Chapter 6 Archer
It was unusual for students to be invited to attend Blackthorne starting their second year.
Even stranger for the Academy to invite a shifter from a shifter academy.
Still, I found myself in a room full of first-year students who reeked of terror and uncertainty, waiting to be given my class schedule and room assignment.
Blackthorne wasn’t what I expected. The buildings were impressive enough–old stone, carved arches, magic thrumming faintly in the air–but it wasn’t the architecture that caught my attention.
Where the shifter academy I’d transferred from was full of life and students playing rough, Blackthorne was more subdued.
Other than the group of First Years I’d entered campus with, I hadn’t seen another student anywhere.
I’d expected… more. Magic on display, posturing from the various supernaturals as they worked out who was top of the food chain.
Instead, the atmosphere seemed tense and on edge.
As if the entire student body was waiting for a blow they couldn’t protect against.
“Appreciate it,” I said, though his attention had already shifted elsewhere.
Versipellis was easy enough to find even without using the spelled map that was inside the envelope—the scent of shifters hung thick in the air, familiar but uneasy.
The moment I stepped inside, every conversation went quiet.
A half-dozen eyes lifted to track me—wolves, bears, a pair of feline twins, even one hawk shifter perched on the stair railing.
The tension rolling off them was thick enough to choke on.
There was definitely something more than the usual shifter reaction to newcomers at play, but I had no way of knowing what it was.
Shaking my head to clear away the cloying scent of suspicion in the air, I squared my shoulders and followed my map to my dorm room like the alpha wolf I was.
By morning, the unease hadn’t lifted. If anything, it had settled deeper into the bones of the place.
My first day of classes started before dawn, the kind of early that made me question whether the professors here were sadists or just bored.
I’d been through shifter academies before—brutal conditioning, dawn runs, sparring until your lungs burned—but this was different.
The instructors didn’t bark orders or push for dominance the way pack leaders did.
They just watched, making notes as if we were specimens in some experiment.
Our first course was Advanced Transformation Control, led by a werecat who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
His voice stayed level, but his eyes kept darting toward the door every time footsteps echoed in the hall.
When one of the younger wolves lost focus and half-shifted, claws raking through his own sleeve, the professor flinched hard enough to make the rest of us stare.
My next few classes were the same. Whatever had the shifters—students and instructors alike—on campus uneasy, was slowly wearing on my inner beast.
By the time my last lecture ended, my wolf was pacing just beneath my skin, restless and irritated. I needed to move. To fight. To burn off whatever this academy was pressing down on us. So, when I saw I had combat class as my final class of the day, I didn’t even try to hide my grin.
The combat pitch sat on the far edge of campus, tucked behind a row of obsidian spires and thick, iron gates that looked better suited for a fortress than a school.
It wasn’t just a training field. It was a stadium.
Tiered stone seats circled a massive central pit of scorched earth and worn grass, the faint scent of blood and ozone clinging to the air.
Dozens of weapons lined the walls—enchanted steel, weighted staffs, training daggers by the looks of it—all neatly organized like they hadn’t been touched in months.
The professor, Rumlock, I believe my schedule said, stood in the center; massive and immovable as a mountain, the scar across his brow catching the light.
“Welcome to Combat,” he said, voice carrying easily across the pitch.
“You will all fight. You will all lose. And if you learn something before you bleed, you’ll thank me later. ”
The corner of my mouth lifted. Finally, someone who spoke my language. He ran us through a series of warm-up exercises before he started calling our names off in pairs.
“Vale,” Rumlock barked. “You’re up. Knight, you’re with him.”
I scanned the line automatically, expecting another shifter, maybe one of the wolves who’d been eyeing me earlier.
But the girl who stepped forward wasn’t one of them.
She was small—tiny, really—with bright red hair that caught the dying sunlight, and green eyes that didn’t flinch when they met mine.
I raised my chin slightly and scented the air.
She didn’t smell like a wolf. Or a cat. Or any shifter I’d ever met.
Her scent hit me like a blow to the chest. All wild magic and rain-soaked earth, threaded through with something I couldn’t name.
My wolf went still. Then it lunged, slamming against my ribs so hard it stole my breath.
Mate. The word tore through my mind like a growl, primal and absolute.
I blinked, trying to steady myself as we stepped onto our mat.
The rest of the world dulled at the edges.
Her pulse thrummed in my ears like a war drum.
I should’ve noticed her before now. I should’ve smelled her the second I walked into the arena, but the air had been thick with too many scents, too much magic.
Now that I was close, there was no missing it. She was mine.
She squared off across from me, chin lifted in challenge, hands loose at her sides as though she wasn’t even trying to hide how sure of herself she was.
Most people went still around a predator.
She didn’t. If anything, she looked bored.
That only made my grin widen. This girl had clearly had some training.
I took my time crossing the mat, rolling my shoulders, letting that cocky swagger bleed into every step.
My wolf pressed hard against my skin, wanting closer, wanting her.
The air between us tightened until it was hard to breathe.
When I stopped in front of her, close enough to see the faint freckles across her nose, I let my voice drop low—half drawl, half promise.
“I’ve been wondering when I’d find you, Mate. ”
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then she froze. The blood drained from her face so fast it made my stomach twist. Whatever spark of challenge had been in her eyes flickered, snuffed out by something sharp—fear, disbelief, maybe both.
“What did you just say?” Her voice was quiet, brittle.
