Everyone said I was born to be prey.

In Lunaris Academy, humans are nothing but toys for the ruling alpha werewolves, destined to be broken and discarded.

I was adopted by a disgraced prostitute, told that attending this academy was my golden ticket to a better life.

Instead, I found myself in a gilded cage, surrounded by the Terror Four: the absolute rulers of the academy, alphas who kill with a glance and destroy with a smile.

They expected me to bow. They expected me to beg for their mercy.

But they didn't know I wasn't just another human lamb.

When they cornered me on the night of the Blood Moon, demanding my submission, I didn't cower.

I looked the Alpha of the North in the eye and smiled.

"You think you're the predator here?" I whispered, my true power humming beneath my skin for the first time in eighteen years.

"Let's play a real game."

***

"Get your filthy shoes off the marble, mutt."

I kept walking.

One wheel of my battered suitcase squealed with every turn, the sound bouncing off the vaulted ceiling of Lunaris Academy's entrance hall. The floor beneath my boots was white marble threaded with gold, polished so perfectly that the chandeliers reflected in it like captive stars. My suitcase looked like it had been dragged through a war. I probably did too.

A tall boy in a black uniform stepped into my path. Gold braid edged his collar and cuffs, the academy's way of advertising old blood and expensive breeding.

"Are you deaf?" he asked. "I said stop."

"I heard you." I tightened my grip on the duct-taped handle. "I just didn't care."

The blonde girl beside him laughed. Her uniform had been tailored to fit her like a threat, and a diamond wolf pin glittered at her throat.

"Brantley, she speaks," she said. "I thought F-Class strays only knew how to whimper."

"Move," I told him.

Brantley Mercer looked over my patched coat, scuffed boots, and single suitcase. Whatever he saw pleased him. People like him needed someone beneath them, and I had arrived with the rank printed neatly on my admission letter.

F-Class. Human. Unshifted. Unclaimed.

He shoved my shoulder.

Pain flashed down my right arm. I hid it before it reached my face.

"You don't give orders here," Brantley said. "The main hall is for students. Service entrances are around the back."

"My letter says to report to the main hall."

"The letter was a courtesy," the girl said. "I'm Seraphina Ashford. Remember that name. You'll hear it whenever someone needs a floor scrubbed or a tray carried."

"Then I hope you enjoy disappointment, Seraphina."

Her smile vanished.

Brantley kicked my suitcase.

The rusted latch snapped. Two shirts, a pair of worn jeans, and a folded photograph spilled across the marble. The photograph landed facedown near Brantley's polished boot.

A few nearby students stopped to watch. Their laughter came easily. Cruelty was free entertainment when no one expected the victim to fight back.

I stared at the photograph.

It was the only picture I had of Elena Hale, the woman who had found me shivering behind a bakery in Lowtown and raised me as her own. Three years ago, a highborn patron had ordered her whipped for spilling wine on his carpet. I had thrown myself over her before the first lash fell.

The silver-tipped whip shattered the bones in my right hand.

The healer reset them badly. They ached in cold weather and locked whenever I held anything too tightly, but Elena had lived. That had been enough.

Until now.

"Pick them up," I said.

Brantley glanced at the clothes around his feet. "Excuse me?"

"You made the mess. Pick it up."

He stepped closer until his shadow swallowed mine. "Make me."

"Assembly begins in three minutes," a new voice said.

A prefect approached, silver badge pinned over his heart. His name strip read JACE WARD. He looked at Brantley, then at me, and made the safest possible choice.

"Leave the trash," Jace said. "Everyone inside."

Brantley smirked. "You heard him."

He and Seraphina walked away with the crowd.

I knelt, gathered my clothes, and picked up the photograph. Elena smiled up at me from a summer afternoon four years ago, flour dusting her cheek. I wiped a boot mark from the corner with my sleeve.

My hand trembled.

Not from fear.

I forced the broken latch closed, wedged the case beneath my arm, and followed the others into the grand hall.

Hundreds of students stood in tiered rows beneath banners bearing the crests of the four great territories. Gold for the North. Iron gray for the West. Deep blue for the Coast. Green for the Vale. The front rows glittered with family pins and inherited rank. The back rows held everyone the academy preferred not to acknowledge.

A prefect pointed me toward the last line.

Whispers followed me.

"That's the human from the entrance trial."

