Chapter 10

Mallory

When Rowan Blackwood started lecturing, I was still shaking.

He hadn't walked over to expose me, but the feeling was like a sword hanging over my head — I never knew when it would drop and split my skull open.

"The core of crisis survival isn't teaching you how to win a fight." Rowan Blackwood's voice came from the front of the classroom, low and steady, while my thoughts scattered in every direction. "Especially for Healing Division students. What you need to learn is, when everything goes out of control, how to get out alive."

He paused.

"So today, live drill."

The classroom erupted into noise.

Penny gasped beside me. Several Combat Division students in the front row started whispering excitedly.

"I'll simulate an Alpha pressure release," he continued from the podium. "What you need to do is simple. Stay conscious. Identify the escape route. Then leave the zone I've marked. No time limit, but if you lose motor function under the pressure, you fail."

He swept his gaze across the room.

"Healing Division students first. By student number. Group one, numbers one through eight."

My stomach dropped.

I was number eight.

The other seven in my group stood up and walked forward. I didn't move. My plan was to shrink into the back row, become invisible, and wait for this class to be over.

But someone spoke up.

"Isn't Mallory in this group too?"

I closed my eyes, then got up with no other choice.

Every step down the tiered rows felt heavy. But even when I reached the podium and took my position, I didn't look at him.

I stared at a crack in the floor, trying to fix all my attention on that uneven gray line.

"Spread out. Keep your distance." His voice was much closer now.

I shuffled two steps to the left.

Then someone shoved me from behind.

I stumbled forward, pushed straight to the front of the group, less than two meters from him.

A muffled laugh came from behind.

I didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

Marcus. The one among Crowe's crowd who enjoyed giving me a hard time the most. She was clearly treating this as bonus entertainment.

"Someone without a wolf should stand up front. It's safer." Her voice was just loud enough for the people nearby to hear. "After all, besides the pressure, she won't feel anything else, right?"

A few people laughed.

I clenched my jaw, didn't turn around, didn't step back.

From experience, stepping back would only make them laugh louder.

"Quiet. Ready?" Rowan didn't ask what they were laughing at. He just raised his voice to keep order.

The next second, the air around us changed. Like all the pressure in the room had been sucked out in an instant, then replaced by something denser, heavier.

I'd read textbook descriptions of Alpha pressure countless times. "Instinctive physiological oppression." "Involuntary submission response in lower-ranked wolves." "Severe cases can cause temporary loss of consciousness."

The students behind me started making strangled gasping sounds. Someone's knees buckled. Someone muttered a curse. Further up in the tiered seats, even Penny had covered her mouth, a few observing students instinctively shrinking back.

And I stood at the very front.

Taking it head-on.

The moment that pressure hit, my body produced a reaction that had never been recorded in any textbook.

Not submission. Not fear. The mark on my neck detonated like a triggered bomb.

Heat spread from the two bite marks. My vision narrowed, the edges bleeding into fuzzy gray. My ears rang. My heart sprinted like it was in a final dash. My legs went weak, my knees shaking so hard I could barely stand. I felt like something enormous was tearing me apart from the inside.

My body was responding to its marker in a way I had absolutely no control over. I figured I had about three seconds before I blacked out in front of the whole class.

That was it. Everything was over. I'd be exposed.

Three seconds. Two. One.

I'd already braced myself for becoming a laughingstock — but at the last moment, it stopped.

Cut off clean, like a blade through silk. No gradual fade at all.

The air returned to normal.

I swayed, cold sweat dripping from my forehead.

"My apologies." Rowan's voice rang out. "First drill. I should have been more precise."

The people around me started to relax. Someone exhaled. Someone murmured that the new professor was decent, probably worried about hurting the Healing Division students.

Marcus scoffed behind me but said nothing more.

Penny leaned halfway out of her seat, mouthing Are you okay?

I nodded at her.

Then, in the chaos of everyone whispering and pulling themselves back together, I felt his gaze.

I finally turned and looked at Rowan.

He stood at the center of the podium, hands hanging loosely at his sides. Sunlight slanted through the windows, cutting sharp lines across his face beneath his dark hair.

His expression showed nothing out of the ordinary.

But his eyes told me he knew exactly who I was.

My scent. My high-collared shirt. My reaction under pressure — way too extreme to be normal. He'd seen all of it.

He hadn't pulled back his pressure out of gentlemanly courtesy, or because he was afraid of hurting a student.

It was because he could feel the mark resonating too. He'd gotten what he wanted.

I licked my lips, dropped my gaze, and walked back to my seat like I was running for my life — fingers ice-cold, heart pounding like a drum.