The Bell At Midnight
850 Words
The academy alarm bell rang only for emergencies, a sound I had heard exactly once in my first life, the night a rogue wolf breached the northern border. Hearing it now, standing in a hidden archive with two secrets that could burn both our packs to the ground, felt like the moon goddess herself announcing that our time had already run out.
"That's a call to the main hall," Kade said, already moving toward the door. "Something's happened."
We slipped out of the archive separately, Isolde disappearing first through a side passage, Kade and I following a few minutes later by a different route, careful not to be seen leaving the old wing together. My heart hammered the entire walk back, equal parts fear of what waited in the main hall and the unshakable memory of Kade's arm around my waist beneath that oak tree, warm and certain in a way I had not let myself feel safe in for a very long time.
The courtyard outside the main hall was already crowded with half dressed students and irritated instructors when we arrived.
My father stood near the front steps, his face grey, Alpha Damon beside him wearing an expression of controlled satisfaction that made my skin crawl.
"There has been a change of plans," Damon announced to the gathered crowd, his voice carrying easily across the courtyard. "Due to certain complications, I've decided the binding ceremony will no longer wait for the full moon in four days' time."
My stomach dropped.
"The ceremony will take place tomorrow night," he said, "under the waxing moon, here at Blackthorn Academy, in front of the full pack council."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Beside me, Kade went utterly still, his jaw tight enough that a muscle ticked visibly along his cheek.
"Tomorrow," I repeated under my breath, the word barely making it past my throat.
Rowan appeared at my side, his face pale with alarm. "Selene, that's not enough time to prepare anything. That's not enough time to do anything."
Damon's eyes swept the crowd until they landed on me, and something in his expression made my blood run cold, a flicker of triumph he did not bother to hide.
"Certain information has come to my attention tonight," he said, his gaze never leaving mine, "suggesting it would be unwise to delay any further."
He knew. Somehow, impossibly, in the span of a single hour, he already knew we had been in that archive room.
My mind raced through every possibility.
Isolde would not have betrayed us so quickly, not after everything she had just confessed. Which meant someone else had seen us, someone we had not accounted for, someone loyal enough to Damon Wolfe to report us the moment we stepped back into the moonlight.
Kade stepped closer to me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine, a silent gesture of solidarity that I felt more than saw.
"Father," he said, his voice carefully controlled despite the fury I could feel radiating off him, "moving the ceremony without proper preparation dishonours both packs. Surely, a few more days would serve everyone better."
"The decision is made," Damon said simply.
"Tomorrow night, under the moon, the debt will be paid in full."
The crowd began to disperse slowly, students whispering behind their hands, instructors ushering everyone back toward the dormitories. My father approached, his hand trembling as he reached for my shoulder, and for a moment neither of us said anything at all, the weight of everything we had learned tonight pressing down between us like a physical thing.
"Selene," he whispered, "whatever you discovered tonight, whatever you're planning, you need to tell me now. We are out of time to do this carefully."
I looked past him at Kade, who was watching me with an expression I recognized instantly, the same look he wore in my first life during the rare moments he let his guard slip entirely, unguarded and afraid and reaching for something he did not know how to ask for.
Twenty-four hours. That was all the time I had left to stop a ritual that might drain the very life out of me the same night I was supposed to become someone's wife.
"I need you to trust me," I told my father, echoing the same words Isolde had asked of us only an hour before. "And I need you to help me find a way to stop this wedding without breaking the treaty, or we lose everything either way."
My father's eyes hardened with a resolve I had never once seen from him in my first life, not even on the worst night of my death. "Tell me what you need," he said, "and it's yours."
Behind him, moving quickly across the courtyard, a familiar figure caught my eye, cloak pulled tight, moving with purpose toward the dormitory wing where Alpha Damon kept his private quarters.
Isolde was already one step ahead of us.
And whatever she was walking toward, I had a terrible feeling none of us were ready for what she was about to find.
- Writer
