“Do me a favor and don’t mention this to Dee or Julia, will you?” Damien said.
“Sure thing,” Kyle said. But there was more than a trace of wariness in his tone. Damien went with him as far as the porch steps and then retreated into the house. He locked the door behind him and slid the bolt into place.
CHAPTER NINE
Julia
Her literature class was called Rhetorical Technique Analysis of Poetry of the Second Romantic Generation. Damien joked that he’d gotten bored before she’d even finished saying the name of it, but Julia was excited. She loved poetry — the harder to understand, the better.
When she read a novel, the words were like the camera in a movie. Assuming it was well done, she didn’t even notice it. She saw straight through and got lost in the story, ignoring everything else.
That was great in its own way, but she loved that poetry was almost completely the opposite. The language was the story. The words kindled emotions by how they sounded and interacted, not just by the meanings they represented.
And because of this, because the rhetoric itself was the focal point, you could be confident that everything about a poem was deliberate. Julia saw poets less as artists than as meticulous engineers who were concerned with the function of every single little piece of their creations, every cog in the machine. It fascinated her to imagine what was going on in the poet’s mind when they were crafting a piece, to try to infer why they picked this word instead of that one, why they placed this dash here and that comma there.
The professor of the class was a burly man in his fifties with a crown of brown hair. Julia got the impression that he wished he was a Victorian-era English aristocrat. His default expression was haughtily thoughtful—Julia kept waiting for him to stick out his pinkie while drinking from his mug—and he enunciated his every word slowly and precisely, like an English-as-a-second-language teacher demonstrating proper pronunciation. He clearly liked to hear himself talk.
He spent almost the entire lecture reading the syllabus. Considering that the class would be expected to interpret complex poetry, you’d think they could be expected to grasp a plainly written syllabus on their own. The rest of the lecture wasn’t much better—he just talked about John Keats’s childhood.
Julia remained upbeat, though—what she was really looking forward to was the discussion section afterwards.
However, as it turned out, the teaching assistant wasn’t really looking for discussion.
The TA was a lanky woman who looked young enough to be an undergrad. Sharp face, black-rimmed glasses, porcelain skin that contrasted strikingly with her short black hair. One whole arm was sleeved in colorful tattoos.
“We’ll start with the first poem of the packet, and go through as many as we have time for,” the TA said, popping a mint into her mouth. “Okay? Lines 6-8. Anyone want to do a close reading?”
Julia looked down at the page and reread the lines to herself.
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
and I think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
She’d read the poem before, many times. Keats was one of her favorites. Still, it took some courage to raise her hand.
“Yes?” The TA didn’t seem to care who Julia was, or what she wanted to say. Julia licked her lips before she spoke.
“I think that Keats is saying that the clouds in the night sky are love—well, symbols of love, because love isn’t something you can grasp tangibly. Like clouds.” The TA looked at Julia with pity, and Julia stammered on. “And love is magic. Some of it is due to fate, and some to chance, but Keats is saying that he might die before he gets to know love. ”
“Can anyone here tell me the definition of a romance?” the TA said.
A blonde girl who looked like she was in high school raised her hand. The TA called on her.
“A romance refers to a medieval narrative,” the girl said smugly. “It usually follows the epic struggles and exploits of the romantic hero.”
“Which means that this isn’t about love,” the TA said. “Or at least, not when you look below the surface. Anyone else?”
Julia flushed hot as she slumped down in her seat. She was relieved to hear a boy behind her whisper to someone sitting next to him: “How the f**k were we supposed to know that?”
The class wore on and Julia was surprised to find herself looking at the clock to see if it was time to go. When the TA finally dismissed the group, Julia waited for Katherine outside.
She looked at the students passing by. They all looked so young. Then she scented Katherine through the crowd. Turning her head, she saw the younger woman with a broad smile across her face.
“Julia!”
Julia was so relieved to be back with someone from the pack. She hadn’t thought of it during class, but now her muscles went relaxed, as though she’d been tensing up.
“Hi Katherine!” Julia gave her a quick hug and they walked alongside the sidewalk.
“How are your classes going? Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” Julia said.
She said it without thinking—but after she’d said it, she did start thinking. Had she actually enjoyed sitting through her classes? Hell, she’d struggled to stay awake during that last section.
She’d probably just built college up in her mind to an unrealistic extent, and she would have been a little disappointed no matter how good her classes were. Maybe it was because it was only the first week and none of her classes had gotten to the interesting stuff yet.
