Chapter 001

Mirelle's POV

"Move faster with my bags, Mirelle. You're an embarrassment enough without adding slow to the list — or would you rather I make your legs move for you?"

Chloe's fingers curled at her side as she said it, magic sparking gold between her manicured nails like a leash she hadn't decided whether to pull yet.

I kept my eyes on the path ahead. "Wouldn't want to deprive you of the pleasure. Though I hear forcing people tends to leave marks — bad for your reputation, not mine."

It came out steadier than I felt. My heart was already slamming against my ribs by the time the words left my mouth.

Chloe stopped. Turned. For one long second her eyes went narrow and gold-lit, and every part of me wanted to take it back, wanted to disappear into the crowd of students streaming past us toward the gates.

"What did you just say...?"

I dropped my gaze first. I always dropped my gaze first.

"Not... nothing princess"

She smiled instead of striking. That was worse. "Cute," she said, already turning back around. "Keep walking."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and shifted the two suitcases cutting grooves into my palms, catching the garment bag before it slid off my shoulder for what felt like the hundredth time since the car dropped us at the gates. The backpack stuffed with Chloe's makeup cases dug into my spine. Three more boxes balanced against my hip, stacked so high I couldn't see past them to my own feet. My fingers had gone numb somewhere around the parking lot.

Somewhere underneath all of it — underneath the crooked Valez High Academy crest stitched into a blazer clearly tailored for someone smaller — there was supposed to be a girl named Mirelle Corwin. Some days I believed that. Today wasn't one of them.

Chloe walked three full steps ahead of me, carrying nothing but a clutch that cost more than most people's cars. Her hair fell perfectly down her back, styled that morning by our mother's own hands — Luna Stella didn't trust a stylist with her daughter's image — not one strand daring to move out of place, as if even the wind knew better than to inconvenience Alpha Sebastian Corwin's favored daughter.

Students turned to look. Not at me.

"Oh my goddess, it's her. Chloe Corwin."

"I heard the Voss twins are already fighting over who gets to walk her to orientation."

"I would kill to be one of her minions. Just — anything. Even her assistant."

Then, dropped just quiet enough to sound accidental: "Wait — isn't that her wolfless sister trailing behind her? The adopted one? Poor Chloe, having to drag that around everywhere."

I saw it land. The word drag. Chloe's jaw tightened just slightly, enough that I caught it because I'd spent eighteen years learning to read every twitch of her face like a warning system. She hated being pitied more than she hated almost anything. And now half the courtyard had watched someone feel sorry for her, in public, on the first day.

I almost smiled. Almost.

Chloe didn't even glance toward the girl who'd said it. She flicked one finger, bored, like swatting a fly, and the girl's crisp new blazer bloomed with mud that hadn't existed a second before — soaked clean through, dripping down her sleeve while three of her friends gasped and stepped back like it might be contagious. No visible spell. No warning. Just consequence, delivered with a smile that never reached Chloe's eyes.

I fake-smiled at the crowd like I hadn't noticed a thing. Safer that way.

Then the huge iron gates swung open ahead of us, and for one breath, everything else went quiet.

Valez High Academy rose up beyond us in ancient towers of pale stone gone silver with age, banners snapping against a sky too bright to be entirely natural, students in crisp uniforms laughing near a fountain that seemed to catch the light and hold it.

Somewhere to the left, a cluster of vampires stood too still to be doing anything but resting between one kind of danger and the next.

Witches trailed smoke from their fingertips that curled into shapes before dissolving.

Near the lake, something scaled broke the surface just long enough to catch the sun, then vanished — deciding, maybe, whether any of us deserved to be seen.

Oh, wait! Did I forget to mention? Valez High isn't just an academy for werewolves; it's an academy for all supernatural creatures across the Shadow World.

I'd dreamed of this exact view every night for years. Scrubbing Chloe's bathroom floor at midnight. Washing dishes until my hands cracked. Lying awake in what used to be a closet before someone decided it counted as a bedroom. Not because I thought I'd earned Valez High. Because for now, I wouldn't be property kept on Blood Moon land. I'd just be a student. Same uniform as everyone else.

