I could not make myself look away, could not tear my eyes away from him, not daring to blink. He was there—solid, terrible, breathing and every grain of me tuned itself to the slow rise and fall of his chest like it was the only thing left that mattered. I didn’t dare blink, as if the moment my lids closed, he might be gone, and everything that had kept me alive for the last four years would evaporate with him.

Elsie giggled beside me, nudging Ferna. “See? I knew she would fall in love with him the second she saw him. One look and she’s done.”

Ferna chuckled, but her voice was low, almost wary. “That’s not the look of someone in love, Elsie. That’s the look of someone about to set him on fire.”

I wanted to tell them both to shut up. I tried to tell them that love had nothing to do with the brittle tightness in my ribs, the way my teeth suddenly felt too loud behind my closed mouth. I wanted to tell them the truth: the heat in my chest was not tenderness. It was a volcanic thing, at once grief and anger and a cold, beautiful hunger for justice.

I didn’t say anything because telling them risked me looking like a lunatic or worse, healing something in me that I didn’t want healed, not until I got my deserved revenge. He snuffed out the light in my life four years ago, and now he was going to feel my wrath, the full extent of it.

I barely registered the chatter around me, my gaze locked on Aklan as he stood at the front of the training grounds, his presence commanding despite the casual way he leaned against a wooden post. A whistle blew, sharp and piercing, and the chatter around us died instantly as students flowed into formation. Ferna and Elsie hurried off to join their majors, leaving me standing alone on the edge of the training ground like a stone as it fell, as silent as a graveyard.

The commander, a grizzled man with a scar across his cheek, stepped forward and began a welcome speech for the new students. His words washed over me, meaningless noise against the roar of my pulse. He mentioned that official training had begun, wished us luck, and then introduced the captain, gesturing to Aklan. The reins were handed over, then he bowed and stepped back to place the world in Aklan Draven’s hands.

Aklan stepped forward, his voice carrying across the field with a confidence that made my stomach churn, the sound of his voice the way someone hears a bell ringing through storm glass... distorted, distant, gut-wrenching and terrible all at once. The words washed over me, meaningless and thin.

My eyes were fixed on him, every detail sharpening the rage that clawed at my chest. I did not listen, I could not listen. I only watched. He stood, a carved thing in uniform, and the memory of my brother’s lifeless body came like a hot sting behind my eyes.

Those same grey eyes, that same careless calm, the same merciless gaze.

The hatred I had kept hidden in my heart for years surged higher, threatening to spill over. How could he stand there, so smug, so alive, when my brother lay cold in the dirt?

When I realized the students were running laps and my feet had not moved, a thread of shame prickled at the back of my neck.

Everyone around me was already in motion, their footsteps a distant rhythm, but I stood rooted to my spot, my eyes never wavering from Aklan, like a tree refusing to be felled, focused entirely on the man who had taken Rivan from me.

He noticed me then, his brow furrowing as he crossed the field, his strides purposeful.

He stopped in front of me, bending slightly to meet my gaze and asked, plain as a blade, “Are you all right?”

I looked him dead in the eye, praying for a blade of some sort to manifest in my hands so I could drive it straight into the heart of this smug bastard and save myself the torture of waiting till I was stronger.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, his voice low, almost concerned.

My breath hitched. I tasted iron and old winter and the memory of broken things. He had the audacity to ask if I was okay while my brother lay in the dirt. He got to breathe, to stand here and play the hero while I suffered every single day for the past four years.

My fingers tightened onto the latex gloves I had worn until they bit into my palm.

Aklan tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Join the others,” he said, his tone turning stern when I didn’t move. “Now.”

I did not move.

“What are you standing there for, wolfling? I said, Join your peers,’’

Wolfling? Did he just call me a wolfling?

I would show him what a wolfling can do, a Hatchville wolfling who would not bend or break for any man, so I stayed, my eyes never leaving his, defiance oozing from my pores, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

He straightened, his patience visibly thinning, his eyes tracing my face.

“Follow me,” he ordered, and there was no mistaking the authority behind it. He turned and walked briskly toward a private hall—arched stone, heavy doors that whispered with history.

I followed because I had no other choice. After all, my pride was little, and my purpose was larger, because if I wanted to stand on the same ground as him and not fall to my knees in a puddle of useless revenge, I needed to learn how the world bent.

