Living With My Bully Alpha

Chapter 1 - The Scholarship Girl

LYRA POV

The smell of burnt toast woke me before my alarm did, which meant my mother was already up, which meant she hadn't slept again.

I lay there for a second, staring at the water stain on our bedroom ceiling that had been slowly spreading for the past two years, and did the math I did every morning before my feet even touched the floor. Rent was due in four days. Her medication refill was due in six. My paycheck, if I still had a job by Friday, would cover exactly one of those things and leave the other one screaming at us for another two weeks.

I got up anyway. There wasn't a version of this morning where staying in bed helped.

My mother was at the stove when I came out, thin robe wrapped around her thinner frame, scraping black crumbs off a slice of bread into the sink like she could salvage it through sheer stubbornness. She'd lost weight again. I noticed it the way I noticed everything about her lately, quietly, and with a specific kind of dread that never fully went away.

"You're supposed to be resting," I said, taking the butter knife out of her hand before she could argue.

"I'm supposed to be a lot of things." She smiled at me, the tired version of her real smile, the one that still tried even when everything underneath it was exhausted. "How did you sleep?"

"Fine." A lie. I hadn't really slept in weeks, not properly, not since the hospital started calling twice a week instead of once. But there was no version of telling her the truth that didn't end with her worrying about me instead of resting, and she needed the rest more than I needed the honesty.

I made two cups of tea because we couldn't afford coffee anymore, handed her one, and ate the least burnt piece of toast standing up at the counter because sitting down felt like a luxury we didn't have time for. Outside, the sky was doing that gray, undecided thing it did most mornings in Blackthorne, not quite raining, not quite clear, just heavy with the possibility of getting worse.

By the time I left for school, she was back in bed. I kissed her forehead, told her I loved her, and didn't let myself think too hard about how her skin felt cooler than it should have.

**************

Blackthorne Academy sat at the edge of the territory like something that had grown there instead of being built, old stone, sprawling grounds, iron gates that had probably been designed to keep people like me out long before I ever showed up wanting in. I'd been attending on scholarship for two years, and in two years I still hadn't figured out how to walk through those gates without feeling like an intruder in my own life.

The uniform helped, a little. From a distance, in the navy blazer and pressed skirt, I looked like everyone else. It was only up close that the differences showed... the slightly wrong shade of navy because mine had been washed a hundred more times than anyone else's, the shoes that had been resoled twice, the bag with a strap I'd sewn back on myself last month because a new one cost more than I made in a week.

Nobody had to say the word *scholarship* out loud anymore. They just looked, and looked away, and the judgment happened in that half-second gap between the two.

I kept my head down and my pace steady, which was its own kind of survival skill. Don't linger near groups. Don't make eye contact long enough to invite a comment. Move like you have somewhere important to be, even when the only place you're going is a seat in the back row where nobody will remember you sat.

I almost made it to my first class without incident, which for me counted as a good morning.

Then I heard my name... not spoken kindly, the way Victoria Ashford said everything that wasn't kind and I knew the good morning was already over.

"Lyra." She fell into step beside me with two of her friends trailing behind like she'd trained them to. Victoria had the kind of beauty that came from money as much as genetics, glossy hair, skin that had never known a stress breakout, an expression that always looked like she'd smelled something unpleasant. "Love the shoes. Very... resourceful."

Mila laughed on cue. Jenna didn't even bother pretending it was funny, just smirked and kept scrolling on her phone.

I didn't slow down. "Thanks."

"I mean it," Victoria said, matching my pace easily in her four-inch heels, which felt like an insult on its own. "It's very brave, wearing the same shoes for two years straight. Some of us couldn't do it."

"Some of you have never had to."

The words came out before I'd fully decided to say them, sharper than I usually allowed myself. Victoria's smile flickered just for a second, just long enough for me to see it land before she recovered and laughed like I'd made a joke instead of a point.

"Cute," she said. "Anyway. Try not to embarrass yourself in front of the new transfer today. First impressions matter, even for people like you."

She peeled off toward her usual crowd by the staircase before I could ask what she meant. I filed it away with the dozen other things Victoria said that were designed to make me spend the rest of the day anxious about something vague and unspecified. It usually worked. I hated that it usually worked.

My classroom was already filling up by the time I reached the second floor, conversations blending into that low, expensive hum that seemed to follow wealth everywhere it went eeekend trips, family drivers, whatever partywsomeone's parents had thrown that I hadn't been invited to and wouldn't have wanted to attend anyway. I found my usual seat near the window in the back and pulled out my notebook, grateful for ten minutes of nobody looking at me.

I didn't get ten minutes.

The room changed before I understood why. Conversations dropped mid-sentence. Chairs adjusted. That specific, electric shift in the air that meant someone important had walked in, the kind of important that made an entire room recalibrate itself without being asked to.

