Page 54 of Wolf Trial

“Teach me how to torture myself via tree? No thank you.”

“Hey, come on,” he replied, crossing the distance between us to settle his hands on my waist as if it was the most natural thing. “Don’t put yourself down. You must be strong if you’re studying in that hellhouse up there.”

“I only just got there, remember? No muscles yet.” To demonstrate, I struck a bodybuilder pose, my noodle arm less than impressive. “I’d like to be strong enough to defend myself, but I don’t want vanity muscles. Or worse, muscles that only exist so I can hurt people.”

He looked at me strangely then, his thumbs grazing my hips. “Most slayers I’ve met live for that sort of thing. Hurting people, killing wolves.”

I sighed, glancing in the direction of the academy on the hill. “I’m not sure they have much choice. From the minute we’re brought to that place against our will, we’re told that if we don’t fight and kill, we’ll be the ones killed. Given a choice, I doubt most people would want to hurt a wolf. But if they don’t, they’ll be executed or left for dead.”

Leander’s eyes were distant when I looked up at him. “They’re as bad as some of the brutal wolf packs. There’s no kindness in those places, no empathy or care. If you’re not the biggest, strongest, or fastest, then you’re prey.”

A knot tightened my chest. What a lovely way to sum up my situation. “I’m insane for going back there, aren’t I?” I asked.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he murmured, angling himself so there was only an inch between us. “We can’t keep you safe up there. What if you get caught? We wouldn’t even know you were in trouble.”

“I can handle myself,” I replied, the words muscle memory more than anything. Against trained vampires, I didn’t stand a chance.

Doubt hit me from every angle. I could find reasons to stay and reasons to run, and I didn’t know which was the right choice. I didn’t know what to do.

Leander’s hands flexed on my hips. “What would it take for you to stay here with us, and never go back to that place?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

I wish I did know, because there was an undeniable feeling in my gut that I should stay away from Lunova Academy. As long as I went back, it would find new and more excruciating ways to torture me, like a dirtbag ex.

“If this is about Lainsz—”

“It isn’t,” I interrupted, my shoulders dropping. A weight sat on my chest, the doubt a physical presence. I struggled to put it into words, to find the right way to describe the feeling squeezing my chest. “I lost my home, and the last family member I had sold me. I can’t lose myself either. I can’t risk it. I’m all I have left. And if I join your pack, it means leaving a part of me behind.”

“The academy is your final tether to your old life,” he realised, sadness softening his voice.

The moment he said it out loud, the words put in that exact order, it was like a question finally answered. That was what kept me here. If I stayed at the academy, maybe I could find my way back home.

I swallowed. “Do you think it’s stupid?”

“No.” Leander pulled me across the last inch of distance until I was in his arms, and a great breath left his chest. The scent of black coffee smothered every other smell, wrapping me in safety. “No, I don’t think it’s stupid. I think you’ve been taken away from everything you know, and it’s only natural to hold onto the parts that remain. But the academy isn’t your home, Starlight. It isn't safe for you, and those people aren’t your friends. They’ll kill you, even if you’re a slayer.”

“I know,” I admitted in a small voice. Even my friends, if they found out I was a wolf. I couldn’t trust them to spare me. Not when it would put them at risk of losing their life too.

What was it Reed said that first morning? Sympathy for a wolf was punishable by death. If Elix or Paige helped me, or merely kept my secret, they’d be put to death just like me.

“I know,” I repeated, allowing him to hold me.

“But you won’t stay?”

If I stayed, I’d lose the last human part of me. If I stayed, I’d be fully embracing the wolf part, and what would be left of my life before? Who would I be without that?

“I won’t give up myself,” I said after a pause. “I won’t change who I am, and I won’t leave any part of me behind.

“Sadie,” he said, watching me with tormented eyes. “No one is asking you to change. Not me or Verne or Lainsz. We want you as you are.”

Familiar, meaningless words. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? That was why I resisted this pack, this bond, even though the bond pulled me back to the cottage and told me I belonged there, as Verne said I belonged there. At the academy, they didn’t care who I was as long as I trained and killed for them.

It didn’t matter that I was scared, or insecure, or had the self-worth of a homeless raccoon showering in a muddy puddle. As long as I could wield a weapon, as long as I could throw a punch, I’d be accepted.

But a pack, a bond that I still didn’t understand the depths of, and men who seemed to want me for me, not what I could do for them… I didn’t understand it. Or maybe I didn’t want to understand it, because if they got close and saw all of me, all the parts I was afraid to show anyone else, that terrified me more than any battle to the death.

“You’ve made up your mind then,” Leander said, reading it in my eyes.