Elora’s POV
“Somebody please kill me.” I groaned it into my pillow, facedown, muffled.
Classes hadn’t even officially started, and I was already running on empty.
How was I supposed to focus on anything after the week I’d had?
Everyone always said finding your mate was magic.
A fairytale.
Your soul’s other half.
Mine had crawled up out of the lowest pit of hell.
Disgusting.
Cold.
Cruel.
He’d kissed me.
Then told me to stay away.
Then followed me back to my own dorm.
None of it made sense, and every time I shut my eyes I saw his mouth on mine and hated myself for the flush that came with it.
And as if the universe wanted to twist the knife, the only thing the girls could talk about was Varek sleeping with Sabrina, and how the two of them were surely getting back together.
I didn’t care.
Couldn’t have cared less.
But Elysia was heartbroken, and I felt every ache of it bleed into me.
I hated him with every bone I owned.
And when I’d passed him in the hall, I’d seen the same hatred staring right back.
Being the good person I liked to think I was, I’d wanted to reject him then and there and free us both.
But before I could get a word out, he’d vanished into the crowd.
Varek was going to reject me eventually.
Everyone knew how these things went.
I just wanted to do it first.
I wanted that one scrap of control.
Three knocks, and my door swung open.
“Up.
Bag.
Let’s go.” Hazel’s voice.
“You don’t want makeup smeared all over that pillow.”
I lifted my head to glare at her.
“I’m not wearing any.”
“Oh.” She frowned.
“Drool, then.
Come on.”
Groaning, I dragged myself upright, grabbed my bag, and trailed after her.
“What’s even the point of a four-person dorm when it’s just the two of us?” Hazel scoffed as we walked.
She meant Sabrina and Chloe—both permanently elsewhere.
She wasn’t wrong.
One week in, and I already knew I’d never click with the two Lycan girls.
Not the way I had with Hazel.
She was warm and funny and easy, and it felt like I’d known her for years instead of days.
“Maybe we’ll run into my mate, and I can finally introduce you,” she said, eyes lighting up.
I forced a smile.
“Yeah.
Maybe.”
Hazel had found her mate at the festival and hadn’t stopped talking about him since—tall, gorgeous, kind, the whole set.
She just refused to show me a picture.
Said he was someone I had to meet in person.
I was happy for her.
Truly.
She deserved the world and then some.
But watching her fairytale unfold while mine rotted left something bitter in the back of my throat.
My night had been so humiliating I hadn’t even told her I’d found mine.
She bumped my shoulder.
“Don’t feel bad about not finding yours yet.
Maybe he’s not even at this school.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, looking away.
“Maybe.”
We reached the crowded academic hall, and she pulled me into a fierce hug.
“I’m that way.” She pointed down a different wing.
“Have a good first day.
And if we’re fighting somebody, text me!”
I laughed, watching her go.
“I will.”
We didn’t share a single class today.
I knew I couldn’t lean on her for four years—I had to stand on my own—but it wouldn’t have been a lie to say I already missed her.
I found my classroom, breathed deep at the door, and shoved every thought of Varek out of my head.
Done was done.
Now I focus.
First class of the day: the basics of healing.
Helena was already at the front when I stepped in.
She gave me a warm smile, and I returned it, scanning the room for an empty seat—
That laugh.
Familiar.
Grating.
Sabrina, perched on a desk, ringed by her little court, Chloe among them.
Laughing, whispering, eyes cutting to me.
Laughing at me or with me, I couldn’t tell.
I decided I didn’t care.
All that mattered was finding a seat as far from her as possible, so I did.
I had no interest in a fight with Sabrina.
I already had one noble Lycan making my life hell.
One was plenty.
“Good morning, everyone!” Helena called as I dropped into my chair.
“Before we start—quick introductions.
Name, age, where you’re from.”
The class groaned.
Helena didn’t budge.
Luckily I went first, and once the others started reciting themselves, my mind drifted off entirely.
“Today, a simple healing exercise.
Nothing to stress about.
I just want to see where everyone stands.”
She laid out the details.
My attention slid away again.
“Each of you gets a tank of thirty small fish,” she said.
“Your goal is to strengthen at least one weakened fish with your healing.
Good luck.”
I caught maybe half of it, and didn’t care.
The fish drill was ancient history to me—a first lesson every Thornhart healer learned young, all of us trained under the pack’s oldest, most respected healer.
The same woman who had once tutored my mother.
The tank sat in front of me.
I swirled one finger and healed a single fish.
Keep it small.
Keep it quiet.
I had no desire to be branded the nerd or the show-off on day one.
That had been my whole life back home.
I wasn’t doing it again.
Applause broke out somewhere.
Admiring murmurs.
I turned toward Sabrina’s table.
“Fifteen fish.” Helena nodded, adjusting her glasses.
“Well done, Sabrina.
You’ve taken this class before—why don’t you lead the others?”
Sabrina smirked and tucked a red curl behind her ear.
She really believed she was something.
I hated her—not for herself, exactly.
For him.
‘She can’t lead us,’ Elysia snarled, uncurling in my mind.
‘We’ve done this a thousand times.
Show her.’
My fists clenched over the tank as heat crawled up my arms.
‘First she takes our mate.
Now she takes our spotlight.
She is not the best healer in this room.’
Elysia’s voice was a hand on my back, pushing me toward the edge.
There was no reason for Varek to loathe me the way he did—not while he surrounded himself with that.
It wasn’t fair.
‘End that bitch, Elora.’
“No—”
Too late.
Elysia had already won.
The water in my tank erupted, thrashing, and all thirty fish shot to life at once, darting in bright, frantic circles.
Gasps rippled across the room.
Chairs scraped as students crowded my table.
My cheeks went scalding.
I could feel every eye in the room fix on me—me, the one who hated attention—handed a spotlight by a jealous wolf.