LOGINLeslie POVI didn't know what to do. I stood there motionless, every thought scattering the moment it formed. No plan, no words, nothing — just the echo of that single, impossible word ringing through my chest, over and over, refusing to let go.Mate.Memories crashed in before I could stop them — every moment Sylvester and I had spent together, the kiss we'd almost shared before Giselle interrupted us, the way his hands had felt around my waist not ten minutes ago, steady and warm in a way that had felt like coming home even before I understood why. This couldn't be real. It couldn't. Not after everything — not after Draken, not after the mark still pulsing faintly beneath my skin from the last time he'd claimed some piece of me."Wait." A voice cut through the crowd, delighted, cruel, slicing straight through my spiraling thoughts. "Are you telling me Sylvester is mated to Leslie?"A laugh spread through the arena like wildfire, and I felt the entire mood of the bonfire flip upside
Leslie POV "How was your night, Autumn?" I asked as she finally stirred, a good three hours after I'd woken. "Whoa. Nobody warned me humans sleep this much." She laughed, stretching until her spine popped. "So — did you find Risel yesterday?" A yawn swallowed half her words. "Nope. Never found her. But you said you saw her leaving Giselle's room." "Exactly. That's what worries me." I sat up straighter, the unease from yesterday creeping back in, settling low in my stomach like a stone. "Giselle threatened to turn my entire life here into a nightmare. Why would Risel suddenly start being friendly with her, of all people? It doesn't make sense." "Relax, Leslie." Her voice was barely audible under another yawn. "You're overthinking this." "Maybe." I didn't believe it, though. Something about the way Risel had been avoiding my eyes lately felt deliberate, rehearsed, like she was hiding something she hadn't decided how to say yet. Before I could argue further, a knock rattled the do
Sylvester POVI walked over to her the moment Leslie and I finished our morning training, my eyes lingering on her a beat too long before I forced myself to look away.I couldn't help it. I admired her every single time I saw her — the kiss we'd almost had, the hours we'd spent tucked away in the woods together. I was falling for her, and it was happening faster than I could stop it, faster than I knew how to explain to myself, let alone to anyone else."Oh, baby dear."Giselle's voice cut through the fog, dragging me out of the daydream I'd been drowning in all day. I'd thought about Leslie so much I'd genuinely forgotten I had a girlfriend. That should have scared me more than it did."Yes, wolf claw," I said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear on reflex, the gesture hollow now, mechanical, a habit left over from a version of me that still wanted this relationship.Then I saw him. An elf, kneeling at her feet, arms loaded with her books like a servant, his head bowed so low his
Leslie POVHave you ever stared at a clock so long the numbers stop making sense? That was me, checking the time for what had to be the tenth time in twenty minutes, my stomach twisting a little more with every glance. The candle on my nightstand had burned down to almost nothing. I hadn't moved from the edge of my bed in over an hour.She wasn't back yet.Risel couldn't actually be serious about the whole "we're done being friends" thing. Could she? People said things like that when they were angry. People didn't mean it. Right? That's what I kept telling myself, over and over, like repetition alone could make it true.The fury I'd been nursing all night had curdled into something worse — worry, thick and sour, sitting right behind my ribs where the anger used to live. And once worry gets its hooks into you, it doesn't let go easily. It just keeps handing you evidence, one memory at a time, whether you want it or not.She stood up for me when nobody else would. She was the first pers
Risel POVYou know that feeling when you walk into a room and your whole body already knows something's wrong before your mind catches up? That was me, storming through the corridors of Shawls Academy, searching for Leslie like my life depended on it.Maybe it did. I just didn't know it yet.I'd been looking for her for the better part of an hour, cutting past clusters of students who scattered out of my way without me having to ask twice. There's a certain look you get on your face when you're a witch who's had a very bad decade, and apparently I was wearing it, because nobody so much as glanced at me twice.My chest was tight. My pulse had turned into a war drum somewhere around the twenty-minute mark. And the longer I searched, the worse the feeling in my gut became — that specific, sickening dread that tells you exactly who you're about to find her with, before you've even seen them.Go on. Guess.I found her outside the dete
Kael's POV "Are you alright, Leslie? You look shaken from what happened earlier." I braced my hands over hers as she sat quietly in the detention room, her spine too straight, her fingers too still — the kind of stillness that meant she was holding herself together by sheer will, one thread away from unraveling. "No. I don't know why the Alpha hates me." Her voice cracked down the middle. "He's got the whole school thinking I'm some kind of villain, and I haven't even done anything." Tears welled along her lashes, trembling there, refusing to fall, like even her grief was afraid to be seen. Guilt hit me immediately, sharp and familiar, an old wound reopening in a place I thought had scarred over years ago. I'd carried this secret so long it had become part of the architecture of who I was — and now, watching her fall apart in front of me, I couldn't justify carrying it one more day. "Leslie, I have to tell you something." "Why? What happened?" She sniffed, swiping at a tear b







