Betrayal. Fleeing the Billionaire.

The letter arrived on a Tuesday, which was already a bad sign.

Seraphina Voss did not get good news on Tuesdays. She got overdue bills, eviction warnings, and, once, a very detailed note from her neighbor complaining about her habit of cooking at midnight. Tuesdays were the universe's way of reminding her that she existed at its mercy, not the other way around.

She turned the envelope over. Thick cream paper. A wax seal pressed with the head of a wolf.

Blackwood Academy.

Her hands went cold.

She had applied on a dare. That was the truth she'd never say out loud. Her best friend Demi had shoved the scholarship form across the diner table six weeks ago and said, "You're smarter than every wolf at that school. Prove it." Seraphina had filled it out just to shut her up.

She had not expected them to say yes.

Blackwood Academy was not for girls like her. It was not for Omegas without a pack, without a family name, without anything but a secondhand uniform and enough stubbornness to pass every entrance exam they threw at her. It was for wolves with bloodlines so old the forest remembered their names. It was for the heirs and the powerful and the chosen.

She read the letter three times.

Full scholarship. Housing included. Start date: September first.

Her fingers were shaking when she set it down.

She told herself it was cold.

* * *

Blackwood Academy sat at the edge of a mountain that had no business being that dramatic. The iron gates were taller than any gate needed to be. The banners hanging from stone pillars bore a silver wolf mid-leap, jaw open, as if it was deciding whether to welcome you or eat you.

Seraphina decided she had never hated a building more.

She dragged her single suitcase through the main courtyard alone. Every other student arriving that morning seemed to come in clusters, loud and laughing, wearing uniforms that actually fit. Hers was a hand-me-down from the academy's scholarship office, and the jacket sat slightly too wide at the shoulders.

She was adjusting the collar for the third time when she felt it.

A stare.

Heavy. Deliberate. The kind that pressed against the back of your neck and did not let go.

She turned.

He was standing on the steps of the main hall with two other boys, but he was not looking at them. He was looking at her. Dark hair, sharp jaw, the kind of stillness that did not belong to someone his age. He wore the academy uniform like it had been built for him personally, which it probably had.

She knew who he was.

Everyone knew who he was.

Caden Ashveil. Alpha heir. Youngest son of the Ashveil bloodline, which had run this academy unofficially for four generations. He had never spoken to a scholarship student in three years of attendance, according to every forum thread she'd read trying to prepare herself for this place.

He was still staring.

Seraphina stared back.

It was a mistake. She knew it the moment she did it. You did not hold an Alpha's gaze unless you were prepared for what came next. Her Omega instincts fired all at once, screaming at her to drop her eyes, tuck her chin, make herself small.

She didn't.

She held his gaze for exactly four seconds, long enough to make her point, then turned and walked toward the registration desk without looking back.

Her heart was slamming so hard she could feel it in her teeth.

She did not see the way his expression changed.

She did not see him go very, very still.

* * *

The dormitory advisor handed her a key and a room assignment and a stack of academy rules so thick it could double as a weapon.

"You're in the East Wing," the woman said, already moving to the next student. "Don't be late to orientation."

Seraphina found the room. Narrow bed, small desk, one window overlooking the forest. She dropped her suitcase on the bed and sat beside it and let herself breathe for exactly thirty seconds.

She could do this.

She was here because she was smart. She was here because she had earned it.

She was not here because of some Alpha who had stared at her in the courtyard like she was a problem he hadn't expected.

She opened her suitcase and started unpacking.

She was halfway through when someone knocked on the open door. She turned.

It was not anyone she expected.

It was a girl with copper-brown curls and a smile so wide it seemed structurally improbable. She held out a hand. "Maren Cole. I'm in the room next door. You looked like you needed someone to tell you the dining hall pasta is actually edible on Thursdays."

Seraphina blinked. Then she took the hand.

"Seraphina Voss."

"Cool name," Maren said, dropping into the chair at the desk like she lived there. "Scholarship?"

"Yeah."

"Me too." Maren shrugged. "This place is intense, but you get used to it. Mostly." She paused. "Did something happen in the courtyard? You came in looking like someone had stepped on your tail."

Seraphina considered lying.

"Caden Ashveil stared at me."

Maren's smile vanished so fast it was almost funny.

"For how long?"

"Four seconds, maybe."

The silence that followed was not the comfortable kind.

"That's not nothing," Maren said finally, her voice careful in a way it hadn't been before. "Caden Ashveil doesn't stare at people. He doesn't notice people. He walks through this school like everyone else is furniture." She was looking at Seraphina with something she couldn't quite read. "What did you do?"

"I stared back."

Maren closed her eyes.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Oh, you are going to be so much trouble."

Seraphina didn't know why those words felt less like a warning and more like a promise.

Outside, the bell tower struck seven, and Blackwood Academy settled into evening around her. Somewhere in the main hall, she was certain, a dark-haired Alpha was still thinking about the wrong girl who had held his gaze.

She just didn't know yet that she was the only one who could.