Chapter 8

Rowan

The Academy Council chamber was on the top floor of the main building, with the Blackwood Pack crest carved into the door.

I pushed it open. Three people were already inside.

Aldric, the white-haired Council Chair, sat at the head of the long table with files spread out in front of him.

To his left was Brennan, the Academic Director — a heavyset man from the Combat Division. To his right was a woman I didn't recognize, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, looking like someone from administration.

All three looked up at me.

"Rowan. You're finally back." Aldric set down his pen, like he'd been waiting a while. "Your father reached out three days ago. Said you were coming back from the battlefield and would probably stop by the academy first to file the war archives. How did it go?"

"Not well. I was attacked." I said. "It happened inside the academy grounds, at Oldmoon Chapel in the forbidden zone. The attacker used a wooden arrowhead coated in wolfsbane. I barely made it back to see you, old friend."

The room went completely silent.

Aldric stared at me. "You're saying the attacker came over the wall and got onto campus?"

"That's right. They made it in without setting off a single alarm. That means there's a serious gap in your defenses."

By the time I finished, Brennan's expression had already shifted.

For the next forty minutes, they asked a lot of questions. I answered most of them, but left out everything about the girl.

I only said that during a short window when the toxin eased up, I'd regained partial consciousness and pulled through on Alpha instinct alone.

The Council made two decisions on the spot.

First: a full sweep of the forbidden zone, the barrier repaired, three new layers of sensing wards added.

Second: a crisis self-defense course open to all grades, starting immediately.

Aldric looked at me. "Given what you went through, and the Blackwood family's role as a St. Lawrence Academy trustee, I'd like you to teach this course. Please, Rowan. There's no one better for it."

I wanted to say no. I'd come back from the battlefield — not to become a professor.

But then another thought crossed my mind.

If she was a student here, she'd be in that classroom.

"Fine." I said.

Mallory

I went through an entire bar of soap scrubbing myself down.

My neck, wrists, arms. Every spot he'd touched, I scrubbed until my skin felt raw. Hot water hammered down until I turned red, steam filling the mirror.

But I could still smell the cedar.

I shut off the water and stood barefoot on the bathroom floor, watching the mirror slowly clear, my reflection coming back through the fog.

The bite mark on the side of my neck was more visible after the heat, the two small indentations flushed pink. I lifted my hand and tried to hide them under my wet hair.

It didn't help. The wind would blow it aside and someone would see.

I took a deep breath, dried my hair, and stepped out of the bathroom. I opened my closet, pulled out a high-collared shirt, yanked it up to the highest button, and checked the mirror until I was sure nothing showed.

Forty-five minutes until first class.

I sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together, knuckles white.

No one would notice.

I kept telling myself that, over and over.

Then I opened my drawer and pulled out a bottle of scent-block powder I'd brewed last semester.

It was originally meant to protect your nose when collecting plants with strong odors. The ingredients were ground white oak bark and dehydrated mint crystals. Wherever you applied it, it formed an extremely thin membrane that sealed in scent.

I never thought I'd use it for something like this. I dusted it across my neck, my wrists, my collarbones, then sniffed at myself frantically. It should hold for now.

"Mallory?"

A knock at the door, then Penny's voice.

"You in there? I didn't see you at the dining hall this morning, and I heard you skipped the ball last night. Are you okay?"

I tugged my collar up one last time and checked the mirror once more.

Then I opened the door with a smile that felt glued on.

Penny stood in the hallway, her red hair in a loose ponytail, holding two bread rolls. Her eyes narrowed the second she saw me.

"You look awful." She pushed one of the rolls into my hand and tilted her head. "And why are you wearing a high collar? It's not even that cold today."

"The lab AC broke yesterday. Couldn't get the heat going, and I stayed too long. Caught a cold."

The lie came out smoother than I expected.

Penny clearly didn't fully buy it, but she didn't push. She just looked at me like she wanted to say something, then stopped herself.

"Okay." She said. "But if you ever need to talk—"

She'd probably heard about what happened at the ball last night. But she didn't know that right now, I had no room in my head to worry about some silly crush.

"Thanks, babe. I'm fine."

Penny raised an eyebrow. "Alright. Just eat something. I'll see you in class."

I nodded, closed the door, and set the bread roll on my desk without taking a single bite.

Certain thoughts kept churning in my head like a solution stuck at a rolling boil.

That man was not an academy student. I was sure of it.

St. Lawrence wasn't a small school, but the Combat and Healing Divisions shared common spaces and took general courses together.

I'd seen almost every face in the Combat Division.

His face wasn't one of them. And on top of that — he was powerful. He was good-looking. If he were a Combat Division student, Crowe wouldn't be the one everyone talked about.