Chapter 3 - Kellan

By the third day back, my schedule looked more like a battlefield map than a class roster.

Strategic council at dawn. Dueling pairings at noon. Leadership committee after dinner. If it wasn’t one of Marric’s briefings, it was another list of wolves demanding to know why a Bloodpine was walking our halls in Hawthorne colors.

I hadn’t even unpacked my second bag.

I stood in the Hawthorne common room, back straight, jaw tight, watching as two juniors squared off over who got the upper bunk in their shared dorm. One of them was growling. The other already had claws out.

“Enough,” I snapped, voice low but full. It echoed just enough to remind them who I was. Not their Alpha, but the closest thing now that Caelum was gone.

Both wolves flinched. Claws retracted. The growling stopped.

I pointed to the one with the smug smirk and said, “Bottom bunk. Congratulations. You’re a dick and demoted.” Then to the other, “Top bunk. And you owe me five pushups for not defending your space better. Go.”

They moved.

The silence afterward lingered like a challenge no one wanted to voice.

Caelum used to handle this stuff. Back when he still wore the crest with pride and sat next to me in every planning session, as if we were born for it. We were supposed to lead together. Dual heirs. Two halves of the same future.

But he chose Nora. Chose exile. Chose fire.

I didn’t blame him. I respected it. But I was still here. Still holding the House together with nothing but strained patience and a checklist that never stopped growing.

And now we had Ronan Draxmere.

Bloodpine.

Alpha-heir. Enforcer. Spy.

The second his boots hit the training grounds, Hawthorne split clean down the middle. Half the wolves flinched like he was a predator we’d failed to chain. The other half watched him like a circus act—entertained, intrigued, whispering like he might do a backflip and maul someone if provoked just right.

They all looked at me to manage it.

To control him.

So far, Ronan hadn’t lashed out. He hadn’t snapped or slipped or lost control in the way they all expected. Which only made it worse. Because he wasn’t sloppy.

He was precise.

And no one trusts a predator that knows how to wait.

I had six messages waiting from Professor Marric. Two more from Headmaster Arx. One from a council rep asking if Ronan was going to be evaluated for full House status or if he was “temporary.”

Temporary.

Right. Because Bloodpine wolves stop being dangerous if you ignore them long enough.

I pulled on my cloak and headed toward the admin wing, already bracing myself for another closed-door session where no one said what they really meant.

Caelum left a void in Hawthorne.

And the worst part?

I wasn’t sure if I was filling it.

Or bleeding in it.

I left the common room with the weight of the House still hanging around my shoulders like a second cloak.

Hawthorne’s leadership wing was colder than usual—literally. The magic suppressants in the warding halls had been recalibrated after the winter breach, and they leeched the warmth from the air as effectively as they leeched stray power from our skin. My boots echoed as I passed by three more message scrolls pinned outside my door. I didn’t stop to read them.

Not now.

I didn’t need another meeting. I needed to hit something.

Luckily, Professor Caelen Fae had combat drills today.

Unluckily, I was the first name on his list.

Caelen Fae was already on the mat when I arrived. Slate-gray arm wraps tight to his forearms, cloak tossed aside, shoulder-length dark hair half-tied and still slightly damp from a morning run. He’d changed since last term, and not just in appearance.

He taught like a man with something to prove.

“Reed,” he called as I stepped onto the floor. His tone was even, unreadable. “Warm enough, or should I insult your dead ancestors to speed it up?”

“Already warm, Professor,” I said, pulling off my cloak. My jaw cracked as I flexed it. “But I’m open to insults if it helps you sleep.”

A few upperclassmen laughed from the benches.

Fae didn’t.

He nodded to the enchanted stave on the weapons rack. “Use the long staff. I’ll take the short.”

That wasn’t protocol. Same reach meant even footing. He was cutting my advantage in half on purpose.

I took the staff anyway.

We circled.

Fae didn’t fight like the rest of the instructors. He moved like a shadow that knew where you’d step before you did. His strikes were fast, purposeful, impossible to predict. I blocked the first three. Dodged the next two. The sixth clipped my ribs, and by the ninth, I was sweating.

“You’re slower than last term,” he said, spinning low and sweeping. I jumped it. Barely. “Too careful. Too restrained.”

I gritted my teeth. “That restraint kept half this House alive last semester.”

He jabbed at my shoulder. I parried, reversed grip, went for the sweep and he pivoted, dodging with that fluid grace of his.

“It also nearly got you killed,” he said, slamming the butt of his stave into my thigh. I stumbled back. “Hesitation isn’t leadership, Reed. It’s a death sentence.”

My wolf flared, hard enough to sting. The pressure coiled tight between my shoulders.

He wanted me to break.

He wanted to see what happened when I stopped playing the role of perfect heir.

“You fighting me, Professor,” I said, panting, “or the man who left this House behind?”

Fae’s eyes narrowed. His next strike came faster than I expected.

We clashed.

Hard.

And for a moment, one heartbeat of muscle and fury and instinct, I wasn’t thinking about drills or ranks or the dozen scrolls waiting for me outside my door.

