Elora’s POV
The gates of Astral Academy swallowed me whole, and I let them.
My suitcase wheels stuttered over the cobblestones, catching in every crack, and my heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
Excitement.
Nerves.
The two braided together until I couldn’t tell them apart.
This place had lived in my head for as long as I could remember—a dream I’d never dared say out loud, because saying it made it real, and real things could be taken away.
The best shifters in the kingdoms trained behind these walls.
Almost no one got in.
I had.
Today, a new chapter.
New name for myself, new life, and nothing—nothing—was going to ruin it.
“Move it, four-eyes!”
Almost nothing.
A shoulder slammed into my back.
The ground rushed up and met me hard, gravel biting into my palms, my suitcases clattering down beside me.
My glasses jumped off my nose.
Ice flooded my chest.
“No, no—” I dropped to all fours, fingers raking the stones, breath sawing in my throat.
Not the glasses.
Never the glasses.
They stayed on my face at all times—every waking hour, every cold and lonely night—because without them the nightmares came.
The visions.
The voices that didn’t belong to the living.
My fingertip grazed the familiar wire frame.
“Yes.” I snatched them up, shoved them on, and the world snapped back into focus—including the back of the boy who’d knocked me flat, already strolling off with his pack of friends like I was a puddle he’d stepped around.
“Asshole,” Elysia snarled inside my skull.
“Asshole,” I muttered out loud, at the exact same moment.
One of the boys glanced back.
Blue hoodie.
A flicker of something on his face—sympathy, maybe guilt.
Then he peeled off from the group and jogged straight at me.
He crouched, gathered my suitcases, and held out a hand.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.
Thanks.” I took it and let him haul me up, and suddenly we were standing face to face.
My breath caught.
He was gorgeous—blond, honey-brown eyes, hair a shade lighter than mine, a smile that looked like it came easy.
“I’m sorry about the prince,” he said.
“He didn’t mean it.
He’s a little cranky today.”
“The prince?”
Something flickered behind his eyes.
“The Ly—never mind.
First day?”
“Yes.”
“Need help with those?”
“Yes.
Sure.”
He hoisted both cases like they weighed nothing and we started walking, my short legs scrambling to keep pace.
I barely reached his shoulder.
“On your way to grab your keys?”
“Yes.”
His mouth twitched.
“Can you only say yes?”
“Ye—I mean, no.” Heat crawled up my neck.
He laughed, low and warm.
“I’m Declan.
Student council.”
“Elora.”
His eyes moved over my face, unhurried, thorough—the kind of look that saw more than I wanted seen.
I blushed and hated myself for it.
“Let me guess,” he said.
“Seventeen.
Small, humble pack.
Alpha’s daughter.
Training to be a healer’s acquaintance.”
I laughed, startled.
“Almost.
Eighteen.”
He didn’t need the rest.
And I didn’t offer it.
The Alpha was my uncle.
He’d raised me since the attack that took my parents when I was eight, and I’d never once figured out how to say that in a way that didn’t crack something open.
Alpha Vance of the Thornhart Pack—a small pack from the east—had tried to treat me like a daughter.
He’d just never known how.
He was rarely home.
Our Luna, Beatrice, had done her best, but the mother-daughter thing had never clicked.
And then there was Garrett, my cousin.
My brother, everyone called him.
He’d hated me my whole life without ever bothering to explain why.
“They must be proud of you,” Declan said.
“Your parents.”
“They’re proud,” I said, and let it lie.
Girls turned as we walked.
They always would, for a face like that.
Now and then he’d toss one a nod and get a squeal in return.
Popular.
Easy to see why.
But there was something under the pretty—a good heart, maybe—and that was rarer than a jawline.
He caught me staring.
I dropped my eyes to the floor with a giggle I couldn’t swallow.
“Here you are.”
The grand hall opened up in front of me, ceilings soaring, light pouring down through high windows onto a churning sea of students and luggage.
I’d seen it at orientation.
It still stole my breath.
“Wow.”
“That’s the front desk.” He pointed.
“Information, keys, all of it.” Then he offered his hand again.
“It was nice to meet you, Elora.
Welcome.
Have a good year.”
I stared at his hand a beat too long before I took it.
“Thank you.”
He winked.
Something fluttered under my ribs.
I held on a second past necessary, and when he glanced down at our hands with a soft little smile, I coughed and yanked mine back.
“Thank you,” I said again, uselessly.
“For coming back.
To help.”
“No problem.
Just doing my job.”
Right.
Student council.
“Declan—let’s go!”
The voice cut across the hall.
I looked past Declan’s shoulder to a boy leaning against a pillar, back to me, surrounded by friends who orbited him like he was gravity itself.
Same voice that had called me four-eyes.
I’d know it anywhere now.
Declan had called him a prince.
I couldn’t tell if that meant blood or just attitude.
Either way, he didn’t hesitate.
He walked off toward the boy without a backward glance.
“Next!”
The woman behind the desk snapped me back to earth, her face set in permanent disappointment.
“Oh—yes, that’s me.” I wrestled my suitcases up to the counter, sounding foolish even to myself.
“Name, class, major.”
“Elora Vane, freshman, healer department?”
She hummed and shuffled through a stack of files.
My mind wandered to my three new roommates.
Please, I thought, let them be more bearable than the boy who called me four-eyes.
“I have to say, I’m so honored to be one of the two hundred chosen to learn from the best healers, and my Mom was actually an alumna, so I’m really—”
A set of keys sailed at my face.
I caught them on reflex.
“Lunar Hall.
Second building, left.
Second floor.
Room 102.
Next!”
I blinked at her rudeness.
Before I could recover, someone shoved past and I nearly went down again, catching myself just in time.
The walk to the dorms cost me what little dignity I had left.
I hauled my cases up to the second floor, lungs burning, damp with sweat—but I made it, and that was all that mattered.
The hallway swarmed with students hauling boxes, laughing, shouting over one another.
I stood in the middle of it, overwhelmed, not knowing where to start.
“What room are you in?”
I turned—and a woman gasped straight into my face.
“Genevieve?” Her green eyes went wide.
I searched her face for anything familiar and found nothing.
“W-Who?”
Grey hair pulled into a tight bun.
Glasses perched low.
Those striking green eyes fixed on me with an intensity that bordered on hope, like I was someone she’d been waiting years to see.
“I’m so sorry.” She caught herself.
“You just look like someone I once knew.”
“It’s okay,” I said, warm as I could manage.
“My name is Helena.
I’m the RD of this department.
And you are…” Her gaze dropped to the name on my key tag.
“Elora Vane.
Room 102, just down the hall.”
“Thank you,” I said, grateful.
I gave her a last smile and pressed on toward my room, the knot in my stomach pulling tighter with every step at the prospect of meeting my new roommates.
What would they be like?
Would I like them?
Would they like me?
Even back in the Thornhart Pack, I’d never really had friends.
People I stood near.
People I didn’t.
But friends?
I stopped at 102.
My heart slammed.
I turned the key, breathed once, and pushed the door open.
Two girls stood frozen mid-conversation, heads turning to me at once.
One with dyed pink hair.
One with dark curls.
Their clothes were sleek and expensive, and I felt every thread of my own cheap ones.
High-status families.
Of course.
“Am I interrupting?” My voice came out small.
The pink-haired one rushed at me.
“No.
I’m Chloe, that’s Hazel—and are you her?
Varek’s ex?”
I frowned.
“Who?”
And who the hell was Varek?
“Our roommate.
Sabrina.
The Lycan Prince’s ex.” Chloe talked fast, eyes hungry.
“I heard she’s redoing her freshman year, and she’s our roommate—so are you her?”