Chapter 6
HAYES
"You're bleeding on the mat again, Hayes. It's unhygienic."
I ignored Tristan, ducking under a left hook that would have decapitated a lesser wolf. I stepped inside the guard and drove my shoulder into the center of my sparring partner's chest.
The impact sounded like two cars colliding. The massive beta lifted off his feet before hitting the padded floor with a grunt that knocked the air out of him.
I stepped back, chest heaving, swiped the blood from my split lip with the back of my taped hand. The metallic taste of copper grounded me, cutting through the low buzzing of political anxiety that had been humming in my skull since five this morning.
"I'm fine," I said.
The adrenaline was receding, leaving the familiar leaden weight of my daily reality pressing down where it had been an hour ago.
Tristan leaned against the rubber edge of the sparring ring, tossing a water bottle from hand to hand.
Sharp jawline, dark hair, designer training gear that probably cost more than most students' tuition — he looked like he was posing for a catalog.
But anyone who judged Tristan Hawthorne by his charming smile usually woke up three hours later with a concussion.
He was the most lethal fighter in our year, precisely because he never looked like he was trying.
Storm-based magic. Ozone and unpredictable pressure drops.
"You're not fine," Tristan said cheerfully.
"Your aura feels like a thunderstorm trapped in a pressure cooker.
And when you're stressed, you solve your emotional problems by methodically breaking the ribs of the beta population who volunteer to spar with you.
Speaking of which — good hold, Marcus. You only look mildly concussed.
You might even remember your own name by dinner. "
The massive beta on the floor offered a weak thumbs-up toward the ceiling.
"It's the council mandates," I said, catching the water bottle Tristan whipped at my head. I drank half of it in one swallow. "My father called before sunrise again. He wants me to formally register intent for a binding alliance contract by end of semester."
Tristan's smile vanished. "A binding contract? We're twenty-two, Hayes. That's archaic even by Northern standards."
"The political climate is destabilizing." Chris's quiet voice cut through the gym.
I hadn't heard him approach. He never made noise.
Chris moved like a shadow — still, self-contained, devoid of posturing.
He was sitting cross-legged on the bleachers with an ancient leather-bound book on his knees, looking like a scholar who had wandered into a warzone looking for the library.
But the faint golden ring burning around his dark irises gave away the depth of his latent power.
Where Tristan and I fought with kinetic force and elemental violence, Chris fought by rewriting the magical laws of the room. A terrifying opponent.
"The eastern border disputes are escalating," he continued, turning a page without looking up.
"If your father secures a binding contract with the right dynasty, it locks in a multi-generational territorial alliance the east won't dare challenge.
He's not asking for grandchildren, Hayes.
He's fortifying his borders with your bloodline. "
"I know why he's doing it," I snapped. I threw the empty bottle into a metal bin across the room. It hit with a sharp crack that made Marcus flinch.
The pressure was immense. An iron collar locked around my throat, tightening every time my phone rang with a Northern area code.
I was the sole heir to one of the oldest, wealthiest, most ruthlessly traditional packs in the country. Every decision I made — where I went to school, who I fought, who I spoke to in the hallways — was calculated by a board of elders to preserve that legacy. My life belonged to the pack.
And now they wanted to dictate who I'd bind my soul to.
A binding contract wasn't a marriage of convenience. It was a magical tether hammered into place by archaic rituals, locking two wolves together for life regardless of compatibility or affection. A corporate merger finalized in blood and soul tissue.
"So what are you going to do?" Tristan asked, crossing his arms.
"Stall him," I said, grabbing a towel. "Told him I need to focus on my final year of tactical coursework before committing the energy to the ritual."
"He won't buy that for long," Chris said calmly. "Not with the eastern packs mobilizing."
"Buys me a few months of silence. Long enough to find a counter-strategy."
It was a lie and we all knew it. There was no counter-strategy to my father's iron will short of open rebellion. And rebellion meant fracturing the pack I had sworn my life to protect. Trapped in a gilded cage of inherited duty.
"Well," Tristan said, deliberately breaking the silence with a sharp clatter against the ring post. "If you're legally unattached for the foreseeable future, you need to burn off this wound-up energy before you actually kill someone by accident."
"I need to train harder."
