With every step this handsome god took toward her, the crushing weight of his aura forced Lena deeper into the marble wall.
She couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she had done to make a stranger hate her this much.
The more she struggled, the more the atmospheric pressure pressed into her lungs. No one in the corridor was going to help her.
Instead, they all had their phones out, recording. It was a weird thing to notice in a life-or-death situation, but she realized all their phones looked identical–dark and standardized by the Academy.
"Which house sent you?" Christopher growled, stepping so close his chest almost brushed hers. His voice vibrated with a dangerous, gravelly rage that made the floorboards hum.
"What?" she choked out, her vision spotting.
His dark eyes burned into hers. "Don’t play dumb with me. Did Maximus pay a shifter to copy her face? Huh? Is this a joke to you?"
Lena seriously didn’t know who this girl was that everyone kept comparing her to. Feeling the invisible weight pushing her further into the stone, a spike of cold panic hit her.
Am I really going to die on my first day here?
"I’m... new..." she gasped out, her lungs burning.
He still didn’t let it go. Realizing she couldn’t resist him, Lena closed her eyes and completely stopped fighting the pressure.
The sudden surrender made him let go. She fell harshly onto the floor before him. She stayed on all fours, desperately drawing air back into her chest.
However, Christopher wasn’t done. He reached down, his large hand gripping the collar of the hoodie tightly, violently yanking her up and pinning her against the lockers to force a confession.
"Drop the illusion. Who the fuck are you?"
Looking around through her messy bangs, Lena saw the other students laughing and whispering, their phone lenses tracking her humiliation.
Her jaw tightened.
Meeting his eyes, whatever attraction Lena had felt for this specimen a minute ago instantly vanished into pure, focused hatred. She did not appreciate people who humiliated her.
Her voice drops into a deadly frequency. "I don’t know who ’she’ is, and I don’t know how to shape-shift. But if you touch me again, I’ll break your fingers."
Visible gasps spread through the hallway. Students stepped back, looking between themselves in utter disbelief.
"Did she... Did she just threaten Alpha Christopher?!"
"Who does she think she is?"
"I want to kill this bitch!"
"Oh, she’s completely done for."
Meanwhile, Christopher looked completely expressionless. A paid shifter would have dropped their form under his command pressure, or at least submitted to his angry wolf’s aura.
But she was entirely different. In a stupid kind of way.
Now that he was inches away, his scent hit her with overwhelming intensity. Up close, his scent was intoxicatingly rich. If she were a normal shewolf driven by her sexual desires, she would have been completely turned on before him.
Staring at the fabric wrapping her body, Alpha Christopher’s face once again hardened. "Take it off."
Lena couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
"Right now. Or I’ll rip it off you myself." Christopher commanded, his suffocating aura pressing down so hard that the others nearby felt their knees wobble.
He wasn’t serious.
However, his gaze didn’t show any sign of unseriousness and Lena was completely bewildered.
Staring past him at the stunned crowd in the hallway, her lips slowly curled into a smile. To the onlookers, it looked like the chilling smile of a complete psychopath.
"You want your property back, Alpha? Fine."
Without a single trace of hesitation, she reached into the deep pouch, pulled out her Beta scent spray, and tucked it into her waistband.
Then, she grabbed the zipper, pulled it down, and shrugged out of the massive brown sweatshirt, tossing it directly against his chest.
She stood there against the cold metal lockers, completely exposed in her underwear.
The crowd went absolutely insane at her audacity. Everyone started flashing their camera lights as they struggled to snap pictures of the new girl’s insane, hot body.
But Christopher completely froze. The heavy, dominant snarl vanished from his face, the sweatshirt slipping from his fingers.
Through the flashing camera lights, his dark eyes locked onto her skin. The uncanny, unmistakable resemblance to the wolf he had loved and lost was staring him right in the face.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, his gaze slowly tracking over every curve of her body. Lena shifted uncomfortably under the raw, intense scrutiny.
Suddenly, Christopher’s eyes darted frantically toward the vaulted ceiling, his jaw locking tight as he stepped aggressively back into her space.
He reached out, his fingers wrapping firmly around her jaw, forcing her to look deep into his eyes. He still didn’t think she was real. He thought he was under a psychological attack.
Christopher growled, a sound meant for an enemy as he stared right through Lena’s face. "We’ve already come to an agreement. Why use cheap tricks like this, Maximus? Drop the illusion!"
That was the second time he had called her Maximus. Now, Lena really wanted to know who the hell this Maximus was, and why this Alpha thought she belonged to him.
When his grip around her chin tightened painfully, Lena aggressively swatted his hand away from her face. "I don’t know who the hell Maximus is, and I’m not an illusion. Now give me some space."
Christopher looked down at his own palm, which had just been aggressively swatted by... a Beta-scented stranger.
Around them, the whispers reached a fever pitch. To her surprise, the powerful Alpha before her let out a low, breathless laugh.
"No. This can’t be real," Christopher murmured, his eyes narrowing as he took a step back.
He had every reason to believe this wasn’t real. No ordinary student who just happened to look like ’her’ could easily act with this much cold defiance.
He turned his back on her, looking down the corridor. "Maximus, you funny prick," he shouted into the crowd. "End the game."