Chapter 2
Arabella
The morning sun over Blackwood Mountain didn't sparkle; it glared. It was a harsh, blinding white that bounced off the three feet of snow encasing the campus, finding every crack in the curtains of my dorm room to stab directly into my eyes.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my body rigid beneath the heavy down comforter.
I was safe. I was in my room, on the fourth floor of the Honors Dormitory, behind a locked door, with a chair wedged under the handle for good measure.
But I didn't feel safe.
I felt... hunted.
I rolled over, pulling the duvet up to my nose, inhaling the scent of lavender detergent and old paperbacks. It was a comforting smell, the smell of my life before last night. Before the basement. Before the scent of smoke and pine had invaded my lungs and refused to leave.
Dante Moretti.
Even thinking his name made my pulse skitter like a nervous rabbit.
I closed my eyes, and instantly, the image of him was there.
The way his massive frame had filled the doorway, blocking out the light.
The terrifying, beautiful ruin of his face.
The scar that begged to be traced. And those eyes—glowing like molten gold, burning with a hunger that should have sent me running for the hills, not freezing me in place with a sick, twisting desire.
Fragile.
He had called me fragile.
I threw the covers off, frustration bubbling up in my chest, hot and prickly. I hated that word. I hated it because it was true, and I hated it because it was the cage my father had built around me since the day I was born.
Arabella, put on a coat, you’ll catch pneumonia. Arabella, don't play sports, your joints are too weak. Arabella, stay away from the shifters, they play too rough.
I walked to the mirror hanging on the back of my closet door. I looked at the girl reflected there. Pale skin that bruised if you looked at it too hard. Wide, violet eyes that always looked startled. Platinum blonde hair that made me look like a ghost.
I looked breakable. I looked like a porcelain doll placed on a shelf, meant to be admired but never touched.
"I am not glass," I whispered to the reflection, repeating the lie I had told the monster in the basement.
But as I traced the purple bruise blooming on my hip—from where I’d bumped into the library table fleeing from him—I knew he was right. In a world of wolves, I was made of sugar glass.
I turned away from the mirror and began to armor myself.
It was a ritual. A daily reconstruction of my defenses. First, the thermal leggings, thick and opaque. Then, the baggy grey sweatpants. A long-sleeved undershirt, followed by an oversized cable-knit sweater that swallowed my figure whole, hiding the curve of my waist and the swell of my chest.
If I looked like a shapeless lump of wool, maybe they wouldn't look at me. Maybe he wouldn't look at me.
I pulled a beanie low over my ears, grabbed my heavy backpack filled with books I’d already read, and stepped out into the hallway.
I needed coffee. I needed caffeine to jumpstart my brain so I could figure out how to avoid the Captain of the hockey team for the rest of the semester.
The campus coffee shop, The Grind, was a chaotic ecosystem of caffeine-deprived students and the distinct, high-energy buzz of shifters.
I kept my head down, navigating the line like a spy in enemy territory.
The air here was thick—literally. The pheromones of the shifter students were always stronger in the morning.
It was a musk, earthy and potent, that most humans couldn't distinguish from cologne, but to me, raised by the Human Liaison, it smelled like a zoo.
"Large black coffee. Two shots of espresso," I told the barista, a tired-looking human girl who looked like she was reconsidering her scholarship options.
"Rough night?" a voice drawled from behind me.
I stiffened, my hand gripping the strap of my backpack. I knew that voice. It wasn't deep enough to be Dante, but it carried the same underlying vibration—the hum of a predator.
I turned slowly.
Elena was leaning against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest. She was a Lynx shifter, lithe and sharp-eyed, with short pixie-cut hair and a smile that always looked like she knew a secret. She was the team physiotherapist’s assistant and, oddly enough, the closest thing I had to a friend.
"Studying," I lied, grabbing my cup as the barista slid it across the counter.
Elena raised an eyebrow, her golden-green eyes scanning me with clinical precision. She sniffed the air, just once, subtle enough that no one else would notice.
"You smell stressed, Ara," she said, falling into step beside me as we walked toward a corner table. "Cortisol is spiking. And... something else." She leaned in closer, her nose wrinkling. "Is that... pine?"
I nearly dropped my coffee.
"It’s a new candle," I squeaked, sliding into a chair and busying myself with pulling a textbook out of my bag. "Cedar and... forest stuff."
Elena sat opposite me, her gaze heavy. She didn't buy it. Lynx shifters were notoriously hard to lie to; they could hear your heartbeat speed up.
