; very
‘Papistical’ in the odour of its heavily-charged atmosphere, but
betraying the combined silliness and ferocity which distinguished the
Stuarts themselves, in a hero-worship for the most cruel enemies of
England. For instance, in the poem called ‘Blot of Chivalry,’ Charles
Edward Stuart, the author, deifies Napoleon, and, if there be any
meaning at all to be attached to the words, execrates England. In the
‘Appeal of the Faithful,’ there is a mysterious declaration that the
writer, or the faithful few, will not bow the head to Somebody, and
there are as mysterious references to things which might have been,
only that they happened to be otherwise.
There is a little more outspokenness in ‘The Exile’s THE BLACK
Farewell,’ which heartily curses the often-cursed but COCKADE.
singularly successful Saxon, and still more heartily
vituperates the sensible Scots who stuck to the Brunswick family and
the happy establishment. The writer sarcastically describes
Scotland, for the exasperation of those judicious Scots, in the words:
—‘The abject realm, a Saxon province made! and the Stuart heaps
fire on the heads of Scottish Whigs by accusing them of common-
place venality, and charging them with selling ‘Their mother’s glory
for base Saxon gold!’ The figure the nobles from Scotland made at
the Court of London in 1848, is thus smartly sketched:—
While in the Saxon capital enthralled,
 Eclipsed in lustre, though in senses palled,
The planet nobles, alien to their own,
Circle, dim satellites, the distant throne:
Saxons themselves in heart, use, tongue disguised,
Their own despising, by the world despised,
While those for whom they yield their country’s pride,
Their name, their nation, and their speech deride.
The above figures of speech are admissible in poetry, but in truth
and plain prose they are ‘palabras.’ The two authors are as
crushingly severe on the English cockade as on the anti-Jacobite
Scottish nobles. The cockade is shown to be altogether an
imposture. The words in which the demonstration is made have,
however, left her Majesty’s throne unshaken. ‘At this moment, most
persons imagine that black is’ (the colour of) ‘the English cockade,
ignorant that it was that of the Elector of Hanover, and only
introduced into England with George I., who bore it as a vassal of the
Empire; and it may be little flattering to the amour-propre of the
British people to know that the cockade which they wear as national
is the badge of a petty fief, the palatinate of a foreign empire.’ On
this matter it is certain that the national withers are unwrung. The
black cockade won glory at Dettingen, lost no honour at Fontenoy,
and was worn by gallant men whom ‘John Sobieski Stuart’ could not
overcome when his sword was (if report be true) unsheathed against
English, Irish, and Scots, on the field of Waterloo.
Let us now turn to a minor Jacobite episode.—A THE ALLENS
correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries,’ M. H. R. IN
(August 1st, 1857, p. 95), refers to an account the EDINBURGH.
writer had from an informant, who was accustomed to
meet John and Charles Allen in Edinburgh society. ‘I find however
that their claims to legitimate descent from the Royal Stuarts were
treated in such society quite as a joke, though the claimants were
fêted and lionised, as might be expected in such a case, in
fashionable circles. They usually appeared in full Highland costume,
in Royal Tartan. The likeness to the Stuart family, I am told, was
striking, and may have been without improving their claim a whit.’
The writer then alludes to the number of young ladies who, at Her
Majesty’s accession, were thought to bear a great resemblance to
the Queen. But accidental resemblance is worthless as proof of
consanguinity. ‘If,’ the writer continues, ‘the two claimaints have no
better foundation to rest upon, their cause is but weak, for it is
obvious there may be likeness without legitimate descent; and I
fancy, if the real history is gone into, that is the point to be decided
here.’
The writer goes on to traduce the character of the
THE
wife of Charles Edward. It must, indeed, be allowed SUCCESSION
that from the year 1778, when she was twenty-six TO THE
years of age, and she first became acquainted with CROWN.
Alfieri, the lover with whom she lived from 1780, with some intervals,
till his death in 1803, her character was under a shade, and yet, in
1791, the Countess of Albany was received at Court, in London, by
so very scrupulous a sovereign lady as Queen Charlotte. So
scrupulous was the queen, that her reception of the widow of
Charles Edward seemed to disperse the breath of suspicion that
rested on her. Another circumstance in her favour is the fact of
George III. having settled a pension upon her. The Countess of
Albany died at Montpellier plain Madame Fabre, in 1824, leaving all
she possessed to her husband, the historical painter. It will be seen
from the last-named date, that Queen Victoria and the wife of
Charles Edward were for a few years contemporaries.
