Chapter 2

The Scholarship

Life in the human world was different. Not easy, not safe, not entirely kind—but different.

The woods had spat them out as exiles. The Blue Moon pack had branded them traitors, though no proof had ever been laid against Henry’s mother. One day, they had been wolves belonging to a family and a name. The next, they were ghosts walking among humans, stripped of identity.

Henry learned quickly what survival meant.

“Keep your head low,” his mother would whisper whenever they entered the human town. “Never let them know what you are.”

And so he didn’t.

At ten years old, Henry became the shadow of his mother. She took work at a laundry shop, scrubbing the sweat of human men from shirts and uniforms. At night, she returned with her hands bleeding, but she always smiled at Henry.

“This world doesn’t ask who we were,” she told him. “It only asks what we can do.”

Henry believed her. He had to.

Strange but peaceful

Years passed. The human world never fully welcomed them, but it tolerated them. And that tolerance was more than they had known in their pack.

Henry grew into a boy who knew how to navigate two worlds—never shifting, never revealing his wolf, but keeping the wild instinct deep inside his skin. At school, he kept to himself. He wasn’t loud, wasn’t popular, but his grades were smart. Teachers noticed the hunger in his eyes, the same hunger that made him finish assignments long before deadlines.

Humans, he realized, didn’t see exile. They saw effort.

One evening, after dinner, he asked his mother, “Do you ever miss it? The pack?”

Her hands stilled on the chipped teacup she was washing. For a moment, Henry thought she wouldn’t answer. Then:

“I miss the trees. I miss the way the moon felt when we could embrace it freely. But I don’t miss the cruelty. I don’t miss the lies.”

He nodded, storing that away. Strange but peaceful—that was their life now. Not perfect, but livable.

Until the letter arrived.

The envelope

It was a Wednesday morning when Henry found it slipped under their apartment door. A white envelope, his name printed across the front in bold letters.

“Henry Castillo.”

His mother frowned, wiping her hands on her apron. “Who would send you something like this?”

He shrugged, tearing it open.

Inside was a single sheet, stamped with a seal he didn’t recognize: The Blackwood Education Foundation.

He read aloud:

“Dear Mr. Castillo,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected for a full scholarship to Blackwood Academy. This award includes full tuition, housing, and a monthly stipend. We recognize your academic excellence and wish to nurture your potential. Further details will be provided upon your acceptance.”

He stopped, his mouth went dry.

“Blackwood Academy?” His voice weighted with disbelief.

His mother snatched the paper, scanning it as if expecting the ink to rearrange into a cruel joke.

“You didn’t apply for this,” she whispered.

“I didn’t.”

They stared at each other.

A scholarship like this was more than luck. It was impossible. Henry wasn’t even supposed to exist in official records—his mother had hidden him from every system. And yet, here it was.

Doubt and temptation

That night, Henry lay awake in their apartment, staring at the ceiling. The scholarship gnawed at him. Why him? Why now?

His mother sat on the edge of his bed, fingers brushing through his hair like she used to when he was small.

“Maybe this is the chance we’ve been waiting for,” she said, though her voice trembled.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I want to.”

Henry turned his head towards her. “What if it’s a trap?”

Her silence was answer enough.

But then she sighed. “You deserve more than this, Henry. More than broken tiles and peeling walls. More than being the son of a woman no one wanted. Maybe… maybe you were chosen because someone finally saw what I see.”

Her words dug into him.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was the moon, finally offering him something after all it had stolen.

But deep down, Henry knew: scholarships like this didn’t fall from the sky.

Someone had chosen him. Someone was watching.

Two weeks later, Henry stood outside the gates of Blackwood Academy, the scholarship letter folded neatly in his pocket.

The school loomed like a castle—towers of gray stone clinging to the walls, iron gates that opened only after security checked his papers. Students in pressed uniforms hurried past him, laughing, chatting. They looked like they had been born for this.

Henry didn’t.

He clutched the strap of his bag tighter, feeling like an intruder.

“Henry Castillo?” a voice called.

He turned.

A man in a tailored suit walked toward him. Hair streaked with gray, eyes warm in a way that unsettled Henry. He carried authority not just in his posture but in the ease of his smile.

“I’m Principal Mr. Adrian,” the man said, extending his hand. “Welcome to Blackwood Academy.”

Henry hesitated, then shook it. The man’s grip was firm, grounding.

“You’ll find this place… different,” the principal continued. “Demanding, yes. But I have a feeling you’ll thrive here.”

“Thank you, sir.” Henry muttered.

The principal’s eyes lingered on him a moment too long.

Henry felt the hairs on his neck rise.

"Strange attention!"

Weeks later, Henry adjusted, slowly. His classes were harder than anything he had known, but he pushed himself, earning nods of approval from teachers.

Yet the strangeness never left.

Principal Adrian seemed to take an unusual interest in him. Stopping him in the hall to ask about his studies. Checking if he was settling into the dorms. Even sending word that Henry could come to his office “anytime he needed to talk.”

The attention wasn’t unwelcome—it was comforting, in a way. But it was also… strange.

One night, while studying in the library, Henry caught Mr Adrian watching him from across the room. Not with cold calculation, but with something softer, almost longing.

Henry’s pulse quickened.

Why him?

Why now?

The first crack came on one Friday before midterms, Henry returned to his dorm to find another envelope slipped under his door.

His stomach dropped.

This one bore no seal, no signature. Just his name again, written in the same letters as before.

Hands trembling, he opened it.

Inside was a single line:

“Blackwood is only the beginning. You were never meant to hide forever.”

Henry froze, breath caught in his throat.

Who had written this?

Who knew him?

And what did they mean—never meant to hide?

The paper shook in his hands. His heart pounded.

The peaceful life he and his mother had carved out was already unraveling. And Henry knew, without doubt, that this scholarship was not a gift.

It was a door.

And someone had just pushed him through it.

The scholarship isn’t random—it’s connected to his hidden past, and someone powerful already knows who Henry really is. Principal’s attention isn’t just kindness—it hints at something deeper.