chapter three

Chapter 3

Sienna pov

Months later…

It's safe to say I'd finally found my standing in my new school and honestly, I was living my best life. New friends. New cheer squad. New everything.

At Northgate, nobody whispered behind my back about Crescent Moon. Nobody cared that I was the Alpha’s daughter. Nobody looked at me like I was just “Troy’s girlfriend.” Here, I wasn’t anyone’s shadow. I was simply Sienna Carter — and I liked the sound of that.

Cheer practice became my sanctuary. The rush of tumbling, the sting of chalk on my palms, the satisfying crack of sneakers hitting the floor in perfect unison — that was where I thrived. By the end of my first month, I’d worked my way up from “new girl” to captain. (Yes, captain. Try not to sound too shocked.)

My squad was solid. Harper, my roommate turned partner-in-crime, was my second-in-command. The rest of the girls trusted me, actually listened when I called counts, and for once, there was no cattiness about who got the top of the pyramid. We were a team. My team.

Life was smooth, drama-free, and exactly how I wanted it.

Well. Almost.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that peace never lasts long. And in my case, peace had a name.

Scott. Freaking. McCall.

I’d heard about him long before I saw him — Northgate’s golden boy. Silvermoon’s Alpha heir apparent. Quarterback. Team captain. Walking ego in cleats. The kind of guy who thought the world spun just a little faster because he stepped onto the field.

Lecturers and staffs loved him, freshmen idolized him, and girls… well, let’s just say the hallway squeals whenever he so much as looked in their direction were enough to make me want to invest in noise-canceling headphones.

Our first encounter? Classic. My squad and I walked into the gym for practice only to find his football team sprawled across the floor like they owned the place. Dumbbells, footballs, protein shakes everywhere. And at the center of it all? Him. Laughing, charming, smirk tilted just so — like he knew he was annoying me.

Spoiler: he was.

I told him the gym was booked for cheer practice. He told me to “take a lap and relax.” The nerve.

I stood there, clutching my clipboard, debating whether to scream or shove his protein shake over his head. Instead, I settled for planting my hands on my hips and arching an eyebrow. “Funny. Because my squad has this thing called a schedule. And according to it, you’re in our way.”

The smirk didn’t budge. “Schedules can change.”

“So can noses,” Harper muttered beside me, loud enough for his teammates to hear. A few of them snorted, quickly covering it with coughs.

Scott’s eyes flicked to her, amused. “Fiesty. I like her.”

“I’m not here to be liked, McCall,” I snapped. “I’m here to run practice. So unless you want to see what happens when an entire cheer squad stages a coup, I suggest you move your circus elsewhere.”

For a second, he just stared at me. Like he wasn’t used to anyone talking back. Then that smirk spread wider, the kind that screamed trouble. He leaned back on his elbows and drawled, “Looks like Northgate finally got interesting.”

That was when I realized two things.

One, Scott McCall was going to be a problem. And two… problems had a way of making life interesting.

It wasn’t just the gym incident. After that, it was like Scott made it his mission to insert himself into my orbit.

Crossing the quad? He’d fall into step beside me, tossing out comments like, “Careful, Carter. Don’t walk too fast — wouldn’t want you to trip on your own attitude.”

In the dining hall? He and his teammates somehow always ended up at the table across from ours. Harper called it “strategic seating,” I called it “stalking.” He called it “coincidence.”

Practice overlaps? A nightmare. The cheer squad and the football team shared the stadium more often than not. Which meant my counts were constantly drowned out by whistles, my routines interrupted by footballs sailing way too close for comfort, and Scott’s smug grin flashing at me every single time.

The thing was… my squad loved it.

“Oh, come on, Sienna,” Kayla teased one afternoon after Scott tossed me a water bottle without asking. “He’s totally into you.”

“Into annoying me,” I shot back, unscrewing the cap.

Harper raised a brow. “Annoyance is just flirting in disguise.”

I choked on my sip of water. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she said with a smirk. “Classic enemies-to-something vibe. Honestly, if this were a movie, you guys would be kissing in, like, three scenes.”

The thought alone was enough to make me gag. “Over my dead body.”

Harper just hummed. “Guess we’ll see.”

By mid-semester, the rivalry had practically become a campus-wide sport. People took sides like it was the latest streaming drama: Team Carter vs. Team McCall.

Professors rolled their eyes when our names appeared together on any project. The dean actually rearranged seating charts during assemblies because the last time we sat within five feet of each other, we sparked a shouting match that ended up on someone’s TikTok.

And Coach Mike? He flat-out banned me from speaking to Scott during practices, probably in hopes of avoiding another “pep rally planning incident.” (Spoiler: it didn’t work.)

The truth? Scott knew how to get under my skin — and worse, he enjoyed it. That maddening smirk, those lazy comebacks, the way he’d call me “Captain Carter” in that mocking tone like it was some kind of inside joke.

But here’s the thing I never admitted out loud:

I enjoyed it too.

Not that I’d ever say that. Not when my heart still carried the sting of Crescent Moon — of whispers, betrayal, and being branded nothing more than an Alpha’s daughter or a boy’s girlfriend. I wasn’t going to hand Scott McCall that kind of power over me.

No. This was my fresh start. My campus. My squad.

And if Scott wanted a war?

Well. He’d just picked the wrong Alpha’s daughter to mess with.