Lucan!
You’re hunting Elara.”
The moment the words left the teacher’s mouth, Kael’s grip–already tense–clamped down harder.
Not enough to hurt her, but enough that she turned to catch the shift in his expression.
The irritation that had been sitting on his face gave way to something colder as he looked across the field and found Lucan Rhyze smiling.
It wasn’t the smile of someone who’d just been handed extra work.
It was the smile of someone who’d just gotten a gift that made his whole day better.
Elara didn’t like it.
Kael liked it even less.
“No,” Kael said.
The teacher raised an eyebrow.
“No what?”
“Don’t drag him into this.” Kael tipped his chin toward Lucan, who was already strolling toward them, unhurried.
“He’s been in this since the two of you started talking about him.” The teacher’s finger swung between Kael and Elara.
She shook her head.
She and Kael hadn’t talked about Lucan–she’d only asked who he was.
Kael didn’t argue, didn’t defend himself.
He closed his eyes for a moment before finally speaking, the words coming out on one heavy breath.
“I’ll do it.”
The teacher’s brow furrowed, like he was dealing with a student who couldn’t make up his mind.
“A minute ago you said no.”
Kael went quiet.
Elara watched his jaw tighten–like there were too many things he wanted to say and none of them would make this any better.
The teacher finally turned his attention to Elara, who was still watching Kael.
“Still willing?”
She nodded, sure of herself.
“As long as it helps him.” She paused, glancing around.
Everyone was watching them now.
“And so there’s no talk about me being a burden to him.
At least I can actually help this way.”
The moment she said it, she caught the shift on one of the other girls’ faces–a flash of annoyance before she looked away.
“You’re being a burden right now,” Kael said flatly.
“I can do this.
I mean it,” Elara said, calmer this time.
Like there was someone else she needed to convince besides the man standing next to her.
Herself.
Kael let out a long breath.
“You’re impossible.”
She almost smiled.
That was the line he pulled out every time he’d lost an argument against her.
“Then it’s settled.” She slipped her wrist free of his grip just as Xera smiled and waved her over.
The teacher’s smile returned.
“Good.
We’ll go with what I laid out.
Riven hunts Xera.
Kael hunts Elara.” He turned to the rest of the students, already warming up.
“The rest of you will do the same with your clan groups, then rotate once a pair finishes.
Everyone gets equal time to find their target.
And remember–no one crosses the Ravencrest tree line.”
Kael still looked far from satisfied.
He opened his mouth to argue, but the teacher got ahead of him with one last instruction.
“Most important rule, don’t hurt your target,” he said.
“This is a tracking exercise, not combat.”
Kael exhaled, but the tension didn’t leave his face.
Elara walked up to him as he readied himself.
He pulled off the black shirt covering his torso, wanting to move lighter through the trees.
“You’ve got this,” she told him.
He answered with a sideways look, dry as ever.
“Just make sure you’re still breathing when I get there.”
“Take her to the starting point,” the teacher told Xera.
Xera crossed the field and tugged Elara gently by the arm.
“Come on,” she said, no strange look on her face at all–like walking a human into the middle of the forest was something she did every week.
Elara followed her into the thick of the trees, watching every step so she wouldn’t trip.
It would be humiliating enough to stumble in front of the werewolf.
She still couldn’t tell if Xera was just really kind, or only kind when Kael was around to see it.
“You and Kael are talking a lot more these days,” Xera said, breaking the quiet and pulling Elara’s focus off her feet.
Right as she opened her mouth to answer, her foot caught on a root jutting out of the ground.
Xera caught her before she hit the dirt.
“Easy.
We’re not on a clock here–the teacher will know once we’ve reached the mark.”
“Anyway, thanks for helping out today.
If it weren’t for this, Kael probably wouldn’t have finished the class at all.”
Elara nodded, but the question kept nagging at her.
“Hey… why does it have to be Kael watching me?
I mean, I get that I need someone.
But why him specifically?”
“Because he’s the strongest, obviously,” Xera said, easy about it.
“Both physically and politically.
I don’t know much about that, but that’s just how the political situation is.”
Xera’s steps were steady, as the roots and rocks that stood in her way didn’t seem to bother her at all.
The deeper they walked, the tighter the trees pressed in around them.
Elara glanced back–the castle had already vanished behind the density of the forest.
The air turned colder, damper, and the wind sounded sharper now, cutting through the branches swaying overhead.
