Chapter 2 The Stares of the Bloodlines

Vespera Thorne's POV

The heat in my veins surged so hard that I almost gasped. My fingers locked on the strap of my duffel bag until my knuckles turned white.

The man at the top of the stone steps did not move. He kept his eyes on the crescent mark on my collarbone. His look was cold and steady. The force coming off him was so old and heavy that the foggy air was hard to breathe. Every instinct told me to shrink back. It told me to lower my eyes and act like the invisible orphan I had always been.

Instead, I lifted my chin. I dug my heels into the wet stone and stared right back into his steel-blue eyes.

A heavy silence hung over the courtyard. None of the rich heirs around us made a sound. The air felt pulled tight, as if one breath could snap it.

Before anything could happen between us, the commander looked away. He turned on his heel. His long coat snapped around his boots, and he went back through the double doors without a word.

The weight on my throat vanished. I swallowed and pulled a long, shaky breath of icy air into my lungs. My heart beat against my ribs like a trapped bird. I kept my back straight. No one could see my hands shake.

"Move it, trash! Keep moving!"

Warden Briggs barked from behind me. His rough voice was thick with tobacco. He shoved my shoulder hard, and my bag jerked. "Inside the Grand Hall. Orientation is starting, and nobody keeps the elite waiting."

I pushed my hands deep into my coat pockets to hide the shaking. Then I stepped over the threshold into Blackwood Academy.

The outside of the fortress kept enemies out. The inside told everyone who entered where they stood on the food chain. The ceiling rose dozens of feet over my head on thick arches of polished dark granite. Huge silver chandeliers hung from iron chains. They threw sharp, glittering light onto the white marble floor.

Heavy velvet banners hung between the tall arched windows. They were stitched in gold and crimson thread with the crests of the oldest, richest Alpha lines in North America. These bloodlines had ruled packs, led armies and held great fortunes for hundreds of years.

And then there was me.

I walked across the clean marble, and my worn boots left a trail of dark, watery mud and melting slush. Every wet, squishy step echoed off the stone walls like a gunshot.

The hall was full of hundreds of students. They stood in neat circles by rank and territory. When I came through the doors, the low talk faded to a quiet hush.

I felt them right away. Dozens of aura scans hit me at once.

High-borns used this as a normal greeting. They sent out a little energy to test another person's strength, rank and bloodline without throwing a punch. To an orphan raised in the dirt, it felt sickening. It felt like cold, ghostly fingers pressing on my skin. They searched for a spark of Alpha power, a hint of old blood, or a mark of nobility.

They found nothing.

To their fine, noble senses, I was empty. A nameless ghost from the slums.

Cruel, muffled laughter spread through the crowd.

"Is this a joke?" a boy whispered loudly near a front pillar. "Did the school hire a new maid? Or did someone leave the service door open?"

"Look at her coat," a girl said with a sneer. "It looks like they dug it out of a pack scrap heap. My dog's bed is made of better cloth."

The whispers got louder and bounced off the high ceiling. They kept rising, meant to make me feel small. My eyes stung. The shame of a lifetime of being treated like dirt rose into my throat. Inside my pockets, I dug my nails into my palms. The sharp pain helped me keep my face blank.

I had survived hunger. I had survived freezing winters in unheated sheds. I had survived beatings from pack enforcers who thought orphans felt no pain. I would not fall apart in front of rich kids who had never bled for a meal.

"Out of the way, beggar."

A sharp, commanding voice cut through the hall. It was colder than the Oregon wind.

The students parted at once. They stepped back fast, as if they had done it a hundred times, and made a wide path.

A girl walked down the middle of the hall toward me. She wore a tailored elite pack uniform. The jacket was crisp and jet black, with real silver thread, and it fit her like a second skin. Her hair was pale platinum, pulled into a tight high ponytail. It showed off her sharp, pale cheekbones and cold ice-gray eyes.

Two huge male shifters walked half a step behind her. Their broad shoulders and thick necks showed they were high-ranking pack enforcers. They followed her like guard dogs.

I knew those ice-gray eyes. She was the girl in the back of the black SUV, the one who had let her driver splash mud on my boots at the gate.

Maeve Sterling. Daughter of High Council Elder Sterling. True nobility.

Maeve stopped two feet in front of me. Her eyes ran down my wet, worn out pant cuffs, my mud-caked boots, and the old duffel bag at my side. Her pink lips curled in deep disgust.

