LOGINElara's POVFreya came back to the dorm with a different energy about her.I noticed it the moment she walked through the door, that particular glow that had nothing to do with the time of day or how much sleep she had gotten, that specific kind of quiet happiness that settled on a person after something significant had happened and they hadn't fully processed it yet. She looked lighter somehow, like something she had been carrying had been set down somewhere and she hadn't picked it back up yet. Even the way she moved into the room was different, slower, more settled in herself, like she was still somewhere in her head replaying whatever had just happened and didn't mind being there.She dropped her bag on the floor, sat down on her bed, looked at me directly, and said it plainly."I just had sex with Rory."I smiled.Freya looked at my smile. Then she looked at it more carefully, studying it the way she studied things when she was trying to work something out, reading it for what i
Freya's POV Rory met me outside the classroom with that easy calm he always had and said he had somewhere specific in mind, and I followed him without asking too many questions because that was the kind of trust that had built up between us without either of us deciding it should. We moved through the school corridors together and I noticed people noticing us, that particular awareness of being seen with someone that I had stopped being self-conscious about.When he stopped in front of Mr. Logan's office and produced a key I looked at him."Why are we in a teacher's office?"He unlocked the door and pushed it open, glancing back at me with that look he had, the one that was slightly amused and completely unbothered."It's not school hours and Mr. Logan isn't here, he keeps a spare set of keys with me because I'm a house captain, for situations where the sports equipment needs accessing or the facilities need to be opened up, he trusts me with it."I looked at the open door and then
Elara's POVLyris was talking to Leo.I noticed it on the walk to school, catching a glimpse of the two of them ahead of us near the entrance, Leo doing that thing he did where he leaned slightly forward when something interested him, Lyris talking with that easy confidence she carried everywhere she went like it was just part of how she was built. They looked like they had been talking for a while, comfortable, not the stilted conversation of two people who had just met but something already moving past that stage, already finding a rhythm."What do you think that's about?" Freya said, following my gaze."No idea," I said, which was true, and also the thing I told myself every time I noticed Lyris in a situation I didn't fully understand, which was becoming a regular habit at this point."She works fast," Freya said, more observation than judgment."Leo makes it easy," Nyx said simply, and we kept walking toward the entrance without making a thing of it.Classes moved the way they m
Elara's POVI saw Lyris coming before she saw me.It was during break, the corridors busy enough that you could reasonably disappear into the crowd if you wanted to, moving with the flow of people until you ended up somewhere else entirely. I had every intention of doing exactly that until she looked up and our eyes met and I knew she was going to say something because that was just the kind of person she was, easy and open and impossible to avoid.She smiled, that open smile she had that everyone seemed to find so disarming, the one that had half the school already treating her like she had always been there, and she opened her mouth.I looked away and kept walking.I felt it the moment I passed her, that awareness of having been deliberately cold to someone who had done nothing worse than exist in proximity to my boyfriend, and I knew it was rude, I knew she had noticed because I had seen the slight shift in her expression before I looked away, and I kept walking anyway because the
Elara's POVFreya was talking about Rory again, this was not unusual. Freya had been talking about Rory with the same level of enthusiasm since the day she officially started dating him, and somewhere along the way I had stopped being surprised by the specific things she said and just settled into the general warmth of listening to someone who was genuinely happy about something, which was its own kind of nice.He had texted her something thoughtful that morning, had remembered something she mentioned in passing two weeks ago and brought it up completely out of nowhere like it mattered to him, which apparently it did. He had looked at her in a way across the classroom that made her feel like the only person in the room."That's really sweet," I said, and meant it."He is really sweet," Freya said, hugging her knees to her chest on the bed, "like genuinely, actually sweet, not in a performative way where he's trying to be something, just naturally, like it comes easily to him.""That'
Elara's POV.I noticed it before I wanted to admit I had noticed it.Ravin and Lyris, smiling in class.Not loudly, not in a way that demanded attention, just that quiet thing that happened between two people who had talked about something real and now had a shorthand with each other that nobody else was in on. A glance that carried something, a small smile at nothing obvious. The kind of ease that didn't come from nowhere and didn't belong to strangers who had only known each other for a few days.I hated it.I caught it happening twice in one day and both times I turned back to whatever was in front of me and told myself it meant nothing, that I was being ridiculous, that Ravin had never given me a single reason to feel this way and I needed to calm down and stop reading into things.By the third time I stopped telling myself that.The jealousy was sitting in my chest like something with teeth, quiet and persistent, and I didn't want to be the kind of person who acted on it without
Ravin's POV I stopped lying to myself somewhere between leaving the garden and reaching the pack grounds.It was not a dramatic moment, no specific thought that broke through and forced the admission, just the quiet accumulation of everything that had happened over the last few weeks settling into
Elara's POVWe pulled apart slowly, and for a moment neither of us said anything, the garden quiet around us in a way that felt deliberate, like the world had decided to give us a second to catch up with what had just happened. I could feel the warmth of where his hand had been against my face eve
Ravin's POV She was already waiting by the oak when I arrived, and that surprised me slightly, not that she was there but that she had beaten me to it, standing with her arms loosely crossed and her eyes on the treeline beyond the garden fence like she had been thinking about something and had not
Elara's POVI noticed it for the first time on Wednesday, and it was the kind of thing you only caught if you were already paying attention, which I told myself I was not, not really.Ravin had been in class all morning, sitting in his usual spot with that settled unhurried energy he carried everyw







