Claimed by Alpha and Omega: Trash Luna

4: The Alpha's Shadow

MIA POV

I didn't sleep.

I lay staring at the cracked ceiling of the dormitory, replaying the flame curling in Selene's palm over and over, the casual cruelty of it, the way the whole courtyard had gone quiet in anticipation of watching me fail. Every time I closed my eyes I saw fire.

"You're doing the same thing again," Lila said from the next bed, voice thick with exhaustion. "The staring-at-nothing thing."

"I have to go tomorrow," I signed, tracing the words carefully so she could read them in the dark.

"You have to do no such thing." Lila sat up, blankets pooling around her. "Selene's a second-generation fire-wolf. Her family's ranked. You have a healing gift that barely closes a paper cut. This isn't a fight, Mira, it's an execution."

My jaw tightened. I hated that she was right. I hated it more that saying no wasn't actually an option, not with an entire year watching to see if Trash Luna would crawl away like everyone expected.

"If I don't show up," I signed, slow and deliberate, "it's the same as saying they're right about me. Forever."

"And if you do show up, you could get seriously hurt." Lila's voice cracked, worry breaking through the anger. "I'm not losing the one friend I have in this place because you're too stubborn to admit you're outmatched."

The words stung, because they were true, and because Lila had never once looked at me the way the others did.

"I'm not asking you to fight for me," I signed. "I'm asking you to be there."

She stared at me for a long moment, torn between fear and loyalty, her hands twisting in the blanket. Finally, she exhaled hard and flopped back onto her pillow. "Fine. But if you die, I'm telling everyone it was your fault for being an idiot."

I almost smiled. Almost. Sleep never came anyway.

The training yard was already crowded when we arrived the next morning, a horseshoe of students pressed shoulder to shoulder, drawn by the promise of a spectacle. Selene stood at the center, arms crossed, flame already dancing lazily along her knuckles like she hadn't even bothered to warm up.

"Thought you might not come," she said, almost disappointed.

I stepped into the ring without answering. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was sure everyone could hear it.

"Rules are simple," Selene called out, loud enough for the crowd. "First one who can't get back up loses." Her eyes glittered. "Try not to make this too quick. I want everyone to remember it."

Lila's hands curled into fists at the edge of the circle. "This isn't a fair match and you know it—"

"Nobody asked you," Selene cut in, and thrust her palm forward.

Fire roared across the space between us.

I threw myself sideways, heat scorching past my shoulder, the smell of singed fabric filling my nose. I hit the ground hard, scrambling upright as a second wave of flame licked across the dirt where I'd just been standing.

The crowd gasped. Someone laughed.

Get up. Move. Think.

I had no fire. No ice. No stone. All I had was the faint gold light that barely closed a scratch, and right now that felt like bringing a candle to a wildfire.

Selene advanced, flames curling brighter around both hands now, clearly enjoying herself. "Come on. Where's that famous healing gift? Heal this."

She struck again. I rolled, the world narrowing to heat and noise and the frantic drumbeat of my own pulse, and for one terrible second, I thought, “this is it, this is how it ends, in the dirt, in front of everyone who already decided I was nothing.”

Then something shifted.

The gold light didn't just flicker this time. It surged — up my arms, across my collarbone, bright enough that gasps rippled through the crowd for an entirely different reason. I didn't understand it, didn't control it, but when Selene's next blast of fire came screaming toward me, the light rose to meet it on instinct, a shimmering barrier snapping into existence a heartbeat before the flame would have hit.

The fire broke against it and scattered into harmless sparks. Silence crashed over the training yard.

Selene's confident smirk faltered for the first time. "That's… that's not possible. Healers don't shield."

I stared at my own glowing hands, chest heaving, as stunned as anyone. "She's not just a healer," someone in the crowd whispered.

Selene's expression twisted from shock into fury. "Lucky trick." She drew both hands back, flame roaring higher, brighter, angrier than before, clearly done playing. "Let's see it hold up twice."

Lila lunged toward the ring's edge, panic breaking across her face. "Mira, get out of there, that's too much heat, she's not holding back anymore—"

The words died as a new voice cut across the yard, low and edged with an authority that made every single student flinch and turn.

"That's enough."

The crowd split like water around the sound of it. A tall figure stepped through the gathered students, dark-haired, sharp-eyed, moving with the unhurried certainty of someone who had never once needed to raise his voice to be obeyed. Even Selene's flame guttered instinctively lower at his approach, like it recognized something in him that outranked her.

I didn't know who he was. But every instinct in my body, the wolf buried somewhere beneath my human confusion, went utterly still, caught between fear and something I couldn't name, some pull I didn't understand and didn't trust.

His gaze swept over the scorched dirt, over Selene's still-smoking hands, and finally settled on me. For one unbearable second, his eyes held mine, and the entire training yard seemed to hold its breath along with me.

"Who," he said quietly, "authorized a duel on academy grounds?"

Nobody answered. Selene's bravado cracked visibly under that stare.

He took a single step closer to me, close enough that I caught the low, coiled tension radiating off him like heat off stone — and close enough for me to realize, with a jolt of pure dread, that whatever expression was crossing his face right now, it wasn't concern.

It was recognition.

"Where," he said, voice dropping lower, colder, "did a first-year healer learn to cast a barrier like that?"

I opened my mouth, and for the first time all day, I genuinely didn't know what terrified me more: the fire I'd just survived, or the way this stranger was looking at me like he'd just found something he'd been hunting for a very long time.