Mated To My Hot Alpha Professor

Two

KAIRA

The gymnasium fell silent except for the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears.

Professor Zane moved to the center of the sparring mat like a predator stalking through tall grass. Every eye in the room was on us now. I could feel Madison's smug satisfaction radiating from across the room, along with the whispered bets about how quickly I would go down.

“Thirty seconds," someone muttered. “She'll be on the ground in thirty seconds.”

I stepped onto the mat, my sneakers squeaking against the polished surface. My hands trembled as I raised them into what I hoped looked like a fighting stance. Two years of mandatory self-defense classes had taught me the basics, but I had never actually fought anyone. Not really.

"Relax your shoulders," Professor Zane said quietly, positioning himself about six feet away. "You're too tense, breathe." Easy for him to say, he wasn't about to be humiliated in front of half the school.

"Now," he continued, his voice carrying to the gathered students, "combat isn't about size or strength alone. It's about reading your opponent, finding their weaknesses, and using your advantages." His amber eyes locked onto mine. "What advantages do you have, Miss Blackwood?"

I stared at him, confused. Advantages? I was small, weak, couldn't shift, and couldn't even call for help. What possible advantage could I have?

"Think," he pressed gently. "You've survived two years at this academy, you must have learned something."

My mind raced but yeah surrvive, that is the key word, isn't it? While other students had been learning to fight with claws and fangs, I had been learning something else entirely, how to move quietly, how to go unnoticed, how to read a room and sense danger before it found me.

"Excellent," Professor Zane said, and I realized my posture had shifted without me noticing. My weight was balanced on the balls of my feet now, my stance lower and more serious. "I can see you understand, begin when you're ready."

He didn't charge at me like I had expected. Instead, he waited, patient as stone, letting me make the first move. Around us, I could hear students growing restless.

"Is something going to happen, or..." Madison started to say.

That's when I moved, two years of avoiding bullies had taught me to be quick. I darted to Professor Zane's left, keeping low, trying to get behind him. But he was ready for it, turning smoothly to track my movement. His hand shot out to grab my wrist, but I was already dropping, sliding under his reach.

"Good," he murmured, and there was genuine approval in his voice.

I popped back up and immediately had to duck as his other hand swept toward where my head had been. My pulse was racing, but for the first time in years, it wasn't from fear. This was actually kind of thrilling.

We circled each other now, and I noticed something strange. Professor Zane wasn't trying to end the fight quickly. He was letting it play out, almost like he was studying me. Testing me.

I feinted right, then spun left, slipping past him. My palm shot toward his back, but he caught my wrist before I made contact. Not crushing, not cruel, but controlled.

"Better," he said, releasing me. "But you're still thinking like prey. What happens when prey stops running?"

I backed away, breathing hard. What did he mean? The prey that stopped running got caught. Got killed.

Unless it wasn't really prey at all, that's when I felt it but not all at once. First, just a warmth in my palms, subtle enough that I almost dismissed it. Then a tingling that crept up my wrists, my forearms, spreading through my chest like someone had lit a candle behind my ribs.

I stumbled mid-dodge and nearly lost my footing. Focus, I told mysel, it's just adrenaline or maybe the fight.

But when I looked down at my hands, my whole body went still, silver light. Soft and steady, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, casting faint shadows across my knuckles, it wasn't painful, just like a part of me I hadn't known was asleep was finally waking up and stretching.

I couldn't stop staring at it. “What is this?”

The thought was sharp and desperate, and I meant it only for myself. But something happened when it formed. It didn't stay inside my head. It left, like a stone dropped into still water, rippling outward in every direction at once.

The entire gymnasium flinched not physically. But I felt it, felt them, every single person in that room. Not just saw or heard them, but actually felt them. Madison's jealousy hit me, it was achingly familiar.

Somewhere to my left, a sophomore I had never spoken to was terrified, her fear small and sharp as a splinter. Jessica's amazement bloomed warm and bright near the back wall.

And Professor Zane...

His emotions crashed into me like a wave I hadn't braced for. Awe,potectiveness so fierce it almost hurt. And underneath it, something older and deeper that I had no words for, something that sent heat pooling through my entire body and made my knees go dangerously weak.

Mate.

The word moved through my mind like smoke, and I still don't know whose voice it was. His,mine or someone else's.I looked up at him. His amber eyes had gone full gold, blazing.

"There," he breathed, barely audible. "There she is."

I didn't understand what he meant I wasn't sure I was breathing. Then the alarms started.

Red lights flashed throughout the gymnasium as a mechanical voice echoed from the speakers. "CODE RED. ALL STUDENTS AND FACULTY REPORT TO SECURE LOCATIONS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

The silver light around my hands flickered and died. Students screamed and scattered toward the exits, their carefully maintained composure dissolving into panic.

But Professor Zane didn't run. Instead, he stepped closer to me, his body tense and ready for battle. "Stay behind me," he commanded, his voice carrying the full authority of his Alpha nature.

Through the large windows that lined one wall of the gymnasium, I could see dark shapes moving across the academy grounds. They moved too fast to even take them all in.

"Rogues," Professor Zane said loudly. "A whole pack of them."

More screams echoed from the hallways outside. Something crashed, glass breaking maybe, or furniture overturning. The acrid smell of smoke began to seep under the gymnasium doors.

Professor Zane's jaw tightened. "The safe room protocols should have been activated by now. Why haven't the barriers..."

His words were cut off as the gymnasium doors exploded inward. Dark figures poured through the opening, rogues in their wolf forms, their eyes glowing red with madness and their lips pulled back to reveal yellowed fangs.

But these weren't ordinary rogues. Their fur was matted and wrong, streaked with what looked like black veins, and they moved with a coordination that wild rogues shouldn't have possessed.

Professor Zane shifted instantly, his human form dissolving into the largest wolf I had ever seen. His fur was deep brown with silver highlights, and his eyes maintained that piercing amber color even in wolf form. He positioned himself between the rogues and the terrified students.

But there were too many of them. At least a dozen rogues spread out across the gymnasium floor, cutting off all escape routes. More poured in behind them, their red eyes scanning the room like searchlights.

I pressed myself against the wall and tried to understand what I was seeing. These weren't ordinary rogues. I had studied enough werewolf history to know that. Rogues were solitary, feral, driven by instinct and hunger. They didn't coordinate. They didn't fan out to cover exits like soldiers.

But these ones did, and they were searching. Their red eyes swept the room in slow arcs, past the cowering students, past the exits, past Professor Zane himself. Like he was an obstacle, not a target.

My stomach turned cold.

The largest rogue, the one with the black metal collar, lifted its muzzle and howled. The sound clawed up my spine, and I almost missed what was buried inside it.

“The Healer... the Healer is here…”

The words were distorted, broken up like a radio signal cutting in and out, but they were unmistakably words. I pressed back harder against the wall, my hands hidden behind my back.

They weren't here for school, they were here for someone. As I was trying to look for someone I could run into and escape, the lead rogue's gaze locked onto mine and it smiled.

Professor Zane's wolf form exploded across the room before the rogue could move, but there were too many of them. The silver light began to build in my palms again, brighter than before, and with it came an instinct I didn't understand but couldn't ignore.

“Runnnnnn.” Professor Zane shouted loudly but before I could run, the largest rogue pounced on me.