LOGINNalini The day of the tournament arrived like a held breath finally released—too fast, too loud, too heavy to escape.I woke before the sun, my body already humming with a nervous energy that felt nothing like excitement. It felt like warning. My wolf stirred restlessly beneath my skin, pacing in slow, uneasy circles, as though she sensed something I did not yet understand. I lay still on the narrow dorm bed, staring at the ceiling while the sounds of the academy came alive outside—boots on stone, distant shouts, the metallic clang of training weapons being hauled into place.Today was not just a competition.It was a reckoning.By the time I dressed and stepped outside, Silvermist Academy no longer felt like the place I had known. Banners hung from the high towers, silver and blue snapping sharply in the morning wind. The air was thick with layered scents—adrenaline, wolf musk, iron, old stone warmed by rising heat. Packs had begun to gather around the arena, voices rough with antic
Nalini I had volunteered to be a strategist because it felt safer than standing in the arena itself. Or maybe that was a lie I told myself to feel useful without being seen too clearly. Either way, the Academy’s Alpha Games turned the entire grounds into something feral and electric, and there was no hiding anywhere—not even on the strategist’s platform.The morning air had carried iron and dust, the kind that clung to the back of the throat. Wolves paced everywhere in half-shifted states, muscles coiled too tightly beneath skin, eyes glowing faintly with anticipation. The Alpha Games were not a tournament, not officially. They were training. Preparation. But everyone knew what they really were: a display of dominance, control, and restraint—or the lack of it.I stood with a slate pressed to my chest, fingers digging into the wood as if it could anchor me. Below, the field had been divided into zones—forest simulation, urban ruins, open combat ring. Each team rotated through them, te
Nalini I felt like I was walking through water when I returned to school.Everything around me looked the same—the stone arches, the banners snapping in the wind, the buzz of voices layered over one another—but I was not the same girl who had walked these halls weeks ago. My body still remembered ropes, darkness, the way fear tasted metallic at the back of my tongue. My wolf lay restless beneath my skin, no longer quiet, no longer small. She stirred at everything now. Sound. Emotion. Proximity.Especially them.I stepped through the academy gates with my bag clutched tight against my side, breathing carefully, deliberately, as if one wrong breath would make me unravel in front of everyone. Students slowed when they saw me. Some stared outright. Others pretended not to, whispering behind cupped hands. News traveled fast in a place like Silvermist—faster when it involved the Rudrah princes and the omega who had disappeared and come back wrong.I hated that word. Wrong.I wasn’t wrong.
Timothy She seemed smaller than the Nalini I’d seen in my dream, more human, more fragile. There were faint shadows under her eyes, like sleep hadn’t been kind to her lately. She wore one of Myron’s sweaters, the sleeves too long for her arms, the scent of him wrapped around her.The sight hurt more than I expected.But fear pushed past it.“I need to talk to you,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. “Now.”Something in my tone must have warned her, because she didn’t argue. She nodded and led me further inside, sitting across from me on the couch. She folded her hands in her lap, waiting.That patience nearly broke me.I dragged a hand through my hair and exhaled slowly. “I had a dream.”Her brow furrowed. “A dream?”“It wasn’t just a dream,” I said. “It was… a vision. Or something close to it.”The bond stirred between us at my words, tightening slightly, like it recognized the truth even before she did.I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “I saw you. And Myron. An
Timothy I woke up choking on my own breath.For a few long seconds, I didn’t know where I was—only that my chest burned like something had clawed its way out of me and left scars behind. The sheets were twisted around my legs, damp with sweat, my hands shaking as if I had just come back from a fight I hadn’t finished.The dream clung to me.Not the vague kind that faded the moment consciousness returned, but the kind that rooted itself deep in the bones. The kind wolves remembered.In it, I stood in a place that didn’t exist anywhere on our maps—a vast white expanse beneath a sky split down the middle. Two moons hung above me instead of one, one silver and whole, the other cracked straight through the center like it had been struck by divine fury. Their light bled into each other, twisting, colliding.Between them stood Nalini.She didn’t look hurt. That was the worst part. She looked calm, glowing faintly, her wolf half-visible beneath her skin like starlight trapped in flesh. Two b
Myron I had always known danger wore a hundred faces, but I had never imagined one of them would be fear sitting quietly in Nalini’s eyes.She told me everything in a rush at first, words tripping over themselves, her hands clenched in the fabric of my shirt as if letting go would send her tumbling into something bottomless. Then she slowed, breath hitching, and forced herself to explain again—properly this time. Selene. Julie. The way their voices had dropped when they thought no one was listening. The words contamination and royal bloodline whispered like curses instead of concerns. The intent beneath them sharp enough to cut.I listened without interrupting, even though my wolf was already pacing, snarling, slamming itself against the inside of my ribs. Every instinct I possessed demanded blood, demanded protection, demanded I lock her away somewhere no one could ever reach her again. But I stayed still. I let her speak. I let her finish.When she was done, silence settled between







