Bound to My Enemy's Alpha

Garrick

IVY’S POV

A burly man stepped forward at the instructor's gesture. He was easily a head taller than Ivy and built like something meant to break down doors rather than open them, thick-necked, scarred across one brow, his amber eyes flat and utterly uninterested in whatever she might have to say about the matchup.

"This is Garrick," the instructor said, almost pleasant now, which somehow made it worse.

"Three seasons here. Undefeated in the yard so far this year." He gestured toward the muddy circle scored with old impact marks.

"Consider this a proper introduction to what training actually looks like."

Ivy didn't bother arguing. Arguing would only give the watching crowd more to enjoy.

She stepped into the circle instead, rolling her shoulders, trying to ignore the way every set of eyes on the training ground had sharpened with interest the moment the pairing was announced.

"First one to yield," the instructor called out. "Begin."

Garrick didn't wait for a second signal.

He crossed the distance between them faster than his size should have allowed, and Ivy barely got her arm up before his fist connected with her ribs hard enough to drive the air from her lungs entirely. She hit the mud a heartbeat later, ears ringing, and had just enough time to register the taste of copper before his shadow fell over her again.

Get up, she told herself, and did, though her legs shook doing it.

She lasted longer than she expected to, if nothing else. She was faster than him, at least, quick enough to duck under two more swings, to land one solid strike of her own against his jaw that snapped his head sideways and earned a surprised murmur from the crowd. But speed only carried her so far against strength like his, and every exchange ended the same way: Ivy scrambling back to her feet, spitting blood, while Garrick barely seemed to notice he'd been hit at all.

The fourth time he put her on the ground, he didn't let her back up right away. A heavy boot pressed between her shoulder blades, pinning her into the churned mud, and Ivy's vision swam white at the edges from the impact before it had even fully registered.

"Yield," Garrick said, bored, like he was asking her to pass the salt.

Ivy's whole body screamed at her to say the word. Every rational, exhausted part of her understood that continuing served no purpose beyond pride, that the outcome had been decided the moment the instructor had called his name instead of anyone else's.

She didn't yield. She twisted beneath his boot instead, ignored the fresh flare of pain along her ribs, and drove her elbow back hard enough to catch him somewhere soft enough to make him grunt and shift his weight, but it was still not enough to win, not nearly enough, though enough to buy herself half a second to roll free and stagger back upright, blood dripping steadily from her nose now, mud plastered down one entire side of her body.

Garrick looked almost impressed for exactly as long as it took him to close the distance again and put her down for good, one clean strike that folded her legs out from under her and left her flat on her back, staring up at grey morning sky, unable to convince her lungs to draw a full breath.

"Yield," the instructor called this time, sounding faintly bored himself. "We don’t want a dead body on the first day."

Ivy lay in the mud a moment longer than she needed to, not from stubbornness this time, simply because moving felt genuinely impossible.

"I yield," she finally managed, the words scraping her throat raw.

A few claps sounded somewhere in the crowd, sparse and mocking rather than sympathetic. Ivy didn't miss the way the instructor's gaze tracked the whole exchange with something that might have been satisfaction.

"Not bad, for a first attempt," he said, loud enough to carry. "You lasted longer than I expected. Though I suppose that's not saying much, given what I expected." A ripple of laughter answered him. "Go clean yourself up. Try not to bleed on anything important."

The healer's station did what it could for the worst of the damage, she had her arms bandaged and bones readjusted into place. It was much but enough that Ivy could walk without wincing every step, though the deep ache along her ribs promised to linger for days regardless. She got into her room changed, and she had exactly enough time left to find her next class before it started without her again.

The lecture hall, mercifully, required nothing of her but sitting still and listening. An older instructor spoke at length about pack law and the old treaties between Houses, territorial rights, succession disputes, the formal language used to declare grievance between Barons without triggering outright war. Ivy took what notes she could manage with hands that still trembled faintly from the morning's beating, grateful for an hour that asked nothing more of her than staying upright in her seat.

She barely registered the lecture ending until the room around her had already begun to empty, chairs scraping, voices rising back to their normal volume as the tension of forced quiet broke.

Ivy gathered her things slowly, aching in a dozen places at once, and made her way out into the corridor with every intention of finding her room and collapsing into whatever passed for rest before her next obligation caught up with her.

She didn't make it far, when she met a group.

They stood, waiting just beyond the lecture hall doors, five of them, positioned with the deliberate, unhurried confidence of people who'd chosen this exact spot for a reason. At their center stood a woman Ivy hadn't seen before, tall and sharp-featured, her dark hair braided back severely from a face arranged into an expression of polite, poisonous interest.

Her eyes carried a deep, unmistakable amber-gold, deeper than anything Ivy had seen among the other students so far, marking her as something more than an ordinary sworn wolf.

And all the girls attention was on her.