Page 20 of Wolf Trial

There were two reactions I’d found bullies gave when confronted. They were stunned at the audacity someone had to stand up to them, and their whole facade fell apart, revealing the shrivelled ego within. Or they reacted with the same energy I gave, and it usually devolved into a fist fight, bitch fight, or a delightful combination of the both.

Reverie was the second. Her eyes flashed, a warning sigh I refused to heed. Her jaw set, mouth pursed with rage. “You dare—” she seethed.

“Oh, I dare.6 I’ve met women like you before. Dozens of them, actually. Where I’m from, there are girls like you in every school, and they’re nothing special. You are nothing special. Just a sad, little bully who makes other people’s lives hell to cover up how insecure you are.”

“Yeah, tell her,” Paige encouraged.

“You’re going to regret this,” Reverie threatened, then paused to search her mind. “I don’t even know your name. That’s how insignificant you are.”

“You’re projecting, sweetie.” At her scowl, I added, “Right, you might not know what that means, it’s an Earth term. It’s what we call it when pathetic people with small brains are too cowardly to go to therapy to deal with their problems, so they accuse everyone else of having their sad little complexes to shift the attention.”

I gave her a little smile when I finished being helpful, and watched her nostrils flare.

“Shall we go?” I asked Paige, linking my arm with Elix’s. “There’s nothing here worth staying for.”

It felt like such a power move, walking past the ringleader and her posse of brainless followers. Okay, that was mean. I was sure the followers weren’t completely brainless. If they were like the cliques in my old school, they were just pretending to be dumb to stay in favour with their capricious queen bee.

“I literally love you,” Paige said with a low laugh. “That was badass.”

“Well, you know us House of Sun slayers; passionate, powerful, and loyal.” I tried to keep a straight face while I spoke, and failed, a laugh bubbling up.

The moment we turned the corner, and the Brown Jacket Brigade were out of sight, Elix threw her arms around me and squeezed tight. Stunned, it took me a moment to remember to hug her back, the movement unfamiliar and awkward. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been hugged.7

It was… nice. Different and unexpected, but nice. A tightness in my chest unwound, allowing me to breathe deeper, easier. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have friends.

“Get the fuck in here, Paige. This is a group hug.”

With a laugh, she flung her arms around us, and the three of us stood there in the middle of the hall, hugging like weirdos. No, hugging like best friends.

I had best friends.

If this academy didn’t kill me, I might just grow to like it here.

CHAPTER 12

SADIE

House of the Sun, I discovered, had its own private wing in Lunova Academy. After a fitful sleep, and a quiet breakfast, the three of us—Elix, Paige, and I—trudged across the field for our first official session: an introduction to training by Reed. I was unsure whether it was the introduction we’d missed yesterday when Fioranna’s body was found. Elix and I were paired together for training and we were given a failing grade. That was what happened when you both fell on your asses too many times to count, and there was no clear winner. My entire body ached, throbbed, and pulsed as I limped away from the field. When Sidonie showed up out of nowhere to ruin our afternoon by separating us, I debated stringing her up and gouging her eyeballs out.

This academy was hellish enough, and training was cruel enough, without being separated. But Elix, Paige, and I were in different houses and it seemed we wouldn’t be eating dinner together today. We were being given the grand tour of each house’s wing, and others were forbidden from entering.

The only thing that made it bearable was my guide. Instead of being a stranger—or worse, Reverie—Rogue was the one who angled her pale chin for me to follow her.

“You’re House of Sun?” I asked, not feeling particularly friendly, and aware that surliness came through in my voice.

“I am,” she confirmed, slanting a glance at me as she led the way through the main doors and right, down a long corridor I’d walked thrice before. This time, instead of following it to its end, she hooked another right down a tight corridor that looked like it had been there for centuries, the bricks pockmarked and worn in places, the flags beneath our feet concave in the centre.

I was very proud of myself for not glancing back for one last sight of my friends as they broke off in different directions. I was even more proud of myself for following Rogue instead of ditching the glamorous redhead vampire and disappearing into the complex network of hallways and staircases.

Curiosity more than anything kept me following her.

“Your pin will open the entrance,” she explained when our winding route brought us to a heavy stone doorway like the entrance of a tomb. Imaginatively, someone had carved a 3D sun into the solid block, and other, smaller suns surrounded it, their rays depicted as wavy arms like tentacles.

To demonstrate, Rogue removed a necklace from around her neck—her pin worn as a pendant—and pressed its golden face into one of the smaller suns—an eclipse. When stone groaned and the door slid left into the wall, some of my grumpy mood scattered, wonder taking its place.

“That is some Indiana Jones shit,” I murmured appreciatively, following the vampire into the chamber beyond. Not very smart of me, but I was in a mood, and bad moods didn’t inspire self-preservation. Instead of another dim corridor, the space on the other side was wide open, circular, and flooded with light from a glass dome ceiling.

“Who’s Indiana? An ex-boyfriend of yours?”