Chapter 5
1116 Words
Join them?
I stood frozen, trying to piece together what the Head Alpha had just said.
He wanted me—me, a disguised girl barely holding her secrets together—to join a resistance that wanted to upend the entire werewolf hierarchy?
My mouth opened but no words came out.
“I know this is unexpected,” the Head Alpha continued, pacing now. “But you’re smart. You’ve kept a secret no one else has cracked yet.”
My blood turned to ice.
He knows.
He knows.
“I don’t—” I started, but my voice cracked. “I don’t understand.”
He stopped in front of me. “I don’t need your understanding. I need your presence.”
“Presence?”
“You're already close to the others. I need someone inside the academy who can listen, notice things… report back.”
I tried to hold his gaze, but the weight of what he was implying made my stomach churn.
“If they find out I’m involved, they’ll—”
“Kill you?” he said plainly. “Probably.”
My lips parted in disbelief.
“But if you do this right, if you help me flush them out, you’ll earn something better than survival. You’ll earn power.”
I didn’t want power. I just wanted freedom.
“Think about it,” he said. “You have three days. Riven will monitor you. If you breathe a word of this to anyone…”
He let the silence hang like a noose.
“Dismissed.”
I walked out, stunned. My legs felt stiff. I didn’t even know how I got back to the dorm.
Kael looked up as I entered. “Where were you?”
“Meeting,” I muttered, falling onto my bed.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
He sat up. “Did something happen?”
I turned my face toward the wall. “I’m just tired.”
It was a lie, but Kael didn’t push. He never did when I got like this.
And for once, I was grateful.
Because the truth was something I didn’t even know how to say out loud.
Later that night, I couldn't sleep. I sat up in bed and stared out the narrow window beside my bunk. The moon was a sliver in the sky, half-hidden behind clouds.
Three days.
Three days to decide if I was going to become a double agent for a man who clearly knew more about me than he should.
I clenched my fists.
I’d made it this far by keeping my head down. But now, everything was shifting.
And fast.
The next morning, Kael and I walked to training in silence. I caught him stealing glances at me, but I pretended not to notice.
I couldn’t afford to let him in—not now.
Not when my entire reality felt like a ticking bomb.
At the arena, Instructor Dane barked out pairings for the sparring matches. My name was called, and for the first time, I was matched against Kael.
We both blinked.
“Don’t go easy on me,” he said, smirking as we stepped into the ring.
I raised an eyebrow. “You wish.”
He lunged first. I dodged, but he was fast—faster than usual. Our bodies moved like we were dancing, every hit and block practiced from months of training together.
But I was distracted. Every time his hand brushed my arm or his eyes locked onto mine, I felt that strange warmth again.
The pull of the mate bond.
I shouldn’t have felt it. Not while disguised.
But it was there—whispering under my skin, making me forget how to breathe.
He landed a hit, knocking me backward.
“You’re distracted,” he said, breathing hard.
“Just tired,” I muttered.
He reached out to help me up, and the moment our hands touched, something pulsed between us—hot and electric.
He froze.
I yanked my hand away.
Kael stared at me like I’d just grown wings.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Bull.”
I stepped back. “I said it’s nothing.”
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in his face.
“Rory—”
“I said drop it!”
Everyone turned at my outburst. Heat rushed to my face. I stormed off the sparring mat, pretending I didn’t hear Dane yelling after me.
I just needed air.
Outside, I leaned against the wall, my chest rising and falling fast.
I couldn’t do this. Not the spying. Not the lies. Not the bond.
Everything was unraveling.
“You’re slipping,” a voice said.
I turned to see Riven, arms crossed.
“Thought you were supposed to be watching me,” I muttered.
“I am. And you’re doing a terrible job blending in.”
I laughed bitterly. “Maybe I’m tired of blending in.”
He studied me. “You have no idea what you’ve been dragged into.”
“I didn’t ask to be dragged into anything.”
“You think you’re the only one hiding something?”
I looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“There’s more going on than you know. The rogue attacks, the resistance… they’re connected.”
“Then tell me.”
He hesitated.
“You’re not ready.”
I clenched my jaw. “Then why am I here? Why did the Head Alpha pick me?”
“Because you’re invisible,” Riven said. “And people underestimate invisible things. Until it’s too late.”
That night, I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the moon again. Kael hadn’t spoken to me since training. I could still feel the tension from earlier like static in the air.
I reached under my mattress and pulled out my journal.
I hadn’t written in it since I got here. It was dangerous. But I needed to remember who I was before the Academy turned me into someone else.
I flipped to a blank page and wrote:
Aria. Not Rory.
Daughter of no one. Fighter of everything.
Still breathing.
Just as I closed the book, Kael stirred.
“You’re not who you say you are, are you?”
I froze.
His voice was quiet. But his tone was certain.
I turned slowly.
“What are you talking about?”
He sat up, staring at me in the moonlight.
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. But after today… the way you move. The way you hide. You’re not just some random cadet.”
I swallowed hard.
He leaned forward, eyes locked on mine.
“Who are you, Rory?”
- Writer
