Ava didn’t see Claire at breakfast the following morning. It was such a disappointing blow that she wondered if she did indeed have a death wish, as Ezekiel had said. She had so many emotions boiling inside of her, ready to explode, that she had quite looked forward to a confrontation with the wolf, even if all it would have done was send her back to the infirmary. She knew who was responsible for her feeling like this. Ezekiel should not have touched her, and she should not have let him. She should not have enjoyed every second of it like she did. Seriously, what the hell was wrong with her?She ignored the whispers again and looked around the dining hall with her tray. She met Emily’s gaze and saw the guilt in the Omega’s eyes. Shaking her head, she looked away. It was stupid to believe she could make friends at the academy anyway. When had people not stabbed her in the back?Jared waved from a table somewhere at the back, and she made her way to it, not even minding that he had pu
Jared was waiting outside as he had promised. He was leaning against his car, eating an apple. Ava had to wonder why he was doing this. So far, he’d shown no prejudice and helped her several times. Was this still because of the person he hadn’t been able to help? What had happened to them? Had they died?Jared aimed his unfinished apple at a nearby trashcan when he saw her approaching, and then walked around to open the passenger side door. Though it was past dinner time, many people were hanging around, and many stopped to stare.“I see you’ve made it out in one piece today,” Jared said as he started the car.His tie was loose as it always was, and he had released his hair, so he looked like one of those human actors that females went crazy for. This was the type of guy she wanted kissing her. Not angry, irrational wolves. “They didn’t make me fight today,” she answered. “You sound disappointed.”“I really want to punch something,” she admitted. “It’s best to avoid conflict around
Zeke went to the library before sunrise the following day. Not that it mattered. He hadn’t slept for... Shit, he couldn’t even remember now. The librarian seemed surprised to see him, but she didn’t comment when he walked over to a shelf to start browsing. The library was open twenty-four hours a day to allow students to keep up with their studies on top of their training schedules. It was the biggest structure on campus, with a vast atrium structure and several floors around it. It was usually full of students after training, but at this time, he had known it would be empty. Most people were still asleep or resting before the start of another gruelling schedule. Lucky bastards.The night after Ava had been attacked, he had gone back to wait in the woods behind her room, switching between hoping Claire and her friends would come back and hoping he could get into Ava’s room to finish what he had started. He’d only gone home once he had followed Ava to her duties and made sure she had
The following day, Jared dropped her off at the kitchen for her duties because she had further to walk from his house. She was still so tired from her restless night that she hadn’t declined the offer. But she knew she couldn’t ask him to drop her off again, not if the looks she had gotten when he had picked her up last night were anything to go by.She seemed to be breaking rules all over the place. Maybe she needed confirmation from the dean or the Student Welfare Coordinator, Mrs. Benton, that it was alright that she was living with Jared. “I won’t be coming to the dining hall for my meals today, so I’ll pick you up after your detention,” Jared said.“Oh, there’s no need to do that,” she answered quickly as she took her seatbelt off and grabbed her bag. “You’re already doing a lot for me; I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble with the school.” “Let me worry about that,” Jared answered. “Keep your head down. I hear someone’s pissed that you didn’t stay in the infirmary long
“Listen up,” Coach Baxter shouted after she finished her warm-up jog. “Because of the evaluations earlier in the semester, you all have to meet certain standards by the time we do the mock evaluations. So we’re moving on to weapons training.”Ava let out a breath of relief at that news. She had been hoping that was the case when she saw the massive wall of weapons set up at the front when she came in. Weapons were her thing. She had mastered quite a few of them before they had known that she wouldn’t shift, and she had doubled her efforts when she realised this was the only way she could defend herself.She was glad to see that Claire and the rest of the Intermediary class hadn’t joined them today. Though she had no proper explanation for her calm mood, she was sure that if Claire had been in here, her rage would have built back up. And if the coach had put them in a match again, weapons would have been used to hurt her.“Though I expect you to be as shit at that as you were in hand-t
Zeke watched Jared’s house from the woods. He had known Ava would come here from when he followed her scent that morning and heard her conversation with Jared.Jared had looked right at him that morning, as he had last night. Did he know what was going on here? Was he going to use Ava to hurt him? Not once had Jared asked why he had been at his party that first night. And he had stood in this spot in the woods so many times that Jared would have known he had been there the moment he had gone for a run into the woods.And last night, being on Ava’s balcony had been the riskiest thing he had done. He had crossed into Jared’s territory without an invitation. Jared would have sensed him or caught his scent. But it had been a full day, and there hadn’t been any retaliation.He didn’t trust that snake as far as he could throw him. Jared knew something; he had a bad feeling that snake was about to do something messed up.Why else would he have Ava alone in his house? Where were his Beta, Gam
It had been a strange morning.Ava had seen people whispering about her every time she had passed them, and no one had shoved or pushed her yet. It felt a lot like just before Claire knocked her out the first time. They would whisper and then look at her or go still as if they were mind-linking each other. Then, they would get a certain excited look that made her worry. What were they planning now? The fact that she had yet to see Claire was worrying in itself, but now she was being paranoid about everything.Instead of being angry as usual, she was jumpy. She had more needle pricks on her fingers than usual because she couldn’t concentrate on anything in Needlework, and she probably had to refold the table napkins a hundred times in Housekeeping. And for a change, she didn’t get any detentions at all.By lunchtime, she was a wreck. She couldn’t handle going to the dining hall to face the crowds even though she was starving, so she hid in one of the bathrooms.She was being a coward.
