SCENTLESS

The gates of Arton's High didn't open. They bared their teeth. Black iron, taller than any school had a right to be, carved with wolves tearing at each other's throats. Everyone had warned me about this place. On the forums, they called it The Kennel. The last stop for Alphas who were too rich, too violent, and too unstable to be kept in a normal academy. Alphas who killed for fun. And I was being sent there as punishment. For being quiet. My uniform was perfect. Black blazer. Black pleated skirt. Black boots. The only color was my purple tie and the small wisteria pin on my lapel — the one my mother left me. My hair was long and black, with a single stark white streak falling over my left eye. One blue eye visible. One hidden. I looked wrong here. Too soft. Too still. I adjusted my tie and walked forward. The moment my boots hit the white marble of the main hall, every conversation stopped. Dozens of heads turned. Gold eyes. Amber eyes. Ice-blue eyes. All predators. All staring at the one thing that wasn't supposed to be here. "Is that a girl?" someone whispered. "No way. No human has been allowed in Arton's in ten years." "Look at her tie. Purple. She thinks she's special." "Prey," a boy in the front said louder, smiling with too many teeth. "Fresh prey." The word spread like blood in water. Prey. Prey. Prey. I kept walking. Introverts don't need to look to know they're being watched. I could feel their stares on my back, on my neck, on the white streak in my hair. My mother taught me how to be quiet. Quiet girls are ignored in the normal world. But in a world of wolves, quiet is an invitation. I kept my chin down. Reserved. Small. Exactly what they wanted me to be. At the end of the hall, on the highest stair, he stood. Kade Arton. Heir to the Arton family. The Alpha they named the entire school after. He wasn't wearing his blazer. Just a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, forearms covered in faint, old scars. His hair was black, his eyes were molten gold, and everyone within ten feet of him moved out of his way like he was gravity itself. He didn't have to growl. He was the reason other Alphas learned how to growl. He looked down at me and smiled. Slow. Dangerous. Like I was a gift someone had left on his staircase. "Well," he said, his voice carrying across the silent marble hall. Everyone went quiet to listen to him. "What do we have here? A little flower lost in a school of wolves?" He descended. One step. Two steps. Three. The sound of his boots was the only sound in the building. He stopped inches from me. Too close. I could smell him now — winter and smoke and expensive cologne trying to hide something wilder. Something feral that wanted out. He leaned in, his mouth almost brushing the white streak in my hair. The classic Alpha dominance move. Scent the prey. Inhale their fear. Watch them shiver and submit. "You know what we do to pretty little preys here, little flower?" he murmured, loud enough for everyone to hear. His voice was amused. Cruel. "We break them. Slowly. We make them cry that purple off their tie." I should have shivered. I should have looked down. I should have whispered please. I didn't. I just tilted my head slightly, giving him better access to my neck. Quiet. Reserved. Offering. My blue eye looked up at him through my lashes. And I whispered the same five words my mother told me before she died, holding my wisteria pin so tight her fingers bled. "We kill Alphas, darling." His smirk died. Not slowly. Instantly. Like I had cut it off his face. The entire hall sucked in a breath. He inhaled. And froze. His whole body locked up. His shoulders went rigid. His gold eyes blew wide, then dark, then almost black. He inhaled again, harder this time, his nose almost touching my skin, like he couldn't believe what he wasn't smelling. No fear. No submission. No sweetness. No scent. Nothing. I smelled like nothing. Like cold air. Like a grave with no body in it. Like a wisteria flower that had been dead for a hundred years. He pulled back an inch, his voice no longer playful. It was low. Shaken. Angry. And obsessed. "Why can't I scent you?" Behind him, the other Alphas started whispering, then growling, because they'd all just realized the same thing — they couldn't scent me either. And in a school of predators that hunts by scent, the one thing they can't smell is the one thing that will kill them.