chapter 14

The vial hovered an inch from my mouth.

I turned my head. The glass kissed my cheek instead. Cold liquid smeared across my skin and the scent of concentrated wolfsbane burned my nostrils.

“No,” I said.

Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “Do it.”

The boy holding the vial tightened his grip on my jaw. His fingers dug in hard enough to bruise. Behind him Lola struggled against the other boy’s hold, her sneakers scraping uselessly on the wet tiles.

I shoved with everything I had. The vial tipped. Half the liquid spilled across the boy’s sleeve. He cursed and jerked back. The remaining drops hissed against my collarbone like acid.

Pain bloomed instantly—white-hot and spreading.

Lydia stepped closer. “Stubborn little thing.”

The greenhouse door exploded inward.

Isaac filled the frame, rain streaming from his hair, green eyes almost black with rage. The bond between us roared so loud I felt it in my teeth.

He didn’t speak. He moved.

The first boy never saw the punch coming. Isaac’s fist connected with his jaw and the vial shattered against the floor. Glass and wolfsbane sprayed across the cracked tiles. The second boy released Lola and lunged. Isaac caught him by the throat and slammed him into a metal workbench hard enough to leave a dent.

Lydia didn’t run. She simply stepped out of the way, calm as winter.

“Isaac,” she said, voice almost fond. “You’re making a scene again.”

He turned on her. “Touch her again and I will end whatever alliance your father still has with mine.”

“You already tried that language this morning.” She glanced at the spreading poison on the floor, then at the red welt rising on my collarbone. “Your little mate is already marked. How long do you think she lasts once the full dose hits her bloodstream?”

I pressed my palm to the burn. The pain was climbing my neck, crawling under my skin. My vision swam at the edges.

Isaac was at my side in two strides. His hands framed my face, thumbs brushing the wetness from my cheeks. The familiar pull of his healing bloodline flared the moment his mouth met mine—brief, desperate, focused. Heat flooded the burn, fighting the poison. It wasn’t enough. Too much had already entered through the open scrape on my skin.

He pulled back, breathing hard. “We need the nurse. Now.”

Lola scrambled upright, eyes huge. “I didn’t know they were going to—”

“Go,” Isaac snapped. “Find Ms. Weathers. Tell her it’s wolfsbane and that I’m bringing Charlotte.”

Lola fled through the broken door.

Lydia watched her leave with mild interest. “She won’t make it far. My mother already has people waiting near the main building. One call and that girl disappears from this school by morning.”

Isaac’s voice dropped to something lethal. “Get out of my sight.”

Lydia smiled the same thin smile her mother had worn in the headmaster’s office. “Your father called me twenty minutes ago, Isaac. He’s on his way to campus. He wants a private conversation about the girl you’re protecting. I suggested the greenhouse would be private enough.”

The words landed like another dose of poison.

Footsteps sounded on the path outside—heavy, deliberate, more than one set.

Isaac’s arm tightened around my waist as my knees threatened to buckle. The wolfsbane was spreading faster now, turning my limbs heavy.

Through the open doorway I saw three figures approaching through the rain. The one in front was tall, broad-shouldered, silver threading his dark hair. Jackson McCall. Isaac’s father. Flanking him were two men in dark coats I had never seen before.

Lydia stepped aside with perfect timing, clearing the path.

Jackson McCall’s gaze found me first. Then his son. The expression on his face was not surprise. It was calculation.

“Isaac,” he said, voice carrying easily over the rain. “You’ve been busy.”

Isaac shifted so that his body remained between me and his father. “She needs medical help. The rest can wait.”

Jackson’s eyes flicked to the broken vial on the floor, then to the mark already darkening on my skin. “Wolfsbane. How unfortunate. And how convenient.”

He took another step into the greenhouse. The two men followed, blocking the only exit.

“Bring her,” Jackson said quietly. “We have matters to discuss that no longer belong on school grounds.”

Isaac’s arm locked around me. The bond pulsed once—hard, warning, terrified.

Outside, the rain turned colder.

I tried to speak. Only a broken sound came out.

Jackson McCall looked at me the way a man looks at a problem he has already decided how to solve.

“Don’t worry, Miss Williams,” he said. “This will all be over very soon.”