The snow is waist-deep, a suffocating blanket of white that turns the world into a frozen graveyard. Every breath I take feels like swallowing broken glass, tearing at my throat and lungs.
My legs are leaden, burning with exhaustion, but I can't stop. I can't even slow down.
"Run, Victoria! Don't look back!"
My mother's voice is a frantic sob, barely audible over the whistling wind. Behind us, the forest is alive with the sounds of a nightmare.
I hear the snapping of ancient branches and the rhythmic, terrifying thud of heavy paws hitting the frozen earth. The High Alpha's enforcers are close. They are the hunters of the elite, the monsters who keep the bloodlines pure by erasing anyone who doesn't fit the mold.
I can smell them; the copper tang of fresh blood, the cold bite of iron, and a dominance so thick it makes my lungs seize. To them, we aren't people with names and dreams. We aren't a family trying to survive the winter. We are packless filth. We are stray dogs. We are prey.
A shadow rises. A wolf the size of a small car lunges from the darkness of the pines, its golden eyes glowing with a lethal, prehistoric hunger. It hits the ground with a bone-shaking impact, pinning my father to the red-stained snow. The sound of his final scream.
I bolt upright in bed, a strangled cry dying in my throat before it can wake the neighbors.
I didn't go home. I decided to pass the night in my small faculty apartment which is now silent, bathed in the pale, sickly light of a streetlamp outside.
The only sound is the frantic, uneven thumping of my heart against my ribs, sounding like a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage. I'm drenched in a cold sweat, my hair sticking to my forehead, and my sheets are tangled around my legs like shackles.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, pushing until I see spots, trying with everything I have to erase the image of those glowing gold eyes from the back of my eyelids.
The nightmare is a reminder. It's a warning from the ghosts of my past. To most girls in this world, a powerful Alpha is a protector, a dream, a fated mate who will provide a life of luxury and safety. To me, an Alpha is a death sentence. An Alpha is the creature that tears families apart and leaves nothing but blood in the snow.
Killian Blackwood has those same eyes. He has that same crushing dominance that makes the air feel like lead. Every time I let my guard down, every time my inner wolf whines for his touch or leans into his scent, I am dancing on the literal grave of my family.
I can't let the 'Mate Bond' trick me into thinking he's safe. Nature doesn't care about my survival; it only cares about the match. He is a predator by birth, and I am the rogue who is supposed to be his prey.
"Never again," I whisper into the dark, my voice cracking.
I get out of bed, my movements stiff and robotic. I won't quit this job, and I won't run away like a coward, but I will change.
I will bury Victoria the woman; the one who feels heat and longing, and I will become Ms. Moon the machine.
I spend the early, silent hours of the morning prepping the most grueling, complex lesson plan of the entire semester. I focus on the technicalities, the rubrics, the word counts, and the strict, unforgiving penalties for failure.
I will treat Killian Blackwood like a name on a seating chart, a set of data points, nothing more.
When the bell rings for first period, I am ready. I am armor-plated.
I walk into the classroom, my spine like a rod of iron and my gaze fixed strictly on the whiteboard. I don't scan the room for a specific face. I don't inhale deeply to look for the scent of cedar and rain.
I hand out the assignment packets with a clinical, chilling efficiency, the heels of my black pumps clicking sharply against the floor like a ticking clock.
"This project is forty percent of your final grade," I say. My voice is clipped, professional, and entirely devoid of warmth.
I outline the late-submission penalties, my tone as cold and sharp as the winter I survived. "There will be no extensions. No exceptions. If you fail to meet the criteria, you fail the unit."
The room is suffocatingly quiet. The usual morning whispers and the shuffling of backpacks have completely stopped.
I can feel it; his golden stare burning into the side of my face, hot enough to leave a mark. It's a heavy, silent pressure that makes the air in the classroom feel thin, as if he's trying to pull the oxygen right out of my lungs just by looking at me.
I take a shallow breath and finally force myself to meet his eyes. I expect to see the flash of an arrogant smirk, a silent challenge to my authority, or the bright heat of Alpha anger. I expect him to push back, to show the room that he isn't bothered by my sudden coldness.
Instead, Killian just stares at me.
His expression is utterly unreadable, a mask of stone that rivals my own. His eyes are colder than the frost that used to bloom on my childhood bedroom window.
He doesn't say a word. He doesn't try to charm me with a comment or mock my sudden shift in tone. He doesn't even lean back in that lazy, king-like way he usually does.
Slowly, deliberately, he picks up his heavy fountain pen. He lowers his head, breaking the eye contact, and begins to write. The rhythmic, aggressive scratching of his pen against the paper is the only sound in the dead, heavy silence of the room.
He has accepted my 'Teacher' mask. He has stepped back behind the line I drew with such desperation. He is giving me exactly what I asked for: professional distance.
The hollow, jagged ache that opens up in my chest at that moment tells me I've made a terrible mistake. I haven't escaped the hunt; I've just changed the rules of the game.
I haven't found safety; I've just traded a physical chase for a psychological war that I am already losing.
As I watch him write, ignoring me completely, I realize that being hunted by Killian was terrifying, but being forgotten by him might be even worse.