Chapter 2

During intermediate training, he always wanted to go to the border with his teammates after practice. I sat by the training field and waited. He always said, “Why are you always here?” But he still bought things and shared half with me.

Once during a sparring match, his friends teased him and called me his future Luna. He got so angry he threw everything in his hands. But the next day when I had a fever and stayed home, he skipped training and climbed over the wall to my house. He sat outside my window the whole afternoon, refusing to leave until my mother told him I was fine.

In advanced training, I caught Orion staring at me more times than I could count. When I practiced in the field. When I talked to someone else. Even when I sat by the window doing nothing. His eyes always passed over me quickly and then darted away.

“Orion.” I turned my head suddenly and caught his gaze. “What are you looking at?”

He looked away in a hurry. “Nothing.”

I rested my chin on my hand and watched him. The boy who used to fight for me without blinking now fumbled when I caught him looking.

Our families announced our engagement on my seventeenth birthday. That night, he pulled me into an empty training room.

The lights flickered. His palms were sweaty, but his grip on my fingers was tight enough to hurt.

“You are still young.” His voice was tight. He would not look at me. “Have you really thought this through?”

I stood on my toes and covered his mouth. “I have.”

He shivered and pressed me against the wall. In the dark, I touched the scar on the back of his neck. He got it in intermediate training, when he pushed me out of the way of something falling from above.

After I joined the advanced team at Ironhold Academy, I was placed in his squad. We planned to have our marking ceremony at the end of the year.

That was when Lilith Vane showed up.

She was a transfer from another Pack. She joined Orion’s squad. On her first day, she brought dried meat from her Pack’s territory for everyone. She handed them out one by one and said, “Please take care of me.”

When she got to me, her hand slipped and knocked the old charm off my training bag. The charm hit the floor with a soft sound.

“Oh no.” Lilith bent down to pick it up. She held the string in her fingers. When she looked up, her eyes were already red. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to.”

Orion walked over. “What happened?”

“I bumped into Sylvie’s charm.” Lilith stood up and handed it to me. Her fingers were shaking. “I am really sorry. I did not mean to. I did not know it would fall.”

I looked at the charm. It was not broken. Someone in the training room said, “Sylvie, she already apologized.”

“Enough. The training room is not a place for gossip.” Orion’s face was blank.

Lilith lowered her head and went back to her spot.