Chapter 5 Tensions spark

I never expected to end up on the combat mat with Dante Thorne. And even more than that, I didn't expect to walk away from it alive.

Combat class was brutal on the best days, but today it felt like a punishment carved into the schedule just for me. The air buzzed with something tight and volatile, and Beta Kade, our instructor, must've sensed it.

He clapped his hands once.

"Partner drills," he barked. "And you don't get to pick. I do."

My stomach dropped like a stone. I should've noticed the warning in his smirk, the kind of smirk that meant blood would spill and he didn't particularly care whose. His gaze moved slowly down the line of students until it stopped on me.

Then it slid, deliberately, unapologetically, to him.

Dante Thorne.

The boy who rejected me like I was dirt under his boots.

Beta Kade's voice carried across the mat, too gleeful.

"The rejected mutt and her Alpha. Let's see how that bond holds under pressure."

A ripple of laughter moved through the room.

I stepped forward anyway, shoulders squared, breath steady even though my pulse was slamming against my ribs. Dante moved like a shadow coming alive-smooth, predatory, and quietly dangerous.

His jaw ticked once. His eyes flickered over me, unreadable. But beneath the coldness, I caught something else. Not rage, not disgust, curiosity, or maybe something worse: hesitation.

He could feel it. The shift in me, the part of me that wasn't shattered anymore.

I wasn't the girl he humiliated under the moon.

Not today.

He stopped in front of me, tall enough to make the room feel smaller. "You sure you're ready for this, little reject?" he murmured. "I'd hate for you to cry in front of the whole class."

A smile tugged at my mouth, edged in challenge, not warmth. "Let's find out."

The whistle blew.

He came at me fast, faster than someone trying not to hurt me. A shoulder feint, a spinning strike meant to send me to the mat. I ducked, pivoted, and felt the heat of his body graze mine as I twisted out of reach.

I struck upward, elbow aimed for his ribs.

He blocked.

Barely. And he growled low, frustrated.

"You've been training," he muttered.

"Not all of us get to be born strong," I said, stepping back.

His eyes sharpened. He lunged again.

We collided like fire meeting ice; every hit had heat behind it, every block crackled, and every breath between us felt too loud, too close.

My muscles screamed, but I didn't back down.

Not once.

The class was silent now, watching like the outcome mattered more than the oxygen in their lungs.

He shoved me hard. I fell, air knocked clean from my body, but I didn't stay down.

I launched myself at him.

His eyes widened too slow.

His arms caught me mid-air. His grip tightened around my waist, muscles flexing under my palms. Our bodies locked together, for a heartbeat, just one, and the fight disappeared.

All that remained was breath and heat and the pounding of two hearts that weren't supposed to sync... but did.

His breath caught.

Mine stuttered.

I was close enough to see the flecks of storm-gray in his silver eyes, close enough to smell the cedar on his skin.

"Don't touch me," I whispered.

His jaw clenched. "Then stop throwing yourself at me."

I swipe the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. "I wasn't. I was trying to break your jaw."

His eyes darkened dangerously and devastatingly, something unspoken cracked between us. Something neither of us could name and both of us felt. For one second, one dangerous, forbidden second, he held on. Then he let go.

I hit the mat, rolled, and got back to my feet with fire in my veins.

Kade's whistle cut through the air. "Enough! You two are going to kill each other."

Dante stepped off the mat without a word. But then he looked back. And something that curled low in my stomach. Hours later, I sat on the rooftop outside the girls' dorm, bruised knuckles cradled against my knees. The academy was finally quiet, but my mind wasn't.

I couldn't stop replaying it the way his body locked with mine, the heat in his stare, and the confusion that flickered across his face when he realized I wasn't afraid of him anymore.

The hate I felt for him was bone-deep, carved into the places even light couldn't reach. I closed my eyes, letting the night wind cool the fever beneath my skin.

Then I heard it.

A whisper, soft, curled like smoke around my thoughts.

"Soon."

My eyes flew open.

The wind whipped hard, changing direction with unnatural precision.

The air around me thickened, pressing against my skin like invisible hands.

My heartbeat pounded so violently it felt like it might crack bone.

Then, in the blackest part of me, something shifted. Something ancient. Something not entirely mine.