Fifty

I had a revenge to take on the Black Shadow Pack—but what business did Aiden’s pack have with all of this?

Don't tell me he was going to start a fight with them.

Just when I was about to speak up, the door crashed open.

Not as if it was even locked in the first place—it was just slightly closed—but the person who barged in clearly didn’t care either way.

A young lady burst it open with both panels swinging wide, with the energy of someone who had never once in their life considered that the people behind the doors might have feelings about such things.

A girl stood in the doorway, she looked young—maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen—with wild dark hair that looked like it had been in a braid at some point this week and had since staged a full, unrepentant revolt.

She was wearing a leather black jacket three sizes too big, boots that had clearly been through several tough times in the forest, and the expression of someone who had been wronged by the universe specifically and personally and was absolutely here to discuss it at length.

She pointed at Aiden before she even fully stepped into the room.

“I will not allow myself to be cheated. Aiden you need to call Director Hartwell right NOW because what just happened at Nevermore Academy is actually INSANE and I refuse—I genuinely, totally REFUSE—to accept that punishment—”

Nevermore Academy?

I knew that school.

That was the school my father had been sending me to before everything fell apart. Before I became a criminal in my own pack’s eyes.

Who was this girl?

I said nothing, letting myself heal up as I watched the whole drama unfold.

“Zyla, what are you doing here?” Aiden raised his hand and brushed his hair backward, sighing immediately as she entered the room.

That action of his caught my attention before I could stop it. In my new vision of him—the one the bond had apparently decided I was having now whether I wanted to or not—even sighing looked attractive on him.

He was looking dangerously good in slow motion and I couldn't seem to peel my eyes away from his lips.

I didn't even know when I was licking mine in the process.

Damn it.

Oh my God, Fuck!

I forced my eyes away.

What was I thinking and doing? I have to be going crazy.

“Oh boy…” Nathan muttered, studying Zyla’s energy with the expression of someone watching a weather system develop. “She definitely got suspended again.”

“No Nathan, that is NOT what happened!” Zyla spun to face him with the speed and precision of someone who had been misunderstood their entire life and was genuinely tired of it.

“I got RUSTICATED—which is completely different, I think—BUT it was not my fault that the training hall caught fire. I was PROVOKED by that crazy witch and her ridiculous boyfriend, and if the Academy thinks they can just send me home without even hearing my side of the story—”

“You burned down the training hall,” Nathan said, blinking slowly.

“I didn’t burn it DOWN, I mistakenly set it partially on fire, there is a difference—”

“Damn.” Nathan facepalmed himself and said in a tired tone. “You raised the bar. Last time it was just property damage. Now it’s arson.”

“Arson? No way, It is NOT arson when you are DEFENDING YOURSELF—”

“Zyla.” Aiden’s voice was level as he spoke but she kept going, louder now, like volume was the answer. “—I did NOT spend three months in that school pretending to care about supernatural etiquette just to get rusticated for defending myself from someone who absolutely deserved everything they—”

“ZYLA.”

He raised his voice so high that it filled the room completely, carrying the full weight of Alpha command underneath.

She stopped instantly, mid-sentence. Like someone had cut a wire.

She blinked and for the first time since she’d crashed through the door, she actually looked at him and studied what was going on in the room and on Aiden.

Her eyes dropped to his mouth first—blood on his lips, dried now but visible. Then traveled down to his neck where the spiral mark sat dark and bold against his skin.

It used to be faint. Now it was permanently visible.

The evidence of a completed bond, fresh and undeniable.

Her mouth fell completely wide open and her whole body froze movement.