Chapter 4 Chapter 4

Edyth Hart POV

"What is happening here?" Nathan's voice cut through the corridor, low and dangerously calm.

A heavy silence fell over the crowd. Everyone had hung their head low quickly, even the walls seemed to listen.

Werewolves instinctively responded to power and Alpha Nathan carried his effortlessly.

Not to mention Nathan Rowen was one of the grandsons of the rich influential elite pack Blackwood.

His mother was one of the daughters of legendary Elder Alexander Blackwood. Even generations later his legacy still defined power being the topmost among any packs.

His gaze swept on my soaked clothes, on the water at my feet, in the miserable state I was standing in.

And I wished for nothing but the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

One of the students stammered, "Alpha Nathan, it's not what it looks like. She-"

Before I could get Nathan took a big stride and reached for my wrist. For a moment I could only stare at him.

"What are you doing?" I whisper yelled at him in disbelief.

Nathan didn't answer immediately.

"Come with me." The words weren't loud, but they carried the kind of authority that expected obedience.

Every person in that corridor kept watching us, every person would be talking about this by evening!

The thought alone made me want to disappear.

"Nathan, let go. I can walk by myself!"

Nathan however continued down the hallway until he pushed open the door to an empty consultation room and stepped inside.

The moment the door closed behind us, the noise of the academy vanished, leaving only an uncomfortable silence hanging between us.

I immediately pulled my wrist free. The skin beneath his fingers felt strangely warm.

"What is wrong with you?" I snapped.

Nathan turned toward me, his dark eyes settling on my soaked appearance once more, making me instinctively step back.

"Can you not go a single day without attracting attention?" He sneered, stepping closer to me, leaving no space for us. It's almost suffocating.

"How is that my fault!?" I shot back at him, planting my palm firmly against his chest and pushed, intending to force some distance between us, but it was like trying to move a stone wall.

Nathan didn't budge in the slightest. If anything, the action only seemed to draw his attention to the fact that I was touching him.

Then slowly lifted back to my face. The look in his eyes made my stomach twist.

"Move," I snapped.

"Every time I see you," Nathan said evenly, "you're in the middle of some kind of disaster. Is it too hard for you to keep quiet and live like an invisible? I even told you to change the university but you..."

I can't believe this...

"You're acting as if I went looking for trouble," I sneered, anger bubbling inside me. "The people here are the ones targeting me. Freya is the one making my life miserable."

Nathan's expression hardened immediately. "Freya again."

"Yes, Freya again. Who else would it be? Ever since she found out I was accepted here, she's done everything possible to make my life difficult."

"Lower your voice."

"Why?" I shot back. "Because hearing the truth makes you uncomfortable?"

His jaw clenched. "Because you're making a scene. Also stop blaming everything on her. Not everything that goes wrong in your life is her fault, Edyth. You're not a child anymore, you have to stop acting like the whole world is against you."

I felt something twist painfully inside my chest.

"Right," I said quietly. "Of course. Because it couldn't possibly be that people are awful. It has to be me."

Nathan's eyes hardened. "That's not what I said."

"Then what are you saying, Nathan?"

"I'm saying it has always been awful, Edyth." His voice was calm, almost emotionless. "It was awful back then, it's awful now. The difference is that most people learn how to survive it. But you keep expecting people to be better than they are."

"You know how packs work. You know how this academy works. When people target you, you stop giving them reasons. But you keep drawing attention to yourself, getting involved in things you should stay away from, refusing to keep your head down."

The words hit harder than they should have. A bitter laugh escaped me.

"Sorry," I said bitterly. "I forgot. The great Alpha Nathan Rowen thinks the solution to everything is keeping your head down and pretending problems don't exist."

His eyes flashed. "No. I think surviving is more important than proving a point."

I took a step toward him. "And I think you're a coward. Just like before when you left me and chose Freya."

A dangerous look settled over Nathan's face.

"Careful, Edyth."

"Why?" I challenged him. "Because I said something you didn't like?"

Before I could react, Nathan grabbed my neck and pinned me against the wall.

What the fuck!?

"Nathan..!"

His Alpha presence rolled through the room in heavy waves, pressing against my skin, demanding submission from instincts I didn't even possess.

Nathan sneered malevolently, "You act like it was my fault we broke up? Only if you had awakened your wolf, would we be separated like this?"

Something angry flickered across his face.

"It's because of you...we are separated like this, Edyth. It's because of you I was forced to separate from you. If you had awakened your damn wolf, you would have been my Luna not that Freya who was chosen by my parents!"

"Do you really think they were going to accept a wolfless Luna standing beside the future Alpha?" His jaw clenched.

I felt my throat tighten as tears burned behind my eyes. "So you're saying it's my fault that I didn't awaken wolf?"

"Yes, don't you get it? If you weren't in your...pathetic state, none wouldn't have happened. You were the one who broke us, Edyth. You broke our happiness."

Tears burned my eyes as it flowed continuously and I hated to show him my weak side.

His gaze dropped to the tears flowing in my eyes. Yet he didn't stop. Instead he inched his face dangerously close to my face to make me miserable.

"And...just when everything finally settled, just when everyone moved on, you suddenly show up here. How am I supposed to react to this now, Edyth?"

"You should have stayed gone but you...you enroll in my university, you join my internship program, you're suddenly everywhere I look. What exactly was I supposed to do, Edyth?"

I tried to move my face away, he didn't let me,

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

Tears blurred my vision and I hated that he could see them.

"Stay quiet. Keep your head down. Stop drawing attention to yourself. Learn your place, Edyth." His voice was cold enough to freeze the air.

"Or this academy will teach it to you. Because if this is all it takes to break you, Briarwood will eat you alive. Understood?"

With that he let go of me and walked away. The moment the door closed behind him I slid down sobs tearing out of my chest, something cracking in me.