"I heard she has no wolf at all."

"Cassian cut her and she still wouldn't kneel."

The doors behind the podium opened.

Silence dropped over the hall.

Cassian Thorne entered alone.

He wore no crown. He did not need one. The gold wolf embroidered on his black jacket marked him as heir to the Northern packs, but the students bowed because of the man, not the thread. He moved with the stillness of a blade resting against skin.

I had met him once before.

A month ago, during the entrance trial, he had cornered me in a sand-covered training ring while the council watched from behind smoked glass. He had pressed a jagged silver knife to my cheek and told me to kneel.

I had said no.

He had drawn the blade down my face slowly enough for me to understand that mercy was a choice he was refusing to make. The scar still cut a pale line beneath my left eye.

Cassian stopped behind the podium.

"Welcome to Lunaris," he said.

His voice was quiet, but the hall had been built to carry authority. Every word reached the stone arches.

"You were summoned because the council believes you possess value. Some of you will prove them right. Others will serve as reminders of what happens when bloodlines decay."

His gaze crossed the front rows, passed over Brantley and Seraphina, and found me at the back.

The air seemed to tighten.

"Violet Hale."

He did not raise his voice. He did not have to.

The students between us shifted apart, opening a path from my scuffed boots to the podium.

"Come forward."

Seraphina turned in her seat. "He's going to make an example of her."

"Good," Brantley whispered. "She needs one."

I set my suitcase against the wall and walked down the center aisle.

Every step brought the entrance trial back in pieces. The silver blade. The blood on my mouth where I had bitten through my lip. Cassian's expression when I refused him, not angry, not surprised, but interested.

That had frightened me more than the knife.

He descended from the platform and met me halfway.

Up close, his eyes were colder than I remembered, a pale blue that made warmth seem like a rumor.

"You survived the journey," he said.

"Were you expecting the carriage to throw me off a cliff?"

A few students inhaled sharply.

Cassian's mouth almost curved. "You look as unimpressive as you did during the trial."

"I didn't come to impress you."

Brantley stood in the front row. "Show the Alpha respect."

Cassian lifted one hand.

Brantley sat down.

"She doesn't understand respect," Cassian said, watching me. "She mistakes defiance for strength."

"And you mistake fear for loyalty."

The silence that followed had weight.

Cassian stepped closer.

"You were not invited here, Violet. You were collected. The council could have left you in Lowtown with your debts and your broken little life. Instead, I signed the order that brought you inside these walls."

"I know."

"Then you know who owns your future."

"No one owns me."

His fingers closed around my jaw.

The grip was precise, hard enough to bruise without looking uncontrolled. His thumb settled over the scar he had given me.

"You learned nothing from our first meeting," he murmured.

"I learned you like an audience."

Something dark moved behind his eyes.

"You will break here," he said. "Lunaris was built to strip weakness down to the bone. When it is finished with you, there will be nothing left."

"Then you brought the wrong girl."

His grip tightened. Pain climbed into my temples.

He was waiting for me to flinch. Waiting for the hall to see what he had already decided I was.

I brought up my injured right hand and wrapped my fingers around his wrist.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then heat tore through my palm.

A red spark snapped between our skin.

Cassian's eyes widened.

The spark became a thin crescent of crimson light.

Cassian ripped his wrist from my hand.

The movement was so sudden that he struck Brantley's shoulder and forced him back a step. A murmur swept the hall, then broke into scattered laughter when Brantley's heel caught my suitcase.

The broken latch gave way again.

My clothes spilled across the marble at Cassian's feet.

"Static," Seraphina said loudly. "The stray shocked him with static."

Brantley laughed because she had, though unease pinched the corners of his mouth.

Cassian did not laugh.

He rubbed the inside of his wrist. No burn marked his skin, but the tendons stood out in his hand. He looked from the place I had touched him to my right palm.

The red crescent was gone.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I told you to let go."

"That was not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

The hall went quiet again.

Cassian turned toward the students. His face had settled into a calm mask, but I had seen the shock beneath it. That mattered. Men like him built power on the belief that nothing could surprise them.

"For the next seven days," he said, "Violet Hale is under my authority. No one else disciplines her. No one else lays a hand on her."

A few highborn students looked disappointed.

"She is mine to correct. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Alpha," the hall answered.

"I belong to no one," I said.

