CHAPTER 1:ACADEMY
1049 Words
Glosh had learned early that birthdays were meaningless.
They were reminders of things she didn’t have—parents, warmth, a place that belonged to her. At the orphanage, birthdays passed quietly. Sometimes there was a candle stuck into a stale cupcake if donations had been good that month. Most years, there was nothing at all.
So when the clock struck midnight on her eighteenth birthday, Glosh was sweeping the front hall, just like any other night.
The moonlight spilled through the tall, cracked windows, silver and cold, painting the dust in the air like drifting stars. Glosh paused, resting her weight on the broom handle. Her chest felt strange—tight, restless. As if something inside her was waiting.
She shook the feeling away.
You’re imagining things, she told herself. She always did.
Then came the knock.
Three sharp strikes echoed through the orphanage gates—too loud, too deliberate. Not the sound of a drunk passerby or a lost traveler. This knock carried authority.
Glosh frowned. “Great,” she muttered. “On my birthday.”
She set the broom aside and walked toward the entrance, her worn shoes barely making a sound on the stone floor. When she opened the gate, moonlight flooded in—and with it, a woman who did not belong to Glosh’s world.
The stranger stood tall, cloaked in black velvet stitched with faint silver symbols that seemed to glow under the moon. Her presence was overwhelming, like a storm held tightly beneath calm skin. Her eyes—golden, sharp, unblinking—locked onto Glosh with terrifying certainty.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“You’re blocking the entrance,” Glosh finally said, lifting her chin. “If you’re here to complain or donate, talk to the matron.”
The woman’s gaze softened—not with kindness, but with something heavier. Pain.
“My name is Angella,” she said. “And I am your mother.”
The words struck like a blade.
Glosh laughed, short and hollow. “That’s not funny.”
Angella didn’t move.
“My mother died giving birth to me,” Glosh snapped. “That’s what they told me. So unless you’re a ghost, you should leave.”
Angella stepped forward. The air shifted.
Suddenly, Glosh felt it—that strange tightness in her chest again, stronger now. Her pulse quickened. The moon above seemed brighter, closer, as if watching.
“I left you,” Angella said quietly. “To save you.”
Something inside Glosh cracked.
“You don’t get to say that,” she hissed. “You don’t get to show up after eighteen years and call yourself anything to me.”
Angella closed her eyes briefly, as if steadying herself. When she opened them again, they glowed brighter than before.
“You are not human,” she said. “You are a werewolf. And you are my daughter.”
The world tilted.
Before Glosh could speak, the air exploded with sound—howls rising from the forest beyond the orphanage. Not animal. Not human. Powerful. Ancient.
Glosh staggered back, clutching her chest as heat flooded her veins. Images flashed behind her eyes—moonlit forests, claws digging into earth, a throne carved from stone and bone.
“What did you do to me?” she whispered.
“I told you the truth,” Angella replied. “You are a princess. The heir to the werewolf throne.”
The kingdom was hidden deep within the mountains, protected by magic older than memory.
When Glosh crossed its borders, she felt it immediately—the pull of something that should have been hers. Towers of dark stone rose against the night sky, banners marked with lunar symbols fluttering in the wind. Wolves walked openly here, their eyes glowing, their movements confident and proud.
They stared at her.
Whispers followed wherever she went.
That’s her? She has no wolf. The Queen’s abandoned child.
Glosh kept her head down, her jaw clenched.
Angella did not waste time.
“You must choose a fiancé,” the Queen announced the next morning, seated upon a throne carved with claw marks and moon sigils. “Four alphas have been selected. Your bond will stabilize the kingdom.”
Glosh stared at her in disbelief. “You brought me here just to marry me off?”
“This is duty,” Angella said coldly.
“No,” Glosh shot back. “This is punishment.”
Angella’s gaze hardened. “You will do this.”
“I won’t,” Glosh said. “I didn’t survive eighteen years alone just to become your bargaining chip.”
Silence filled the throne room.
At last, Angella exhaled. “There is another option.”
She spoke of Alpha Academy—a brutal institution where future leaders were forged. Only the strongest graduated. Failure meant disgrace… or worse.
“If you graduate on your own merits,” Angella said, “you will not be forced to marry.”
“And if I fail?” Glosh asked.
Angella’s eyes darkened. “Then you accept your fate.”
Glosh straightened.
“I’ll go,” she said. “And I’ll succeed.”
Alpha Academy was a battlefield disguised as a school.
The moment Glosh stepped onto campus, dominance pressed down on her like weight. Wolves tested one another constantly—through glares, through words, through violence barely restrained.
She hid her identity. Hid the truth that she was the missing princess.
She lasted ten minutes.
She collided hard with a broad chest, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs.
“Watch where you’re going,” a deep voice growled.
Glosh looked up—and froze.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Eyes cold and commanding. Alpha power rolled off him in waves.
“I was watching,” she said coolly. “You just took up too much space.”
A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Interesting.”
Another presence joined them. Then another. Then another.
Four men.
Four alphas.
The very ones she was meant to choose from.
They studied her with curiosity, challenge, hunger.
Glosh felt it then—the pull. The danger.
She clenched her fists.
Absolutely not.
“These men are nothing but trouble,” she vowed silently. “And I will never submit to them.”
Above them, the moon gleamed
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