Page 12 of Wolf Trial

“So they have more to fight for, and more on the line,” I drawled. “Thanks, that really puts my mind at ease.”

“Ah,” Sidonie said, wincing.

Yeah. Didn’t think of that, did you?

“Where are our opponents?” Lawrence demanded, scowling at the nearest ring when Sidonie stopped before it, the four of us like lambs led to slaughter.

“They’re coming,” the woman replied, lifting a wrinkled hand to gesture at the field we’d crossed.

And sure enough, four leather-clad slayers strode across the grass. So did everyone else from the dining hall.

“Oh, good. It’s a spectator sport.”

Sidonie’s smile softened. “Try not to worry too much. You must all be strong enough to survive your first night; all you have to do is hold your own for a few minutes in the ring.”

I looked from the audience—like a pack of hungry wolves, slathering for the sight of bruises blooming, blood spilling, and teeth knocked from mouths—to the pebble-enclosed ring of grass. The coliseum where our non-existent slaying skills would be put to the test.

“What happens if we lose?” Paige asked, shifting her weight as she stared at the crowd, her deep brown face drawn and shoulders tight, arms wrapped around her soft middle.

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Sidonie’s smile was reassuring. “You don’t need to worry about pain or repercussions when you’re dead.”

My whole body jerked. “It’s a fight to the death?” I asked shrilly.

“Well, of course,” she replied, as if that should have been obvious.

A fight to the death against slayers who’d been training for… how long? Days? Months? Years?

How convenient that Mortem left this out during our orientation.

“Ah, here she is,” Sidonie said brightly. “New recruits, meet Winslow Reed, my sister and our resident combat trainer.”

Winslow Reed was a mirror of Sidonie only in height, age, and skin tone. The rest of her was a hardened weapon. Her biceps bulged, exposed by her sleeveless shirt as she crossed them over a toned chest, no part of her absent muscle and strength. Where Sidonie wore her hair loosely, Winslow Reed’s was a braid so tight it must hurt. There were no smiles, no sympathetic looks, only a hard-edged glare.

“You’ll call me Reed, and only Reed,” she barked. “The first slayer to call me Winslow will get thrown to the wolves.”

Something told me she meant that literally.

CHAPTER 8

SADIE

“Wolves are the enemy,” Reed—not Winslow Reed—bellowed as the four of us and five other slayers—presumably the shittest ones—lined up before her. “Never—ever—feel sympathy for a shifter. If I catch you feeling sorry for those rabid mutts, I’ll toss you over the boundary line so you can get up close and personal with them.”

That was her favourite threat, I’d noticed.

“They’re mindless scum who exist only to fight, fuck, and destroy civilisation so their crude pack traditions can eradicate ours. You’re lucky that you’ve found yourself here in Lunova Academy where we’ll teach you how to defend yourself against their kind.”

I raised an eyebrow—and quickly flattened it back into place before Reed could see. But I couldn’t help the scepticism. Anyone who’d taken a single history class or done one Wikipedia deep dive knew those were the words thrown around by the oppressors to belittle other cultures. But what did I know? Maybe the werewolves were as vicious as she said they were. Or maybe the shifters had their own warnings about vampires. As far as I’d gathered, they had their own academy where they trained wolves to kill vampires, so they couldn’t be as mindless as Reed liked to think.

I didn’t dare say that to the woman, though. I kept my mouth shut when her glare swung my way, and exhaled in relief when it moved onto Paige, then Lawrence, and Elix.

“There should be five of you,” Reed barked. “Where’s the other one?”

I shook my head, clueless. I’d been waiting for Fioranna to catch up to us; I figured she’d got lost in the labyrinth of rooms. But it had been an hour now. Maybe she’d decided to run after all.

“Useless,” Reed muttered. “Who are we missing?”

“Fioranna,” I spoke up when it was clear no one else would. “I don’t know her surname.”