“I’m sorry, Eira,” Bryn Holt said. “The final list is locked in. There’s no mistake.” I stood in front of the bulletin board and stared at the roster for almost five minutes. My name was gone. In the slot for the full-scholarship tryout at the Northern Shifter Academy, where it should have read Eira Vane, it now read Senna Ashford. At first I assumed it was a clerical error. A mixed-up data entry, a delayed email, some idiot confusing the shortlist with the final roster. Then it hit me. This wasn’t a mistake. This was Kael Blackthorn’s doing. Black Dragon heir. My boyfriend. I found him in the parking lot, leaning against that black sports car of his. He gave me a lazy glance. “Senna was cast out by her clan. She lost everything,” he said first, as if I’d shown up for a verdict. “This is her only shot.” “You’re strong. You can make Regionals on your own.” “That’s a full ride to the Northern Academy, Kael.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “Coaching, housing, Federation certification—everything. You know what that means to me.” “You’ll figure something out.” I looked at him and said nothing. Then he sighed, pulled a black card out of his wallet, and held it out between two fingers—the way you’d tip a valet. “Fine. I’ll cover all of it. Coaches, training hours, gear, everything. Consider it me buying the slot off you. We’re square, right?” It started to rain. I looked at the card, then back at his face. He was the one who’d told me that if I trained hard enough, I’d claw my way out of that wretched house, out of this town that reeked of cheap liquor, poverty, and the bone-deep despair of shifters who’d given up on themselves. No one would ever spit the word halfblood at me again. So I’d trained. Spent every free hour in Bryn’s equipment room—patching gear, mopping floors, doing the jobs no one else wanted. And now he was sticking a price tag on all of it. I turned and walked away. His voice followed me across the parking lot, flat and cold. “Are you serious? You bust your hands open in that shop. You’ve spent your whole life chasing pennies.” “I’m offering you more than you’ll see in ten years. Don’t let your pride be the thing that gets you killed, Eira.” I stopped and turned to look at him. Everything I’d thought was unbreakable rotted through in a single second. I laughed. “Believe whatever you want, Kael.” I’d barely made it back to the training grounds when Tessa came storming in. She was a gray wolf like me, bottom of the pack. But she was purebred. We worked the same shifts in the equipment room. “Eira. Tell me I read that list wrong. Tell me that fox isn’t standing in your spot.” “You read it right.” “It was Kael. It had to be. Did you go to him?” “Just got back.” Last week’s training scabs were still on my hands. “He offered to pay my way to the Northern Academy in full. Buy my place out from under me.” She was quiet for a long beat, then muttered a curse under her breath. “That smug Black Dragon bastard. Please tell me you threw the card in his face.” “I walked away.” “Eira, you have to fight for this. That spot is yours. Everyone knows what you went through to earn it. The scars on you, your father—” “It doesn’t matter.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “His clan funds the sponsorship program, Tessa. They picked me once. They can pick someone else.” She fell silent. “Oh—I just saw Senna’s feed.” Tessa lowered her voice. “Kael booked out an entire restaurant for her. A celebration dinner. Eira.” “Okay.” “Okay? That’s it?” “I need to get back to work. Go home.” I didn’t wait for her to say anything else. I turned and walked into the back of the shop.