But the countess is out of the question in this matter of John and
Charles Allen. The correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries’ has
something more to the point when he says:—‘The question is not of
any importance as a matter of state. The succession to the English
crown is secured by parliament, and is not affected by a descent
from the young Pretender; but as an historical fact, it is desirable that
the truth of the story, apparently set afloat by the father of these two
gentlemen, should be settled at once and for ever.’ That has been
effectually settled in the 81st volume of the ‘Quarterly,’ so far as the
development from Allen to Allan, and this to Stuart, is made out,
without leaving a link unsevered in the chain of testimony.
In the year 1868, the Ministry and the Lords of the
A
Admiralty, and the Commissioners of Greenwich DERWENTWAT
Hospital estates, were amused rather than alarmed ER AT
by a claim made to the forfeited earldom of DILSTON.
Derwentwater, and also to the confiscated estates. A sort of action
was added to the latter claim, by taking possession of a portion of
them, in the North. The claimant is an accomplished lady who has
been long known by sympathising northern friends as Amelia
Matilda, Countess of Derwentwater. She backed the assumption of
such title by installing herself in one of the ruined chambers of the
castle in ruins—Dilston. Her servants roofed the apartment with
canvas, covered the bare earthen floor with carpeting, made the best
apologies they could for doors and windows, hung some ‘family
portraits’ on the damp walls, spread a table with relics, documents,
&c., relating to the Derwentwater persons and property: they hoisted
the Derwentwater flag on the old tower, and then opened the place
to visitors who sympathised with the countess in the way in which
she supported her dignity and its attendant rheumatism.
The Lords of the Admiralty and the Commissioners DESCENT OF
of Greenwich Hospital speedily bestirred themselves. THE
They sent their representatives from London with due CLAIMANT.
authority to eject the lady, if they could not persuade
her to leave. The countess received them with mingled courtesy and
outspoken defiance. Her manners seem to have resembled her
costume, which consisted of a foreign military upper coat, with a
sword by her side, and a white satin bonnet on her head. She
appeared to be between fifty and sixty years of age, but owned only
to forty. The countess made a stout fight for it, and when she was
compulsorily put out of the castle, she pitched a camp and dwelt in a
tent on the adjacent highway. Her effects and family relics, portraits,
plate, &c., were announced for sale, under a sheriff’s seizure. The
announcement attracted many buyers from London, their motive
being less Jacobitism than curiosity-dealing. The liberality of
personal friends satisfied the sheriff’s claims, by their bidding, and
the ‘relics’ were removed to Newcastle for public exhibition;
admission, 1s. The countess now attired in her Stuart tartan, with a
shoulder-scarf of silk of the same pattern, and with a black plume in
her bonnet, attended, as the local advertisements said, ‘between two
and four, to explain several of the curiosities.’
 The question remains as to identity. The Lords of
the Admiralty in London, when those relics of the OBSTACLES
IN
Jacobite time came up to trouble them, naturally PEDIGREES.
asked, but in more profuse and much more legal
language, ‘Who are you?’ The reply was not satisfactory. There has
already been recorded in these pages, under the dates 1731 and
1732, the coming of John Radcliffe to Poland Street, London, to
consult Cheselden, and the death and funeral of the great surgeon’s
patient—sole son of the beheaded earl. The present countess, if
understood rightly, denies that the above John, ‘Earl of
Derwentwater,’ died childless, as he undoubtedly did, in 1732. She
states that he married in 1740 a certain Elizabeth Amelia Maria,
Countess of Waldsteinwaters (which is a sort of translation of
Derwentwater); that he lived till 1798, when he must have been
within hail of centenarianism, and that he was succeeded by his two
sons in order of age, the first, Earl John, the second, Earl John
James. The last-named coronetted shadow is described as dying in
1833, leaving his only child, the present Amelia Matilda, Countess of
Derwentwater, who took possession of Dilston Castle, &c., under the
delusion that she had hereditary right to both land and dignity. She
accounts for John, the son of the beheaded earl, by saying that he
lived till 1798 in the utmost secrecy, under fear of being murdered by
the British Government! As he really died in 1732, unmarried, and
that the Government knew very well that he was carried from London
to be buried in his mother’s grave in Brussels, one may be allowed to
suspect that there is some mistake in the pedigree to which the
Countess Amelia pins her faith.