I looked up.

Three guys stood in the doorway, and I recognized all of them immediately even though I'd never spoken to any of them in my life. You didn't grow up in Blackthorne Territory without learning which faces belonged to which families, which names carried weight heavy enough to bend a room around them.

The one in the center was the heaviest name of all.

Kaiden Draven moved like the room already belonged to him, which, in every way that mattered here, it did. Dark hair. A jaw carved sharp enough to look permanently unimpressed. Eyes that swept the classroom with the kind of cold, unhurried attention that made you want to disappear before it landed on you.

It landed on me anyway.

For a second....one full, suspended second, his gaze locked onto mine, and something flickered behind it. Not curiosity. Something colder. Something that made my stomach drop before I understood why.

Then his expression shifted into recognition, and the whole classroom seemed to hold its breath with him.

"Voss?"

My name, in his mouth, sounded like something he'd stepped in.

Every head in the room turned toward me at once. I felt the heat crawl up my neck, felt my pulse pick up in a way that had nothing to do with excitement and everything to do with the sudden, sharp understanding that whatever was about to happen, I hadn't chosen any part of it.

"You're a Voss?" someone whispered nearby, and the murmur spread outward like something spilled.

Kaiden hadn't moved. He was still staring at me from the doorway, jaw tight, something dark and unreadable working behind his eyes.

I made myself hold his gaze, even though every instinct told me to look away first. "I don't even know you," I said, and my voice only shook a little.

"You don't need to," he said.

Then he walked past me to his seat like I'd already stopped existing, and the entire room exhaled with him...except me. I sat there with twenty-six pairs of eyes still lingering on my face, my name suddenly a word people were repeating like it meant something, and no idea why a boy I'd never spoken to in my life had just looked at me like I was something he already hated.

I didn't know it yet, but that single word... *Voss* was about to become the loudest thing about me.

Chapter 2 - Stay Away From Me

LYRA POV

By lunch, my name had traveled further than I had in two years at this school.

I felt it the second I stepped into the hallway between classes, the way conversations dipped and eyes cut sideways, the particular quality of attention that came from being talked about rather than talked to. Whispers followed me down the corridor like a smell I couldn't wash off.

*That's her. The Voss girl. Did you hear what happened with Kaiden? I heard her father betrayed the Dravens. No way. She shouldn't even be here.*

I kept my chin level and my pace even, even though every word landed somewhere soft and unprotected in my chest. I'd spent two years learning how to make myself smaller in rooms that didn't want me in them. I hadn't expected to need that skill quite this badly on a random Tuesday.

The cafeteria was worse. I felt the shift the moment I walked in, conversations lowering just enough to be obvious, heads tilting toward me and away again in that deliberate, performative way that made sure I knew I was being discussed. I scanned the room for anywhere safe to sit and found exactly one open seat, tucked in the back corner, half-hidden behind a support column.

I'd barely set my tray down before someone dropped into the chair across from me.

"You're either very brave or genuinely not paying attention," the guy said, and I looked up to find dark hair falling loosely over sharp, assessing features. Unlike Kaiden's cold stillness, this boy's presence felt calmer, quieter, like he'd already worked out exactly how the room functioned and simply chose not to perform it. I recognized him from the doorway that morning...one of the two who'd walked in beside Kaiden.

"I'm eating lunch," I said carefully. "Not starting anything."

"Bad timing for that particular plan." His mouth curved, though it didn't quite commit to a smile.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He didn't get the chance to answer. The cafeteria's noise dropped by half before I even understood why, that same electric shift from this morning's classroom rippling outward as Kaiden crossed the room with two friends trailing behind, expression as unreadable as it had been three hours ago.

His eyes found me immediately. Then hardened when they landed on the boy across from me.

"There it is," the boy across from me muttered, sounding more resigned than afraid.

Kaiden stopped at our table like he owned the ground beneath it, which, for all I knew, he might have. "Move," he said, looking at the boy and not at me.

"I was here first," the boy said, leaning back in his chair with an ease that felt almost like a dare.

"I don't care."

I gripped my fork tighter than necessary. "I can leave, if this is some kind of territorial thing."

Kaiden's gaze snapped to me so fast I regretted speaking immediately. "You don't get to talk like we're equals."

The words landed harder than they should have, not because of what he'd said, but because of how naturally he'd said it, like the room already agreed with him before he'd finished the sentence. A few nearby students laughed under their breath. Heat crawled up my throat, thick and humiliating.

"What exactly did I do to you?" The question slipped out before I could stop it, sharper than I meant, louder than I intended.

The cafeteria went completely silent.

Kaiden stared at me for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes that felt darker than simple irritation, something I didn't have a name for yet.

"You exist," he said finally.

