Chapter 3 - The Things I Tried to Leave Behind

Rae

By the time classes ended, I had learned that being ignored was easier than being noticed.

The whispers followed me through every hallway. They were no longer limited to my being human or whether I deserved my academy seat.

Now people wanted to know why Julien Bennett had offered me his hand.

Why he had invited me to the Harvest Moon Festival.

Why Ravenwood’s future Beta had chosen to speak to me at all.

Refusing him should have ended the speculation. Instead, it had given everyone something else to discuss.

I left the main building with my bag pulled close against my side and crossed the courtyard toward Dorm B. If I could reach my room, close the door, and disappear for a few hours, maybe the first day would finally stop happening to me.

“You always walk this fast?”

Julien’s voice came from beside me.

I didn’t slow down. “I thought I made it clear I wasn’t interested.”

“In the festival.”

“In the attention.”

He matched my pace without effort. “I’m walking to the leadership dorm.”

“That doesn’t require walking beside me.”

“No, but it would be strange to sprint past you just to prove a point.”

I glanced at him.

His expression remained calm, without the smugness I expected from someone who had spent his entire life near the top of Ravenwood’s hierarchy. He didn’t seem embarrassed by the attention we were attracting, although several students had already turned to watch us pass.

“I don’t want people talking about me,” I said.

“They were talking about you before I offered my hand.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to give them more material.”

Julien studied me for several steps. “You plan everything around what other people might say.”

“I plan around consequences.”

“Are those always the same thing?”

“At Ravenwood, usually.”

We passed beneath one of the stone archways connecting the classroom buildings to the dormitory grounds. A group of younger students moved aside for Julien before he reached them. None of them even seemed aware they had done it.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “You can speak to anyone you want. Nobody questions whether you’ve earned the right to be here.”

“And you think speaking to me makes things worse?”

“I know it does.”

“Because you’re human.”

The word sounded different when he said it. It lacked the accusation everyone else managed to place inside it.

“Yes.”

Julien slipped his hands into the pockets of his academy jacket. “I still don’t see why that matters.”

A humorless breath escaped me. “Of course you don’t. You’ve never entered a room and had everyone decide what you were before you opened your mouth.”

“You’re assuming a lot about me.”

“You’re the future Beta of Ravenwood.”

“That’s a position. It isn’t everything I am.”

“It’s the first thing everyone sees.”

His mouth curved slightly. “Then perhaps we understand each other better than you think.”

I slowed enough to look at him properly.

He continued walking, leaving me to catch up.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means people have been deciding who I should become since before I was old enough to have an opinion.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t. You’re fighting to be seen as more than what you lack. I’m fighting to be seen as more than what I’ll inherit.”

The answer caught me off guard.

Julien had never looked trapped to me. He moved through the academy with the ease of someone who belonged anywhere he chose to stand. The possibility that he might resent the future waiting for him had never occurred to me.

“You don’t belong here?” I asked.

“Not the way they think I do.”

Before I could press him, he nodded toward the leadership wing beyond the courtyard.

“I’m meeting Grant, Brax, and Linc. Our dorm is that direction.”

“So you really weren’t following me.”

“I told you that ten minutes ago.”

“You also invited me to a festival after knowing me for less than a day. Your judgment is questionable.”

His faint smile returned. “You’re still thinking about the invitation.”

“I’m thinking about how irritating you are.”

“I’ll accept partial progress.”

I shook my head, but some of the pressure inside my chest had eased by the time we reached Dorm B.

The administrative office sat just beyond the glass entrance doors. I stepped into the lobby and stopped so abruptly that Julien nearly walked into me.

“Rae.”

Luna Sonya Kingston stood beside the office desk with a small box in her hands. Her face softened the moment she saw me, although relief passed through her expression too quickly for me to understand why she had been worried.

“I was hoping I’d catch you,” she said.

“Did something happen?”

“No. I brought a few things you left behind.”

Her gaze moved over me, taking in my rumpled uniform, the scrapes on my palms, and the tension I had probably carried through the doors with me.

“How was your first day?”

“It was what I expected.”

Sonya’s mouth tightened. She knew exactly what that meant, but she didn’t push me to explain it in front of Julien.

Instead, she handed me the box.

A few books, toiletries, and pieces of clothing had been packed neatly inside. Tucked between them was a faded plush rabbit with one ear bent permanently lower than the other.

Heat climbed into my face.

My mother had given me the rabbit when I was little. I had stopped carrying it through the Alpha house years ago, but it still ended up beside my pillow every night.

“I didn’t realize I left him,” I murmured.

“You always take him when you sleep somewhere new.”

“I would have survived one night.”

“I know.” Sonya smiled gently. “Surviving and being comfortable aren’t the same thing.”

“I think it’s cute.”

I looked over my shoulder.

Julien was peering into the box with entirely too much interest.