"Right," she said, dragging the word out. "Well, whatever candle you're burning, you might want to switch scents. You smell like the Alpha locker room after a double overtime."
I choked on my first sip of coffee, coughing as the hot liquid burned my throat.
"I was in the archives last night," I managed to wheeze, wiping my mouth with the back of my sweater sleeve. "The ventilation down there is connected to the arena. It must have drifted down."
Elena hummed, tapping her black-painted fingernails on the table. "You know, the team is on edge today. Like, really on edge."
"Oh?" I kept my eyes on my book: Symbology of the Lunar Cycle. I wasn't reading a single word.
"Yeah. Moretti nearly took a freshman’s head off in the hallway this morning just for looking at him wrong," Elena said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Coach Vane is freaking out. He thinks Dante is hitting early Rut."
My stomach dropped. Rut.
I knew the biology. I had read the textbooks. A Shifter Rut was a biological imperative—a period of intense hormonal surge, aggression, and an obsessive need to mate. It was like a fever that burned away rationality, leaving only instinct.
"That sounds... inconvenient," I said weakly.
"Inconvenient?" Elena laughed, a sharp, barking sound.
"It’s dangerous, Ara. An Alpha in Rut is a walking natural disaster.
Especially one as powerful as Dante. If he doesn't have a mate—which he doesn't, because he’s a monastic brooding psychopath—he has to be isolated. Locked up. Or he’ll tear the campus apart looking for something to... relieve the pressure."
I squeezed my eyes shut. Relieve the pressure. The image of Dante pressing me against the bookshelf, his hips grinding against mine, flashed through my mind with vivid, humiliating clarity.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, opening my eyes to look at her.
"Because," Elena said, her expression sobering. "You’re the only human in the inner circle, thanks to your dad. And you’re... soft. If Dante is spiraling, you need to stay away from the arena. Stay away from the Hive. Just... keep your head down."
"I always keep my head down," I murmured.
"Good," Elena said. She glanced out the window, where the sky was turning a bruised, ominous shade of purple-grey. "Besides, nobody is going anywhere tonight. Have you seen the forecast?"
I followed her gaze. The snow was falling harder now, thick flakes the size of quarters swirling in the wind.
"A blizzard?"
"A 'Code Black' storm," Elena corrected. "Coming down from the peaks. They’re saying three feet by midnight. The university is cancelling afternoon classes. They’re closing the roads in an hour."
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting a weather alert.
It wasn't.
It was a text from Dean Vance. Or rather, the automated system for student workers in the Athletic Department.
URGENT: Transport needed immediately. Medical supplies to Solitude Cabin. Driver sick. Report to loading dock. Thorne, A.
I stared at the screen. My blood ran cold.
I was the student liaison for the department—a resume filler my father had insisted on. Usually, it meant filing paperwork or ordering Gatorade. I had never been asked to do a transport run.
"Everything okay?" Elena asked.
"I have to work," I said, standing up, my legs feeling unsteady. "Just a quick run to the... to the storage facility."
I couldn't tell her. If I told her I was going to the Solitude Cabin—the designated Rut isolation zone—she would physically restrain me.
But I couldn't say no to Dean Vance. My scholarship, and my father’s approval, depended on me being the perfect, helpful, non-problematic daughter.
"In this weather?" Elena frowned. "Ara, don't be stupid."
"I'll be fine," I said, pulling my beanie down tighter, shielding my face. "I'm just dropping off a box. I'll be back before the roads close."
I grabbed my bag and walked out into the storm, clutching my phone like a lifeline. I didn't know why, but a sense of impending doom was settling over me, heavier than the snow.
The loading dock of the arena was a wind tunnel. The gale-force winds whipped around the concrete corners, stinging my cheeks and turning my breath into white clouds that were snatched away instantly.
The department van—a rugged, black SUV with snow tires and a grill guard—was idling by the ramp. The back hatch was open.
I tossed my backpack into the passenger seat and walked around to the back. A heavy crate marked MEDICAL: FRAGILE sat on the dock. I grunted, heaving it up. It was heavier than it looked.
"Need a hand?"
I jumped, nearly dropping the crate on my foot.
It wasn't Dante. Thank God.
It was Jax, the Golden Retriever winger. He was leaning against the wall, wearing a parka that was unzipped, oblivious to the freezing cold. He looked pale, his usual sunny disposition dimmed by tension.
"Jax," I breathed, shoving the crate into the back of the SUV. "You scared me."