From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 31

SELENE

NEXT MORNING

Mara found me at breakfast before I had even finished my first cup of coffee, she sat down across from me fast, the way she did when something was eating at her, and started arranging her food without saying anything for about ten seconds.

That alone told me everything. Mara was not a quiet person, her silence meant she was deciding how to start.

I put my cup down. "Just say it."

She looked up. "Calder went after Kael last night."

I went still. "Where?"

"Behind the east wing. After the trial." She lowered her voice and leaned slightly forward. "I was walking back and I heard them. I should have kept going but I slowed down."

"What happened?"

"Calder was right in his face," she said. "Like close enough that it should have started something, and he was not yelling, which was the part that actually scared me a little. He was doing that low, tight voice he gets."

I knew that voice. "He told Kael you were using him," Mara continued. "That the whole ceremony thing was you trying to make Calder jealous and Kael was just too full of himself to see it."

I picked my coffee back up just to have something to do with my hands. "What did Kael say?"

"He laughed."

I looked at her. "Not in a mean way," she said quickly. "Just this short, quiet laugh like what Calder said was so wrong he didn't even know where to begin, and then he told Calder to stay away from you." She explained.

"And Calder?"

Mara wrapped both hands around her juice glass. "Stepped closer, like he was going to do something." She met my eyes. "And Kael just looked at him but didn't move or say another word. He just stood there until Calder turned around and walked off."

I sat with that for a moment. "How did he look when he left?" I asked.

She thought about it for a second. "Like someone who wanted to hit something and talked himself out of it at the last second." She shook her head. "I don't know if that is better or worse honestly."

It wasn't better. A Calder who exploded was loud and visible and everyone could see it coming, a Calder who swallowed it and walked away quietly was the kind that showed up somewhere unexpected later.

I finished my coffee and didn't say much else.

I went back to the dorm after my second class to grab my training bag.

The hallway was quiet, most people were still at lunch. I pushed open the door and Elara was at her desk the way she usually was in the afternoon, laptop open, headphones around her neck.

Except the small notebook sitting open to her left wasn't something I had seen on her desk before.

I didn't stop walking. I put my bag down by the door and moved to my side of the room like I had a reason to be there and nothing else on my mind.

But I had already seen the page, it was open to had a short list of names written in her handwriting, neat and small the way she wrote everything, two of them I recognized without having to look twice.

Mine, and the transfer student who had been on the trail the night I was shot. My chest went tight but my face didn't move. "Hey," I said, pulling open my drawer.

Elara turned around in her chair. "Hey. How were classes?"

"Long." I grabbed my water bottle. "Professor Harlan gave us three more chapters by Thursday."

She made a sympathetic face and turned back to her screen.

I changed into my training clothes without rushing and kept my eyes away from the notebook. When I straightened up and reached for my bag I caught it one more time from the corner of my eye.

She had closed it.

"I'm going to the training ground," I said from the doorway. "Back before dinner."

"Don't push the shoulder," she said without turning around.

"I won't," I said.

I pulled the door shut behind me and stood in the empty hallway and breathed for a second.

My name next to the transfer student's name in Elara's handwriting. The same transfer student who had followed me into a dark trail. Written together in a list like they belonged on the same page.

She had closed the notebook the moment I turned my back, not because she forgot it was open, because she remembered.

I had suspected Elara from the beginning. The gossip that spread too cleanly, the way she always seemed to be one step ahead of the right conversation, the warmth in her face that never quite reached the back of her eyes, but suspicion was one thing. Suspicion you couldn't prove just made you look paranoid.

This was different. I started walking toward the training ground and kept my pace easy and my face relaxed in case anyone was watching. Because that was the thing about finding out someone was dangerous, the worst thing you could do was let them know you knew.

Elara was connected to whatever had been happening at this academy and that connection reached further than planting rumors about a roommate she didn't like. A list with an attacker's name on it didn't come from petty jealousy.

It came from something organized and planned. I pushed through the door at the end of the hallway and stepped outside into the afternoon air.

I needed to find out what that list was. All of it, not just the two names I had recognized, and I needed to do it without changing a single thing about how I acted around her.

Same smile at breakfast, same complaints about Harlan and the same easy roommate energy that said I had no idea she was anything other than what she pretended to be. Until I knew enough to do something about it.