001

THE GIRL THE ALPHAS HATE

•••**MIRA**•••

"Fresh meat."

I heard it before I got to the gates. 

I did not need to see who said it. I just kept walking with my bag on my shoulder. That's the main rule when you are the weakest thing in a yard full of predators.

Don't give them a reason to look at you.

Apex Moon Academy was exactly what I had imagined.

Which meant it was exactly what I feared.

The buildings were old. The students wore pressed uniforms and acted as if they had never been told "no." The whole place reeked of old bloodlines, money, and Real power. 

My scholarship letter had called this place 'an opportunity for extraordinary wolves of all backgrounds.'

I gave myself forty-eight hours before someone used the word 'mutt.' 

Thirty seconds, as it turned out.

"Is that the scholarship half-blood?" A girl with silver-blonde hair said it to her friend without lowering her voice. 

Her eyes moved over me the way you look at something you're deciding whether to step over or step on. "She smells like servant quarters."

Her friend wrinkled her nose.

I kept walking.

'Do not stop. Do not react. Find orientation and disappear into it.' 

The open courtyard was big and cold, full of students who all seemed to know each other and their place. I walked along the edge, looking down and moving quickly.

I almost made it.

Someone threw a snowball at my back, and my coat got wet right away. I heard laughing behind me, like they were just waiting to do that.

"Hey," a lazy, bored male voice said. "Half-blood. I'm talking to you."

I felt a sudden drop in my stomach. 

I turned around slowly.

The courtyard changed. Students moved back, making room, like a crowd does when something scary comes near. Everyone looked down. 

Even a professor on the other side of the yard found something important to watch that wasn't the students.

Three figures stood at the center of it all.

I had seen photos before transferring. Everyone did their research before coming here. You don't walk into Apex Moon without knowing who runs it.

Kael. Ronan. Lucien Ravencrest.

They looked so alike it was almost weird. Same dark hair, same strong jaw, same intense eyes that flashed in the winter sun like a wild animal was watching. 

But even from far away, you could see they were different if you looked beyond their faces.

Kael stood with his arms crossed, looking like he had already decided how this ended. Ronan was relaxed but alert, hands by his sides, ready for anything.

Lucien was smiling.

He was the one who had thrown the snowball, and somehow, even from twenty feet away, he was the most dangerous thing I had ever seen.

The worst ones always smile.

"Come here," Ronan said.

He wasn't asking. He was just saying it.

I walked toward them. What else was I going to do?

Kael looked at me walking across the yard. He seemed to be checking for a problem. His eyes quickly scanned me, not impressed, and nothing he saw changed how he looked.

"This is the scholarship student," he said. 

It felt like he was talking about me, but not really to me. Like I was a thing being discussed, not a person standing right there.

"Mira Vale," Lucien said my name, with mild curiosity, like playing with a small thing. "Half-blood. Coldwick territory."

I held still.

Kael's lip pulled slightly.

"Apex Moon was built for wolves with real bloodlines." His golden eyes flicked over me, cold and direct. "Not strays."

Snickers moved through the crowd behind me.

"Lost, maybe," someone offered helpfully.

"Servant schools are the other direction," someone else said, and the laughter grew.

I did not drop my eyes. Which was probably stupid. But there's only so much a person can swallow before something in them gets stubborn about it.

Lucien noticed. 

I watched it happen – the way his head tilted a little, and his face showed something I couldn't quite figure out. 

It was like he noticed something unexpected and filed it away.

"Careful, Kael," he murmured, almost gentle. "You might hurt her feelings." The crowd laughed harder.

Ronan stepped forward.

He stopped close enough that I caught his scent fully – like pine trees, cold air, and a wildness I wasn't expecting.

Something changed, deep inside me. Like a tiny spark.

My inner wolf woke up.

My wolf hadn't awakened since I was seven years old. Whatever was inside me had been quiet for so long I had half-convinced myself there was nothing there anymore. 

But right now, in the cold with Ronan Ravencrest three feet in front of me —Something moved.

Ronan felt it too. I watched the shift happen in his eyes before he locked it down hard behind something meaner.

He shoved my shoulder.

I fell back into the snow, and it was cold on my hands, knees, and the back of my coat. I heard laughter all around me.

"Stay out of our way, mutt." He said it without looking at me anymore, already done, already walking away.

The crowd parted around them.

I stayed on the ground, not because I couldn't get up. Because something had just happened inside my chest that I didn't have words for yet. 

Something that had nothing to do with the cold or the laughter or the way my hands were shaking.

My wolf was awake, and she wasn't scared.

The triplet were heading for the doors when Lucien stopped for a second. He looked back, not at the people or his brothers.

He looked at me.

I couldn't tell what he was thinking. But his eyes held mine for a little too long. Then he turned away, said something low to his brothers, and all three of them disappeared through the doors.

I picked myself up off the ground. Brushed the snow off my hands.

My wolf pressed against my ribs like she recognized something.

Like she was saying: 'I know them.' 

And the worst part?

So do I.