The cursed one

*Isla*

Provisional.

It's not a rejection. It's not full acceptance. It's a maybe I guess. A test. My breath hitches. I'm in. For now.

Beside me, Liora lets out a small whoop of joy. "Look," she says, pointing to her own name. "Provisional too. We're in the same boat, Limpy."

I should be offended by the nickname, but coming from her it somehow feels loving, and it feels like an honor. A small, shaky laugh escapes me. "I guess we are."

"Looks like we're stuck with each other," she says, a genuine, fierce grin spreading across her face. "The Academy's going to regret this."

The night air is crisp and cool, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth. Most of the other successful, provisional, or simply surviving applicants have retreated to the celebratory bonfires or the quiet of their temporary barracks.

Liora and I, united by our shared 'provisional' status and the general exhaustion that has settled deep into our bones, find a quiet spot near the edge of the grounds, a fallen log offering a respite from the chaos we just endured. We sit in a comfortable silence, the crackle of the distant fires a distant, muffled roar.

My shoulder is a dull, throbbing ache under its bindings, and my leg screams with every small movement. But beneath the pain, a current of something unfamiliar and sharp runs through me: possibility.

"Provisional," I say, testing the word on my tongue. "What do you think that means? Extra work? More tests?"

Liora shrugs, taking a bite of a dried strip of meat she'd procured from who-knows-where. "Probably means they'll be watching us like hawks. One wrong move and we're out." She chews thoughtfully. "It's better than a flat rejection. Gives us a chance to prove them wrong."

I nod, my gaze drifting across the grounds, past the sparring rings now dark and empty, toward the cluster of buildings where the second-year students are housed. Torches line their walkways, casting long, dancing shadows. A group of them is gathered outside one of the larger cabins, their laughter carrying on the night breeze. They move with an easy, confident grace, the elite among the elite. My brother, Ian, is probably among them.

And then my eyes catch on a figure standing slightly apart from the others.

He's leaning against a wooden post, arms crossed, a study in contained power. Unlike the others, who are loud and animated, he is utterly still, a statue carved from shadow. The torchlight catches the severe line of his jaw, the unruly shock of dark hair that falls across his forehead. He's tall, broad-shouldered, filling out the simple training tunic in a way that speaks of coiled power. There's an intensity about him, a palpable aura of danger that sets him apart even from the other warriors. He isn't just confident; he's lethal. A wolf among wolves.

Something tight and hot coils in my stomach. It's an instinctive, primal reaction, a jolt of pure, unadulterated awareness that has nothing to do with thought and everything to do with the basest parts of my being. My body recognizes him as something potent, something to be… reckoned with. It's a feeling that is both terrifying and magnetic, an attraction that makes no sense.

"Who is that?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper, my gaze fixed on him.

Liora follows my line of sight. Her entire demeanor changes in an instant. The casual confidence evaporates, replaced by a taut, wary tension. Her shoulders square, and her friendly expression hardens into a mask of caution.

"Don't," she says, her voice flat and sharp. She doesn't turn to look at me again, her eyes locked on the figure in the distance. "Just don't. Don't look, don't ask, don't even think about it."

My own wariness spikes at her reaction. Liora is not easily intimidated. "Why? Who is he?"

She finally tears her gaze away, turning to face me fully. The firelight in her blue eyes is gone, replaced by a deep, serious gleam. "That's Caelen Fennec."

The name means nothing to me. The surname, however, sends a chill down my spine that has nothing to do with the night air. Fennec. I know that name. Every wolf in every territory knows it.

"From the..." I can't quite bring myself to say it.

"The Cursed Pack," Liora finishes for me, her voice a low, grim confirmation. "Yes. The only one of them to come here an to be allowed to train as a warrior. And that was only because the Alpha council decided it was better to keep an eye on him than let him run loose." She glances back at him, a quick, furtive movement. "He's the reason the fang squad win all the academy game. He's ruthless, Isla. He doesn't just fight, he breaks. No one has ever lasted a full five minutes against him in the sparring ring."

A cold knot forms in my stomach. The cursed Pack. A name whispered in fear, a cautionary tale told to pups to keep them from wandering too far into the wilder lands. Their pack is fairly small, isolated, and afflicted by a curse that's said to rot them from the inside out. It makes their wolves unpredictable, unstable. Uncontrollable. They are pariahs. And he is the only one here… the only one I have ever seen.

"I heard... they're dangerous," I say, the words feeling inadequate.

"Dangerous doesn't even begin to cover it," Liora mutters. "There are stories. Things he's done in trials, in practice. He doesn't have morals like the rest of us. He fights to maim. He enjoys it. Look at him. He's watching us."

I hadn't realized, but my gaze had been fixed on him, a stupid, magnetic pull I couldn't seem to break. And now I see it. His head has turned, just a fraction. The torchlight catches his eyes, and they are not brown or blue, but a pale, piercing green, the color of moss in the deepest shade of a forest. He's looking right at us. At me.

A jolt, sharp and electric, shoots through me. It's not fear, though it should be. It's worse. It's a dark, traitorous attraction that coils in my belly, hot and shameful. My body reacts to that cold, steady gaze in a way it never did to Cedric's warm, pitying blue eyes. This is raw. Primal. And it terrifies me.

"Don't look," Liora warns, her own gaze now fixed on her boots. "Don't give him a reason to notice you."

Too late.