Cassian glanced over his shoulder. "Report to the abandoned training ground beyond the eastern ridge. The thorn pits are to be cleared before sunset. Barehanded."

"And if I refuse?"

His voice lowered. "Then the council will review Elena Hale's debt contract tonight. I doubt she can afford another penalty visit."

Cold spread through my chest.

He knew Elena's name. He knew exactly where to cut.

"Leave her out of this."

"Clear the pits."

I wanted to drive my fist into his mouth. Instead, I knelt and shoved my clothes back into the suitcase.

"Fine," I said. "But one day, Cassian, you're going to threaten the wrong person."

"I already have," he replied softly.

I looked up.

He had turned away.

An hour later, I stood at the edge of the eastern ridge with the academy rising behind me like a black castle.

The abandoned training ground had once been a series of obstacle courses. Now thorn vines strangled the iron frames and swallowed entire lanes beneath walls of black bramble. Some thorns were as long as my fingers. Others curved like hooks.

Jace Ward sat on a stump near the empty tool shed, eating an apple.

"The eastern pit by dusk," he said. "Those were the orders."

"There are no gloves."

"Barehanded means barehanded."

"Helpful."

He bit into the apple. "I'm not here to help."

I stepped into the first wall of vines and grabbed a branch.

The thorns tore through my sleeve and buried themselves in my palm.

Pain flared. I pulled anyway.

The vine resisted, then ripped free with a sound like cloth tearing. I threw it onto the dirt and reached for another.

By noon, blood slicked both hands.

By midafternoon, my right hand had locked twice. Each time I forced the fingers open against my thigh and kept working. The old fractures ground beneath the skin, sending sharp pain into my wrist.

Jace moved into the shade.

"You could ask for mercy," he called.

"From Cassian?"

"From anyone."

"Is that how you got the badge?"

He stopped chewing.

I turned back to the vines.

The sky darkened toward evening. Sweat stung the scar on my cheek. My uniform hung in torn strips at the sleeves, and the eastern pit still looked endless.

I wrapped both hands around a dead root and pulled.

Something scraped beneath the soil.

I paused.

The sound came again when I shifted the root, stone dragging against metal.

I dropped to my knees and dug with my bleeding fingers. The packed earth loosened around the edge of a black granite slab. I cleared more dirt, revealing a carved wolf with its jaws open beneath a crescent moon.

The design did not match any academy crest.

It looked older than Lunaris itself.

Jace had disappeared from the stump. I could not see him through the brambles.

I brushed mud from the carving.

The stone was warm.

"What are you doing out here?" I whispered.

Blood ran from my palm into the wolf's carved eye.

The world stopped.

Heat speared up my right arm.

I tried to pull away, but an invisible force pinned my hand to the granite. A crimson line ignited beneath my fingers, traced the wolf's head, and curved into a crescent moon.

The same symbol that had flashed against Cassian's wrist.

Only this time it did not vanish.

Light poured through the grooves, bright enough to stain the brambles red. Fire raced through my veins, not burning but rebuilding. The ache in my hand disappeared. The twisted joints loosened. For the first time in three years, I could feel each finger without pain.

A force like a second heartbeat woke beneath my ribs.

I gasped and tore my hand free.

The hold released.

I fell backward into the dirt.

The cuts across my palms closed as I watched. Torn skin drew together. Blood dried, flaked, and fell away. Even the scar tissue along my knuckles softened until my hand looked almost normal.

I flexed my fingers.

They obeyed.

"What did you do to me?"

The red crescent on the tablet pulsed once, then sank into darkness.

A twig snapped behind me.

I turned.

A boy with dark red hair leaned against an oak tree at the edge of the clearing. He tossed a silver lighter into the air, caught it, and smiled without warmth.

"Looks like Cassian's favorite stray found something she wasn't meant to see," he said.

The stranger flicked open the lighter.

A yellow flame shivered between us.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.

"Long enough."

He snapped the lid shut, tossed the lighter, and caught it again. Silver thread edged his collar, marking him as highborn, but there was no family pin at his throat. He wore his privilege carelessly, as if he had grown bored of it.

"Long enough to see a powerless human wake a sealed relic," he continued. "That should be impossible."

I wiped my hands on my torn pants. "Then you saw something else."

"I saw a first-era altar light up like dawn. I saw your wounds close. I saw a mark that has not answered anyone in three centuries."