Ava made so many mistakes in training that she was surprised she had only come out of it with a few cuts and bruises. Claire managed to ruin the one thing she had felt confident about in this academy. Not letting emotions take her over while fighting was her thing. But the whole afternoon, she’d been too nervous and distracted, and her paranoia was back in full force.Her classmates were looking at her differently. And the coach... She didn’t think he had even paid attention to anyone else; he had been too intent on giving her sparring partner after sparring partner as if he was testing her limits. She’d had to rely on muscle memory to get her through, but if her partners had been any good, she would have been in the infirmary again. It seemed to have pissed the coach off that she had lasted the whole training session without being knocked out.The moment her panic attack had abated, Ezekiel had rushed out of the bathroom. He hadn’t turned up for training, and she’d felt disappointed.
Ava looked out of the window in her dorm room. The sun was still out, and she couldn't see anything besides the woods. But she could feel Zeke there. Her door opened, making her turn quickly, but it was just Emily returning with her bags. Training had been strange. Claire and her friends hadn't made a single move. Besides the initial snarl when she walked in, the session had gone without incident. Her new coach, Coach Henderson, hadn't targeted her like Coach Baxter, so she had stayed in the background the whole time. She'd sparred with the vampire Max, so even that had been stress-free. But all it had done was make her a little anxious about when Claire would attack. Would it be another ambush?"Shall I pack this away for you?" Emily asked. "No!"What was wrong with this wolf to make her so eager to be someone's maid?"Thank you for collecting my things, but we need to talk now," she said as she finally walked away from the window and sat on her bed. The room was still empty. It
Zeke was still struggling to stop himself from going on a bloody rampage when he sensed he wasn't alone. He looked over at the lake to calm himself. It really wasn't Mr Patrick's fault, he knew that. But still, he wanted to rip his head off."Calm down, Zeke," Mr Patrick said from somewhere behind him. "Don't tell me to calm down. I should never have listened to you. To either of you."Ava's father was the first to come down to the bank and stand beside him as he looked over the water. Ava was going to kill him for this but damned if he was going to send away the only other person there who would lay their life down for her."And what was your plan?" Alpha Morgan asked. "Charge out of here and protect my daughter out there alone? Try to outrun the Council?"Zeke snorted."I think we all saw that she doesn't need protecting," he growled. "But none of that matters if she doesn't talk to her wolf, Ezekiel," Mr Patrick said. Did he want her to talk to her wolf? At this point, he wasn
Ava came out of the Administration building, and the first person she saw was Zeke. She had felt him there even before the guards opened the doors for her to leave. She made her decision the moment she saw the way the guards stood at attention with their hands on their weapons, ready to hurt him. Zeke's eyes were red, and his fists clenched at his sides. He stood like a statue, but she could sense the danger emanating from him as if one wrong move would end everything. She knew he'd been waiting to save her. He would put himself on the line if she were in danger. She'd condemned him to her fate. She lowered her gaze and started walking down the steps. "I'm fine," she told him quietly. "No, Ava. You're not 'fine'," he growled. So she wasn't hiding it as well as she thought. "I will be," she said truthfully. Whatever was going to happen next was her fight. Zeke needed to stay out of it to stay safe. At least he would have a chance that way."What did he want?""I've been removed
Ava closed her eyes when she felt Zeke's pain mixing with her own. "Move."The guard behind her nudged her, causing her to stumble, but she righted herself quickly and continued walking down the hallway. "Faster, human," the guard said, and then he grabbed her arm and half pulled, half dragged her the rest of the way.This was no school. The Council could dress the academy up all they wanted, but it took more pride in the training than the academic side. And now, with the Council soldiers manhandling students, there was no way they could hide it.When she entered the dean's offices, Penelope was already looking right at her. She wasn't typing and ignoring her as she usually did. Her allure felt different. It was still strong; it still drew her towards the woman, but it didn't feel threatening. Penelope looked at the guard who came in beside her and then at his tight grip on her arm. And that was when she felt the full force of the vampire's nature."That's unnecessary. Let her go,"
