No one attacks an alpha and lives.
I shake the powder from my coat and snarl, my gaze snapping toward a lean wolf—no, not a wolf. A fox? My eyes narrow as I quickly assess its features. Smaller than a wolf but larger than a fox, its coat a mixture of rich browns and deep blacks with specks of vibrant red woven throughout. Thin facial features, smaller teeth to fit its mandible, and its eyes?—
Glowing the same golden hue as mine.
Sienna?
She pins her ears back and stomps her front paw, baring her teeth at me and making it clear as fucking day that she isn’t a purebred wolf shifter.
She’s a fucking hybrid.
I rear my head back as a wave of disgust triggers inside my heart and then...disappears. My next breath comes easy, and I blink through my confusion. Hybrids are against shifter law, and yet here she stands. My true mate—a mixed breed that shouldn’t exist, yet my soul makes peace with it immediately.
Any reigning pack alpha, my father included, will kill her when they find out, which is exactly why he and the others can never know.
What the hells is she doing at Heartsflame Academy? It puts her directly in contact with people who will kill first and ask questions later. How fucking stupid.
NowI’mthe one who has to do something about it.
I should hate her for what she’s done to my brother. My family. My fate. But as furious as I am with her for being reckless, I can’t let anyone kill her for something she has no control over. Being wild is enough of a curse on its own, and she’s . . . my fated.
I’m fucking screwed.
Lowering my head, I take a small step toward her. I have to get her off the mountain or the other first-years will learn her secret. Students are allowed to kill each other on the first night, and more than one falls every year. A few even die after unknowingly fucking a Black Widow: a student who uses their charms to seduce then kill their victims. It’s safest for Sienna to leave the academy altogether, but that wild fucker will follow her anywhere. It’s better to keep her within my sight on campus.
I’ll decide what to do with her later.
She lunges again, this time going for my throat. A tuft of fur catches between her teeth, and I growl low in my throat. What is she thinking, attacking an alpha?
Is she always this fucking reckless?
Heavy footfalls curve up the path, and I make a split-second decision to throw my body against hers. My weight shoves her back toward the cliff’s edge, but she digs in her claws and holds fast. It’s a sheer drop, at least thirty feet until the next landing, but there’s a massive pile of snow at the bottom. She’ll be fine so long as she doesn’t tense up before the landing.
Sienna snaps at me again, aiming for my leg this time. I let her latch on, feeling the tear of her teeth in my flesh, then push her whole body with mine a second time. Her back paws slip on the snow and tip over the edge, her eyes flashing bright gold as she doubles-down, sinking her teeth to the bone and dragging me with her.
We tumble into the freezing night air together, our bodies colliding as we free fall. She yelps as she hits a rocky outcrop, the sound of snapping bone making me flinch. A whimper catches in her throat, and her body shifts back to human form, woefully unprepared for the crash below.
It wasn’t thirty feet to the next landing.
It was fifty.
And she’ll break every bone in her body if the snow doesn’t soften her fall.
I move on instinct, whipping out my legs and snatching her from the air, tucking her body against my chest as we drop like stones. My claws scrape her delicate skin, making her bleed, and a furious howl echoes in the night.
Her wild mate.
Growling, I curl my body around hers as best I can and wait for the impact, knowing that it’s coming and unable to stop it.
Sienna stares into my wolf eyes, the pink flush on her cheeks radiant and the flecks of gold in her eyes taking my breath away. Even though we aren’t mated—even if wenevertake that step—I’m glad for this one moment together.
I tuck this piece of her into my heart and bury it deep, deep down where no one else can find it. Where it’s all mine and only mine.
And then we crash, disappearing in a blanket of snow so deep that it blots out the moon, the stars, and the rest of our miserable world.
All that’s left is Sienna’s warmth and an insatiable urge to keep her here, tucked away where no one—not my father, not her wild wolf, not even I can ever find her again.
Chapter 10