“But you said he’s behind?”
“He is, right now.
That doesn’t make him weak, though.
He’s still the strongest in Ordovia.”
She didn’t.
She hadn’t even known Ordovia had its own political system until this moment.
“I thought he was really behind.
The way the teacher talked, it sounded like it.”
Xera laughed at that, like the question was too funny to answer straight.
“Shillah?
I thought you already knew.” Xera glanced back at Elara, still steadying her by the hand.
Elara shook her head slowly.
“What else am I missing?”
Xera smiled before answering.
“Shillah Rhaen.
First-born of the Rhaen clan.
Kael’s older brother.
He just doesn’t love how many classes Kael has been skipping–this competition matters for the clan.”
“Ah.
That explains it.” Elara thought back to the look Xera had given her earlier, warning her not to cut in on Kael and the teacher’s argument.
“We’re here.” Xera stopped.
“I’m leaving you at this spot.
Don’t walk too far away before Kael finds you, okay?”
Elara looked around.
There was no one.
“You’re just going to leave me here alone?”
“Yeah.
From here I need to put as much distance between us as I can, or I’ll be dead easy for Riven to find.
Staying close to you would just get me caught.”
Elara bit her lower lip, and Xera clearly clocked the fear on her face.
She gave her shoulder a light pat.
“Relax.
Kael won’t take long.”
Xera pointed toward the tree line on the left.
“Don’t step past that.
And if you hear something, don’t panic–just tell yourself it’s part of the exercise.”
Elara nodded.
It all sounded simple enough, right up until Xera actually took off, disappearing into the trees in a blink.
“It’s just an exercise.
Nothing’s actually hunting me.” That was what Elara told herself, anyway.
For a few seconds, all she heard was wind.
“Has the hunt already started?” she thought.
Elara walked a little further in until she came upon several large trees growing close together.
She thought the spot looked like a good place for her to hide, but before she could get any closer, the toe of her shoe got caught on a root sticking out of the ground.
Her body pitched forward.
She managed to catch herself against a nearby trunk, but a small jutting branch caught the skin of her palm on the way down.
She yanked her hand back.
It was only a shallow scratch, a thin line barely visible across her palm.
She rubbed her hands together and felt nothing–no sting at all.
“Don’t fall, Elara.
Don’t get hurt.” She muttered it to herself.
The only answer was the wind, hissing through the branches.
A little while later, something moved between the trees.
She didn’t look up right away–she figured it was just the wind.
But then it moved again, even though the breeze had died down completely.
She lifted her head.
She caught the motion–quick, gone almost as soon as it appeared, too fast to make out any shape.
“An animal?”
No answer.
She waited a few seconds before pushing forward again toward the spot she’d picked out earlier.
But the farther she walked, the stranger the feeling got.
Something made the back of her neck go cold, even with the wind completely still.
She stopped.
Looked back over her shoulder.
No one there.
The instant she took another step forward, an unfamiliar voice stopped her cold.
“Human?”
Elara froze.
The voice had come from ahead of her, not from behind like she’d expected.
A man stood among the trees.
His clothes were plain, nothing like the uniforms the Ravencrest students wore.
No clan crest, no mark of noble blood anywhere on him.
His skin was pale–not as pale as royal vampire skin, but pale enough to answer the question.
Vampire.
His eyes dropped to her hand, to the small cut now welling with a thin line of blood, then rose back to her face.
His smile spread, slow and satisfied.
“Well.
You showed up at just the right time.
I happen to be starving.”
She took a step back.
He didn’t rush her.
He just stood there, like he was savoring a view too fine to hurry through.
“Your scent’s different, though.
Too good to walk past.” He closed the distance and caught her injured hand, doing nothing but drawing it close enough to breathe her in.
“Ah.
I think I know exactly what you are.” His face lit up.
“Perfect blood?”
Elara immediately pulled her hand away.
She hid her hand behind her back and clasped her hands together, hoping that would cover up the smell of her blood.
“What are you doing outside Ravencrest?” the vampire asked, genuinely baffled.
“How does prey like you end up completely unguarded?”
She swallowed. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
She had clearly gone too far, crossing the line.
He chuckled.
“No Rhaen with you?
Getting tired of being kept on a leash?”
She kept backing away, her heart slamming out of rhythm.
She thought of the vampire in the infirmary, the one who’d lost all control the moment her blood touched the floor.
This one hadn’t lost control at all.