"You need to get laid," Tristan said bluntly. "By someone who doesn't care about your last name, your trust fund, or your territorial alliances. When did you last go anywhere without a security detail?"
"I don't have patience for campus social politics right now." The legacy omegas at the student mixers made my skin crawl — every touch a calculation of my political worth. They didn't want Hayes. They wanted the Heir. "It's a snake pit."
"I didn't say take someone on a romantic date. Use the app." Tristan slapped me on the shoulder. "That's what Knottr was built for. Anonymous, untraceable, politically neutral. The only place on campus where legacy doesn't matter."
"It's a security risk," Chris observed from the bleachers, not missing the tactical flaw. "The encryption is robust, but meeting an anonymous shifter off-campus through a blind geolocation system is a vulnerability."
"You two are exhausting," Tristan groaned. "One of you is trying to carry the entire shifter political structure like a martyr, and the other analyzes a hookup app like a military extraction. Live a little. Before your father chains you to an arranged mate you can't stand to look at."
Tristan's words struck a nerve.
Unbidden, I thought of her.
Wren.
I had watched her from the edges of Northern ballrooms since we were teenagers.
Drawn to the quiet resilience in her eyes, the soft vanilla scent that cut through the heavy perfumes.
But she had belonged to Trent Hawthorne — locked into an ironclad arrangement before she was old enough to understand what it meant.
I'd had to watch his cold, apathetic treatment of her for years, paralyzed by pack law that forbade interfering with another Heir's recognized mate.
And then three weeks ago, Trent had discarded her publicly.
The anger in my chest was sharp and hot every time I thought of what he'd done to her core. The brutal gossip about her broken bond had dominated the legacy circles for weeks. It made me sick.
She was here. Right now. Somewhere on this campus, hiding from the shame he'd deliberately saddled her with.
I had seen her earlier tonight, pressed against the wall at the mixer in an oversized sweater, trying to fold herself into nothing near the emergency exit. The sight had nearly broken my control.
She had bolted the second I spoke to her. Looked at me and seen another Northern monster waiting to judge her.
My chest ached — a deep tug of protective instinct I had no legal or biological right to feel. She wasn't my mate. She wasn't my responsibility. To my father, she was less than nothing.
I couldn't help her. I was useless.
"Fine," I said roughly.
I walked to the bench and pulled my phone from my gym bag. Tristan grinned like he'd won a lottery.
"Set the filters to 'No Questions Asked' and 'Neutral Territory Only.'"
I opened Knottr. The interface was black and sleek — none of the colorful social posturing of regular apps. A utilitarian system built around defining a biological need and finding a secure, anonymous match. Sterile. what I needed to numb the ache.
I logged into my encrypted account and tapped 'Available for Match' to activate my location beacon.
The screen flashed red.
Not a standard match. A Crisis Beacon.
Emergency System Override Match. Unbonded Omega in immediate heat crisis. Proximity: 3 miles. Requirement: Suppression Stabilization. Critical Warning: No claim permitted.
A low growl vibrated in my throat — involuntary, biological, responding to the distress signal of an omega in pain. My aura flared, cracking the air pressure in the gym.
"What is it?" Chris asked sharply, already standing.
"Crisis beacon," I said. "An omega dropped into an early heat. Close proximity."
"In a mixed dorm?" Tristan's smile was gone. "Without a pack to contain the scent, the fever burns out their nervous system in hours. Or a rogue pack smells them first."
"Not tonight." I accepted the override match.
A location pin and a time-sensitive passcode downloaded to my screen — a neutral zone safehouse in the human sector of the city, magically reinforced, designed for this.
I grabbed my leather jacket. "I'm going."
"Keep your location active," Chris said. "If the heat broke the dorm wards, rogues might already be tracking the scent trail."
"No backup," I said, pulling the jacket on. "The beacon requested a single suppressor. I'll stabilize the fever with my aura, wait for the cycle to crash into safe sleep, and leave before they wake up."
Simple. Clinical. Anonymous. I didn't know who the omega was. Didn't need to. A transaction — I'd provide the biological anchor necessary to save a life, and the physical exertion would burn my own anxiety clean for a few hours. Mutually beneficial.
I walked out of the gym, locked onto the mission, unaware I was walking straight into the center of a myth that would rewrite the world.