CHAPTER THREE — COLLISION
783 Words
The corridors of Pennysilvia murmured with unease long after the assembly ended. Whispers trailed behind Levi as he moved through the courtyard, wolves parting instinctively around him.
“Did you smell her?”
“A human inside the wards…”
“It shouldn’t be possible.”
Levi ignored it.
Ignored the voices.
Ignored the instinct tugging relentlessly in one direction—the direction she had been escorted through.
He headed the opposite way.
His wolf didn’t like that.
The animal shoved at his ribs, restless and irritated. Levi kept his pace steady, pretending he didn’t feel the internal push. He had duties, expectations, a future carved out for him before he could choose it.
A human girl with frightened eyes and a crumpled schedule didn’t belong anywhere inside that future.
He took a sharp turn down a quieter hallway, hoping solitude might settle the creature inside him.
He was wrong.
A heartbeat echoed nearby—quick, light, lost.
His wolf’s ears pricked instantly.
“No,” Levi muttered under his breath. “Not today.”
He lengthened his stride, determined to outrun the tug of instinct.
He didn’t get far.
Because she stepped right into his path.
Literally.
She emerged from a side hall so abruptly that Levi had no chance to stop. They collided hard—her papers scattering like startled birds, her breath leaving her in a soft gasp as she stumbled backward.
Levi grabbed her arm before she could fall.
Warm skin.
Small frame.
Skittish heartbeat fluttering against his senses.
His wolf surged.
Levi dropped her arm the very second she steadied, pulling back as though burned.
She looked up, startled. Recognition flickered in her eyes—the same eyes that had met his in the assembly for that too-long second.
“Oh—sorry!” she said quickly. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I noticed,” Levi replied, voice ice-cold to drown out the heat running through him.
She bent to gather her papers. He remained standing, hands locked behind his back so he wouldn’t reach down and help her.
“I’m trying to find the administration office,” she said as she shuffled the documents into order. “But this place is… confusing. Really confusing.”
Levi’s gaze swept the corridor.
She was nowhere near the administration office.
Of course she wasn’t.
“You’re lost,” he said flatly.
She let out a soft, embarrassed laugh. “Is that obvious?”
“Yes.”
Color rose in her cheeks—not from shame, but from the bluntness of his tone. She straightened her papers, hugging them tightly to her chest.
“I asked a few students for directions,” she said. “But they all looked at me like I’d asked how to summon a demon or something.”
Levi’s jaw tightened.
They were afraid of her.
Suspicious.
As they should be.
But his wolf didn’t agree.
Not even a little.
His wolf leaned toward her.
Levi took half a step back.
“You shouldn’t wander alone,” he said. “Not here.”
Her brows knit. “Why not?”
“You don’t belong in this wing.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“And you don’t belong anywhere without guidance.”
Her lips parted slightly. “Are you always this… direct?”
“Yes.”
He said it without hesitation.
A small smile tugged at her mouth, unexpected and disarming. “At least you’re honest.”
His wolf liked that.
Too much.
Levi ignored it.
“Come,” he said, turning abruptly. “I’ll take you to the administration office before you end up somewhere dangerous.”
She hurried to follow, footsteps light behind him. “Thank you. Really. I keep feeling like this school is bigger on the inside.”
“It is.”
She blinked. “Wait—what?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly.
He led her through a stone archway as sunlight filtered down from stained-glass skylights. She glanced at everything with wide, curious eyes—as though she could sense the magic even if she couldn’t understand it.
He shouldn’t notice details like that.
He shouldn’t notice her at all.
At the end of the hall, he stopped.
“It’s through that door,” he said. “Next time, stay on the main paths.”
She looked up at him, expression softening. “I will. And… thank you.”
Her gratitude lingered in the quiet like a warm current.
Levi stepped back immediately, retreating into the safety of distance.
“Good,” he said. “Don’t get lost again.”
Then he turned away before his wolf could take another step closer.
Before he could.
- Writer