The words hit like a slap. I felt every stare in the room press against my skin at once, every whisper I'd endured all day suddenly unbearable, all of it converging into a single moment I desperately wanted to disappear from. I pushed my tray away and stood before anyone could watch my face crumble.

"Enjoy your lunch," I muttered, and walked away as fast as dignity allowed.

The whispers followed immediately. Of course they did.

*************

I found the stairwell by the east wing, the one that never got much traffic between periods, and let the door fall shut behind me. The silence there felt colder than the cafeteria's noise, but at least it was mine. I leaned against the wall and pressed my palms flat against the cool concrete, willing my breathing to slow, willing the heat behind my eyes to stay where it was instead of spilling over.

"You're terrible at hiding when you're upset."

My eyes flew open. Kaiden stood near the stairwell entrance, arms crossed, like he had every right to be there and every intention of staying. I hadn't even heard the door.

"Are you following me now?" My voice came out harder than I felt.

"I wanted to make something clear."

I let out a short laugh, more disbelief than humor. "You've already made it pretty clear that you hate me."

Something unreadable flickered across his face before disappearing just as fast. "You need to stay away from me," he said.

The seriousness underneath it caught me off guard. "You're the one who keeps approaching me."

"Then stop making me notice you."

"You think I *want* your attention?"

He took a step closer, and the stairwell suddenly felt much smaller than it had a moment ago. Up close, he was even more overwhelming...sharp jaw, restrained aggression coiled just beneath the surface of every movement. But that wasn't the strangest part. The strangest part was the way he kept looking at me like he was trying to solve something that frustrated him more with every passing second.

His jaw tightened. Then, for one brief moment, something shifted in his expression, confusion, unmistakable and quickly buried.

"You smell wrong," he said, quiet and clearly irritated with himself for saying it at all.

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

He didn't answer. His eyes had already dropped to my mouth, just for a second, just long enough that I felt it everywhere, and the air between us thickened into something I didn't have language for. Then he stepped back like he'd caught himself doing something dangerous.

"Stay away from me, Voss," he said again, colder this time, and walked out without another word.

I stood there long after the door swung shut behind him, heart pounding for reasons I refused to examine too closely, furious at him and furious at myself in equal measure for the fact that I still couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd looked at my mouth like it had personally offended him.

*******

By the time I got home that evening, the sky had gone the color of a fresh bruise, and my legs ached from the walk between the bus stop and our apartment building because the elevator had been broken for three weeks running.

My mother was awake when I let myself in, propped against the couch cushions with a blanket over her knees, the television on low. She looked up and smiled the way she always did, like my walking through the door was the best part of her day even when it clearly hadn't been an easy one.

"Rough day?" she asked.

I sat down beside her and let my head fall against her shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of her - lavender lotion and the faint hospital antiseptic that never fully washed out of anything she owned anymore.

"You could say that," I said.

I didn't tell her about Kaiden Draven. I didn't tell her about the whispers, or the name that had followed me down every hallway, or the way an entire cafeteria had gone silent because of two words. Some days, protecting her meant giving her less of the truth, not more.

She wrapped her arm around me anyway, like she already knew there was something I wasn't saying.

"It'll get better," she said softly.

I wanted so badly to believe her.

Chapter 3 - Things She Couldn't Afford

LYRA POV

By the end of the week, I understood something important about Blackthorne Academy: people here smelled weakness the way sharks smelled blood in open water, instantly and without mercy.

It didn't need to be dramatic. One embarrassing moment turned into a rumor. One rumor turned into isolation. And isolation, in a school like this, was its own kind of quiet violence, the kind that didn't leave marks but left you invisible in exactly the way that made you an easy target for whoever wanted the amusement.

Kaiden Draven barely had to try. A glance from him in a hallway was enough to make an entire conversation stop. One cold remark during class had somehow convinced the entire school that I was untouchable in the worst possible sense... nobody wanted to be associated with the girl the future Alpha heir had decided to despise.

So I kept to myself. It was easier that way. It was always easier that way.

The final bell rang late that Friday afternoon, and relief settled into my chest the second I stepped past the academy gates. School exhausted something in me that I didn't have extra reserves of, but at least once I left, I could breathe. I adjusted my bag and checked the time on my phone, already calculating whether I'd make it to my shift on time if I hurried.

My phone buzzed before I'd taken ten steps.

*Mom.*

I answered immediately. "Hey."

Her voice sounded tired in the particular way that worried me more than complaints ever could. "Did you eat today?"

"That's your concern right now?" I asked, smiling despite myself.

"It should always be my concern."

My chest tightened at that familiar response. Even sick, even exhausted, she still worried more about me than about herself.

"I'm fine," I lied gently. "How are you feeling?"

A pause, longer than usual. "The hospital called again."

Of course they had.

I slowed my pace, anxiety already crawling back into my chest. "What did they say?"

