LOGINAurelia.The following morning, there were fifty-six pairs of us."Interesting," Coach Vance began, his whistle in his mouth when he was done with us. "There are six pairs of you that are not supposed to be here, and I really do not want to have to move about. Do not let me find you if you do not remember me saying a single word to you yesterday."Six pairs of students left.I was amazed, staring at the backs of the students as they walked away when I saw him coming towards us. His face cap hid most of his features, even though whatever was left out that showed was just as terrifying."Miss Thorn," he said, acknowledging me before turning to Kai. "And Mister Arden.""Yes Coach," we said in unison."I am extremely sorry to see that you cannot join in, Mister Arden. I have no doubt that with the level of talent you show in these things, you could get as far as the finals of the Wolf Competitions. Maybe even win it, but the laws do not support you. We already talked about it yesterday."
Aurelia.I couldn't have missed Kai's scent for anything in the world."Kai," I squealed, jumping up to throw my arms around him and kissing him on the face. He embraced me back, laughing, while I almost started crying."Don't worry," he said. "I'll train with you."I caught Talia waving at us from where the students were seated and waved back before returning my attention to Kai."I genuinely hope you know I'm not going to go easy on you," he warned."I didn't expect you to-""Alright," Coach Vance's voice barked, and there came the characteristic silence that usually followed every word he said. "Now, we will practice Low-sweep evasion, and I will give the instructions for it while giving you time to practice. When you are ready, you will call me to come see you.""Ready?" Kai asked."Not quite.""There are as many as three hundred pairs of you by my estimate, which is a big number," Coach Vance continued. "My goal at this point is to diminish that number without any sort of mercy s
AureliaDawn the next morning was in one simple word, cold.The damp chill of dawn sent shudders down my spine despite me heavily swathing myself in the thickest cotton cardigan I could find that would let me move with agility in the training, while the mist rolling across the Blackridge Academy fields only made everything as bad as it seemed.To my surprise, though, hundreds of students were there too, all of us already gathering on the cold, wet grass. The air was also cold, thick with a dizzying mix of scents-nervous sweat, sharp adrenaline, and the underlying, competitive musk of dozens of young werewolf students. It was all enough to make my inner wolf pace restlessly beneath my ribs. I walked out onto the grass with Kai and Talia by my side, and it was difficult to ignore how the murmurs died down everywhere we passed, only to be replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence and watchful eyes. I tried to look at some of them, to try to read what their minds were thinking, and I mad
Aurelia.Without another word, Talia turned and stormed back into the house.She left me there and there I remained, unsure whether to follow her or not-unsure of what to even say to her. I was not angry that she sent Zephyron away, as he had been rather frightening and self-absorbed as we spoke , but I wondered what he could have done to hate him so much.The venom that showed in Talia's eyes when she looked at him, too? That was as new as it was terrifying. It frightened me too.I took a deep breath and followed her inside, and as difficult as it was to admit, I had been quite touchy about certain things that I thought of as sinking sand where Talia and I were concerned since our big fight. I certainly did not want a repeat of something like that, yet this looked just like that sort of thing, and it left a sinking feeling inside my chest.Still, I followed her.She was in her room when I found her, sitting on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands. I heard her breathing, a
Aurelia.Coming around after being unconscious and seeing Lyra Soren looking at me like that was frightening enough for me. Even worse, though, was the fact that seeing her angry face rang no memory bells in my head. In fact, I was not exactly sure I could remember anything until I saw the red teddy that Zephyron had thrown at me while trying to remind me.Then I picked up his scent in the air."Here," he said as our eyes met. "Drink. You must be thirsty."Seeing him made me angry. He had done all that and made me go unconscious only to now act as though nothing had happened. I was also very certain that he had something to do with the watching Lyra."I don't want anything from you," I snapped. "And who is she?"That proved to be a costly mistake on my part."Swear, you dirty bitch," Lyra yelled so hard her face turned red as she stormed towards us. "Swear that you don't know who I am."The next few moments turned out to be one of the most intense things I had ever seen. Zephyron got
Zephyron.It was now my turn to step backwards. Her body lay still on the ground, unmoving, while my heart started to thump inside my chest. My inner wolf growled, while my ears filled up with the sound of my blood rushing through my ears, and my eyesight blurred. I felt as though I was also going to fall as suddenly as she had.It took me some time to pull myself together and get on my knees beside her. She had fallen onto her side, so I rolled her over with shaky hands so that she turned onto her back, still without any signs of life from her."Aure-Aurelia?" I whispered, drawing the hair that had fallen across her face to a side while struggling to keep my hands steady. "Get up."She gave no signs of hearing.I reached for her hand and felt her pulse, which was still there and quite lively, thankfully. I felt it by the side of her neck, too, and I touched her face again, which was warm. Then I put my finger under her nostrils and felt the warm air as she exhaled. It had to mean th
Aurelia's POV Talia decided she would clean the house next morning, and I agreed.I only didn't mean it.I waited for as long as two hours for her to sleep before moving as quietly as I could to stop Talia from hearing anything that would wake her up to see me and picking up the bits and pieces of
Talia's POV I was now treading a two-edged sword.The house had been turned upside down and wrecked from the inside-out when I stepped in, and my first priority had been to check Aurelia, as I was afraid that one of her enemies had gotten to her.It only took seeing her walking in to assure me tha
Aurelia's POV Kai's departure left me confused.At the very least, I expected a little more from him.I had not done it intentionally, but I had hoped that he would support me while I collapsed, so the sudden exit was just cold and unexpected from him. I even wondered what he thought about me now—
Talia's POV I did not think of how taxing it could be to keep up a lie for so long. On the one hand, it was endearing to watch her recover some of the memories we had inside of the house. I noticed much of this and was happiest in a moment when I was mowing the lawn while she was helping by raki







