The Wrong Girl Entered the Wolf Academy

(Avery Cole POV) The Blue Ridge woods didn't care that she was nine years old. They didn't care that it was past midnight, that she'd been asleep in the backseat when the bang woke her, that her daddy's body was already on the ground by the time she'd pried her eyes open and seen them standing over him. Monsters. That was the only word her brain could form. She did what her father had drilled into her. Quiet. Slip out. Run. "Hey! Someone saw us!" Their footsteps crashed through the underbrush behind her like the forest itself was hunting her. The full moon threw shadow-shapes between the trees—crouching things, reaching things—but she couldn't close her eyes. She couldn't fall. She kept her footfalls light the way Daddy had shown her, cut left, cut right, don't leave tracks. But their legs were long and hers were not, and the gap between them was shrinking with every gasping breath she pulled. The forest had gone completely silent. No crickets. No wind. Just her heartbeat hammering against her ribs and the wet snap of branches behind her, getting closer. I don't want to disappoint you, Daddy. A fist closed around her braid. The scream tore out of her before she could stop it. She hit the tree trunk hard—left arm first, then the side of her head—and the world tilted sideways as she crumpled to the ground. "It's just a kid, Mike." The voice was breathless. Disgusted. "She's seen us." A lower voice. Colder. "And now you said my name, you idiot." The one called Mike grabbed her arm—the hurt one—and she screamed again, calling for her daddy with what was left of her voice. She already knew he wasn't coming. She'd seen what they'd done to him. She was alone in a way she'd never been alone before, a way that had no bottom to it. "Just do it fast. She's making too much noise." Mike shoved her to her knees in the dirt. She heard the mechanical click—a sound she'd never heard before but understood instantly, the way you understand some things in your bones. She stopped fighting. She looked up. Through a break in the canopy, the clouds were pulling apart like curtains, and the full moon poured down onto her upturned face. Her daddy's voice came back to her—the Moon Goddess is always watching, baby girl, even when I can't be—and she let herself believe it. She closed her eyes and stopped being afraid. She wasn't angry. Her parents were on the other side. She would see them soon. "I can't do it." Mike's voice cracked. "I can't put a bullet in a child. You do it." They were still arguing—low, urgent, unraveling—when something moved through her. It started warm. Then it was everywhere, lighting up every nerve she had, and the growl that shook the trees came from somewhere so deep inside her chest she didn't recognize it as hers until she felt it in her throat. "What the—she's a monster! Shoot her!" Then the screaming started. And so much blood. She didn't stop. * * * * * * * * Avery Cole shot up in bed at 3:14 a.m., her sleep shirt soaked through and her hands shaking so badly she knocked the water bottle off her nightstand reaching for it. Damn it. She retrieved it from the floor and drank what was left, staring at the wall. The screams were still looping in the back of her skull— they always did, long after the nightmare released her. The crunch of bones. The begging. She'd gone almost eight months without that dream. She knew exactly what had broken the streak. The packed bags by her bedroom door. Avery lay back against her pillow and made herself breathe—in through the nose, slow count of four, out through the mouth. Her therapist's voice, which she'd stopped listening to years ago but still heard anyway. The full moon's light filtered through her curtains and laid a pale stripe across the floor, and she watched it like it might tell her something useful. It didn't. An hour later she gave up, showered, and stood in front of her open closet. The uniform hung there—stiff, pressed, and awful. She'd never worn a uniform in her life, and the idea that some university thought it could make her start now— She yanked it to the side and grabbed sweats and a T-shirt. Small rebellion. She'd take it. The kitchen light was already on when she came downstairs. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee hit her in the hallway, and she found Cole Harrington sitting at the island with both hands wrapped around a mug, staring into it like it owed him something. He was a massive man—broad-shouldered, gray starting at his temples, with the kind of stillness that usually meant he was doing serious internal damage. She kissed his cheek on the way to the cabinet. "Did I wake you?" "Don't think I slept." The guilt landed right in the center of her chest. She took her mug and sat beside him. "I'll be fine, Dad." She'd been calling him that since the foster home. Since the day he'd shown up and looked at her like she was already his and he was just there to collect her. It still felt like the truest word she knew. "Any sign of trouble—anything—you call me." His jaw was set. "I'll come get you myself." "Isn't this supposed to be a rite of passage?" she tried. "Every wolf goes through it." "You're not every wolf." She didn't argue. She wanted to tell him that they'd probably send her home the moment the Council realized their error, that this was all a bureaucratic mistake that would correct itself, that she'd be back in this kitchen in a week. But she didn't actually believe that, and he'd see through it instantly. "The Council's rules are the Council's rules," she said instead. "Even you can't break them for me." Cole pulled her against his side and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He smelled like pine and coffee and safety. She memorized it without meaning to. "Keep standing up for yourself," he said quietly. "Don't let them flatten you." "Dad." She pulled back and made herself smirk. "I'm Cole Harrington's daughter. Nobody flattens me." She stood before he could see her eyes go glassy. "I'm making breakfast. Something that doesn't taste like Derek cooked it." Cole's mouth twitched. "Every time that boy cooks, it tastes like a crime scene." The laugh helped. She turned to the fridge before it could become something else. Her brothers materialized one by one despite the ungodly hour, drawn by smell or instinct or guilt—probably all three. Derek snatched a piece of bacon before he'd even fully sat down. The twins, Tyler and Jordan, came in last and each kissed a cheek without a word before dropping into their chairs. Mason came in, rumpled and silent, squeezed her shoulder, and went for coffee. They kept it light over breakfast. They tried. She could feel the effort radiating off all of them, the careful way they steered away from anything real. Then Derek put his fork down. "Rules," he said. "No boys. No thinking about boys. No parties. No fun. Nothing." "Got it, Dad," she said dryly. "This isn't a joke, Avery." Mason's voice came out harder than he'd meant it to. She saw it in his face the second it landed. "For once in your life, just—follow the rules." The table went quiet. Mason looked away, jaw tight, thumb running along the rim of his mug. "I'm sorry. I just need you to take this seriously." She studied her oldest brother—the shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there before his four years, the way he sometimes went somewhere else in the middle of a conversation and had to find his way back. Whatever he'd seen in that place, he couldn't tell her. And whatever it was had made him look at her like this. Like he was terrified. If Alpha blood is scared, she thought, what does that make me? "Why don't you go for a run before we head to the airport," Cole said. It was not a suggestion. Mason was out the back door in under a minute. Avery turned back to the table and manufactured a smile. "I'll be fine." "Yes," her father said, "you will." But as she started clearing plates, the dread settled into her stomach like something with roots, and the smile she'd built for them quietly collapsed. No, said every instinct she'd ever trusted. You won't.