Chapter 11 Rules?
SERAPHINA
“Why don’t you shift into your wolf?”
+8 Pearls
For a beat, my limbs paralyzed. How did he know I had not shifted even once? Had he been watching me? First he had already noticed that I had been hiding my scent and now he found out I was avoiding shifting. My throat squeezed shut. He had been suspicious of me. Panic flared hot in my chest, but I forced my face into a mask of defiance.
“I don’t need to shift to take you down,” I bit out, jerking my wrist free and stepping back.
His gaze narrowed, like he could see straight through the bravado to the storm beneath. The blood on his skin gleamed in the pale light, the stench of death and earth clinging to him like a second skin.
“You sure about that, little wolf?” His voice was silk over steel, a threat hidden behind something dangerously close to
amusement.
I snorted, trying to ignore the chill trickle down my spine. “Capable enough to win without it.” I could not let him get me.
His lips twitched into a smirk, and I hated the way my pulse jumped at the sight. “I really want to see how it works…”
I frowned, taking a step back ready to fight him as he seemed to be attacking me but a blur of motion to my left made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
A massive wolf, thick as a boulder and dark as storm clouds, burst through the trees.
Not just any competitor. One of the most ruthless bastards Alpha in the Academy.
Phina recognized his scent and aura, “He was with Jordan the other day!”
And she was absolutely correct because his blood–red eyes locked straight onto me.
No hesitation.
No challenge.
Just a predator zeroed in on his target.
Me
I secretly gritted my teeth, witnessing revenge in his eyes. Revenge for Jordan being kicked out of the academy but if he only knew his friend had already been killed and eaten by Dante.
However I didn’t have time to think. His timing was horrible. Ronan was also here. Now I had to fight two Alphas at once t that slowed me from crossing the finish line.
The wolf lunged. I ducked low, feeling his claws graze my shoulder, the force of his leap rattling my bones. I rolled, grabbing a jagged branch, and rammed it into his flank. Not deep enough to kill but enough to make him stumble.
I was on my feet in seconds but ready to counter another attack from Ronan wherever it was coming from but then I realised he was not there.
My pulse thundered
The air crackled, and I felt the weight of a gaze 1 whipped my head up
There he was Perched on a rocky ledge above, the moonlight cutting shadows across his face. His expression was unreadable.
Why the hell wasn’t he attacking? Was I not his prey? Was he not the hunter? Why waste time here, why not just cross the Inishing line?!
The wolf snarled behind me in rage. I turned around at lightning speed. He lunged again, jaws snapping, but I dodged left, slamming my elbow into his snout and landing a hard kick to his ribs. I felt the crack through my boot
Chapter 11 Rules?
But then Phina suddenly froze in my mind when we both felt it.
“More are closing in!” she growled in my mind.
I could feel the others. Predators circling.
“Why so many together?” Breathing hard. I murmured to myself.
Ronan’s amusing voice came. “Apparently this trial is no longer one on one.”
+8 Pearls
My muscles tensed, understanding the other wolves were actually aligning, others breaking ranks. Packs forming out of necessity, old grudges forgotten in the face of survival.
It wasn’t strength alone anymore.
It was strategy, plan and simple.
They are going against the rules. Are they not afraid of being kicked our of the academy?” After seeing what happened to Jordan, how could they dare to do something like this?,
“Rules?” Ronan chuckled. “There are no such things as rules in this Academy. Rules are something that are only used when Alpha instructors are watching. Here in this cursed forest where not everyone will get out alive, no one is watching. No one cares. Everyone is just…he paused and looked at me up and down. “…hunting,”
My body reacted in a strange way to the way he looked at me.
I cursed under my breath.
Until Ronan moved towards me without warning.
I grew alert, ready to fight. So it was finally coming. But suddenly he turned his direction slightly, intercepting a wolf that had been creeping toward my blindside. I turned in surprise. How had Phina not sensed this wolf? Ronan’s claws tore through the wolf like paper, dropping him before the wolf even had a chance to yelp.
I watched Ronan’s actions while holding my breath.
For a fraction of a second, our eyes met.
Not the look of an ally.”
Not quite the look of a killer either.
Something darker,
Possession.
Then he started walking towards me. The look in his eyes was not murderous but more dangerous than this. His intentions towards me screamed danger, not death. From the corner of my eye I saw a wolf leap out of the darkness. Ronan reacted towards his wolf, that was my chance.
I bolted deeper into the woods, letting him take care of that wolf. I did not have time for his intentions or fights. I had to cross the fish line.
My pulse pounding in my ears, branches whipping at my face. I didn’t care. Didn’t dare look back.
But I could feel Ronan
Not chang
But there
His presence was sharp in iny veins, like a second heartbeat.
And I knew my escape had passed lum off.
Dad he expect that I would stand around and wait for him to fish that w
wolf so that he could attack me next!
I kept running, dodging shapes in the mist, the sounds of starIS JULI HUWIS Sausing me
but I forced myself to keep moving.
This wasn’t survival anymore. It was endurance.
A ruthless race to see who would outlast the others.
But then what came into view was not the finish line like I had been expecting. It was a structure rising out of the mist like a ghost.
Ruins.
“Shit! What is this place?” I stopped dead in my tracks.
There were ancient stone walls half–collapsed, vines curling over broken archways, the bones of some long–forgotten place. My stomach twisted. “I followed the map, so how did I get lost and ended up here?”
I stumbled toward it, slipping inside the shattered remnants of what had once been a temple, or a shrine. Symbols I didn’t recognize were carved into the walls, but the air was thick with some mysterious power that felt a little scary.
That’s when I sensed someone’s presence other than mine.
“We are not alone,” Phina whispered in my mind.
A shadow shifted to my left.
I spun, heart pounding.
What was it?
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