The next morning I went down to the training center to file my paperwork for Regionals. That’s when I saw them. Senna on Kael’s arm. She spotted me first. Then she ducked behind his shoulder. “Kael, I’m scared.” Kael stepped forward. “Eira, don’t make a scene.” I tried to go around him. He grabbed my wrist. “What is your problem? Senna hasn’t done anything to you. None of this was her call. Do you really have to take it out on her?” I yanked free. “Let go of me.” People in the hallway started staring. Right on cue, Senna’s tears showed up. She slipped out from behind Kael and took a step toward me. “Eira, I’m so sorry. I never wanted any of this. If you want to hit someone, hit me. I deserve it.” She lifted her chin and leaned closer. Kael’s arm came around her from behind, sliding to her waist, pulling her back against his chest. “Look at her.” His face hardened. “Look at what you’re doing to her. I didn’t think you could be this cruel, Eira.” The whispers started. “That’s her, right? Works in the equipment room over at Bryn’s.” “The one who lost the Northern spot? The halfblood?” “Can she even shift? I’ve never seen a hint of wolf on her.” “At least Senna’s a real shifter. I’d have picked her too.” I didn’t look at any of them. My eyes stayed on Kael. “I said let go.” He didn’t move. He shoved me. I staggered back into the row of metal lockers behind me. My shoulder blades hit the door and the whole row rattled. I stayed there for a second, my back against the cold steel, looking up at him. He looked back at me. His face was blank. Not a flicker. Nothing. We grew up together. He was ten when his family sent him here. His first week in town, he got into a fight with three older boys in the alley behind the training grounds. They split his lip and kicked him until he was spitting blood. I came around the corner with a freshly sharpened claw blade in my hand. They ran. After that he followed me everywhere. Whenever someone in town called me a halfblood waste, Kael was the one grinding their face into the dirt for it. “Eira. I’m here. Always.” “We’re getting out of this town. Just the two of us. The North, the Federation, all of it. You and me.” Now he was standing in front of me with another girl in his arms, and he’d just slammed me into a wall. Senna cried harder. “Kael, please, let’s just go. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault.” He turned his head and kissed her hair. “It’s not your fault. Not even a little.” He gave me one last look—a warning—and walked past me with her. I stayed against the lockers until I could breathe properly again. The office was at the far end of the corridor. On the way I passed the Rising Stars display wall. Senna’s photo hung dead center—bigger than every other one. Beneath it, in neat black lettering: This extraordinary shifter has overcome exile and persecution. A story of resilience. I laughed. It tasted bitter. I remembered one night, coming back to the equipment room after evening training. My father, Garrett, was waiting in the parking lot. “Where’s the money?” I didn’t answer. I tried to walk past him. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed my face into the exterior wall. “I’m talking to you. Are you deaf?” “There isn’t any.” “Bullshit.” He pinned me against the brick. “That Black Dragon kid throws cash around like water and you’re glued to his side every day. You expecting me to believe you can’t squeeze a few hundred out of him for your old man?” He backhanded me. He started patting me down, ripping at my pockets. I shoved him off. That was a mistake. It set him off. He drove his boot into my stomach and put me down. “You ungrateful little bitch. Just like your mother. Both of you, useless.” Garrett was a purebred gray wolf. He could break bones in a body like mine—a body with no beast form to soak the hit. That was when Kael’s car pulled into the lot, just as I thought it was all over. He put Garrett on the ground in two moves and hauled me up. His hands ran over my face, my arms, my ribs, checking. His voice was shaking. “Where did he hit you, Eira? Tell me.” I couldn’t speak. He pulled off his jacket, draped it over my shoulders, and held me. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m right here.” He didn’t go home that night. He sat on the beat-up couch in the back of the shop until daylight. The next day he walked into the local enforcement office and didn’t leave until they’d put suppression cuffs on Garrett and locked him in a holding cell. When he came back, he sat down next to me and said: From now on, I take care of you. You don’t have to worry about anything. Ever. I believed him.
A week before Regionals, the training grounds ran a full dress-rehearsal mock trial. Full judging panel, full scoring system, everything identical to the real thing. The mock covered three events: beast-form sprint, alpha pressure resistance, and survival tracking. I took first place in human form. My total beat second place by nearly twelve points. Senna was the last one to arrive. She extended one clawed finger, ripped the results sheet off the board, crumpled it, and tossed it in the trash. “Whatever. The Northern spot is mine. I don’t need to bother with these trials.” Kael was waiting at the railing with two coffees. He handed her one. She smiled at him like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just thrown a tantrum in front of everyone. “You look beautiful.” She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. I walked past them toward the locker room. “Eira.” I didn’t stop. “Eira. Hey.” He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. “Still pissed about the slot?” I didn’t answer. “I get it. But let it go. Look at where she is. She needs this more than you do. You could win Regionals blindfolded.” “Why hang onto it? You should learn how to lose gracefully.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “The offer still stands. Whatever you need—coaches, off-season camps—it’s yours.” He thought money fixed everything. He thought money could buy back what he’d already broken. He was wrong. “I don’t want it.” “There it is again.” His jaw tightened. “How long are you going to keep this up? Do you have any idea what you earn in a month? What I’m offering is more than you’ll make in a lifetime at that place.” Senna hooked her arm through his. “Kael, don’t. She just hasn’t accepted it yet.” She gave me a sad little smile. “Eira. I know you hate me right now. But I really, truly have nowhere else to go. I don’t want the two of you fighting because of me, but I’ve already lost everything.” Her eyes welled up on cue. For a whole year I’d watched her run this routine. In every conversation, she was the victim. In every room, I was the one making her cry. “Kael said he’d take care of you,” she went on, her voice soft and magnanimous. “If there’s anything you need, you just let us know, okay?” Us. As if she’d already walked into his life. I couldn’t help it. The corner of my mouth pulled. Kael frowned. “What’s so funny?” “Nothing,” I said. “Just admiring the two of you. You make a great pair. Hope it lasts.” His expression changed. “Eira—” I walked past him and into the locker room. “Eira, get back here.” I tuned every word out. That night Tessa sent me a screenshot—caught before it disappeared from Senna’s feed. Senna and Kael at a bar. Kael holding up a bottle of champagne, Senna draped sideways across his lap. Their friends behind them lifting glasses, shouting: Congrats, Senna! Tessa: Don’t look at her. She’s not worth ruining your night over. I tossed the phone aside. Then I pulled my training log off the nightstand, turned to the next blank page, and started mapping out my route for Regionals. As long as I was training, I didn’t have to think about anything else.