With regard to the descendants of the Earl of Derwentwater, in a
line not yet considered, Mr. H. T. Riley (in ‘Notes and Queries,’
October 25th, 1856, p. 336), says: ‘I remember being pointed out,
some time since, a person who bears the family name and is
generally reputed to be a descendant, through an illegitimate son, of
the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater. I have little doubt there are
several other persons similarly connected with him, to be found in
the neighbourhood of North or South Shields.’ A lady correspondent,
‘Hermentrude,’ says (‘Notes and Queries,’ November 16th, 1861), ‘I
have been applied to, through a friend, to communicate some
genealogical particulars for their (living descendants of the
Radcliffes) benefit, which, I am sorry to say, I was not able to
ascertain. I do not know through what branch they descend, but I
was told they still entertain hopes of a reversion of the attainder and
restoration of the title.’
After this romance, the chief actor in another made his quiet exit
from the stage.
In 1872, the most eminent personage of this latest JOHN
Jacobite time, disappeared from the scene. The tall, SOBIESKI
gaunt, slightly bent figure of the gentleman, who once STUART.
believed himself to be plain John Allen, till his father
imparted to him a story that he, the sire, was the legitimate son of
Charles Edward, and that plain John Allen was John Sobieski
Stolberg Stuart, was missed from the Reading Room of the British
Museum. There he used to enter, cloaked and spurred like an old
warrior, with a sort of haughty resignation. Yet there was an air about
him which seemed as a command to all spectators to look at him
well, and to acknowledge that the character he had inherited from his
father the lieutenant, who fancied he was the rightful King of
England, was patent in him, as clearly as if he had been born in the
purple. Some few people, of those whose idiosyncracy it is to lend
ready faith to the romantic impossible, believed in the genuineness
of the character, and held the pretensions it interpreted to be as well-
founded as those of either of ‘the Pretenders.’ This Chevalier Stuart,
or Comte d’Albanie, mixed a flavour of the scholar with that of the
warrior. He and his brother sat together apart from unprincely folk in
the Reading Room. Books, papers, documents, and all the
paraphernalia of study and research were scattered about them.
Quietly unobtrusive, yet with a ‘keep your distance’
THE ELDER
manner about them, they were to be seen poring over SON OF ‘RED
volumes and manuscripts as if in search of proofs of EAGLE.’
their vicinity to the throne, and found gratification in
the non-discovery of anything to the contrary. Looking at the elder
gentleman who was often alone, the spectator could not help
wondering at the assiduous pertinacity of the Chevalier’s labour.
Nothing seemed to weary him, not even the wearisome making of
extracts, the result of which has not been revealed. Perhaps it was
the vainly attempted refutation of the plain, logical, consequential,
irrefutable statements made in Volume 81 of the ‘Quarterly,’ by Mr.
Lockhart, who, courteously cruel, smashed to atoms the fanciful idea
which had entered Lieutenant Allen’s brains, and from which idea
was evolved the perplexing conclusion that he, the ex-lieutenant,
was Tolair Deargh, the Red Eagle, and by divine grace, obstructed
by human obstinacy, king of three realms! The elder son of the Red
Eagle was as familiar a figure in the streets of London as he was in
the Museum; and wayfarers who had no thought as to his
individuality, must have felt that the cloaked and spurred personage
was certainly a gentleman who wore his three score years and ten
with a worthiness exacting respect. The same may be said of his
sorrowing surviving brother, ‘Le Comte d’Albanie’ (Charles Edward),
as his card proclaims him. In this ‘Chevalier,’ whose figure is well
known to most Londoners, the chivalrous spirit survives. The last
record of him in this character is in the year 1875, when he knocked
down Donald Alison for violently assaulting the Comte’s landlady in a
Pimlico lodging house!
A year previously, the Lady Alice Mary Emily Hay, STUART
daughter of the 17th Earl of Errol, and therefore of the ALLIANCES.
blood of Kilmarnock, did Colonel the Count Edward
Stuart d’Albanie the honour to become his wife. The Colonel is the
son of ‘The Count d’Albanie.’
This marriage is thus chronicled in Lodge’s Peerage (1877, p.
238), ‘Lady Alice Mary Emily (Hay) b. 6th July, 1835, m. 1st May,
1874, Colonel the Count Charles Edward d’Albanie, only son of
Charles Edward Stuart, Count d’Albanie, and Anne Beresford,
daughter of the Hon. John de la Poer Beresford, brother of the 1st
Marquis of Waterford.’ Anne Beresford—widow Gardiner,—is
variously described as marrying, in 1822, ‘C. E. Stuart, Esq.,’ and
‘Charles Stuart Allen, younger son of Thomas Hay Allen.’
The Colonel Count d’Albanie who married Lady Alice Hay is said
to have been in the service of Don Carlos, than which nothing could
so little recommend him to a humane, right-thinking, liberal, peace-
loving, blood-odour-hating world. There is, however, manifestly,