The Lost Heir

Click. The sound of fingers snapping jolts me out of my reverie, my spoon still slowly circling the bowl in front of me. "Lyra Grey. Have you heard anything I’ve said?" The voice belongs to the woman I have spent most of the summer hearing from two rooms away, across a kitchen table, or from somewhere behind me while I attempt to look busy. Samantha. My de facto guardian. Not legally, not officially, but in every way that has ever mattered. Not many people would welcome a random orphaned child into their home and simply make room. I lift my eyes to hers and muster what is probably a very unconvincing smile. "Not exactly," I admit, letting go of the spoon and sinking back in the wooden chair. She makes an exasperated sound, and guilt flickers through me as I take in her kind, homely face. I force another smile. She means well. I know she does. I do not know what I would do without her. But if I am honest, part of me is dreading going back to school. "I’m sorry," I say. "I’m just a little distracted. Last year wasn’t exactly great." I trail off, because that is one way to describe being kicked hard enough to collapse a lung. "Leave last year in last year," she says gently, leaning forwards. "Try to focus on now. And what comes next." "I’m not entirely sure what my 'next' is going to be," I mutter, sinking back in my chair again. The truth is, I have never been entirely sure what anything is going to be. Grey is not really a surname. Not to me. It is what the Lycan world gives children like me when nobody knows what else to call them. A neat little label for missing records, missing parents, missing histories. Lyra Grey. First name remembered. Everything else gone. I am aware most of my peers have their sights set on university, but I can barely picture next summer, never mind anything beyond it. Even if I could, I certainly could not afford it. Samantha’s expression softens, which means I have probably let too much show. "Well," she says, with a finality that suggests she will hear no argument, "you’re made for bigger things than what I do around here." I almost laugh. Bigger things are for alphas. For heirs. For people with family names that open doors instead of explaining absences. "Maybe," I say, because arguing with Sam before eight in the morning is rarely worth the effort. But I do not believe her. Not really. She stands and smooths down her apron. "Um… I just need to put a few more things in my case, and then I’ll be ready." "Calm down, we’re not going yet. I’m needed in the kitchen, but I’ll be back in an hour or two," she says, already moving towards the door. A second later, her eyes unfocus slightly. Someone from the pack house must be calling through the link. That is the thing about living with Lycans. Half the conversations happen silently, and somehow I am still expected to keep up. Before I can answer, Samantha has disappeared from the cosy kitchen. I crunch the last of my cereal and swallow, trying to ignore the nervous knot in my stomach. "Just one more academic year, Lyra," I mutter to myself. One more year at Exton. One more year of timetables, patrols, combat mats, old corridors, lake water, and trying very hard not to let one particular alpha ruin any of it. I wash up my bowl and some mugs left from last night, then head upstairs. My bedroom is tiny, barely big enough for the narrow single bed and the old chest of drawers crammed against the wall. Yet somehow, my suitcase is already bulging. I roll up socks and underwear and wedge them into whatever space remains. There are a few things still at school that might fit me. Hopefully. If not, I can alter them myself. I have become pretty good with a sewing machine over the summer, mostly because clothes are easier to change than circumstances. I shove in my toiletry bag and a pair of hand-me-down heels I had somehow acquired in July. I shove in my toiletry bag and a pair of hand-me-down heels I had somehow acquired in July. They are not exactly practical, but neither is optimism, and people seem committed to recommending that too. Satisfied there is nothing else to add, I give my room one final look before dragging the suitcase down the narrow corridor to the front door. With time still to kill, I head outside. It isn’t long before I am stretched out on the sun lounger in Samantha’s little cottage garden, right where I have spent half the summer lying with my eyes closed beside the chicken coop. It is not glamorous. It smells faintly of cut grass, warm earth, and chickens who have never respected personal space. But it is peaceful. And for six weeks, it has almost felt like mine. There is something comforting about going back to school, even with the nervous knot that has taken up residence in my stomach. I love school. I love my subjects, the structure, the old corridors, the lake outside my dorm room, and the fact Exton College has always made slightly more sense to me than anywhere else. It is one of the old supernatural schools, built for our kind back when humans still thought Lycans, witches, sirens and vampires belonged in stories rather than government records and university prospectuses. Disclosure changed that twenty years ago. I grew up after it, in a world where supernatural biology was taught in classrooms and sirens complained about exam timetables like everyone else. Samantha had been thirteen when everything changed, and her stories about the before and after still fascinate me. But Exton has never felt strange to me. It feels familiar. Mostly. The student body is mixed in every possible way. Lycans, witches, vampires, sirens, humans, fae-descended students whose grandparents still deny the family rumours. Somehow, most of us manage to intermingle without incident. Mostly. I have done well at Exton. Better than well, in some areas. Combat, especially. Lycans are naturally good at fighting. It is written into us somewhere deep and inconvenient — bone, instinct, rank, wolf. But even by Lycan standards, I am good. Particularly for a gamma. Gamma is not the lowest rank in our world, but it is far from the top. High enough to be useful. Low enough to be managed. Respected, sometimes. Deferred to, rarely. Rank shapes everything, whether people admit it or not. It shapes where you stand, who listens when you speak, and what future people imagine for you before you have said a word. Mine has always felt half-written because of it. That, and the fact I do not know where I came from. I ended up with Samantha’s pack by accident, half-starved and terrified at eight years old, with no family name, no papers, and no useful memories beyond my first name. Lyra. I can remember my parents’ faces, but not their voices. I remember warmth, movement, and a flash of fear so sharp it still wakes me sometimes, but nothing clear enough to build a life from. No surname. No pack history. No explanation for why my body seems to know things my mind does not. How to move. How to read weight, balance, breath. How to turn someone’s strength into the reason they hit the floor. Trauma can do that to someone. It can make them forget. I’m looking forward to getting back into that training gym too, Astraea, my wolf spirit, says inside my head. A smile pulls faintly at my mouth.   