chapter 2

Chapter 2

Naomi's POV

Pain was a funny thing. After a while, it stopped feeling like sharp stabs and started feeling like a heavy, wet blanket wrapped around my entire soul.

I didn't  know how long I had laid in that mud, but by the time I managed to roll onto my stomach and push myself up, the courtyard was empty. 

I could see the lights in the distance though. It was impossible to miss it with how brightly it was glowing, and the sound of music from the pre-graduation party was drifting over the grass.

They were celebrating. They were having the time of their lives while I was here… bleeding.

I dragged myself toward the north wing, my ribs screaming with every movement I took. I didn't want to go to the infirmary.

Going there meant seeing the pity in the nurse’s eyes, or worse, seeing Helena there pretending to check on me. No, I had a different destination in mind.

It took me forever to climb the stairs to the highest rooftop of the academy. My breath came in short, ragged gasps, and I had to stop every few steps to make sure I wasn't going to pass out.

Eventually, I pushed open the heavy metal door and stepped out into the night.

The wind up here was crazy. It howled through the old pillars, whipping my hair across my face and stinging the cuts on my cheeks.

I walked toward the edge slowly.

This was it. The end of the line.

I looked down at the abyss, and it looked so peaceful. Once I jumped, I’d no longer be an anomaly. I wouldn't be a punching bag to Helena any more.

There'd be no more watching the girl who had ruined my life play the saint while I was treated like trash. At twenty-one, the clock had officially run out.

I was a wolf-less nothing, a glitch in a world built for predators.

I closed my eyes and let the wind push against my chest. It felt like the wolf I never had was finally calling to me, but she was calling from the bottom of those rocks.

Wait.

I gripped the edge of the stone railing, my knuckles turning white. 

Why was I doing this? Because they hated me? Because Helena won?

A sudden, sharp spark of heat flared in my chest. It wasn't sadness, nor was it even fear. The thing I was feeling was pure, unadulterated spite.

If I jumped right then, Helena would win the ultimate prize. She would probably give a tearful speech at my funeral, wearing some designer black dress.

Everyone would talk about how kind she was for trying to save the unstable Naomi. My death would become another brick in her castle of lies.

She would get to be the grieving best friend, the girl who tried so hard to help the poor, broken anomaly. I wouldn't just be dead….no, I would be her final masterpiece.

"Forget that."

"I’m not giving her the satisfaction," I whispered into the wind. My voice was tiny, but it felt crazily loud in my head. 

"If I’m going to go down, I’m going to go down fighting. I’m going to stay alive just to be a thorn in her side. I’m going to live because she wants me gone."

I let out a shaky breath and started to turn away from the ledge. I was done with standing on the fucking edge.

I was going to go back down, find a way to survive the graduation expulsion, and maybe—just maybe—find a way to make her pay.

But as I took my first step back toward the door, something inside me snapped.

This wasn't a metaphor though. I literally heard something breaking. Like some bone breaking or….or a drum being struck inside my skull. 

One second I was standing there, and the next, my entire body was flooded with a violent, feverish heat. It felt like someone had poured molten lead into my veins.

My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought they would actually shatter. I fell to my knees, clawing at my chest.

The world started to spin. Colors I had never seen before began to bleed into the darkness of the night.

Every scent in the air—the rain, the pine trees, the sweat on my own skin—became a thousand times bolder.

My wolf.

After twenty-one years of silence, she was waking up. 

And she was tearing her way out of me like she was angry she had been kept waiting so long. The heat was unbearable.

It felt like hell. Fuck, it hurt. It hurt. 

I felt like my skin was going to melt off my bones.

I tried to crawl toward the center of the roof, but my balance was completely gone. My head was swimming, and the world was tilting at a forty-five-degree angle.

My hands slipped on the wet gravel.

"No, no, no."

I reached out for the railing, but my fingers brushed empty air. My heart stopped for a completely different reason as I realized I had staggered the wrong way.

The wind, which had been pushing me back, suddenly felt like it was pulling me over.

I felt my feet leave the solid stone. The dark abyss rushed up to meet me, and a silent scream died in my throat.

I was falling. It was my insane reality.

But I didn't hit the rocks.

Instead, I felt a pair of massive, powerful hands grab my arms and yank me backward with a force that nearly dislocated my shoulders. I was slammed into a chest that radiated a heat so intense it made the fever in my blood feel cold by comparison.

I couldn't breathe nor think. All I could feel was the person holding me.

They were solid, like a mountain, and they smelled like woodsmoke. It was almost addictive.

My vision was a hazy mess of gray and black, but I forced my eyes to open. I needed to see who had caught me.

I looked up, and for a second, the world went completely still.

I was looking into a pair of eyes that looked like the deepest part of the ocean. They were blue, but a blue so dark and intense it felt like I was drowning in them.

He was beautiful in a way that was almost terrifying—all sharp angles and shadows.

But it wasn't just his face; it was the feeling.

The moment our eyes locked, the screaming wolf in my head went silent. A single word echoed through my entire soul, vibrating in my bones and marking me in a way I knew I could never undo.

"Mate."

The word was so loud it was the only thing I could hear. My soul recognized him before my brain even had a chance to catch up.

He was mine, and I was his.

I tried to say something, to ask him who he was or how he had found me, but the heat of my awakening and the shock of the fall finally caught up to me. My strength evaporated.

The blue depths of his eyes were the last thing I saw before the edges of my vision crumbled and the world turned pitch black for real this time. 

I was falling again, but this time, I knew I wasn't going to hit the ground. 

I was safe in the arms of the man who was meant for me.

Or so I thought….