"Are you seriously standing there gawking at a building?" Chloe's voice cut through it, already bored, already annoyed that my attention had drifted somewhere she hadn't sent it. "Move. Some of us have people worth greeting."

More cars rolled through the gates behind us, servants jogging alongside with garment bags like they were handling something fragile enough to detonate. I glanced down at myself. Same blazer as every student stepping out of those cars. The only difference between me and the staff unloading trunks was that none of them were doing it for free.

"Chloe!"

Bianca. An Olympic gold medalist in bullying and a professional gossip who could turn a harmless sneeze into breaking news by lunchtime arrived exactly how she always did — like a verdict that had already been decided somewhere off-stage. Blonde where Chloe was golden, sharper where Chloe merely cut.

Her uniform had been altered so many times it barely resembled the standard one anymore.

She kissed both of Chloe's cheeks, arm looping through hers like they were picking up a conversation that had never actually paused since last summer trip.

I watched them hug and thought, not for the first time, that I'd never seen two people call each other best friend while looking like they were both keeping score.

"You would not believe what Camille wore to the airport, so cheap" Chloe said, already dropping something cutting about Bianca's own cousin mid-sentence, light enough to sound like a joke, sharp enough that Bianca's smile flickered for half a second before she laughed it off like she hadn't heard the insult buried inside it.

Then Bianca's eyes found me over Chloe's shoulder.

I gave a small wave. Out of habit more than hope.

She rolled her eyes hard enough I was surprised they didn't get stuck there, then turned back to Chloe as if I'd stopped existing mid-motion. "I still don't understand why your father let her enroll with us in the same academy. What's she going to do — carry books for people who actually belong here?"

"She's my adopted sister, Bianca. Not a stray." Chloe said it flat, checking her nails while she did, which somehow landed worse than if she'd simply agreed.

"Could've fooled me," I muttered. Quiet. Stubborn. Not quiet enough.

"Careful," Chloe said, syrup-sweet, not even bothering to look at me. "Strays that bite tend to get put down."

Bianca laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd heard all week, then leaned in close enough that only I could catch the rest. "Honestly? It's a little sad. Following her around like this. Almost impressive, in a pathetic sort of way. Like a dog that doesn't realize it's allowed to just — run."

I stared at Bianca for just a second and shot back, refusing to give her the satisfaction of watching it land

"Funny," I said, keeping my voice light even as my pulse climbed. "coming from the girl who's been running after Chloe since middle school and calling it friendship."

Bianca's smile flickered, just barely, before she caught it and stretched it wider. "Cute. Careful who you practice that mouth on."

I shrugged, like I hadn't just felt my own heart try to climb out through my throat. "Just returning the favor."

Someone nearby failed to swallow their own laugh at what I'd said to Bianca. Someone else clapped a hand over their mouth, and when Chloe's head snapped toward the sound, both of them had already melted back into the crowd like they'd never been standing there at all.

"Go wait at the Wardens Hall building." Chloe was already turning away, already sliding back into whatever story Bianca was telling about someone's summer in the Fae courts. "You're an embarrassment standing here."

For once, I didn't argue.

Standing alone sounded like a promotion.

I hitched the last suitcase higher and followed a stone path curving away from Chloe and Bianca and the entire performance of my first morning at Valez High. The noise thinned out behind me — laughter, the faint crackle of someone's magic showing off, a shriek of delight carrying up from the lake —

Wardens Hall building came into view at the end of the path, its doors propped open onto a quiet lobby. A single board stood just inside the entrance, gold letters catching the light: FIRST-YEAR ORIENTATION — SELECTION CEREMONY.

Underneath it, smaller, almost like an afterthought: All unclaimed wolves shouldn't dare absent themselves.

I stood there with two suitcases digging into my palms and Chloe's makeup case biting into my spine, staring at a sentence I didn't understand yet but already felt in my stomach like a warning.

Unclaimed.

I hadn't even known there was a word for what I was at Valez High Academy.