I frowned briefly, caught off guard, before forcing my grin back in place. “You heard me.” I let the grin linger, though it faltered when she took an instinctive step back. “You’re my mate.”
Her eyes went wide, and then she muttered something that definitely wasn’t meant for me to hear.
“God damn it, Geordie!” she hissed under her breath, pacing one step back like she could outrun whatever she’d just realized.
I blinked. “Uh… who?”
She kept going, ignoring me completely now, voice dropping to a rapid string of curses that would’ve made even the roughest shifters back home proud. “Just how many more are there? Fuck’s sake, I’ve only claimed two and I’m still not sure about Caulder, and boom , there’s another.”
My grin faltered. “Caulder? Claimed? What the hell are you talking about?”
My mate didn’t even look at me. She just kept pacing, muttering as if she were arguing with herself or some invisible audience.
“Geordie said there’d be more, but he couldn’t give me a number, could he?
Oh no, that’d be too convenient. ‘Patience, Bechora. Fate has a plan, Bechora.’ He could have fucking warned me just how many dicks I’m supposed to manage here.
I’m just one person, how many does fate think I need?
I was fine with three, what the fuck am I supposed to do with four?
! Christ, I’m supposed to fulfill some insane prophecy and juggle four men.
Who has time for that? Fate’s plan, pfft. Fate can shove its plan straight up–”
“Okay,” I cut in, raising my hands slightly. “I’m gonna need you to rewind that for me, sweetheart. Who the hell is Geordie, and Caulder, and these two ‘already claimed’, you’re talking about?”
That got her attention. She stopped mid-step, eyes snapping to mine with a look that was half frustration, half disbelief—as though I’d just asked her to solve a riddle written in blood.
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” she said flatly.
“Try me.”
She exhaled hard through her nose, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like I hate my life, before crossing her arms. “Geordie’s…
complicated. He’s apparently my half-brother, and also a seer, but I spent six years thinking he was human, just like me.
That is, until I wound up here and he started dropping cryptic snippets about my future. ”
A seer. That tracked with the weird muttering, but it didn’t explain why she looked like she wanted to throttle someone. “So, this Geordie told you about me?”
“Not you specifically,” she snapped. “Just that there’d be more mates. ”
“More?” I echoed. “As in—”
“Yes, more. Plural. As in, you’re not the first, but I hope like hell you’re the last, or I will completely lose my shit. A girl can only handle so much…” she waved a hand in my general direction as she dragged the other down her face, groaning. “Welcome to my nightmare.”
I blinked at her, the words bouncing around my skull like they were in another language. “Wait, back up. You already have mates? Mates —as in, bonded? Claimed?”
Her jaw tightened. “Two.”
I let out a low whistle. “Damn. And here I was thinking I’d just made your day.”
She glared, but the edge of her mouth twitched as if she was fighting not to smile. “You really think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Usually, yeah,” I said, shrugging. “But right now I’m just confused. My wolf knows what he knows, and you smell like home. The rest of it—your seer, your other mates, your whatever-the-hell, doesn’t change that.”
Something flickered in her eyes at that, something she tried to bury quickly. “You don’t understand,” she murmured, softer now.
“So, explain it to me so I will.”
Bechora tilted her head back toward the sky and groaned. “If I could wolf-boy, I would. I’m still figuring all this shit out myself.”
Before I could push her for more, Professor Rumlock’s roar cracked across the arena like thunder. “Are you two done courting, or should I fetch a harpist to set the mood?!”
A few students laughed. Someone even howled.
Bechora went crimson. “We’re not—”
“Then, fight! ” Rumlock barked, gesturing sharply toward the mat. “Or get off my pitch before I make you run drills ‘til dawn!”
She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, I hate everything, and turned back toward me, setting her feet in a stance that screamed ready.
I couldn’t help it; the grin came back. “Guess that’s our cue.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Probably,” I said, circling her slowly.
“But I meant what I said before, sweetheart. You’re my mate.
You can freak out, curse at your brother, or tell fate where to shove it, and if you don’t know how to explain all his freaky seer shit to me, we can figure it out together.
Multiple mates isn’t enough to scare me away.
Matter of fact, it feels like home. Wolf packs mate as groups; we’re just ahead of the game. ” I couldn’t help but wink at her.
She froze. Just for a second. The fight drained from her shoulders, replaced by something I couldn’t name. Then, just as quickly, she shook it off and raised her hands.
“Less talking, more sparring, wolf-boy,” she said, but her voice had softened, the edge blunted. “Rumlock doesn’t make idle threats, and I’d rather not be stuck fighting until dawn.”
I chuckled, settling into a stance to match hers. “Careful what you wish for.”
I moved first. I was faster, stronger, but it was clear she’d trained with someone who knew what they were doing.
She managed to dodge a few of my blows, something a non-shifter shouldn’t have been capable of, even with me pulling my punches.
When she landed a hit to my chin, my wolf purred.
The impact snapped my head to the side, and for the first time all day, I laughed.
She glared like she couldn’t decide whether to hit me again or walk off the mat entirely, and I had the distinct feeling she might do both.
I kept all my focus on her–this tiny, furious female who’d just turned my world inside.
I suddenly understood why the Academy’s magic invited me to attend.
Whatever else was happening here—whatever it was that had everyone on edge—I knew I’d been brought here for her and whatever fate her seer brother had shared that had her panties in a twist.