I couldn't stay in unwarded dorms. If I did, the harassment wouldn't stop at red paint. Trent would keep pushing the council. The legacy packs would keep pushing the boundaries. And Chloe — unwarded, human, fragile — would be caught in the crossfire.
"You just got back," Chloe argued, her fierce loyalty overriding her shock. "We call campus security. We report this to the Dean. You don't run from rich bullies?—"
"They aren't high school bullies," I said quietly. "They're apex predators operating in a political system that views humans as acceptable collateral damage. If I stay tonight, they'll breaksignificantly more than the door lock. They'll break you to get to me."
I stood, stepping over the crushed glass.
No bag. No jacket. Nothing but the clothes on my back.
Hayes had been right. The mixed dorms were an unacceptable vulnerability. My desire to be a ghost, to live a quiet college life, was a naïve delusion that was going to get someone hurt. The moment Trent had shattered my tether, my life had stopped being my own. I'd become a weaponized political asset.
I couldn't run from the Northern Council. I couldn't hide in a junior dorm room.
I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket, hands shaking, and unlocked the screen. I opened the contact number programmed in during the haze of the safehouse basement.
I was choosing the gilded cage. Stepping inside the perimeter willingly. The only way to keep the fire from burning the innocent human sitting terrified on the bed.
I hit Call.
It didn't even ring before the line connected — a testament to the fact that someone in the inner sanctum had just discovered my empty bed.
"Wren." Hayes's voice came through the speaker radiating pure, untethered alpha aggression. "Where are you?"
"The dorms," I answered. My voice was dead calm, staring at the crude scar on the wall. "The lock is smashed. The room is destroyed. They targeted Chloe."
The silence on the other end was absolute and colder than ice.
"Stay where you are," Hayes said quietly.
I could hear glass shattering in the background. Three tethered alphas unleashing their protective fury into a room.
"Do not move. We're coming."
16
HAYES
The door to Dean Ashcroft's office was three-inch mahogany, warded with archaic silencing runes designed to keep the administration's corrupt backroom deals from reaching the student body.
I didn't bother with the handle.
I hit the center of the door with the flat of my boot, pouring enough raw alpha energy into the strike to shatter the interior locking mechanism into a shower of twisted metal. The door blew open and slammed into the plaster wall, sending student files cascading off the desk.
"Jesus Christ, Mr. Aldridge!" Dean Ashcroft sputtered, spilling a full mug of coffee down the front of his tailored suit as he scrambled backward in his chair.
An older political wolf — graying hair, comfortable midsection, the kind of administrative ruthlessness required to run a university full of lethal apex predators' heirs. Usually ruthless, anyway. Right now he just looked terrified.
I stepped into the office and let the door swing shut on broken hinges. I didn't drop my aura. I pushed it harder, letting the full weight of an unsuppressed legacy heir flood the room.Winter pine suffocated the smell of old parchment and fear sweat.
"Room 314," I said, bracing both hands flat on his desk and leaning forward until we were face-to-face. "Smashed lock. Splintered door. Vandalized property. And a death threat painted in red on the cinderblock wall."
Ashcroft's eyes darted to the emergency panic button under the lip of his desk.
He didn't reach for it. He knew the campus security team wouldn't touch the Aldridge heir.
"Hayes. Let's be civilized," he attempted, dabbing uselessly at his ruined tie. "The incident in the junior dorms last night is regrettable. My security team is investigating. Preliminary reports indicate it appears to be a case of overly spirited legacy hazing gone out of bounds."
"Spirited hazing."
