The Wrong Girl Entered the Wolf Academy

Chapter 3: The Devil's Welcome

(Zane Mercer POV)

I don't listen to Cara.

I never do, but this morning I make it a point—stand at the mirror, button my shirt slowly, let her voice become static. She's been talking since before I opened my eyes, a low-grade frequency of complaints that tells me she found something to be unhappy about within forty-five minutes of arriving on campus. A new personal record.

I straighten my tie, drag a hand through my still-damp hair, and meet my own eyes in her mirror.

"Are you even listening to me, Zane?"

"No."

I hold her gaze as I reach for my blazer. She needs to understand—clearly, finally—that I mean that in every possible way a man can mean it. The silence that follows is its own kind of answer. When I glance back, she's dropped her eyes, blonde hair falling over her

face, sheet pooled around her waist.

For exactly three seconds, I consider staying. She knows how to use what she has. I'll give her that.

Then I remember the look she gave me last month when I didn't call for four days. Clingy. Complicated. Not worth it.

I leave without a word.

* * * * * * * *

The morning air outside her dorm hits me like a clean break—cool, sharp, Pacific Northwest pine cutting through everything. I need

it. Need the reset.

Remy and Cal are already leaning against my car, wolf-whistling at every female who crosses the quad with her luggage. Two years

of surviving this place earned us the privilege of driving ourselves in. Our bags are still in the trunk; we came straight here from the

airstrip. First stop was Cara's dorm. Remy will never let me forget how short that visit was.

"And how's our future Luna?" Remy asks, grinning like he's proud of himself.

I give him a look that would silence a lesser man. He just grins wider.

Cal drops into the passenger seat before I've even started the car. "Did you talk to her this time? Like, actual words?"

"Drive," I say, and I pull out.

Remy's already rolling down his window in the back seat, targeting a woman in a black dress near the fountain. She turns toward us,

and I catch the flash of her eyes—dark, depthless. Vampire.

"She's going to take your hand off at the wrist," Cal says.

"Worth it," Remy decides, and leans out. "Hey—"

The fangs come out. She snarls and gives him the finger without breaking stride.

"You can bite me anytime, sweetheart!" he calls after her.

I shake my head. These two idiots are going to be my Beta and Gamma one day. The pack has no idea what's coming for them.

We roll past the main building, windows down, and that's when it hits me.

I almost brake without meaning to.

A scent—warm, sweet, layered with something wild underneath that makes no sense for a campus kitchen. Like sun-warmed skin

and something dark and electric beneath it, something that doesn't have a name yet. My lungs pull it in before my brain catches up,

and Ruin—my wolf, my most honest self—goes completely still inside me. Not tense. Not alert.

Arrested.

Like he's heard a sound he's been waiting for his whole life and can't believe it's finally here.

"What time is it?" I ask, voice coming out flatter than I intend.

Cal checks his phone. "Just past ten. You weren't in Cara's room long enough to even—"

"Did either of you smell that?" I interrupt.

A beat. They exchange a look in my peripheral.

"Smell what?" Remy says.

I don't answer. I take one more long breath, and the scent is already thinning, the car moving us past it. Ruin whines low in my chest.

I grip the wheel and keep driving.

Cafeteria, I think. Lunch. Whatever that is—I'll find it.

* * * * * * * *

The Ridge Houses sit behind the main campus buildings, tucked into a treeline that gives the illusion of privacy. As a future Alpha, I

get a two-story with Remy and Cal built in—their rooms, my room, Omega staff rotating through for maintenance. It's the closest

thing to comfortable this place offers.

We're halfway out of the car when I catch the second scent.

This one I know. Hate on contact.

I find him in my rearview mirror before I fully register it—Jaxon Hale, walking up my driveway like he owns the air around him.

Three years, and he still moves like someone who's never been made to answer for anything. My jaw locks. Inside my chest, Ruin

surges—hot, furious—and it takes everything I have to push him down.

Not here. Not yet.

Shall I handle it? Cal's voice threads through our mind link, quiet and precise.

No. Stay back.

I get out slowly and position myself at the rear of the car, arms loose at my sides. Waiting. Ruin presses at every seam I have.

Jaxon stops at a safe distance. Smart enough for that, at least. He's smiling—easy, practiced, the smile of a man who's never once

been afraid of me. That's the thing that rattles Ruin more than anything else.

"Welcome back," Jaxon says.

"What do you want." Not a question. He doesn't deserve a question.

"Relax, Ezekiel." The use of my full name lands like a palm flat on an open wound. He knows exactly what he's doing. "Just being

neighborly. There's a party tonight—first night back, kick off the semester right." He spreads his hands, the picture of generosity.

"You're invited."

"I'd rather cut my own arm off."

Jaxon laughs. Actually laughs, like I've said something charming.

"Suit yourself." He shrugs, already turning. Turning his back to me. "See you around, man."

The audacity of that is its own kind of violence. Away from this campus, no one turns their back on an enemy. No one who wants to

stay alive. Ruin slams against my control, and I feel my claws extend at my fingertips before I can stop them—short, sharp, the sting

of it almost welcome.

Remy and Cal come up on either side of me, shoulder to shoulder. We watch Jaxon whistle as he strolls off our property, hands in his

pockets, like this was a casual visit between friends.

"One more year," Cal says. His voice is quiet. Deadly quiet, which means he means it.

"One more year," I echo.

I force Ruin back down by sheer will, retract my claws, and exhale. The fury doesn't go anywhere. It never does. It just goes

underground, where I've been keeping it for three years, stacking it alongside everything else Jaxon and his pack took from us.

Remy is silent beside me—which tells me more than anything he could say. Remy is never silent unless the wound is deep enough to

reach bone. He has his own reasons to want Jaxon's pack obliterated. We all do.

"Let's get our stuff inside," I say.

I grab bags from the trunk and head through the front door. The house smells clean—Omega-scrubbed, neutral, every surface wiped

down. Normally that's fine. Today, after that scent I caught on the drive, the neutrality of it bothers me in a way I can't articulate.

I want that other scent in here. I don't know why that thought arrives so fully formed, so certain, but Ruin doesn't argue with it.

"I'm going to the cafeteria for lunch," I announce at the base of the stairs. "Whatever they cooked today—I want it."

Cal pauses on the landing. "First day of semester, they probably don't run lunch until—"

"They were cooking something. I smelled it near the main building."

Another exchanged look between them. Another shrug.

"Text us when you're heading over," Remy says, and disappears into his room.

I carry my bags to the end of the hallway, drop them inside my door, and stand at the window. My hand is still faintly trembling from

the effort of controlling Ruin around Jaxon. I hate that. I've had discipline drilled into me since I was a child—not because control is

easy, but because dominance without it is just destruction.

I can't afford destruction. Not when everything I've worked for is finally within reach.

But Ruin is still restless, pacing in lazy circles, not agitated the way he was with Jaxon.

Different. Searching.

And in the back of my mind, that scent—warm, wild, electric—lingers like something I haven't earned yet.

I'll find it at lunch, I tell him.

Ruin doesn't believe me. He already knows it isn't food.