A week out from Regionals, the training grounds scaled the program down to taper sessions. Most people used the time to rest. I picked up extra shifts in Bryn’s equipment room. Wednesday afternoon, Kael’s car pulled up outside. He got out and leaned against the driver’s side. The music was deafening, pulsing through the window hard enough to rattle the glass, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. “Eira, come here.” I kept fiddling with the guard set in my hands and didn’t look up. “I’m talking to you.” He walked over, frowning, and reached for my arm, then saw the grease and metal shavings on my hands and pulled his fingers back without touching me. “Go clean up. We’re heading to the cabin in the mountains. Senna wants to get off the ground for a few days. You’re coming too.” “I’m not going.” “Don’t be like this. I drove all the way out here. Senna wants to make peace with you. Stop being difficult.” “There’s nothing between her and me to fix.” “Eira.” “I need to train.” He laughed, short and ugly. “Training. Right. Like you have to. You could show up half-dead to Regionals and still take first.” “Come on. Don’t spend the weekend in this dump. Senna’s genuinely trying.” “I’m not going.” His patience finally snapped. “Suit yourself.” He pulled out his wallet, peeled off a stack of hundreds, and threw them at my feet. The bills scattered across the concrete like a command. “There. That’s your salary for the month. I already paid your boss. Take the money, keep your precious pride intact, and stay away from me.” I didn’t move. “Not enough?” He pulled out another stack and dropped it on top of the first. “How about now?” Bryn Holt. Bear shifter. He stepped out of the back office, looked at the money on the floor, and walked past it. “Mr. Blackthorn. What’s going on here? We don’t need any of this.” Kael didn’t even look at him. His eyes were locked on me. “Pick it up.” I still didn’t move. Senna got out of the car wide-eyed and ran over in a pair of blindingly white leather boots. “Kael, please don’t. You’re scaring her.” She crouched down and started picking the bills up one by one. “Eira, don’t be angry with him. He’s just protecting me. He didn’t mean it.” Her eyes filled as she held the stack out to me with both hands. “Please. Come with us. I don’t want to be the reason you two aren’t speaking.” I looked at her, then at Kael. Not a flicker of remorse. He thought he was being generous, so I was supposed to be grateful. I walked past both of them, went into the back of the shop, and shut the door. Through the wall I heard him say: “See? That’s what you get. You try to help her, and this is how she treats you.” The engine started. The music faded down the street. A minute later, Bryn came in. He set the stack of bills on the workbench in front of me. “Take it, kid.” “No.” “Eira.” He pushed it closer. “Your father, your situation. You need this.” I stared at the cash. It smelled like Kael. A scent that didn’t belong in this town. I went to the sink in the corner, turned the water as hot as it would go, and started washing my hands. Over and over. Until my skin was red and raw. That night, Garrett came back. Drunker than usual. He spotted the money through the front window. He took the cash, then started smashing everything else. He grabbed a chair and put it through the front window. I called the enforcement office. When the officers arrived he was still in a rage. It took two of them to bring him down and lock the suppression cuffs onto his wrists. As they dragged him out, he spat blood and saliva in my face, eyes red. “You called the law on your own father. I hope you know what kind of person you are. I hope you rot, you little bitch.” I watched them take him away. So this was what it felt like. No one standing behind me.
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