ANMELDENZANA’S POVThe next day, we had double period for Elemental Magic.The moment I stepped through the classroom door, I could feel that something was wrong.It wasn't anything obvious at first. The room looked the same as always. Professor Marlowe was already standing at the board when I came in, writing out the afternoon's lesson headers.She didn't look up. That was the first sign.Marlowe always looked up.She catalogued every student who entered her classroom the way a warden catalogues prisoners. She was always noting them, marking them present in some internal register before they'd even taken their seats. It was one of the things that made her exhausting to be around.But today she kept her back to the door. I noticed that her chalk was moving with more force than necessary.I took my seat near the middle of the room and said nothing.Around me, the other students were already picking up on the vibe. I watched Petra Voss look at the boy beside her and shake his head - the univers
ZANA’S POVI sat with that for a moment.Then I closed the book and handed it back to Rhea.I reached down, pulled my sock back up, put my boot on, and laced it. I did all of this slowly and without looking up, because I needed something to do with my hands while I thought of what she just said.Last surviving heir.Last surviving heir?!What was this? A movie? A YA fantasy?"There's an explanation for this," I said. "One that doesn't involve any of that." I nodded at the book. "There's a logical explanation that I just don't have yet."Rhea sat down across from me. She held the book in her lap and she looked at me with"I've been looking for one," she said. "For a week, since the classroom. Since the windows." She paused. "I haven't found it.""Keep looking," I said."Zana-""Keep looking," I said again.Rhea was quiet for a moment. Outside the broken glass panes, the noon light was grey. Somewhere in the overgrown green of the greenhouse, something dripped."The mark on your wrist a
ZANA’S POVNow, everyone was looking at me. I could see it in their eyes – they were waiting for me to fuck up, to fail. That way, Thorne could punish me and they could all snicker and laugh.Even Thorne had that look in his eyes, like he was waiting for me to say the wrong thing.Thorne hated me. He made that pretty clear."Your defensive movements weren't just absorbing his force," I said. "They were redirecting it and storing it. By the third block you had used his energy to position yourself rather than spending yours. The counter didn't cost you anything because it was already loaded from what he gave you."Thorne looked at me for a moment. "And how do you generate that repositioning without telegraphing it?""You commit to the surface of the defense," I said. "Whatever's visible has to look like pure defense. Your opponent watches what your arms are doing. Your feet move while his eyes are busy."Thorne was quiet for a second. I could see the subtle look of surprise in his eyes.
ZANA’S POVMy pleasure kept building and building.I had to lean across the wall for support.My hand reached where it was going.The water ran down my spine and over my hips. Everything was warm inside me.I thought about Darren pinning me against the wall in the training ground, the weight of him, the moment just before he pushed back when neither of us moved. I thought about the specific sound his voice had made then. I thought about the look in his eyes when I had said you're worried and he had denied it too fast.I thought about Percy in the astronomy tower.‘Come here” he had said.I thought of the way he had held me like I was something that mattered, the way he had kissed me like being careful about it was the most important part.The climax built slowly. My orgasm hit me hard and my body shivered with it. I bit down on my lips even harder to stop myself from screaming through the pleasure.I stood still for a moment after. Water still ran down my back. slowly, my breathing re
ZANA'S POVI was dreaming about them again.In the dream there was no academy. There was just warmth and the three of them, which should have felt strange and didn't, which was the thing about dreams - they didn’t follow logic most times.I started to feel them. I felt Ken's hands in my hair, Darren's mouth at my throat. His voice was low as he said something I couldn't quite hear but could feel in my chest. I felt Percy's looking at me with total lust.I was warm everywhere. My whole body was warm.Then I was awake.I woke up fast, the way I always did, zero to alert in one breath, which my father's trainers had drilled into me as a child and which my body had never unlearned. My eyes opened on the ceiling of my room.I was breathing too fast and I was very, very warm. I could still feel the dream sitting all over my skin.Fuck.My wolf was awake too. Of course, she was. She was practically vibrating, which was not helpful. She craved them all the time.I turned my head and looked at
ZANA’S POVWe moved closer.I closed my eyes, preparing for the kiss and so did he.My wolf howled inside me, practically begging me to touch him. She felt this connection to him so bad.Our lips were close enough to touch until….There was a sound in the hallway, probably a student passing. We both flinched and looked back but saw nothing.Great.I cleared my throat and spoke back on the issue, like we weren’t so close to making out seconds ago. "That's not reassuring,""I know," he said. "I'm not trying to reassure you. I'm trying to be honest with you.""Okay”He looked at me. I noticed something. Ken didn’t have his walls up too much around me anymore, not ever since the classroom incident.His wall was further down than I had ever seen it. Not gone - it was never going to be fully gone, that wasn't who he was - but low enough that I could see something real behind it, something that had been there for a while, I thought, something that was not about the tournament or the bloodl