Somehow that was worse.
“Stay back.” Her voice came out unsteady, matching the uneven steps she took backward.
He laughed, low.
“You really think I’m going to listen to that?”
She kept backing up until her spine hit a tree trunk.
She was out of room.
“Do you have any idea how valuable your blood is?
I don’t think you do.” He took another step closer.
“If I take even a little, I could live comfortably for years.”
She pressed her hands tighter behind her back.
“I’m not giving it to you.” She had no idea where the bravery came from.
It didn’t seem to bother him–his laugh got louder.
He lifted a hand.
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
Then a roar echoed from deep within the forest.
It was loud and deep—so strong that Elara could feel the earth tremble beneath her feet.
It stopped the vampire cold, his head snapping around to scan the trees.
A second roar followed, and this time it wiped the smile clean off his face.
Something moved through the trees–too fast for her to catch–before a massive body slammed out of the darkness and sent them both flying.
The vampire hit the ground several yards from where he’d been standing.
Elara, still pinned against the trunk, had nowhere left to run.
The creature that had just crashed down came between Elara and the vampire.
A werewolf.
Its body was much larger than any werewolf Elara had ever seen in her past dreams.
Its shoulders were broad, its legs long and strong, and dark fur covered its entire body.
Even when it was standing, its height forced Elara to look up to see its head.
The vampire tried to get up.
The werewolf growled–a low, rolling sound from deep in its chest–and he stopped moving.
A few seconds passed before the vampire chose to retreat.
“Didn’t realize you were this close,” he said to the werewolf.
The werewolf didn’t answer.
It growled once more, and that was enough to make the vampire vanish into the trees, fast.
Elara’s heart was still pounding too hard, and her breathing hadn’t quite settled down yet.
It took a few seconds before she realized her body was still pressed tightly against the tree trunk, as if she weren’t quite sure the danger had truly passed.
The forest went quiet again, but she stayed frozen where she was, hands still tucked behind her, trembling.
She knew she should feel relief that the vampire was gone.
Instead, there was something else standing in front of her now, and she had no way of knowing whether it had come to save her or simply replace one threat with another.
The werewolf turned, slow.
Its silver eyes found her.
It didn’t move closer, didn’t growl, didn’t make a single sound that felt like a threat.
Just a stare that left her with no idea what to do.
“I don’t taste good.” The words tumbled out of her before she could stop them, her voice shaking too hard to hide it.
She couldn’t even process how ridiculous that sounded–not with a creature this size standing close enough to tear her apart in a heartbeat.
The werewolf’s gaze didn’t change, but it slowly lowered its body.
Its legs bent until its massive frame no longer dominated the space as it had before.
Its head dropped as well, making the distance between them feel a little more normal.
Elara stared at the werewolf.
The werewolf still sat motionless in its position.
A few seconds later, one of its front paws slid forward and stopped in the dirt between them.
She frowned.
She didn’t understand.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, caught somewhere between fear and confusion.
The werewolf huffed through its nose–not a growl, but enough to make her shiver anyway.
Its paw swept the ground again, gentle this time.
She looked down at the paw, at claws the size of her fingers.
Her hands were still shaking as she slowly pulled them out from behind her back and reached forward, an inch at a time.
The moment her fingertips brushed the dark fur, a short huff came from its nose again.
This time it didn’t make her flinch.
It sounded less like a warning and more like an irritated sigh.
Her gaze traveled up from the paw to the werewolf’s face.
Something about it felt strangely familiar–the way it waited, the way it watched her, even that small huff that seemed to say she was, as always, more trouble than she was worth.
She looked again at those bright silver eyes–the exact shade she remembered from Kael’s, a color that always stood out so sharply against his tan skin.
“Kael?”
The werewolf, of course, didn’t answer.
But its head tipped, just slightly.
The fear that had been sitting in her chest slowly gave way to something that almost made her want to laugh.
She pressed her lips together, fighting to keep it in.
“So it really is you.”
Bolder now, she ran a hand along its leg again, feeling the warmth of its body seep into her palm.
“You still need to work on your tracking.”
The werewolf’s ears twitched.
Its head tilted, like it hadn’t quite followed what she’d said.
She held back a smile.
“It took you way too long to find me.”
The werewolf stared at her for a few seconds, then looked away.
It was as if Elara’s mockery was not even worth a response.
A power stone would mean the world to me.
Thank you for reading, and see you next chapter!