Chapter 8
Vivienne's POV
The next second, the sharp staccato of heels rounded the corner, and my heart hammered against my ribs.
"Oh, oh. If it isn't the little wolfless manager."
Three of them. My worst nightmare made manifest. Serena stood in the center, her navy uniform blazer perfectly tailored, chestnut hair gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights like polished wood.
Two Delta girls flanked her—one with amber eyes and cruel lips that seemed to promise violence, the other built like a brick wall with oak-brown hair pulled back severely.
Three against one. In a deserted hallway. No witnesses.
I clutched the medical kit tighter, knuckles already white with tension. "I'm just doing my job."
"Your job?" Serena's laugh was crystal-clear and ice-cold, bouncing off the empty corridor walls with deliberate cruelty. "Chasing after players who clearly don't need your help?"
The amber girl stepped closer. White jasmine flooded my senses—expensive, cloying, engineered to announce dominance before she even opened her mouth.
My throat tightened on instinct, body recognizing the chemical signature of a predator before my brain caught up.
"Unawakened trash shouldn't be allowed near real wolves."
Stay calm. Don't give them anything to use against you. Don't show fear.
My knuckles went bone-white on the medical kit handle. "I have a right to be here. Student manager, officially registered—"
"Rights?" The oak girl moved with deliberate menace to block my only exit, her massive frame swallowing the space between me and the hallway. "You think having some administrator stamp your little form gives you rights?"
Trapped. They planned this.
Serena tilted her head, studying me the way a cat studies something already half-dead. Her eyes held a calculating coldness that had nothing to do with temperature. "You were alone with Kael for forty-seven minutes."
She timed it. Dear god, she actually timed it. Someone on the team is feeding her information.
My throat went dry, but I kept my voice flat. "Injured player treatment protocol. It's in the handbook."
"The handbook." Serena's scent sharpened—jasmine curdling to something bitter and acidic. "How absolutely adorable. You actually think rules apply to people like you."
The walls pressed closer. Three high-ranking wolves against one defenseless girl, every instinct I had screaming that this was about to get so much worse.
"Kael Thorne doesn't associate with wolfless nobodies," the amber girl said, stepping directly into my space. Her breath was hot against my face, reeking of mint and malice. "So either you're lying about what happened in that room, or you did something you shouldn't have."
My back hit the wall. The medical kit slipped in my sweating palms.
"Nothing happened. I treated his shoulder injury, that's all."
"His shoulder?" Serena's eyes caught light like a predator's in the dark. "Interesting. He didn't mention any injury to me."
Damn. I just handed her something.
The words came out before I could stop them: "Maybe because you're not his girlfriend, no matter what you tell people."
Silence.
Not the silence of shock. The silence of a room going very, very still before something breaks.
Serena didn't move. Didn't blink. Her perfectly lacquered composure held for one second—two—three—
And in those three seconds, something small and stupid and completely unjustified bloomed in my chest.
I got her.
The amber girl glanced sideways at Serena. The oak girl shifted her weight. Even the fluorescent lights seemed to hum louder, filling the space where Serena's voice should have been.
I actually got her.
I almost smiled. I shouldn't have. I knew better. But three seconds of Serena Blackwell standing speechless in a hallway felt like winning a war I'd had no business entering, and my body hadn't caught up yet to the part where winning was about to cost me everything.
Then Serena's face went rigid—not crumbling, not cracking, but sealing shut over something volcanic underneath—and her eyes found mine with the kind of focus that made my stomach drop straight through the floor.
The amber girl's hand shot out faster than I could track, fingers tangling brutally in my collar, yanking me forward from the wall.
"You little bitch—"
"Let go of me!" I grabbed her wrist with both hands, nails digging deep. She hissed, twisted her grip, pulled my collar down and exposed the vulnerable line of my throat to the fluorescent light.
"No mark," the oak girl observed with quiet satisfaction. "Not even a temporary one. So much for being special."
They were always looking for this. This was never about the forty-seven minutes.
"Maybe we should fix that," Serena said softly. That softness was worse than shouting. "Teach her what happens to girls who don't know their place."
My heart slammed against my ribs. The amber girl's grip tightened—fabric cutting into my neck, making each breath shorter than the last.
"What are you trying to do—stop—"
"Hold her." Serena's scent flooded the hallway like a wave breaking—white jasmine and cold authority, the kind of Alpha-adjacent pheromones designed to make lesser wolves fold. Even without a wolf of my own, my knees shook from the chemical pressure alone. "Let's see what Keal finds so interesting about our little wolfless manager."
The oak girl seized my arms with bruising efficiency, wrenching them behind my back. The medical kit hit the floor. Supplies scattered—gauze, tape, silver forceps spreading across the linoleum like wreckage.
"Let me go!" I fought, twisting, pulling—but Beta strength against an unawakened human wasn't a fight. It was a demonstration.
The amber girl yanked my collar harder. Fabric tore.
"Such pretty skin," Serena murmured, circling me with slow deliberation. Her fingers traced the air inches from my exposed collarbone, close enough that I could feel the displaced warmth. "I wonder what it would look like with the right marks on it."
Cold air rushed against my throat. My vision blurred—not from tears. From rage I had absolutely nowhere to put.
"You're insane—"
"I'm protecting what's mine." Each word arrived quiet and precise, like a blade finding the gap between ribs. "And teaching you the consequences of overstepping."
"You think there's a reason this manager position stayed empty so long?" The amber girl's free hand moved toward my throat, fingers spreading like she was already deciding where to press.
It's because of her, I thought, eyes cutting to Serena. Everyone knows what happens to girls who get too close.
Another set of hands joined in—reaching for my collar, for my hair, for anything they could get hold of. I fought with everything I had, clutching fabric, twisting away, but two hands against four was mathematics, not bravery.
One girl grabbed my hair. Yanked my head back. The exposed line of my throat felt enormous suddenly—a vulnerability I couldn't close.
Her hand drew back to strike. My eyes squeezed shut.
The door exploded open.
