The Lycan Princess and The Four Cardinals

POV: Malia Moon The forest floor is cold under my bare feet, but I stopped noticing that a long time ago. Cold is easier to ignore than the ache of being nobody, of being no one, of being the girl who isn't allowed to exist outside these trees. I press my palm against the bark of the old oak, the one with the crooked branch that looks like a hand reaching for the sky. This is our spot. Has been for months now, ever since Reyes first found me practicing knife throws against the trunk and decided, for reasons I still don't fully understand, that he wanted to keep finding me here. The parchment in my hand crinkles as I hold it tighter. Blackridge Academy. Scholarship accepted. I should be terrified. Instead, my chest feels like it might c***k open from how badly I want to laugh. "You're smiling like you robbed someone." I don't jump this time. I know that voice too well to be startled by it anymore. Reyes steps out from beneath the low hanging branches, dark hair messy the way it always is, like he's spent the walk here dragging a hand through it. "Maybe I did." I hold up the letter. "Feels like it, anyway." He crosses the space between us the way he always does, unhurried, like the forest belongs to him and he's simply letting me borrow it. "Let me guess. You finally beat your own record with the knives." "Better." "Better than you finally hitting a target from twenty paces? That took you three months to manage." "It took me three weeks," I say, swatting his arm, and he laughs, low and familiar, the sound of it settling into me the way it always does now, like something I've grown used to having. "So what is it, then?" He nods at the letter still clutched in my hand. "You've been smiling like that since I got here. It's starting to worry me." I hesitate, even though I have handed this boy pieces of myself for months now, even though of everyone in my hidden little life he is the one person who knows me as simply Malia and nothing more. The truth still catches in my throat sometimes, an old habit from years of guarding it. "I got in," I say finally. "Blackridge. On scholarship." Something flickers across his face, quick and sharp, gone before I can name it. "Blackridge," he repeats, like the word tastes different in his mouth than it does in mine. "The academy in the capital. Where all the alpha heirs train." "That's the one." "They're letting scholarship students in now." His eyes narrow, thoughtful rather than doubtful, the way he gets when he's turning something over in his mind. "That's rare." "I know." I lift my chin. "I earned it." "I don't doubt that for a second." He says it fast, easy, and it eases whatever small tightness had crept into my chest. "I just didn't expect us to end up in the same place. Not really." My stomach does something complicated at that. "Wait. You're going too?" "Starting a few weeks ahead of the new intake, apparently." He says it like it's nothing, but there's a flicker of something else underneath it, something almost pleased. "Guess fate has a sense of humor." "Or the world is just smaller than we think." "Or fate has a sense of humor," he says again, softer, like he's decided he prefers that version of the story. I should feel nothing but relief at this. Instead, there's a strange, unfamiliar hope threading through my chest, the kind I've never let myself hold onto before, not with anyone. "I don't know anyone there," I admit. "Not really. Not anyone who matters." "You'll know me." "I already know you." "Then you'll know someone who matters," he says, and the teasing in his voice has gone quiet, replaced by something steadier. I don't answer right away. Months of stolen conversations in this same clearing have taught me that Reyes says things like this sometimes, things that land heavier than he seems to intend, and I have never quite learned what to do with the weight of them. "When you get there," he says, closing what little distance is left between us, "find me first. Before anyone else does." "You say that every time like I'm going to forget you the second I leave these woods." "Maybe I like hearing myself say it." "Or maybe you're worried." "Maybe I am." His voice drops, steady in a way that makes my chest tighten despite how many times I have heard him sound almost like this before. "There's going to be a lot of alphas there, Malia. A lot of heirs who'll look at you and see something worth having. I don't love the idea of you finding one of them before you find me." "You say that like I'm something to be found." "Aren't you?" He reaches out, slow enough that I could step back if I wanted to, and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear the way he has a dozen times before. His fingers are warm, familiar, and for a long moment neither of us moves. "I've been finding you in these woods for months now. I don't plan on stopping just because the woods change." My heart does something I still don't have a name for, even after all this time. I think back to the first time he found me here, soaked from an afternoon rain, throwing knives at this same oak until my shoulder ached. He hadn't asked who I was or where I came from. He'd simply picked up a fallen knife, turned it over in his hand, and asked if I wanted a second target so he could see if I was any good. I hadn't expected to keep coming back. I hadn't expected him to either. Since then, it has become something steady in a life built almost entirely out of hiding. My parents know I slip away sometimes, though they think it's for solitude, for air, for space to breathe outside the walls that have kept me safe and suffocated in equal measure. They don't know about the boy who meets me under this oak twice a week, who has learned the sound of my footsteps well enough to know it's me before I've even cleared the treeline. "Do you remember the first time you found me here?" I ask, mostly to keep him a little longer, mostly because some nights the memory feels like the only proof I have that I'm allowed to be a person outside of what I'm hiding from. "You mean the first time you nearly put a knife through my boot?" "I missed on purpose." "You did not." He grins, and it is the same easy, unguarded grin that first made me trust him before I had any good reason to. "You've gotten better since then. Scary good, actually. For someone who claims she's never fought anyone that mattered." "Maybe I've had a good teacher." "Maybe you've just always been better than you let anyone see." He says it lightly, but something in his eyes lingers on the words a beat too long, like he means them more than the tone suggests. I don't know what to do with the way he looks at me sometimes, like he's trying to memorize something before it disappears. I have spent years training myself not to be looked at, not to be remembered, and yet here I am, letting this boy learn every detail of me anyway. "I have to go," I say, even though every part of me wants to stay rooted here until the sun goes down, the way I have so many evenings before. "Then go." He steps back, giving me the space I've asked for, though his eyes stay locked on mine the entire time. "But remember what I said. Find me first." "You've made that very clear." "I'll make it clearer every chance I get, if that's what it takes." A corner of his mouth lifts, something between a warning and a promise. "You're worth being clear about." I nod, because some promises feel too fragile to speak out loud, and this feels like one of them. I am three steps away when he calls out one last time. "Malia." I turn. "Whatever happens there," he says, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes, "just know I meant every word. All of it. Every time." I don't understand the strange weight behind that sentence, not yet, not the way I will months from now when I stand in a crowded hallway and watch him look straight through me like I am nothing at all. But right now, walking away with my heart hammering and months of stolen promises still warm against my skin, I let myself believe him completely. I have no idea how badly that belief is about to cost me.