"You should get your eyes checked."

His mouth curved. "Rhys Calder."

"I didn't ask."

"No, but you'll want to know who keeps your secret."

He pushed away from the tree and came toward me. He was leaner than Cassian, less controlled, but the ease in his stride carried its own warning. Smoke and rain clung to his jacket.

I stepped between him and the stone.

"There is no secret."

"Your palms were shredded ten seconds ago."

I folded my arms. "Fast healer."

"Humans do not heal like wolves. Wolves do not heal like that either."

"Maybe your textbooks are wrong."

"Maybe your records are lies."

The words landed harder than I wanted them to.

Rhys noticed.

"Who were your parents?" he asked.

"Dead, missing, or smart enough not to claim me. Take your pick."

"Where were you found?"

"An alley in Lowtown."

"How old?"

"Old enough to bite the constable who tried to drag me out."

"That explains the personality."

I turned toward the academy path.

Rhys moved before I took a second step.

One moment he stood beside the altar. The next he blocked the trail, one hand braced against a tree.

"We're not finished."

"I am."

"Cassian sent me to see whether his punishment had killed you. Instead, I found you bleeding into a relic no one is supposed to know exists. So forgive me if I need more than sarcasm."

"You can tell Cassian I cleared his pit."

"And the red fire?"

"Tell him whatever helps you sleep."

I tried to pass.

Rhys caught my shoulder and shoved me backward.

My spine struck the granite tablet. The carved wolf pressed between my shoulder blades. Rhys stepped close, planting his palm against the stone beside my head.

"Try again," he said. "What did you do?"

"I touched it."

"With what spell?"

"I don't know any spells."

"What bloodline?"

"None."

"No one has none."

"I do."

He studied my face, looking for something I did not know how to hide.

"Cassian carved that scar," he said.

"Your powers of observation are breathtaking."

"He does not mark people without a reason."

"He wanted me to kneel. I didn't. That's the reason."

Rhys's gaze sharpened. "And today you burned him."

"He grabbed me."

"Cassian Thorne does not let people touch him, much less hurt him. Yet he claimed you in front of the entire academy instead of having you executed."

I remembered the shock in Cassian's eyes.

"Maybe he's losing his edge."

"Maybe he recognized the mark."

The idea tightened something in my stomach.

"Move," I said.

Rhys lifted the lighter again. His thumb rolled over the wheel.

Flame bloomed.

"Tell me what you felt when the altar woke."

"Put that away."

"Heat? A voice? A memory that wasn't yours?"

He brought the flame closer.

"Back off, Rhys."

"One honest answer."

The fire hovered inches from my face.

He was testing me. Maybe threatening me. At Lunaris, the difference was mostly decorative.

"The truth is I don't know," I said. "I touched a stone. It lit up. My hand healed. That's all."

"Wrong answer."

He angled the lighter toward my hair.

The thing beneath my ribs woke.

Heat slammed through my chest and down my right arm. My healed bones vibrated. The carved wolf behind me seemed to pulse against my spine.

Rhys saw the change in my face.

His smile disappeared.

"Violet-"

I struck his wrist.

Crimson light exploded from my palm.

It swallowed the lighter's flame, melted the top of the silver case, and lashed across the side of Rhys's head. The force threw him backward. He hit the mud hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.

The ruined lighter spun across the ground and struck the altar.

The sharp smell of scorched metal filled the clearing.

I stared at my hand.

Soot blackened my palm, but the skin beneath it had not blistered. The power hummed there, eager and alive.

Rhys pushed himself onto one elbow.

A lock of his red hair had burned black at the ends. He touched it, watched ash crumble across his fingers, and looked at me with none of his earlier amusement.

"I warned you," I said.

He did not answer.

For several seconds, the only sound came from our breathing and the distant caw of ravens.

Then Rhys looked past me at the ancient altar.

"That was not wolf magic," he said.

"Good. I'm not a wolf."

"It was not human either."

I curled my fingers into a fist.

Rhys rose slowly, keeping his eyes on the red glow fading beneath my skin.

"Whatever the council told you about who you are," he said, "they lied."

A deep metallic bell rang from the academy.

The sound rolled over the ridge and shook the branches above us.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Rhys went still.

"What is that?" I asked.

He closed the ruined lighter in his hand.

"Trouble," he said. "And for once, it may be worse than you."