Chapter 6: Combat Strategy
1222 Words
(Josephine POV)
“I heard you’re wolfless.”
My stomach tightened, but I refused to look away.
“I heard your perfume reaches a room before you do.”
The girl behind her laughed again, this time loudly enough that several nearby students turned towards us.
Jasmine’s face hardened.
“You think you’re clever because the Sinclair family accepted you?”
“No. I think I’m clever because my grades prove it.”
Her jaw clenched.
The other girl, who looked slightly younger and wore too much makeup for an academy morning, stepped closer.
“You should know your place here.”
“And where exactly is that?”
“Away from people who actually belong.”
The old fear tried to rise again, but I pressed it down.
I had spent years allowing people to decide how small I should become.
I was tired.
“My place is wherever I earned the right to stand,” I answered. “If that bothers you, you can move.”
A few students nearby began whispering.
Jasmine’s expression became murderous, but before she could respond, a bell rang through the building.
I stepped around her.
“Excuse me. I don’t want to be late for class.”
I walked away without looking back, although my hands were trembling slightly by the time I reached the classroom.
"You did well," Hera said.
“I wanted to run.”
"But you didn’t."
That was true.
And maybe bravery wasn’t the absence of fear.
Maybe it was simply refusing to obey it.
The Combat Strategy classroom looked completely different from the previous one. Instead of ordinary desks, it had curved rows of workstations surrounding a large digital map projected in the center of the room. Mountains, rivers, forests, pack boundaries, and different military positions were displayed in bright colors.
I instantly loved it.
A tall professor with dark skin and a scar across his left eyebrow entered moments after I took my seat.
“Professor Lowell,” he introduced himself. “Today we will be studying defensive strategy under limited resources.”
He touched the digital controls, and the map changed.
“Twenty warriors. Three possible entry points. One injured commander. Limited food and no reinforcements for forty-eight hours.”
Several students immediately began discussing how to strengthen the main gate.
Professor Lowell pointed towards a boy in the front row.
“Your solution?”
“Move fourteen warriors to the northern entrance. It is the widest path, so the enemy will attack there.”
“Predictable,” Professor Lowell answered. “And therefore dangerous.”
He looked around the room.
“Anyone else?”
My eyes remained fixed on the map.
The main gate was obvious.
The mountain passage was narrow but difficult to defend.
The river looked useless because of the current.
Unless...
I raised my hand. Professor Lowell noticed.
“The new student. Josephine Grover.”
“Your solution, Miss Grover?”
“I would abandon the fort.”
Several students laughed.
Professor Lowell didn’t.
“Explain.”
I stood and walked towards the digital map when he gestured for me to come forward.
“If the enemy knows we have limited food and no reinforcements, they will expect us to defend the fort until our resources run out,” I explained. “So I would leave enough visible movement around the northern gate to make it appear occupied, then move the warriors through the forest before the enemy finishes surrounding us.”
A boy near the back scoffed.
“And go where?”
I pointed towards the river.
“Here.”
“That current would slow everyone down,” he argued.
“Exactly. The enemy would assume we would avoid it.”
I moved several digital markers towards the narrow mountain road.
“We divide into two groups. One enters the river to hide the scent and reaches the mountain route from behind, while the second group places traps along the forest path. Once the enemy realizes the fort is empty and follows, we force them into this narrow passage, where their numbers become useless.”
Professor Lowell folded his arms.
“And the injured commander?”
“Placed with the river group because it has the shortest distance to the secondary settlement.”
“And if the enemy refuses to follow?”
“Then we survive the forty-eight hours without wasting warriors or supplies, which was the original objective.” The room became silent.
Professor Lowell looked at the map for several seconds. Then he nodded.
“Excellent.”
Warm pride spread through my chest.
“Most students assumed the objective was to protect the fort,” he continued. “Miss Grover understood that the actual objective was to protect the pack.”
He looked around the classroom.
“Strength is useful, but strength without strategy simply creates a larger corpse.”
A few students laughed nervously.
I returned to my seat, but before I could sit down, someone entered the classroom without knocking.
The entire room seemed to notice him at once.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried the kind of Alpha aura that made weaker wolves instinctively straighten their backs. His dark hair fell carelessly over his forehead, while his golden-brown eyes moved lazily across the room.
Professor Lowell sighed.
“D’Luca.”
The boy smiled without any guilt.
“Professor.”
“You are twenty minutes late.”
“But I’m here.”
“That is not the achievement you think it is.”
A few students laughed.
He began walking towards an empty seat but stopped when he noticed the map.
Then his gaze shifted towards me.
“Who designed that route?”
Professor Lowell pointed towards me.
“Miss Grover.”
The boy studied me with open curiosity.
“You’re new.”
“I noticed.”
His smile widened.
“Aaron D’Luca.”
“I didn’t ask."
Someone behind me choked on a laugh. Aaron looked even more amused.
“I think we’re going to get along.”
“I think you’re overly optimistic.”
Professor Lowell struck his pointer against the desk.
“D’Luca, sit down before I make you spend the next hour outside.”
Aaron finally moved towards his seat, but not before giving me one last interested look.
The rest of the lesson passed quickly, and by the end of it, Professor Lowell had given me three extra reading assignments because apparently doing well once was a direct invitation for teachers to increase my workload.
When the bell rang, I gathered my books and stepped into the corridor, only to find Aaron leaning against the wall outside.
“Do you wait outside classrooms for every new student?”
“Only the ones who abandon forts on their first day.”
“It was the logical solution.”
“Most people here prefer dramatic solutions.”
“I noticed.”
He walked beside me without invitation.
“Are you joining Founders’ Week?”
“I don’t know anything about it yet.”
“There are academic and combat competitions.”
That caught my attention.
“What kind of combat competitions?”
Aaron smiled as if he had been waiting for that reaction.
“Tracking, obstacle trials, tactical pursuit, weapons, sparring.”
“Interesting.”
“You like combat?”
“I like winning.”
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