Zeke sat on the bench in the Quad, watching the seven students standing in the middle of it. They weren't talking; they just stood there as if they were waiting for something. Or someone. He tilted his head and focused on each of them. Their wolves were still there, but he could barely sense them. So, did that mean they couldn't shift anymore?The Council had found them when the dean and his guards had failed. Dead or alive? That was what he couldn't figure out. What the hell had been done to them? And was this Ava's doing or the Council? Claire turned her head to look at the building behind them. Then they all turned. Shadow snarled inside him because he knew what they could sense. Ava. Ava was in that building, still in her lessons, and her heart pumping away. Terrified. He had been tracking her all morning, on the verge of shifting at any little thing, waiting to run to her aid the moment she needed him. If she needed him. He pushed thoughts of the forest out of his mind and
Ava felt all the eyes on her as she made her way to her Needlework class. It was back to the same old rubbish again.Only it wasn’t the same now. Over the weekend, she’d gone and got mated, then beat the crap out of an Alpha, and to top it all off, she'd willingly walked into the darkness of the forest. She was not the same person as before. Instead of shoving her, they were moving out of her way. She couldn't be sure whether it was because they had heard what she had done or they had seen her holding hands with Zeke. However, she didn’t think Zeke’s dad would have publicised what she had done to him. But none of that mattered now, anyway.She’d felt something in her chest the moment Claire and her friends had walked in.The first had been the brief joy when she had realised that she hadn’t killed them. She wasn’t a murderer. She didn’t have to hand herself in to the Council.Then came the feeling of dread. The darkness she felt was coming to claim her had been coming from those stu
Zeke pushed down his emotions as much as he could, but Ava could clearly sense some of them. She'd been looking at him since they'd woken up. He hadn't expected Mr Patrick's plan to work at all. He'd thought it would be exactly like the last time when he'd felt her pain and run into the forest raging. But instead...He looked down at the woman sitting next to him and felt like going back home to hide away. Like what Shadow was doing. He hadn't heard anything from the beast since they'd had their heart broken. But it wasn't Ava's fault. He had to keep reminding himself of that. He sensed Ava's fear seconds before he smelled it. The stench of death and decay. The stench of evil darker than anything Shadow had hidden in his soul. His beast unfurled and paid attention. Something wasn't right.This thing was coming closer to the assembly hall. For Ava? For him?And then he caught a scent that he had thought he would never smell again. It was just a hint as if it was fading, but it was
Ava gasped for air and clawed at her throat as she sat up. Something was squeezing her throat, making it hard to breathe. The darkness was inside her. She could feel it. "Shh. It's okay. You're okay." She felt Zeke's warm, hard body against her bare back as his arms circled her. The relief was instant as she greedily inhaled and exhaled deeply. Zeke's large arms tightened around her as he brought his lips down to her mark briefly. The security she always felt in his arms failed to ease her mind. There was danger all around them, danger inside them, and she didn't think she would ever feel safe again. But still, her breathing evened, and her heart rate lowered. Zeke didn't need to say another word, but her body relaxed as if the nightmare hadn’t happened. "My dad?" she asked."Gone. I did what you asked," Zeke said. Her heart squeezed again. She would have wanted a better goodbye. If the pain she’d felt all over her body was anything to go by, her dad would have been traumatised a
It was almost lunchtime when her father returned. She had been on her way downstairs to eat something when Alpha Morgan knocked the broken door out of the way and marched in.She stopped when he noticed her and her heart squeezed in her chest. Her father was in pain. She could sense that as if her wolf senses were helping her, even though she still couldn't feel anything different inside her. "They're all over the boundary," her dad said. "We have to find a hidden place to cross into the forest."He was still saying 'we'. She walked down the rest of the stairs and went into his arms. When his arms tightened around her, she felt him tremble a little, and her heart broke again. This could be the last day she saw her father.But he would have to go. When the car came for him to take him to the airport, he would leave alone. He had the boys and the whole pack to take care of. She'd had the entire morning to come to terms with that. It was the only way. "I will go into the forest, and