Commanding the mats, I reply. Until we’re in wolf form, and then my rank holds you back.   Only because some people need every advantage handed to them, she says drily. It makes you more worthy than most. I can practically hear the disdain in her voice. Astraea has very little patience for Lycans who only become impressive once they surrender the work to their wolves. She calls them lazy. Frequently. Usually while I am bleeding, sweating, or being reminded to keep my guard up. Astraea is a force to be reckoned with. More than that, we fit together seamlessly. She makes me bolder, more strategic, more willing to take up space than I might have been otherwise. She makes me better in more ways than one. Perhaps that was part of the problem last year. No one expected a gamma to top the scoreboard. My hand drifts to the side of my ribcage before I can stop it, because the memory of February still lives there. Not only in my mind. In the faint scar beneath my fingers. In the tightness that sometimes catches when I breathe too deeply. In the way my body remembers the floor before I do. Combat training is all well and good until somebody decides rules no longer matter. Joshua Landry had not appreciated being beaten by a gamma. A female gamma, especially. The humiliation of it had apparently been too much for him to bear. After I won, after the match was over, he swept my legs out from under me and drove a kick into the side of my chest hard enough to make the whole room go silent.   You did break his upper arm in two places, Astraea reminds me.   A regrettable but natural side effect of him struggling so much against an approved manoeuvre, I reply. She does not argue, because she knows the injury was his fault. Mine was harder to shrug off. Three fractured ribs. A collapsed lung. Two days in the school hospital with an intercostal drain and almost ten days before I could shift again. His arm healed with one change of form. My lung damage was not so accommodating. Lycans rarely scar, but if we go long enough without shifting, it can happen. It happened. A faint mark still curves over my ribs, pale against my skin. Not dramatic. Not disfiguring. Just enough to remember. And then things soured further. I huff, because if I am honest with myself, most of the dread curling in my stomach about going back is tied to Landry.   Cheer up, Astraea says brightly. We could meet our mate soon. That earns the smallest smile from me. For most Lycans, the idea would be exciting. Life-changing in the best possible way. Especially now. Mate bonds had been absent from our kind since disclosure — a punishment from the Goddess after Lycans began valuing power above love. They were gone before I was born, and for years they had been treated less like a certainty and more like an old ache in our history. Then, a few months ago, the council announced they had returned. Most people had not believed it at first. But then the stories started. Quietly at first, and then everywhere. Lycans sensing the souls they were destined to love. Bonds locking into place. Futures changing overnight. Astraea, naturally, considered this thrilling. I considered it potentially inconvenient. I turn eighteen in seven weeks. Could my mate be at school? Possibly. That is how these things often happen, or so everyone says. People are drawn together long before they realise what is happening, because fate apparently enjoys making decisions before anyone involved has had time to prepare. If mine is at school, everything could change. My future. My home. My place in the world. All of it. And when you have spent nearly ten years being grateful for borrowed space, change does not feel romantic. It feels dangerous. Leaving would be hard enough for anyone. For an orphan, it feels less like moving on and more like waiting to find out whether the door will still be open when you come back. I swallow around the sudden tightness in my throat and force the thought away. There is no use dwelling on things that have not happened yet. At some point, the late-summer warmth, the chickens rustling nearby, and the sheer exhaustion of worrying about the future drag me under. The next thing I know, a hand is pressing lightly against my shoulder. "Lyra." I blink awake. Samantha is perched at the end of the lounger, looking amused. The sun catches the red tones in her chin-length auburn hair, now scraped back into the world’s smallest ponytail. "I half expected to come back to you in sweaty gym clothes," Samantha says, eyeing me with amusement. "Not reclining beside the chickens like a tragic heroine." "I am conserving energy." "You’re sunbathing." "We are about to enter the part of the year where sunshine becomes a finite resource. I am being practical." Her gaze flicks over me, lingering on my hair. "And growing your hair, apparently." "I forgot to cut it." "You forgot?" "I became busy with several thrilling pursuits. Altering clothes. Running. Avoiding my future." Samantha’s mouth softens at that, but she wisely does not press. "Come on," she says instead. "I’ve got a few hours before me and the team need to start the Sunday roast at the pack house for the seniors, so let’s get you back." "Wonderful," I say flatly. "Oh, stop. It’s your final year. You’ll be eighteen soon. There’ll be the Christmas formal, more combat training than even you can reasonably enjoy, and perhaps…" She leans in slightly, her eyes bright with dangerous optimism. "A date." I look at her. "Samantha." "What?" "Let’s not ruin a perfectly good morning." "Or maybe…" she adds, lowering her voice, "you’ll even sense your mate." I huff a laugh despite myself. Samantha has been quietly unbearable since the return of the bonds was announced. Ever the romantic, she seems to believe destiny is most likely to arrive with excellent timing, emotional maturity, and a satisfying amount of eye contact. I am less convinced. When life has taught you not to expect too much, hope starts to feel less like a virtue and more like poor risk assessment. "Okay," I say, standing from the lounger. "You’re right." She lifts a brow. "This year could be my best one yet." Astraea snorts inside my head.   B-minus for delivery. I almost believed you. Samantha laughs and ushers me inside. By the time the car is loaded and we pull away from her little cottage, the knot in my stomach has returned in full force. Two hours from now, I will be back at Exton. Back walking the same corridors. Back sleeping in the same bedroom. Back pretending the future is a thing I have any control over. Back where Joshua Landry is waiting to be insufferable. And, if fate has a particularly poor sense of humour, back where destiny might be waiting too.