When the doors shut behind us, he stopped and turned, face blank as a slate. He cocked his head with the faintest hint of irritation.

“Do you have a hearing problem, wolfling?” he asked, straight-faced, and before I could answer, he muttered to himself, “If you were deaf, you probably wouldn’t even hear me anyway.”

I heard that, of course, I could not miss it. I could hear every thin, cutting thing he said and saved them away like teeth. I let my gaze take on a sterner look, like death itself.

He studied me with a look that was almost amused, and then with sharper curiosity. “Have we met before?” he asked. “You’re staring at me like we have a problem, and you are one second away from pulling my guts out.”

Perhaps I am, you dim-witted murderer.

My chest burned with the promise of it, one day pulling his guts out and sticking the dagger in his chest, the same one I had pulled out of Rivan and kept all these years.

He blinked, and for the first time, his eyes lingered on me like he was cataloguing evidence. A deathly smirk curled my lips, and his expression shifted. He knew I could hear him.

“If you can hear me, then is the problem speaking? Can you not speak?” He pressed, his tone sharp, eyes searching mine.

I stayed silent, watching him fume in frustration, and before he could sharpen whatever retort he had been composing, a dark-haired man around the same age as him, with amber eyes, pushed through the hall, just as smug as Aklan was and grinned at us like we had been in on a private joke.

“Your pants are ripped,” the boy said loudly, brow arched in faux concern.

I felt heat flood my face. “What?”

The boy smirked at Aklan. “There you go, she speaks Aklan. How could you not know that? She was toying with you.”

Aklan narrowed his eyes at me, the look like a steel trap snapping closed. He peered down at my uniform with a brief, dismissive glance, then back up, voice flat and lethal. “Combat and war strategy. That means you’re my headache.”

I could feel the press of dozens of pairs of eyes outside the hall, waiting to see what the Captain would do with the insolent new wolf. He didn’t smile. He did not offer the patronizing mercy so many did when confronted with a trembling recruit. Instead, he folded his hands and gave me the kind of sentence that would have my father up at night.

“You’ll be at the training ground by nine tonight,” he said. “Before curfew. You will be serving your punishment. You’re late? You’re dead.”

Punishment.

For what? For daring to breathe in a space he occupied? For surviving? For daring to hate?

He turned on his heel and walked away as if the exchange had been routine. The amber-eyed boy trailed behind muttering something about me being odd, and the sound made my skin prickle.

My nails dug into the palm of my hand until I tasted metal. I wanted to reach for him, I wanted to grab his throat with both hands, to drag his eyes to mine and make him see the shape of the grief he had created. I wanted to tear the captain’s crest from his chest and watch it fall in pieces at my feet.

But I didn’t, I couldn’t. I stood there with my fists clenched, lungs burning, while the rage roared inside me like a caged wolf. I was not strong enough, not yet. It was the truth and it was a bitter stone in my mouth.

I swallowed that truth down and let it sit heavy in my chest. For now, there were rules, there was training. For now, the blade of my patience had to be sharpened by hours and iron until I could wield it. Until then, I would learn, I would wait, I would grow until the day I no longer had to imagine ending him and I could do it for real.

The assignment echoed in my ears as the hall emptied and normality reasserted itself. Nine tonight, I would serve punishment, the word tasted like nails on glass.

I breathed in. I mapped the curve of the training ground in my head—the barricades, the dummies, the course that would become the gauge of my worth. I would be there, I would get better. Every punishment was only making me better, making me his equal. Closer and closer till I could fulfill my promise.

I strode into the cafeteria, the familiar hum of chatter and clinking trays filling the air. Kiyan, my beta, was at my side, his amber eyes glinting with that annoying mischief he never seemed to shake.

We made our way to our usual spot, a table near the tall windows overlooking the east courtyard, where the morning light spilt across the polished wood. It was prime real estate, close enough to the food line but far enough from the chaos of the first-years scrambling for seats.

I dropped into my chair, leaning back with a sigh, already dreading the day.

The air was thick with the scents of baked bread, sweat, and too many wolflings who didn’t yet know how to mask their scents. Norsen’s elite were scattered across the room, laughing, gossiping, pretending they weren’t all here because war and politics had left the world desperate for soldiers.