"I heard a rumor that the board gave one scholarship to an unbacked orphan this year," Maeve said. Her voice was smooth and cruel. She did not lower it. She wanted the whole hall to hear. "I thought it had to be a rumor. Blackwood has standards, after all."

She stepped closer and leaned in. Her sharp, expensive floral perfume covered the smell of wet pine.

"Tell me, orphan," she whispered, with a venomous purr. "Did you wash dishes or sell your body to buy that bus ticket? Looking at you, I'd say you overpaid."

Sharp, cruel laughter burst out around us. The two enforcers smirked and crossed their thick arms. They waited for me to drop my head, cry, or say sorry for breathing the same air as their mistress.

My heart pounded in my throat. My blood boiled. I wanted to lunge and wipe the smirk off her pretty, pale face with my bare fists. But I knew the rules here. If I swung first, they would throw me in a cellar cage before sundown.

So I did not swing.

I took one slow step forward. I stopped inches from her face.

Maeve's smirk flickered for a moment. I had caught her off guard.

I looked straight into her ice-gray eyes. My dark gaze was cold and did not bend. I did not lower my head. I did not flinch. I let her see all the street-bred defiance that had kept me alive in the gutter.

"My name is Vespera Thorne," I said. My voice was quiet, flat and steady, and it carried through the silent hall. "If you ever splash mud on my boots again, noble, I won't just stand here and look at you."

The crowd gasped as one.

Maeve's eyes went wide. Her pale face flushed red in patches, furious red. No low-born shifter, and certainly no nameless orphan, had ever spoken to her like that.

"You insolent little bitch," Maeve hissed. Her voice dropped to a low, vicious growl. Her pupils widened and her wolf energy flared. A hard wave of command aura burst from her body, aimed at my head to force me to my knees.

The pressure hit my chest like a blow. It was heavy and hard to breathe through. My knees buckled a little under the weight of her noble blood. But I locked my joints and clenched my teeth until my jaw hurt. I would not bow an inch.

Before Maeve could step closer, a heavy metal thud rang out from the raised platform at the front of the hall.

It was not a gavel. It was the broadsword iron cover hitting the stone floor.

The Grand Hall turned cold again. My breath made a faint white mist in front of my lips.

"That is enough."

The Commander's voice was not loud. But it carried such total authority that it crushed Maeve's aura at once.

Silence dropped over the hall like a heavy blanket. Maeve shut her mouth and stepped back with a stiff, angry curtsy. Her ice-gray eyes promised ruin as soon as we were out of sight.

I turned my head to the front of the room.

Commander Stryker Vance stood on the platform with the senior instructors beside him. His dark slate-brown hair was neat. His jaw was set hard. His steel-blue eyes swept over the quiet students with cold calm.

"Blackwood Academy does not exist for child's play, social rank or arguing," Stryker said. His voice boomed off the granite walls like thunder. "You are here to be forged into weapons. Weakness will not be tolerated. Disobedience will be punished. Those who cannot meet the standard will be broken and thrown out."

His eyes drifted slowly across the hall. They passed over the rich heirs and over Maeve. Then they landed on me again.

His steel-blue eyes locked on mine. They did not blink. I could not read them, and they were terribly intense.

"Starting tomorrow morning," Stryker went on, his eyes never leaving my face, "the official evaluation begins. You will be tested in blood, endurance and combat. There are no titles here. Only those who survive."

He stepped down from the platform and walked slowly down the center aisle toward me. The crowd parted at once for the Alpha Commander.

He stopped right in front of me. His tall frame, six foot three, blocked the light from the silver chandelier and put me in his shadow. He smelled of rain, steel and crushed pine, and the scent rolled off him in heavy waves.

"Vespera Thorne," Stryker said softly. His voice was low and gravelly, and it sent a shudder down my spine.

"Yes, Commander?" I said. I kept my voice as steady as I could.

He leaned down a little, his face inches from mine. His cold breath brushed my cheek. His eyes dropped to my collarbone. He watched the faint crescent scar rise and fall as I breathed fast.

"Your scholarship assignment has been processed," he murmured, so quietly that only I could hear. "As your Commander, I am using my full authority over your schedule."

He straightened and looked down at me with open hostility. It made my blood run cold.

"You will not attend general classes," Stryker said loudly, so the whole room could hear. "Starting at 5:00 AM tomorrow, you will train alone, with endurance training under my direct watch."

He leaned in again. His steel-blue eyes burned with a dark, dangerous promise.

"I give you three days, orphan," he whispered, cold against my ear. "Three days before I break you so completely that you beg me on your knees to send you back to the gutter."