She’d wanted to go to college so badly for so long—of course she liked it.
“How’s that poetry class you were so excited about?” Katherine asked.
Julia couldn’t even pretend to herself that the poetry class was not disappointing. She sighed.
“Not as good as I thought it’d be. The material’s interesting but I’m not crazy about the professor or my TA. And the discussion section…well, there’s really not that much discussion. I don’t think many people in the class really want to be there.”
Katherine frowned. “Then why are they there?”
“To get jobs.”
That made Katherine look even more quizzical. “Humans have poetry analysis jobs?”
Julia laughed. “No, not really. Poetry analysis is just one part of the English degree.”
“Ah. And the English degree gets you a job, right?”
“Well…theoretically. How do you like your class?”
“Classes,” Katherine said, clearly proud. “I decided to take two.”
“Good for you,” Julia said. “Which two?”
“Human anatomy and physiology,” Katherine said. “And intro to algebra. I’ve never done much math; it seems fun.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Julia said. “I thought you were considering botany?”
“Human anatomy sounds more interesting,” Katherine said. “Learning all of the differences between humans and shifters. Jordan was talking to me about it the other day. Maybe I’ll end up being a doctor, like him. That would be good for the pack, to have another doctor.”
Julia nodded and continued walking. Students brushed past them, walking fast or running to class. Julia put one hand on her stomach and tried not to move as clumsily as she felt.
“What’s it like?” Katherine asked, looking over in a somewhat awed hush. Julia nearly laughed out loud at the sight of her staring at Julia’s belly.
“What’s what like?”
“Having a baby in you. Two babies.”
“Well, right now it feels a lot like having the stomach flu.”
They both laughed.
“Physically there’s not much difference yet, other than the morning sickness,” Julia continued. “But everything else is different.”
“What do you mean?”
Julia thought about it. She could feel the difference so thoroughly and vividly but she found it was hard to articulate.
“It’s like, I suddenly don’t matter anymore. In a good way. The best way. Does that make sense at all? My life is them now.” Her hands gravitated to her belly without her realizing. “Everything I do, every choice I make, even everything I eat…it’s all for them. It’s this sense of purpose that’s stronger than anything else I’ve ever felt. In fact it’s weird now to think that I didn’t always have that purpose; it’s like…what did I even do all day when I only had myself to worry about? It’s kind of scary how much it takes over your life, how quickly, but it feels completely right, and wonderful. And it’s scary—it’s really scary—to care so much. But that’s a package deal with love.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Katherine said, and Julia knew she meant it.
Then Julia noticed that Katherine’s eye were glistening. There was empathetic happiness in her face, yes, but there was pain, too.
“Are you okay?” Julia asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Katherine said, and swiped impatiently at a tear that slipped down her cheek.
“What is it?”
Katherine gave a tremulous exhale. “Kyle and I have been trying. It’s not working so far.”
Julia’s heart plunged, weighted with unreasoning guilt. God, what could she say to that? “I’m so sorry. And here I am bragging—”
“No, no, it’s good to hear, really,” Katherine said quickly.
A long moment passed in silence.
“It’s probably better anyway right now,” Katherine said, mostly to herself, it seemed.
“What do you mean?”
For just an instant Katherine seemed stricken with discomfort. “Oh, I just mean our den isn’t finished yet. We’re still kind of unsettled, you know.”
But Julia knew that Katherine just didn’t want her to feel bad. It wasn’t hard to deduce what she’d really meant.
It was not a good time to conceive because they were in danger.
And they were in danger because of Julia.
Julia pressed her lips together. She barely remembered what she said to Katherine the whole walk back. When she finally got into the house and back into her room, she shut the door behind her. Damien was sitting on the chair next to the window, and when she came in, he stood up to hug her.
“Damien, we can’t do this,” she said.
“What?”
“Wait for them to attack us. Everyone’s on edge, scared. I am too. I don’t want to feel that way.”
Damien’s expression was dusky. “What do you think we should we do?”
Julia took a breath.
“Leave,” she said.
Damien’s lips parted in surprise. Then they pursed in brooding.
“It’s not that simple,” he said.
“Then what? Sit here and worry?” A lump rose in Julia’s throat. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me.”
“I can’t ask the rest of the pack to pick up and go. Not after two years of wandering.”
“Then we go on our own,” Julia said, softly but firmly.