Chapter 3 Maybe you should ask the Alpha?

Cressida's pov

A sharp pain like a blade between my ribs was what jolted me as I regained consciousness.

My fingers flew to touch the injury on my face, it was closing. Thank goodness.

Shit. That means half my cover has been blown.

"It's just me here don't panic"

I turned and that's when I noticed him, he was cradling his finger like something burnt it.

"Lucian?" I muttered weakly as I slowly took in my surroundings.

The infirmary. I couldn't have mistaken the too white ceiling, the smell of gauze and antiseptic and the particular metallic tang of someone else's blood already drying on a tray somewhere.

His aura changed the second I said his name,and I turned to catch his reaction.

Just as I expected, confusion and alertness.

"How did you know my name?" He questioned as he came forward menacingly like I was suddenly a threat.

"Heard the Nurse refer to you as that, for all I care I don't know your name" I rolled my eyes and looked away from him.

I heard him chuckle before he said, "Sharp tongued, huh?"

I smiled as I realized my cover wasn't entirely blown. I've been taught his name like a poem since I was little if at all that wasn't the first word I learnt.

Destroy Lucian Thorneval, the heir to the Thorneval empire.

Funny how I was at the mercy of my target. And still am.

"So what's your name? I never got to ask" he asked as he pulled a plastic chair and sat down beside me and watched me with an intensity that made my skin prick.

"Cressida..." I looked at him then asked, "How long was I out?"

"Less than an hour..." His voice was low and measured. "...you shouldn't even be awake yet."

"I heal quite fast"

"I noticed"

He tilted his head towards my arm and I followed his gaze and saw my left forearm still wrapped in bandage but the bloodstains had darkened to brown. And beneath the gauze, she could feel it, the wound was closing. The skin pulling itself back together like a zipper.

We both watched as a thin red line appeared through the bandage -the last of the bleeding and then stopped. The pain faded to a faith throb and then nothing.

Lucian reached over and gently peeled back the edge of the gauze. His hands were warm and gentle.

When he revealed the wound, I saw a thin pale line maybe two inches long forming across my forearm like a crescent moon.

A scar.

"That's new" I murmured with a deep frown.

"What is?"

"Usually there's nothing left. No mark nor trace." I carefully flexed my fingers and they obeyed,all of them. "This time it's scarred"

I watched as his face tightened, then he smoothened the gauze back and relaxed back, his eyes never leaving my face.

"You crashed a motorcycle into a tree." He said quietly, "Broke three ribs, cracked your skull. Your arm was bent in a way that arms shouldn't" a pause . " And now you're here awake... talking... healed."

I could feel the heat and doubt rising in his voice then I nonchalantly said, "Almost healed" then I nodded towards the sling on the bedside table, "Madame Voss said my arms needs to be rebroken and reset. Healed wrong the last time"

"That doesn't bother you?"

With a shrug i said,"It's not the worse thing to happen to me"

Something flickered across his face but I continued anyways. "You shouldn't have stopped"

"What?"

"But you did anyways...so thanks"

He realized what I was talking about and said, "You were in my territory, under my protection. That's not a choice I made, it's a matter of where you landed"

"That's not an answer" I reminded him

"No...it's not"

Slowly, he stood up. He was tall no doubt, but here he seemed to fill up the entire infirmary.

"You're not a wolf " he declared and I didn't answer just stared at him to make his point which he did anyways.

"You passed through the gates without setting off the alarms"

"Probably because I was with you who knows, or I'm just a part of this as you are"

"The wards don't know what to do with you and neither do I"

I sat up carefully and met the fire in his eyes,"Then why am I still here?"

He walked so close to me to the point I could see the pulse ticking in his throat and watched his hand unclench at his side.

"Because my wolf won't let me let you go"

Those words landed like stone in the water it was so unexpected and before I could fathom what to say the door slammed open.

She didn't just enter, she arrived with too many bracelets on her wrist and her hair in a messy cute style.

"....and I said Voss if you don't let me see the mystery patient, I'll climb through..."

She stopped and her eyes found mine.

The silence that followed was wrong, it didn't match the chaos she came with.

She just stared and said seconds later in surprise, "It's really you!"

I arched her brows and looked at Lucian who faced the intruder. I didn't like this.

"Relax, if I wanted you dead I'd probably be with a knife"

Lucian's eyes narrowed, "Raven"

"What? I'm just being friendly." She flashed a grin that didn't reach her eyes, "Mostly"

"She's under my protection" Lucian said

"I know"

"Then act like it"

Her grim faded and then she looked at me. Like really looked at me like she could see through me and a look of recognition passed then it disappeared just as fast.

"Fine..." She said then sat down and threw her leg on the table, "She's my roommate and I'm here to bring her to the dorm but then I stay here most of the time that they should probably name a room or the entire infirmary after me. You..."

"Raven" Lucian's voice was like a blade and raven looked up to him innocently and tilted her head.

"Alpha" she said sweetly.

He held her gaze for a long while and then his eyes slid back to mine and he said, "You're not done explaining"

And with that he left the room.

The second he was gone, raven moved. Not towards the door but to me.

"What are you?"

"I could kill you" I said in something more than a whisper.

It wasn't a threat. It was fact. Yet raven didn't move.

"I know" she said simply then pulled back.

"Then why are you here?"

Raven smiled. But there was something about the smile. It felt cold and old.

"Because I saw you" she said and my blood went cold.

