Chapter 3 The Cold Commander Steps Down

Vespera Thorne's POV

His words hung in the freezing air between us like a blade of ice that would not melt.

Three days.

He gave me three days before he would break me. Three days before I would beg on my knees for a ticket back to the gutter I had spent my whole life trying to leave.

The students held their breath. The Grand Hall was silent. Next to me, Maeve Sterling's pink lips curled into a sharp, happy smile. She did not mind that Stryker had cut off her fight with me. The Commander had just given me a worse punishment than any she could have planned. "Solitary endurance training" under Alpha Commander Stryker Vance was a soft name for torture.

My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst through my skin. But I kept every muscle in my face still. I would not let him see me flinch. I would not let him see the fear clawing at the back of my throat.

"I don't need three days, Commander," I said. My voice was low and rough, but it carried through the quiet hall. "I've been breaking every day of my life. You'll have to try much harder than that."

A horrified murmur ran through the high-born heirs. Nobody talked back to Stryker Vance. Nobody.

Stryker's steel-blue eyes narrowed to thin slits. His dark command aura grew so thick around us that my lungs seized. I fought for one scrap of air. For a second, I thought he would draw the broadsword at his hip and run me through right there on the white marble.

Instead, he stepped back. The space between us opened up. He did not smile. He did not scowl. His jaw stayed hard as granite, and his face was a mask of cold hostility.

"5:00 AM. The northern training yard," Stryker barked. He turned his back on me and spoke to the whole hall. "If you are one minute late, Thorne, you will spend the night hanging by your wrists from the outer iron gates."

He did not wait for an answer. He quickly walked up the center aisle, his heavy coat moving  around his boots, and went out through an arched side door.

The door slammed. The crushing pressure in the hall vanished. I let out a shaky breath. My legs shook so hard that I had to lock my knees to stay on my feet.

"Well, well," Maeve said sweetly. She stepped back into my space, and her ice-gray eyes gleamed. "You haven't been here an hour, orphan, and you've already made an enemy of the most ruthless Alpha in North America. Enjoy your sleep tonight. It's the last peace you'll get."

She turned on her heel and walked confidently toward the upper elevators with her two huge enforcers behind her. The other students followed. They scattered across the big room and threw dark, mocking looks back at me.

I stood alone in the middle of the hall.

I picked up my old canvas bag and went down the dark stone stairs to the basement dorms. They were for scholarship students and low-tier servants.

My room was at the end of a narrow hallway. It was a tiny cell with no window. It held an iron bed with a thin canvas mattress, a small wooden washstand, and one flickering candle.

I dropped my bag, sat on the edge of the hard bed, and put my face in my hands.

Why did he look at me like that?

I lifted my hands and touched the faded crescent scar near my collarbone. When Stryker Vance looked at me, it was not the same as Maeve's disgust or Warden Briggs's mockery. His look felt personal. It was a cold, burning hatred that seemed to go deeper than plain prejudice.

I shook my head to clear it. It did not matter. At 5:00 AM, he would try to destroy me, and I had to live through it.

I pulled off my mud-soaked boots and curled up on the bed under the thin wool blanket. I shut my eyes and tried to make my body rest.

4:30 AM.

I woke before the brass morning bell rang. My body was stiff and sore from the cold, but my mind was sharp. I was running on nothing but the need to survive.

I put on my worn leather boots and tied the laces tight. I pulled on a dark, fitted training shirt. I splashed freezing water on my face and wiped it dry. Then I stepped out into the dim halls of Blackwood.

I wandered the maze of granite hallways until I found a heavy iron door marked Northern Training Grounds.

I pushed it open and walked out into the dark before dawn.

The northern yard was a lonely arena, fenced with iron and cut into the edge of a high mountain cliff. Wind howled through the pines and carried drops of freezing rain.

Commander Stryker Vance stood in the middle of the muddy ring.

He wore a black tactical shirt that showed his broad shoulders and hard muscle. His dark slate-brown hair was damp from the rain. His hands were wrapped tight in leather combat tape.

He turned slowly when the door creaked shut. His steel-blue eyes found mine through the falling rain.

"4:52 AM," Stryker said. His deep voice cut through the wind. "You're early, Thorne."

"I don't like to keep people waiting, Commander," I said, and stepped onto the muddy field.

Stryker tossed a pair of thick iron training weights into the mud at my feet.

"Put them on," he ordered coldly. "Twenty pounds on each ankle. Ten on each wrist. Then run twenty laps around the outer cliff track."

My heart sank. But I knelt in the cold mud and strapped the heavy iron bands onto my ankles and wrists.

"Move," Stryker said.

I turned and began to jog toward the cliff track. Every step was hard. The iron weights dragged me down into the freezing mud.

By lap fifteen, my vision was blurring. My mouth tasted of copper, and I fought for air. My left boot caught on a slick tree root sticking out of the mud.

I pitched forward and crashed onto the frozen ground. Pain shot through my knees and palms as I hit the sharp rocks.

Slow, heavy footsteps came through the slush.

Stryker's combat boots stopped inches from my face. He bent down, grabbed the collar of my shirt with one hand, and yanked me up until I knelt in front of him.

"Is this it?" Stryker sneered. His steel-blue eyes burned inches from mine. "Is this all the street trash has? Get up!"

"I... I can't," I choked out. Blood dripped from my scraped lip into the mud.

"You can, or you pack your bag and get off my mountain!" he growled, and pulled me closer.

The arrogance in his voice set off something dark and wild in my gut. My tiredness vanished. A sudden, violent rage took its place.

I grabbed his wrist with both hands. My bloody fingers dug into his leather wrap.

"I said," I hissed through my teeth, "I'm not leaving!"

I shoved against his chest with all the strength I had left.

My wet boots lost their grip on the slick slope, and I slipped sideways. Stryker reached out without thinking to catch me before I fell over the rocks. His bare forearm brushed my bare neck, just below my ear.

The moment his skin touched mine, it did not feel like skin on skin.

It felt like a lightning strike.

A blinding flash of golden light burst from the spot where we touched. It exploded under my skin with a loud hum. A shockwave of pure energy blasted outward and threw both of us back into the mud.

I hit the ground hard and gasped for breath. The mark on my collarbone burned so hot that it felt like a branding iron pressed into my flesh.

Across the ring, Stryker pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

His eyes were wide. The pupils in his steel-blue eyes had blown out, and a ring of pure gold glowed around them. He looked down at his right arm. The silver scars along his forearm were pulsing with a bright, frightening golden light. It matched the burn on my chest.

He stared at his glowing arm. Then he lifted his head and looked at me. His face was pale with shock.

His wolf was bowing to me.