“Please don’t help.”

“I wasn’t aware you needed help.”

His mouth twitched when I pushed the rabbit beneath one of my sweaters.

Sonya’s attention shifted between us. Her smile became more curious.

“Well, this is new.”

“What is?”

“You arriving with a boy.”

“He didn’t arrive with me. He happens to be walking in the same general direction.”

Julien leaned slightly closer to Sonya. “She has been very clear about that distinction.”

“Repeatedly,” I added.

Sonya looked delighted despite my best efforts to prevent it. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Would you approve if I were?” Julien asked.

My head snapped toward him. “Why would you ask that?”

“I’m curious.”

“You’re impossible.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

Sonya laughed softly. “I would approve. You deserve someone who isn’t afraid to stand beside you.”

The warmth in her voice made my chest ache. I looked down at the box to avoid answering and found my fingers resting against the pendant beneath my sweater.

Sonya’s laughter faded.

“Has your necklace done anything unusual today?”

My hand stilled. “Unusual?”

“The clasp is old.” Her answer came quickly. “I worry about it coming loose.”

“It hasn’t.”

I hesitated, remembering the brief heat in the courtyard and the stronger pulse during Professor Mansfield’s lesson.

“The stone felt warm a couple of times.”

Sonya’s fingers tightened around the edge of the box before she released it.

“You were probably overheated.”

“It was cold outside.”

“Then it may have been pressed against your skin.” She gave me a small smile, but concern remained in her eyes. “Just make sure you don’t lose it.”

“I won’t.”

Before I could ask why a little warmth had made her look so uneasy, a voice carried across the lobby.

“What is this I hear about a boyfriend?”

Grant stood several steps inside the entrance with Brax and Linc behind him. They must have come looking for Julien after he failed to meet them at the leadership dorm.

Grant’s gaze moved from his mother to the box in my hands, then settled on Julien standing beside me. Something sharpened in his expression before he brought it under control.

“We’re not dating,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

I stared at him. “I think I would know.”

Grant’s attention remained on Julien. “You’ve spent the whole day finding reasons to talk to her.”

“I offered her a hand and walked in the same direction.”

“That isn’t what everyone is saying.”

Julien’s expression stayed pleasant. “Since when do you care what everyone is saying?”

Grant’s jaw tightened.

Sonya looked between them. “Julien was kind enough to walk Rae back. There’s no reason to turn it into an interrogation.”

“I’m not interrogating anyone.”

“You could have fooled me,” I said.

Grant looked at me then, and the intensity in his steel-blue eyes made me wish I had kept quiet.

He turned back toward Julien.

“You should remember that you’ll meet your mate eventually.”

Heat flared inside the moonstone.

The sudden pulse pressed through my shirt and against my skin, sharper than either reaction earlier that day. My breath caught as I closed my hand around the pendant.

Mate.

The stone seemed to throb beneath my palm before cooling again.

Grant’s eyes dropped toward my hand.

Sonya noticed too. Her face went still, although she recovered before anyone could question her.

Brax’s grin faded slightly.

Linc’s pale-gray eyes sharpened as they moved from my hand to Grant.

Whatever Julien and I might choose, Grant’s warning made his opinion clear. A relationship outside the mate bond would be temporary. Eventually, fate would choose someone else for Julien, and I would become another mistake everyone had predicted.

“For someone offering advice,” Sonya said, “you seem to have forgotten that you’re dating Quinn.”

Grant’s expression closed. “She isn’t my mate.”

“Exactly. That hasn’t stopped you.”

Silence spread across the lobby.

I could feel Julien watching Grant and Grant watching him, while Sonya appeared to be studying all four boys for reasons I couldn’t identify.

“We’re not dating,” I repeated. “He only walked me back.”

“He didn’t seem to mind,” Brax said, his amusement beginning to return.

“I didn’t ask him to.”

Julien glanced at me. “You didn’t have to.”

Brax’s grin widened. “That sounded suspiciously romantic.”

“It wasn’t,” I said.

“Tragic.”

Linc remained silent, but his gaze moved from me to Grant with the quiet attention of someone who had already noticed more than anyone had said.

Grant’s eyes returned to mine.

For a moment, the distance he had maintained for years faltered. Something possessive and almost angry moved beneath his control before disappearing again.

I closed the box and held it against my chest.

“I’m going upstairs.”

No one tried to stop me.

Their attention followed me as I crossed the lobby toward the staircase. Grant’s silence pressed against my back. Julien’s curiosity felt nearly as tangible, while Brax and Linc had both become strangely alert the moment the word mate entered the conversation.

The moonstone rested cool against my skin again, pretending nothing had happened.

For years, I had wanted Grant to look at me the way he once had.

Now all four of Ravenwood’s future command wolves were watching me leave, and I had no idea what had made them see me.

I wasn’t invisible anymore.

I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.