Iris's POV
I woke up at three in the morning still crying.
Petra was still there. Still holding me. She'd been holding me for hours and hadn't complained once.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. My voice was hoarse from sobbing. "You should sleep."
"Sleep is overrated." She squeezed my shoulder. "Besides, my best friend just got her heart ripped out in front of eight hundred people. I'm not going anywhere."
Best friend. We'd known each other for six hours. But somehow it felt true.
"Does it always hurt this much?" I asked. The pain in my chest hadn't stopped. It just kept going and going.
"I don't know," Petra said honestly. "I've never heard of anyone rejecting their mate before. Most wolves would rather die."
That made it worse somehow. Caspian would rather reject me than die. I was literally worse than death to him.
Fresh tears spilled down my face. I thought I'd run out, but apparently not.
"Listen to me." Petra turned my face toward hers. Her eyes were fierce. "You can spend the next four years being sad about this. You can let him make you small. Let him make you feel worthless."
She paused. Magic crackled in the air around her. Little sparks of silver light.
"Or," she continued, her voice getting stronger, "you can make yourself so powerful that he chokes on his mistake every single time he sees you."
Something stirred in my chest. Not the pain. Something else. Something hot and fierce.
"How?" My voice came out stronger too. "I'm just a human. He's right about that part. I am weak compared to everyone here."
"Right now, yes." Petra smiled. "But that can change. Iris, this school has combat training. It's mandatory for all students."
I'd read about that in the welcome packet. All students had to take combat classes. Some kind of old tradition.
"So?" I didn't understand what she was getting at.
"So, humans usually take the modified version. Easy stuff. Basic self-defense. Nothing too hard because they don't want you getting hurt."
"Okay..."
Petra's eyes glinted. "But there's an advanced program. Professor Frost runs it. He's an ancient werewolf warrior. Fought in wars before most countries even existed. And he doesn't care if you're human, werewolf, vampire, or fairy. He only cares if you're willing to work."
My heart started beating faster. "Are you saying—"
"I'm saying you could request the full supernatural combat level. Train with the werewolves and vampires. Learn to fight like them."
"They'd never accept me. I'd get destroyed."
"Probably," Petra agreed cheerfully. "At first. You'd get knocked down. A lot. It would hurt. You might even break some bones."
"You're not making this sound very appealing."
"But," she continued, ignoring my comment, "if you stuck with it. If you trained harder than anyone else. If you refused to quit no matter how many times you got knocked down..."
She paused for effect.
"You could become something nobody expects. Something nobody believes is possible. A human who can fight supernaturals and
win."
The fierce feeling in my chest grew stronger. Pushing out the pain. Replacing it with something else.
Anger. Determination. Purpose.
"He'd have to watch," I said slowly. "Caspian. He'd have to watch me train."
"Oh yes." Petra's smile got bigger. "The future Alpha has teaching assistant duties in the combat program. He'll see every single session."
Good. That was good. Let him watch. Let him see me fail and fall and get back up again. Let him see me transform from the weak human he rejected into something he never imagined.
"When can I sign up?" I asked.
"Professor Frost's office opens at eight. But Iris..." Petra's expression got serious. "You need to understand what you're choosing. This won't be easy. Most humans who try this quit within a week. The training is brutal. You'll be in pain every single day."
"I'm already in pain," I said. "At least this pain would mean something."
Petra studied my face for a long moment. Then she nodded. "Okay. Then get some sleep. You'll need your strength."
I tried to sleep. I really did. But my mind was racing. Planning. Imagining.
When dawn finally came, I hadn't slept at all. But I felt more awake than I had in hours.
I looked in the mirror. My eyes were red and swollen from crying. My face was pale. I looked exactly like what I was: a girl who'd been broken.
But I was done being broken.
I washed my face. Tied my hair back. Put on clothes I could move in.
"You're really doing this," Petra said. She was watching me from her bed.
"I'm really doing this."
"Good." She threw a granola bar at me. "Eat something. You can't train on an empty stomach."
I ate the granola bar even though I wasn't hungry. Petra was right. I needed fuel for what was coming.
At exactly eight o'clock, I stood outside Professor Frost's office. The door was old wood with scratches all over it. Claw marks, I realized. From werewolves.
I raised my hand to knock. It was shaking.
You don't have to do this, a small voice in my head whispered.
You could take the easy classes. Stay safe. Stay comfortable.
But safe and comfortable meant weak. And weak meant Caspian had been right to reject me.
I knocked.
"Enter." The voice from inside was deep. Old. Powerful.
I pushed open the door.
Professor Frost sat behind a desk. He was huge. Easily seven feet tall even sitting down. His hair was white, his face covered in scars. But his eyes were sharp and clear. Ancient and knowing.
He looked at me. Really looked. Like he could see straight through to my bones.
"Human," he said. Not a question. A fact.
"Yes, sir."
"You're supposed to be in the modified program."
"I want the full program, sir. The advanced one."
His eyebrows went up. "Why?"
I could have lied. Could have said something about wanting a challenge or pushing myself.
But something about his eyes made me tell the truth.
"Because someone called me weak," I said. My voice didn't shake. "And I'm going to prove him wrong."
Professor Frost stared at me for a long moment. Then he smiled. It was a terrifying smile. All teeth.
"You're the one," he said. "The human mate the Ravencourt boy rejected yesterday."
My face burned. "Yes, sir."
"Good," he said. "Anger is useful. It will keep you going when everything else tells you to quit."
He stood up. He was even bigger standing. He pulled out a form and slid it across the desk.
"Sign this. It says you understand the risks. That you could get seriously hurt. That the school isn't responsible if you break bones or worse."
I picked up the pen. My hand was steady now.
"One more thing," Professor Frost said. "If you sign that paper, you're committing to this. No quitting. No complaining. You will train three times harder than any supernatural student because you have three times further to go."
"I understand."
"The pain will be extraordinary. You will want to quit every single day."
"I won't quit," I said.
"Can you handle it?"
I thought about Caspian's face. The way he'd looked at me like I was nothing. The way he'd destroyed me in front of everyone.
I thought about his voice saying
weak.
"Yes," I said. And I signed my name.
Professor Frost took the paper. He looked at my signature. Then he looked at me.
"First session is tomorrow at dawn. Don't be late."
"I won't be."
I turned to leave. My heart was pounding. I'd actually done it. I'd signed up.
"Miss Hale?" Professor Frost called.
I stopped. Looked back.
"I've trained thousands of students over the centuries," he said. "Werewolves. Vampires. Creatures you've never heard of. Some of the strongest fighters in history."
"Yes, sir."
His smile returned. That terrifying, all-teeth smile.
"I've never trained a human before. This should be interesting."
He paused. His ancient eyes glinted with something that looked like excitement.
"Let's see if you can do the impossible, shall we?"
And as I walked out of his office, one thought burned through my mind.
I will.
Tomorrow, everything would change.
Tomorrow, I would begin becoming something Caspian Ravencourt never imagined possible.
Tomorrow, the weak human girl would start her transformation into a warrior.
And he was going to watch every single second of it.