"They want another payment by next week."

Silence stretched between us. I stared at the busy street ahead, mentally running numbers that never balanced no matter how many times I recalculated them. Tuition. Medication. Transportation. Rent. Hospital bills. Every category competed for the same shrinking pool of money, and something always lost.

"I'll figure something out," I said quietly.

"You're already doing too much."

"I'm handling it."

"Lyra-"

"I have work soon," I interrupted, gentler than I meant it to sound, because if she kept talking like that I might actually break down in the middle of the street. "I'll come by after my shift, okay?"

Another pause. Then, softly, "Okay."

We talked for a few more minutes about nothing important...her dinner, the nurse she liked on the evening shift, whether I'd remembered to eat lunch. By the time we hung up, something in my chest had loosened, just slightly.

****************

The café where I worked sat three streets from campus, small and perpetually crowded, the kind of place that survived on tips rather than margins. I arrived a few minutes late, tying my apron on as I ducked behind the counter.

"You're late again," my manager said without looking up.

"Sorry. The buses-"

"I don't care about excuses."

I swallowed the irritation and nodded instead, because losing this job wasn't an option I could afford to entertain, not with the numbers I'd just spent the entire bus ride running through my head.

The evening rush kept me too busy to think about anything except memorizing orders and moving fast enough to avoid complaints, which helped, at least temporarily.

Then the door opened, and laughter walked in first.

I froze slightly before looking up. A group of Blackthorne students filed inside, still in their academy uniforms, expensive fabric catching the café's warm lighting in a way that made my own apron feel like a costume from a different, poorer play. My stomach sank when I recognized two girls from my literature class.

One of them spotted me instantly. "Oh my God," she laughed, loud enough for the whole café to hear. "She works here?"

The group's attention swung toward me like a searchlight.

"Table for six," another one said, grinning. "Unless that's too difficult."

I kept my expression carefully blank. "Right this way."

The whispers started before I'd even finished seating them.

*I told you she was poor. That explains everything. Do you think Kaiden knows?*

My grip tightened around my notepad. I should have been used to it by now. Somehow it always found a new way to hurt anyway.

Twenty minutes later, the door opened again, and my breath caught before I'd even fully registered why.

Kaiden walked in, two guys trailing behind him, still mid-conversation until one of them noticed the sudden tension threading through the café. Kaiden looked up. Saw me. For one unguarded second, genuine surprise crossed his face before his expression darkened into something colder.

The entire café seemed to hold its breath.

"Looks like he knows now," one of the girls at the table said, smirking openly.

I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. Kaiden's eyes moved slowly over my uniform, the apron tied at my waist, the tray balanced in my hands, and something unreadable tightened across his face.

That was when the man at the counter grabbed my wrist.

"Hey, sweetheart," he slurred, grinning with the loose confidence of someone three drinks past sober. "Why don't you smile a little?"

I stiffened. "Let go."

He only tightened his grip.

Everything after that happened fast. A chair scraped violently against the floor. The café went completely silent. Kaiden crossed the room in seconds, close enough that I felt the temperature around us drop, and slammed his hand down against the counter beside the man with enough force to crack the wood.

"Take your hand off her."

The man paled instantly. "I-I was just joking-"

"I wasn't."

Kaiden's voice was terrifyingly calm, and the man released my wrist like it had burned him. Kaiden stepped closer, and the difference between them became obvious in a way that had nothing to do with height - power radiated off him so naturally it felt dangerous just to stand near.

"Leave," Kaiden said quietly.

The man didn't argue. He stumbled out without looking back.

Silence lingered after the door swung shut. I stared at Kaiden, my wrist still tingling faintly from where the man had grabbed it, utterly confused by what had just happened. Kaiden looked down at me, and the anger in his expression shifted into something stranger, something tense and unreadable.

His gaze dropped briefly to my wrist. Then lifted slowly back to my face.

"You work here?" he asked.

I frowned. "Obviously."

His jaw tightened, and for a second he almost looked angry about the fact itself, before his expression closed off completely again.

"This place doesn't suit you," he said.

I let out a sharp laugh. "You don't get to decide what suits me."

He stared at me for a long moment, something flickering behind his eyes that seemed to annoy him more than my actual response did.

"You really don't know when to stay quiet," he said.

"And you really don't know how to mind your business."

The tension between us pulled tight enough to feel physical. People were still watching, still listening, but somehow standing this close to him made the rest of the café feel distant, unimportant, background noise to whatever was happening in the three feet of space between us.

Kaiden took one slow step closer. "Careful, Voss."

My heart stuttered traitorously against my ribs despite the anger still burning through my chest. I hated the way his voice affected the air around me. Hated the way he looked at me like he couldn't decide whether to destroy me or pull me closer.

Most of all, I hated that I still couldn't look away.