I was thinking about Ronan.

About the way his wolf met mine.

About the way I wanted to shove him against a wall and tear into him to feel something break.

Fae twisted my staff out of my hands. It clattered across the floor.

“Better,” he said quietly.

Then he turned and walked off the mat, leaving me breathless, shaking, and furious with myself for how much he was right.

I didn’t take a shower. 

Bruises from Caelen’s staff stinging as I walked, the words ringing in my ears louder than my sword on the stone floor.

Better.

I needed distance. Breathing room. Anything to make me feel like I had some say in things again. 

Which was the problem, because the longer I wandered the halls of Hawthorne, the less I felt like I did. 

My House was splitting apart at the seams. Caelum was gone. Nora’s return had thrown the power dynamics into chaos yet again. And Ronan Draxmere… 

The asshole was everywhere. 

Okay, maybe that was exaggerating. But not by much. He was in the corners of the training rooms. On the weapon racks. Even in the fucking stairwell. Wild. Weighted. Rain-washed pine and smoke, like he’d brought the forest with him and challenged anyone to clean it away. 

So when I rounded a corner in the western wing, past the old collapsed hall with the runes still half-charred from the last breach in the Interregnum, and spotted a familiar outline in the hallway ahead of me, I didn’t pause. 

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” I called out, voice sharper than I’d intended. 

Ronan turned slowly, hands in his pockets, no sign of contrition in his stance. 

“Neither are you.” 

I started walking toward him, eyes sweeping the empty hallway behind him. The wards here were weak. Burnt out. The hall hadn’t been reopened officially since the attack. There was still a faint hum in the air, like a wild spell. Magical residue that wouldn’t quite dissipate. 

“What’re you doing?” I asked, pausing a few steps closer than I should have. Close enough to see, but not close enough to touch. 

He looked past me, over to the stained glass window that was cracked from heat damage, panels of red and gold glass that painted the floor in shattered lines of sunlight. 

“Learning,” he said. 

I scowled. “From a hallway that’s already burned?” 

He shrugged. “Places like this hide their real shit in the places no one wants to look.” 

“Or in the people no one wants to trust,” I blurted before I could stop myself. 

He glanced at me then, unreadable in his expression. No smile. No smirk. Nothing. Just waiting. 

“I’m not here to fuck this place up,” he said softly. 

I raised an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled half the House.” 

“Yeah,” he said. “Look at me like I’m a bomb already mid-tick. Not worth defusing. Just counting down.” 

“And are you?” I asked, before I could stop it. “Counting down?” 

Ronan’s jaw clenched. “I’m trying not to.” 

That was it. Damn it. Vulnerable. But not in a way that made him seem like he was posturing to throw me off. 

Truthful. Honest. Tired. 

He turned away from me, back to the window. Sunlight flickered across his jaw in tongues of fire. 

“I don’t know how to be useful here without breaking something,” he said. 

And for a moment, I had no words. 

Because same. 

I swallowed that thought before it left my throat and took a step back. 

“Next time you go wandering,” I said, trying to sound like a leader again, “at least take someone who knows where the traps are.” 

He gave me a slow nod. “You volunteering?” 

I didn’t answer. 

But I also didn’t say no. 

I left him there, silhouetted in shattered sunlight like some half-emerged omen. 

I told myself it was the sensible decision—leave. Create distance between me and that low, quiet confession as if it hadn’t burrowed under my ribs and made my pulse stutter for all the wrong reasons. 

But the truth? 

I wasn’t certain if I left because it was the right decision. Or if I left because I was shaken. Shaken by him. By someone who by all accounts should be viewed as my enemy.

Back in my dorm, I double locked the door, shrugged off my cloak, and pulled the war ledger from beneath my bed. Not many students were privy to old warding records. Even fewer students had clearance to compare them against active sigils now. I’d gained that access last year, back when I still thought I could lead from discipline alone. 

The leather-bound binder was soft from wear, stuffed with charts, etched diagrams, and margin notes by students long graduated or dead. I unfurled the pages across my desk, scanning line after line of glyph signatures. 

There. 

Two sets of anchor runes didn’t align. 

One near the Everley stairwell. 

Another in the south wing near the arcane labs. 

I flipped to the updates log. No repair orders had been authorized. Which meant whoever altered the sigils had either done it under glamor—or had clearance they shouldn’t have. 

Sabotage. 

Again. 

I breathed out slowly, fingers curling over the edge of the desk. 

The attacks last semester hadn’t been one-offs, hadn’t been desperate strikes by a rogue faction. They were calculated. Coordinated. And from what I was seeing here now, they hadn’t ceased. 

Someone was still mucking with the ward lines. Weakening protections while the school tried to play nice with politics and posture. 

I slouched back in my chair and stared at the flickering sigil stone on the far wall, its pale light pulsing like a heartbeat trying to keep rhythm. 

Obscura was still hemorrhaging from the inside. 

And if no one started cauterizing the wounds soon? 

It was going to come crashing down. 

With all of us inside.