Morning light spilled weakly through the stained glass windows of the Academy's Great Hall, painting fractured colors across the long stone tables. But even the fractured beauty couldn't disguise the tension hanging over the room like a shroud.
Elara stepped inside, every sense raw. Conversation didn't stop entirely;no one would dare draw attention to their whispers.....but it shifted, warping like a tide pulling back to reveal teeth beneath the waves.
"She made shadows crawl over the Alpha himself."
"I heard she's a demon wearing wolf skin."
"No....she's a witch. My uncle said the Elders have executed witches before."
"She's dangerous. Darius should've ended her."
"And yet… he claimed her. Protected her. Why?"
The voices slid across the hall, each word sharpened to a blade. Elara kept her gaze forward, her tray gripped too tightly in her hands. The weight of every stare pressed on her back.
Monster. Outcast. Curse.
The words weren't spoken aloud, but she felt them in the marrow of her bones.
She moved to the farthest end of the table, where no one dared sit near her. Her food lay untouched. Appetite was a luxury when your very existence was on trial.
From the raised platform at the head of the hall, the F4 lounged in dominance. Kael smirked openly at the whispers, as if every rumor were his personal entertainment. Valen glowered, radiating the promise of violence if anyone spoke against him. Cassian, ever the strategist, listened with calculating calm, no doubt cataloging which families shifted their loyalty in response to the scandal.
And Darius… Darius sat like a king above the chaos, unreadable. His golden eyes flicked once toward her, and in that brief moment, the hall fell utterly silent.
He didn't need to speak. His gaze alone reminded them all: she was under his protection.
The silence broke like glass as he looked away. Conversations resumed, lower, more secretive.
But if Elara thought protection meant safety, she was wrong.
---
Later, in the shadowed corridors that twisted between the towers of the Academy, the whispers turned sharper.
"She shouldn't even be here."
"If she's a danger, we'll all pay the price."
"My father says the packs won't stand for it. Darius has gone too far."
Elara kept her hood drawn low, but every word pierced her. Each corner she turned felt like a trap waiting to spring.
And spring it did.
A hand slammed against the wall in front of her, blocking her path. Jarek,second to Valen, his cruel smile curving like a blade. Behind him, two others lingered, eyes gleaming with hunger for blood.
"Little shadow wolf," Jarek drawled. "Thought you could hide in our halls after last night's spectacle?"
Elara's throat tightened. "Move."
His grin widened. "Or what? You'll let the darkness out again? Careful. That kind of power slips free, you might hurt yourself." He leaned closer, breath hot. "Or maybe you'll hurt all of us."
The wolves behind him snickered.
Elara's pulse pounded. She wanted to push back, to snarl, to show them she wasn't prey,but the memory of the shadows coiling around her, uncontrolled, froze her hand.
Before she could answer, a low voice cut through the air.
"Move."
Jarek stiffened. Slowly, his grin faltered as Cassian stepped from the shadows, his presence calm, unyielding. His grey eyes glinted with warning, not heat, not bravado....just cold certainty.
"Or I'll move you."
The tension snapped like a bowstring. Jarek sneered but stepped back, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Fine. Protect your little monster." His voice dripped disdain. "But remember, Cassian....when she burns, she'll burn you first."
They slinked away, laughter echoing.
Elara exhaled shakily. "Why...."
Cassian didn't look at her. His gaze lingered on the empty corridor ahead. "Don't mistake this for kindness. If you lose control again, not even Darius will save you." His eyes flicked to her then, steady, sharp. "Learn restraint. Or die."
And then he was gone, as silently as he'd arrived.
Elara's hand trembled against the wall. Protection or warning.....she couldn't tell.
---
That night, the Academy's Elders gathered in the obsidian chamber beneath the eastern tower. Torches burned with blue flame, casting long shadows across their ancient faces.
"She is not one of us," Elder Varian snarled, his silver hair catching the firelight. "Whatever darkness lies in her veins, it is not wolf blood."
"She survived the Alpha's challenge," countered Elder Sorin, his tone thoughtful. "And Darius claimed her. To challenge her presence is to challenge him."
Murmurs rippled. The weight of politics pressed as heavily as the stones around them.
"Darius grows reckless," Varian spat. "If she spreads corruption among the packs...."
"Or power," Sorin interrupted, eyes gleaming. "The girl might be a weapon."
The chamber thickened with debate, whispers of alliances, of betrayals. Elara's fate was no longer her own....it was currency, bartered in shadows.
And above it all, Darius's will loomed. None dared oppose him openly. Not yet.
---
By the week's end, Elara could barely walk the halls without hearing the word again and again.
Monster. Witch. Demon.
But beneath it, other voices stirred.
"She stood against Kael, Valen, even Darius."
"She's stronger than any of us."
"Maybe she's what we need....someone different."
Fear twisted with fascination. Hatred with reluctant respect.
And Elara… she felt the cage closing tighter.
For every rumor that sought to destroy her, there was another binding her to Darius's claim. His protection was not freedom. It was a chain, invisible but unbreakable.
In the silence of her dorm, she whispered into the cracked mirror.
"I'm not a monster," she told her reflection. Her voice shook. "I can control this. I have to."
But the shadows coiled behind her eyes, whispering back, No, little wolf. You are becoming something else.