The Alpha Academy Never knew My Name

CHAPTER TWO

The dorm hallway smelled like fresh paint and other people's money.

I stood in the doorway of room 214 with both suitcases still in my hands, waiting for someone to tell me where to go, because nobody had bothered to tell me anything since we walked through the gates.

Selene had already disappeared with a group of girls who greeted her like she was royalty. Maybe she was a royalty here. I did not follow them. I had learned a long time ago that following her into a crowd only meant standing at the edge of it while everyone pretended I was furniture.

A girl with a clipboard finally noticed me.

“You Maren Cole?” she asked, not really asking.

“Yes.”

She looked at her list, then looked at me again, longer this time, like she was trying to match my face to something she had heard.

“Room 118,” she said. “East wing, ground floor.”

“Selene is in the east wing too, right?” I asked.

“No, she's not,” she said. “Selene is in the tower with the ranked bloodlines. You are ground floor with the unranked intake.”

Something about the word unranked landed heavier than it should have. I already knew what I was. Hearing it printed on a clipboard still stung in a way I was not ready for.

I found room 118 without help. The door was already unlocked.

Inside, the room was smaller than I expected, one narrow bed pushed against the wall, a desk with a chair that did not match it, and a window that looked out onto a courtyard full of students who all seemed to already know each other.

There was a name tag still stuck to the closet door, half peeled off. Only part of it was legible.

...IANA V...

I peeled the rest of it away without thinking, and underneath it, scratched faintly into the wood like someone had done it with a key, was a full name.

Liana Voss.

I did not know who that was. I filed it away anyway, the way I filed everything away, quietly, without asking questions out loud.

By the time I unpacked, it was almost noon, and my stomach had started making noises loud enough that I gave up on pride and went looking for the dining hall.

I found it eventually, a massive room with high ceilings and long tables split clearly by rank, the ranked bloodlines near the front by the windows, everyone else pushed toward the back near the kitchen doors. I grabbed a tray and looked for the smallest, emptiest corner I could find.

I did not find one fast enough.

“Well well well, look who decided to show up,” Selene's voice rang out from somewhere behind me.

I turned. She was sitting with four other girls, all of them dressed like they had walked out of a magazine, all of them watching me the way people watch something they already decided was funny before it did anything.

I did not say anything. I just kept walking toward the back.

“Wait,” she called, loud enough that half the hall looked up. “Where are you going? Come sit with us. You are my sister after all.”

The word sister came out of her mouth like a joke she had told a hundred times and never got tired of.

I stopped, because ignoring her completely in front of this many people felt riskier than sitting down.

I slid into the empty seat at the end of the table, tray in front of me, eyes down.

“So,” Selene said, "tell everyone what you do at home.”

I did not answer.

“Come on, don't be silly.” she pushed. “Do not be shy. Tell them about the cooking, and the cleaning, and how you fold my laundry so perfectly, like a little maid.”

A few of the girls laughed. Not all of them looked comfortable doing it, but they laughed anyway, because laughing along with Selene was safer than not.

“I am here for school too," I said quietly.

Selene tilted her head, amused.

“Awwwwn, are you for real?" she said mockingly. “Or are you here because my father does not trust anyone else to babysit me. Be honest, what was your ranking exam score? Actually don’t bother, everyone already knows you did not test high enough to be anywhere near this table.

Heat crawled up the back of my neck. Not shame exactly. Something closer to rage that had nowhere to go.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, when a tray dropped down across from me hard enough to rattle the plates.

“Move over,” a voice said.

I looked up.

It was the loud one from the gates. The one who had been standing next to Kai. Up close he looked younger than I expected, messy brown hair, a grin that seemed permanently attached to his face, like resting expression was not something he understood.

Selene straightened instantly, her whole posture shifting into something practiced and pretty.

“Hi Ronan darling,” she said, warm all of a sudden.

He did not look at her. Instead he looked at me.

“You are new,” he said. “Ground floor, right? I heard someone got Liana's old room.”

That is me, I said, unsure whether that was a good thing or not.