Kiyan slid into the seat across from me, his grin wider than usual. “You’ve got a new fan girl,” he said under his breath, voice threaded with mischief. “Pretty one too. Shame she’s a little off in the head.”

I looked at him, unamused. “You really need a new hobby.”

He grinned. “I’m serious. She was staring at you during training like she wanted to murder you… or kiss you. Hard to tell which. Either way—hot.”

I shot him a flat look, my fingers drumming against the edge of the table. “That’s your boredom talking, Kiyan.”

He laughed, undeterred, his dark hair falling into his eyes. “Come on, man. You should have seen your face out there. She was staring at you like she wanted to burn a hole through your skull. And those eyes—brown hair, hazel eyes, that intensity? Gotta admit, it was something. Plus, she is smoking hot.”

I didn’t answer, not because I was offended. Kiyan’s sense of humor was a daily torment. He had been my beta since I became the crowned prince of Narth at the age of fifteen. I was familiar with his madness; I lived with it, so it wasn’t that. It was because something about what he said caught on.

The image of her flashed, uninvited, in my head, brown hair, hazel eyes that burned too long, too deep. There was something in that gaze I could not unsee. Not just anger, but more like recognition. It wasn’t her weirdness or that cold, piercing gaze that bothered me. It was something else, something deeper.

Her face... those sharp features, the way her eyes seemed to carry a weight I couldn’t place, it reminded me of someone. Someone from a long time ago, a memory I couldn’t quite grasp. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the thought. I was reading too much into it, had to be.

Still, it was bothering the hell out of me.

I dropped into my seat, propping an elbow on the table, watching the cafeteria swirl in motion. “You’re imagining things,” I muttered more to myself than to him. “She’s just another student, an insolent wolfling.”

Kiyan shrugged, smug. “Whatever you say, your highness.”

Before I could respond, a familiar scent hit the air, a sharp mix of midnight lilies and honeycomb. A moment later, Seraphine Nightwell, Kiyan’s fated mate, was sliding effortlessly into Kiyan’s lap, her silver hair falling across his chest like moonlight. She kissed him—long, unapologetic, and so indecent that half the cafeteria turned to look.

They stayed kissing like they had not just spent the morning tangled up in his room down the hall. She had just snuck out of his room this morning before dawn. I knew because I had passed her in the hall on my way back from one of the private rooms in the female dorms at the east wing.

“Do you two ever stop?” I asked, my tone dry enough to crack glass.

Kiyan grinned against her mouth. “Not when the gods bless me like this.”

Ugh, they made me sick. Ever since they found each other at the coming-of-age festival for the first year, I have been visually assaulted and forced to watch their love blossom. It was a miracle they didn’t have a litter of baby wolves running around already.

I rolled my eyes, turning my attention to the window, where the campus sprawled out under a bright blue sky.

Seraphine laughed, twisting in his lap to face me. “What’s with the face, Draven? You look like someone told you your claws have gone dull.”

Before I could respond, Kiyan jumped in, eager to stir more chaos. “He’s in a mood because of his new fan girl.”

Seraphine perked up, eyes glinting. “A fan girl?”

I snorted, leaning forward. “Don’t listen to him, Sera. He’s full of it.”

Kiyan nodded, looking far too pleased with himself. “Yes, baby, a fan girl. Pretty little thing. Weird as hell though. Caught her staring at him like he hung the moon. I swear, he looked two seconds away from kissing her when I walked in.”

“That’s enough,” I muttered, shooting him a warning look.

Seraphine’s grin turned wicked. “Oh, now I definitely need to hear this.”

I smirked, sensing an opportunity to turn the tables. “Speaking of telling everything, Kiyan,” I said, my tone light but pointed, “how exactly did you notice she was pretty? I thought you only had eyes for Sera.”

Kiyan froze.

I turned my gaze on Seraphine, voice low and teasing. “Are you really going to let him go around staring at other women? I suppose that’s not what loyal mates do, now, is it?”

Seraphine’s expression darkened instantly. “Kiyan? How do you know she’s pretty?”

He groaned. “Oh for—Aklan, you’re the devil.”

Their argument started in seconds—sharp, biting, entirely predictable. I leaned back, crossing my arms, a satisfied smile tugging at my lips as they started bickering. Kiyan tried to backpedal, stammering about how he was just observing, while Seraphine poked his chest, her voice rising. It was almost too easy to shut him up.

Then I heard her voice.