Chapter 3

Mallory

In the end, I cried.

The moment I realized this lab was nothing but a free lounge to Crowe, the tears came without warning, spilling onto the backs of my hands.

I wanted to rip those memories out of my skull and crush them, tear them to shreds, throw them away.

When I was cried out, I stood up, splashed water on my face, and grabbed my bag.

I couldn't stay in the lab tonight. Everywhere I looked—his chair, the corner of the table where he'd rested his arm—they all stabbed at me.

I left the building, crossed the courtyard. The ball music was still faintly audible, but I circled around it, heading north until the path grew narrower and the lamplight thinner. Finally, I stopped in front of the old iron fence.

The boundary of the St. Lawrence Academy forbidden zone.

The fence had been put up centuries ago, rusted and tangled with warning strips that had faded to white, the original lettering barely readable.

Beyond it lay the abandoned chapel—Oldmoon Chapel. Once a place for academy worship during the full moon, it had been sealed off after an incident. The Academy Council had forbidden all students from going near it. Violation meant expulsion.

Now it sat empty, birds flying in and out.

But I'd noticed something a long time ago.

Moonbells grew there.

Slender, delicate, with a cool, faint metallic herb scent that pulled at me.

They were extremely rare, growing only in abandoned or long-uninhabited places, strongly drawn to moonlight, nearly impossible to cultivate artificially.

My specialized research project next semester needed exactly this. Moonbells could produce a synergistic reaction with evening primrose, extending the duration of healing tonics by nearly double. I'd searched every wild herb site near the academy and found nothing.

Until one day I happened to pass the forbidden zone and realized—they were right here. On the other side of this broken fence.

I stood there for about ten seconds, hesitating the same way I had every other time.

But this time, I gave myself an answer.

I found the gap at the bottom of the fence, crouched down, and crawled through.

Wolfless. An eighteen-year-old wolfless waste.

That's what everyone called me.

Fine. Then I'd make this academy remember me another way.

I'd become the best student in the Healing Division—without a wolf, without anyone's help. Just these hands and my brain.

When my research was published at the academic conference and brought glory to St. Lawrence Academy, I'd like to see who would still look down on me then.

The scent of moonbells grew stronger. I followed it toward the old chapel.

Oldmoon Chapel was a stone building, half its dome collapsed. Moonlight poured through the opening, lighting up rubble and wild growth. Moonbells clung to the base of the walls, clusters of tiny silver-white flowers swaying in the moonlight.

I crouched down, pulled a collection pouch from my bag, and started clipping.

But then I caught the smell of blood. And a guttural, pained snarl.

At first I thought it was an animal. Abandoned places like this attracted them.

But I didn't have a wolf. I couldn't fight anything. I quickly pocketed the pouch and got ready to slip away. The scent grew heavier—copper-sweet, fresh blood.

Then I heard broken words. The kind someone muttered when they were barely conscious.

A person. An injured person.

I stopped and turned toward the interior of the chapel.

My legs moved on their own, following the sound, pushing open the door with its broken hinges.

A man lay on the floor, half-shifted, claws pressed against the stone, upper body bare. The flesh across his back was torn open in gruesome slashes, blood pouring out in a steady stream.

It pooled beneath him. I stood in the doorway, my brain running through three things at once.

First: he was breathing. He needed help.

Second: he was wounded, and the pain had sent his wolf into overdrive. The internal damage was far worse than what showed on the surface.

Third: I had a bottle of tonic in my bag.

The best one I'd ever brewed, for relieving tearing and nerve fatigue.

I didn't hesitate. I ran to him, dropped to my knees, and was already pulling the zipper on my bag, reaching for that bottle.

The chapel was dark. His face was hard to make out—I couldn't tell who he was. But I was a Healing Division student. I had no reason to stand there and watch someone die in front of me.