“Huh,” he said, and something flickered behind his eyes for half a second before the grin came back. Small world.

He sat down next to me instead of across, close enough that Selene's whole table went quiet.

“So what is good here?" he asked, nodding at my tray like we had been talking for an hour already. “Do not trust the soup. I trusted the soup once, and regretted it immediately.

I did not know what to say. Nobody had ever sat next to me on purpose in a room full of people who mattered.

“I am Maren,” I said, because it felt rude not to.

“I know,” he said. “Everyone kind of knows already. You are the girl who got adopted into the Cole pack, people talk.”

Selene's smile had gone thin and sharp.

“Ronan,” she said again, softer this time, almost a warning. “Do you not have somewhere to be?

“Nope,” he said cheerfully, popping the p. “Free period, lucky you.”

He turned back to me and asked something about the drive to the academy, something completely normal, something nobody had bothered asking me in years, and for a few minutes I almost forgot Selene was still sitting three feet away glaring holes into the side of my head.

It did not last.

“Actually,” Selene said loudly, cutting through whatever Ronan was saying, "I just remembered, Maren, you forgot to unpack my winter uniforms. They need to be pressed before orientation tomorrow.”

The table went quiet again.

I felt my jaw tighten.

“I will do it after lunch,” I said.

“You will do what? No way, you'll do it now,” she said, sweet and venomous at the same time. “Wardrobe is priority. You know how father feels about me looking presentable.”

Ronan's grin faded slightly. He looked between us like he was doing math he did not like the answer to.

I stood up before it could turn into more of a scene, tray still half full, and walked away without looking back, because looking back would have meant letting her see whatever was happening on my face.

I did not go pack her uniforms.

I went outside instead, around the side of the dining hall where nobody bothered walking, and stood there for a minute just breathing, trying to get the tight, humming pressure in my chest to settle back down where it belonged.

It did not settle.

If anything it got worse, curling low and hot in my stomach, the same pull I had felt at the gates, except stronger now, close enough that the hair on my arms stood up.

I turned around.

Kai was standing about ten feet away, leaning against the wall like he had been there the whole time, watching me with an expression I could not read at all.

“How long have you been standing there? I asked, before I could stop myself.

“Long enough,” he said.

His voice was quieter than I expected and lower. It did something to the pull in my chest that I did not have a name for and did not like not having a name for.

“You should not let her talk to you like that,” he said.

“It is not your business,” I said, sharper than I meant.

Something flickered across his face. Not offense. Almost interest, like I had done something unexpected by pushing back instead of apologizing.

“No,” he agreed. “It is not.”

He pushed off the wall and started walking past me, close enough that I caught the scent of him for the first time, and my whole body reacted before my brain caught up, a full body shiver that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the way my wolf slammed against my ribs again, harder than at the gates, hard enough that I had to grip the wall to stay steady.

He stopped.

He must have felt it too, because he turned back halfway, eyes narrowing slightly, dropping down my body for one slow second before meeting my eyes again, like he was recalculating something.

“What are you?” he asked quietly.

Not a question anyone had ever asked me before. Not like that, not like he already suspected the answer was going to be a problem.

“I do not know what you mean,” I said, even as my pulse pounded so loud I was sure he could hear it.

He stepped closer instead of walking away, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to keep looking at him, close enough that the pull in my chest turned into something sharper, something that felt dangerously close to want.

“Your heart rate just spiked,” he said, low enough that it landed somewhere under my skin. “And it is not fear.”

I could not answer that. I did not trust my own voice not to shake.

He leaned in slightly, close enough that I felt his breath against my ear, and for one insane second I thought he was going to close the distance completely, and some traitorous part of me wanted him to.

“Careful, Maren,” he said instead, my name sounding wrong and right at the same time in his mouth. “Whatever you are hiding..... it is not staying hidden much longer.”

Then he was gone, walking back toward the dining hall like nothing had happened, leaving me pressed against the wall with my whole body still humming, my wolf pacing under my skin like it wanted to chase after him, and one single terrifying question sitting in my chest where the fear was supposed to be.

How did he already know I was hiding something at all?