บททั้งหมดของ Dominion Academy: Rise of The Omega : บทที่ 61 - บทที่ 70

The dining hall felt wrong.I noticed it the moment I walked in, the noise level was lower than usual, the kind of lower that meant people were talking but didn't want to be overheard. Groups leaned in close over their trays. Eyes moved toward the doors and back, as if they were expecting something.I grabbed a plate and found Lyra already at our end of the table."What's happening?" I asked, sitting down."Marcus Fell," she said quietly. "Ferox trainee. He didn't come back from night drills two days ago.""What do they say happened?""Officially?" She picked up her fork. "He quit. Withdrew voluntarily. Papers signed, room cleared." She looked at me. "But his roommate says his bed was still warm when he woke up. And his boots were still by the door."That was surprising. I looked around the hall. The Ferox table was quieter than any table in that house had any right to be. Especially them. They're usually the loud ones. All brawn and no brains."People quit," I said, because I neede

I couldn't sleep.That wasn't new. Sleep had been a negotiation since I arrived at Dominion — my body too alert, my wolf too restless, my brain running laps around every close call and every near-miss until my mind shut down from the stress of thinking. But tonight was worse.The bell. The missing student. Severus's face when Cassian put him in the dirt, that specific look of someone who'd wanted to lose, who'd needed a reason to say something he couldn't say standing up.I pulled on a jacket, grabbed my wolfsbane, took my dose to avoid detection or any other close calls, and slipped out.Cassian wasn't around, which meant I was free to do what I wanted without his interference.The rooftop access was technically off-limits after curfew. The lock on the door had been broken since the second week and nobody had fixed it, which either meant maintenance was slow or someone with authority wanted students to have somewhere to go when the walls got too close.I pushed the door open and ste

The name missing from roll call was Petra Wynn.Alpha support trainee. Umbra house. Second year. I didn't know her well, quiet girl, kept to herself most of the time, the kind of student who survived by not drawing attention. The kind the academy was supposedly designed to nurture and protect. And now, no one knows what happened to her.Soren read the official announcement with the same tone he used for everything. Measured and final with no room for argument."Petra Wynn has submitted a voluntary withdrawal effective yesterday evening. Umbra house will deal with her clearance and everything that has to do with her complete departure from this premises."Nobody spoke.That was the thing. In the first week, an announcement like this would have sparked questions, debate, someone testing the edges of Soren's patience. Now the whole assembly stood in silence and absorbed it like a bruise they'd already stopped being surprised by.Voluntary withdrawal. Second one in two weeks.I stood in

The class was called Mate Bond Theory and Identification. It was listed as mandatory for all second-semester students, which meant there was no way out of it, and it was taught by Professor Harlan, a compact, soft-spoken alpha who had the particular gift of making the most dangerous information sound completely routine.I sat in the third row and opened my notebook.I wrote nothing in it for the next forty minutes."Instinctive protection," Harlan said, moving along the board where he'd written a clean column of symptoms. "The bonded wolf experiences an involuntary drive to position itself between its mate and any perceived threat. This is not a choice. It is a physiological response rooted in—"I stopped listening to the words. I heard them, but I stopped letting them land.They were landing anyway.Instinctive protection.How many times had I stepped between Val and something that wanted to hurt her before I'd made the conscious decision to move.Scent fixation.The way I always kne

I shoved my bag down so hard it knocked the chair beside my desk sideways.Cassian looked up from his book. Took one look at my face."What happened?" he asked."Nothing." I picked the chair up. Set it back. "I'm fine.""You knocked over furniture.""It was in my way.""Val.""I said I'm fine."He closed the book. Slowly. Set it down on the desk with the particular patience of someone who had already decided they were going to win this conversation and wasn't in a rush about it."Your jaw does that thing," he said.I touched my jaw before I could stop myself.He didn't say anything. He didn't need to.I sat on the edge of my bed and pressed my palms flat on my knees. Raven's voice was still moving through my head, smooth and precise, finding the exact shape of the thing I'd been afraid of since the forest.Ask yourself what he wants. And what he'll do when he's done wanting it."Raven cornered me in the side corridor," I said. "After Bloodline History.""What did she say?""That boys