"Before you got here. Three days ago. I was in the greenhouse and I saw you. A girl on a motorcycle a man carrying you with blood that weren't meant to let you pass through the gates."

"How?" I stuttered.

"In a vision."

And that was a bombshell.

And then she bent down and whispered, "And in every version of it ..." She paused

"You either burn this place to the ground" it was followed by another pause.

"Or it kills you first"

"Either ways I'm your new roommate and it's a pleasure to meet you Cressida Ashcroft Virelai"

She said with a bow that made my blood churn. How did she know my name?

Madame Voss appeared less than an hour later with a metal tray. "Your arm," she said without preamble, "The bone healed wrong I have to break it to reset it again"

My eyes darted to the tray, at the clamps and the needle for numbing agent that I knew she wouldn't be needing.

"Do it "

Voss raised an eyebrow, "Anesthesia?"

"No"

Raven, still perched at the corner went completely pale, "You're insane"

"Probably"

The break took three seconds and I didn't scream, just bit the insides of my mouth till I tasted copper. And as the bone snapped back in place, I felt the binding flex just once and then the settling.

I watched as Madame Voss wrapped my arm in a fresh cast and said, "Don't use it for two weeks"

"I heal fast"

"Then one week. Don't push it"

Raven helped me stand and the room tilted once...twice...then steadied.

"Ready to see where you'll be sleeping?" Raven asked and I nodded.

We walked through corridors that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking. Staircases that curved in ways that defied architecture. Passed torches that burned without smoke.

"The dormitory" Raven said as they pushed through the final set of doors, "is the oldest building in Blackfrost. Older than the Alpha house, older than the wards. Some people says it was here even before the wolves"

I looked up and gasped. It was beautiful.

The building breathed....no it remembered.

Stone walls rose five stories high and we're covered in ivy. The windows glittered. The main doors were carved in oaks, ancient and scarred. And when I reached out to touch the handle, the wood warmed beneath my palm like a living thing acknowledging my presence.

"Told you" Raven said from behind me still bouncing on her heels despite the late hour.

"The best place in the territory"

Cathedral ceilings arched overhead, chandeliers made of antlers and raw crystal hung at impossible angles their lights shifting. The furniture was old- tufted velvet in deep jewel times. A massive Stone fireplace that wasn't burning but glowed anyways.

And the walls.....they were covered in tapestries that moved. Scenes from wolf history; hunts, treaties and the old wars played in slow motion across the woven fabric.

Above all it was the ceilings that stopped my heart.

It was sky. Real sky. Cloud drifted across it and a moon hung despite the night fall outside.

"Welcome to the home of magic and hockey that is" she said with a giggle and I followed her upstairs.

The girls stayed at the west wing and the boys at the east wing. Our room was on the fourth floor. And raven pushed the door open with a flourish.

"Home sweet home"

The room was snap but not cramped. Two beds draped in quilts, windows facing the mountains.

Bookshelfs and all that.

Raven set my bag, Lucian had left it behind for me.

Shit my Harley. How do I get it back?

"You okay?"

"I'm fine"

But her eyes showed that she didn't believe me. Before I could say anything else, the bell rang. Not a normal bell. Something deeper.

Raven sat up immediately. "Roll call. The mistress hates when we're late."

The corridor filled with girls, like a current of dark uniforms and braided hair and low voices.

Everyone stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall. Massive. Iron bound. The symbol carved into it was a single eye, half closed.

Raven knocked twice.

"Enter"

The voice was old. The door swung open. The room beyond was a study.

"That's Dormitory Mistress Morwenna" Raven whispered to me.

Almost immediately she caught my curious eyes

"New student" she said and it wasn't a question.

Raven nudged me forward. "Cressida. She arrived tonight. The Alpha approved her placement personally."

Morwenna's gaze didn't move from ny face.

"Approved her placement," she repeated. "Without consulting me."

"That's above my pay grade," Raven said cheerfully.

Morwenna ignored her and picked up a leather bound book from her desk. The roll, I realized, names written in gold ink and she opened to a fresh page.

"Name?

"Cressida"

"Full name."

I paused. I haven't given a full name in years. Full names could be tracked. Full names could be used. So I just broke my surname down either ways.

"Cressida Ashcroft" still my name but can't be tracked hopefully.

Morwenna wrote it down.

"Origin?"

"Nowhere"

She paused and looked up but turned and wrote something down anyways.

"You'll be in Raven's dormitory, fourth floor. Room 47. Curfew is at eleven. Meals are in the dining hall. Classes start tomorrow"

With that she dropped her quill and looked at me over her glasses again.

"Make yourself at home"

I turned to leave with Raven in tow, when she called me back.

"Cressida"

I stopped and accessed her with my mind. She hasn't moved. But her eyes had changed. They weren't kind anymore. They weren't anything I could name.

"Why wasn't I able to read your mind?"

The silence that followed was absolute.

Raven went still beside me and the fire at the fireplace stopped crackling.

Slowly I turned back and for the first time I understood what she was looking at.

Not a wolf. Not a human. Something the ward couldn't name. And now - something Morwenna couldn't read.

"What are you new

student?"

The question hung in the air like a blade.

And I met her eyes then smiled.

It wasn't a nice smile and even Raven shuddered beside me.

"Maybe," I said quietly, "you should ask the Alpha"

And with that I turned and walked out of the room. Students whispering behind us.