Chapter 6 Kaelen Vance lesson

The dust from the afternoon training session was still settling in my hair when I walked into Professor Kaelen Vance’s advanced tactics classroom. My cheek stung where Morrigan’s fist had grazed it, but Aziz was already stitching the cells back together, sending a warm, tingling wave across my jaw.

‘Hide the healing,’ Aziz warned, his voice a low vibration in my mind. ‘Your skin shouldn't be flawless yet. Act hurt.’

I intentionally slumped my shoulders, gripping my mop bucket, and moved to the back of the lecture hall. The room was designed like a Roman amphitheater. The elite students sat in tiered rows of dark mahogany, while I was relegated to the perimeter, meant to blend into the shadows with the dust bunnies.

Morrigan was already seated near the front, laughing loudly with her clique, her face flushed with the pride of her "victory" over me in the ring. Barrett sat three rows above her, completely isolated. He didn't join the laughter. He was staring at the chalkboard, his grey eyes fixed on the blank space beneath his own poorly optimized deployment strategy.

The heavy oak doors slammed shut. The room fell dead silent.

Professor Kaelen Vance stepped onto the dais. He didn't wear the traditional, decorated military uniform of the other instructors. He wore a simple, dark tactical jacket, his sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in pale scars. He didn't look at the students. He walked straight to the board, picked up a piece of chalk, and drew a massive, aggressive X right through the center of Barrett’s tactical layout.

The class gasped. Barrett didn't flinch, but his jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.

"Pathetic," Kaelen said, his voice quiet, lethal, and carrying perfectly across the room. "An entire class of high-born legacy students, future pack commanders, and not a single one of you noticed the North Valley ambush. If this were a real border dispute, eighty percent of your wolves would be body bags before sunrise."

Morrigan raised her hand, her voice sweet but desperate to deflect. "Professor, Barrett’s vanguard strategy was mathematically sound. No one could predict a northern flank collapse without advanced scout telemetry."

"Is that your excuse? What was your name, little pup… Morrigan?" Kaelen turned slowly, his sharp, dark eyes pinning her to her seat. "That you're blind without someone holding your hand? Leadership requires anticipation. Not excuses."

Morrigan shrank back, her cheeks burning crimson.

"However," Kaelen continued, a faint, cynical smirk playing on his lips as he tapped the chalkboard. "It seems someone in this academy actually possesses a brain. Early this morning, a correction was written on this board. A sudden pivot to the Eastern ridge, using a collapsed tunnel to simulate a fake retreat." He glanced around the room, his eyes scanning the terrified faces of the Alphas. "Who wrote it? Step forward and take credit for saving Barrett's disastrous simulation."

Silence stretched. No one moved. The Alphas looked at each other, confused and insulted that someone among them had solved a problem they couldn't.

Barrett’s gaze didn't leave the board. He was analyzing the math scribbled at the bottom—my math. Then, slowly, his grey eyes began to drift. He didn't look at his peers. He tracked the perimeter of the room until his eyes locked directly onto me, holding the mop in the dim light of the back row.

"No one?" Kaelen chuckled, a dark, mocking sound. "Fascinating. A room full of Alphas, yet the only true tactician here is a ghost."

Kaelen turned his back to the class, walking toward the large glass windows overlooking the training grounds. "Let's test a theory, then. Let's see how the elite handle a real-time crisis."

He grabbed a remote control, flashing a new, highly complex terrain map onto the digital projector beside the chalkboard. It was a chaotic mess of rivers, cliffs, and asymmetric enemy fortresses.

"Morrigan," Kaelen barked without turning around. "Your pack is cornered at the riverbank. Heavy infantry approaching from the west. Swamps to the south. What is your call?"

"I... I would split the forces," she stammered, her eyes darting across the map. "Send half across the river—"

"The river is mined. Half your pack is dead," Kaelen cut her off brutally. "Barrett. Save her."

Barrett leaned forward, his voice calm but tight. "Dig in. Use the swamp terrain to slow the heavy infantry, then use long-range artillery to break their vanguard."

"Good," Kaelen murmured. "But the enemy has air support. Your artillery is destroyed in three minutes. Now what, Barrett?"

Barrett went silent, his brow furrowing as he stared at the shifting digital simulation. The bottleneck was absolute. There was no mathematical escape.

Suddenly, Kaelen spun around. He didn't look at Barrett. His eyes shot straight past the rows of elite students, locking onto the very back of the room.

"You," Kaelen commanded, pointing a finger directly at me. "The girl with the mop. Give me the solution."

Every single head in the theater snapped toward me. Morrigan sneered, letting out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Professor, she's just a maid from the Blue Blood pack. She doesn't even have a wolf. She doesn't belong in this—"

"Shut up, Morrigan," Kaelen snapped, his voice dropping an octave, instantly silencing her. He didn't break eye contact with me. "Speak, cleaner. Or do you only have courage when the room is empty?"

My heart hammered against my ribs. Aziz was roaring in my head, begging me to speak, begging me to show them who the real Alpha was. I tightened my grip on the wooden handle of the mop until the wood creaked.

I took a half-step forward out of the shadows.

"The swamp isn't a barrier; it's the weapon," I said, my voice steady, echoing clearly in the silent hall. "You don't dig in. You flood the eastern dam upstream. It turns the entire valley into a flash flood. The heavy infantry drowns in their own armor, the air support loses visibility due to the rising mist, and your cornered pack uses the high ground of the river ruins to pick off the survivors."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Morrigan looked like she had just swallowed glass. The other Alphas stared at me in absolute disbelief, their pride shattered by a girl wearing a janitor's apron.

Kaelen Vance slowly crossed his arms, his cynical smirk widening into a genuine, dangerous smile. "Brilliant. A complete wipeout of the enemy vanguard using natural topography. And the math matches the formula left on my board this morning."

He looked up at the tiers, his eyes landing on Barrett, who was staring at me with an intensity that felt like a physical weight.

"It seems," Kaelen said softly, "the 'rat' in the ring knows how to bite. Class dismissed."

As the students began to whisper and pack their bags, I quickly grabbed my bucket, desperate to escape. But as I passed the row of seats, Barrett stepped out into the aisle, blocking my path. He was tall, his presence suffocating, and up close, the complete absence of his scent was terrifying.

"Who taught you that?" he whispered, his grey eyes burning into mine, searching for the wolf I was hiding.

"I read a book," I replied coldly, pushing past his shoulder, ignoring the sparks that flared where our clothes brushed.