The Stray He Marked

The library smelled like old paper and cedar polish, which was exactly why Elise loved it. She had claimed the far corner table years ago, not officially, not with her name scratched into the wood or a territorial scent mark the way some of the wolves did with their lockers, but through sheer consistency. Every morning before first bell. Every lunch period. Every free period she had ever been given in the four years she'd attended Fang Crest Pack School. The librarian, Ms. Blaine, had started leaving a small lamp on for her even on days the library was technically closed. It was the closest thing Elise had to a home inside these walls. She had her highlighters arranged in order of frequency of use, yellow, then green, then orange, the pink one she barely touched, her notebook open to a fresh page, and her Advanced Biology textbook propped against her water bottle at exactly the right angle. Finals were in three months. But she liked to be prepared, especially for impromptu tests. She had already read this chapter twice but Elise was not the kind of person who trusted herself to have retained everything from twice. She would read it a third time, annotate the margins, condense her notes to a single summary card, and then she would know it. That was how Elise survived at Fang Crest. She pushed her glasses up her nose, tucked a loose curl behind her ear, and bent over the page. The secondary hormonal cascade in shifted wolves differs significantly from "Elise Navarro?" She looked up. The office aide, a second-year she vaguely recognized, Kevin something was hovering at the end of her table with the particular energy of someone who had been searching for her for a while and was relieved, and also slightly confused, to have found her here of all places. "Mr. Smith wants to see you." Elise blinked. "Me?" "You're the only Elise Navarro in school." He said it like she might not have known. She closed her textbook with a careful thumb marking her page, capped her highlighter, and tried to think of what she could have possibly done. The answer, as far as she could determine in the ninety-second walk from the library to the principal's office, was nothing. She had made it a point long ago to do nothing. Nothing that drew attention. Nothing that created problems. Nothing that made anyone look at her too long or too hard or with the particular calculating expression that certain members of this pack got when they remembered, suddenly, that she was an omega. That she was a stray that had no blood claim to the Fang Crest name, only the charity of an alpha who had found a six-year-old girl alone in the woods twelve years ago and decided, against the advice of several of his senior wolves, to bring her home. Stray. They'd been calling her that since the second week. She'd stopped flinching at it by the third. Mr. James Smith's office was aggressively tidy in the way of a man who believed that a clean desk communicated authority. He had degrees on the wall, a crystal paperweight, and a photograph of himself shaking hands with the regional pack council that he had clearly positioned to be visible from every seat in the room. He was also, Elise had long observed, a man who was nervous about something approximately sixty percent of the time, and when he was nervous he smiled too wide and talked too fast and offered you things, coffee, a biscuit, a chair, in rapid succession before getting to the point. He did all three now. "Elise! Sit, sit. Can I get you anything? We have...Sandra brought biscuits, I think there are still..." He was already moving toward the side table. "I'm fine, thank you," she said, and sat. He sat too. Laced his fingers together on the desk. The smile stayed, but something shifted behind his eyes, a rehearsal. "You're our top student," he began. "I try to keep up with my coursework," Elise said carefully. "Top in every subject. Top of the entire school, actually...and you know we have some very strong students this year." He paused. Elise waited. "We have a situation." He unclasped his hands and re-clasped them. "A sensitive one. I want you to understand, before I say anything further, that this conversation stays in this room." The back of Elise's neck prickled uneasily. "Of course," she said. Mr. Smith exhaled. "Carl Daxton is going to fail his finals." Silence. Elise kept her face very still. "He needs to pass," Mr. Smith continued. "Not just pass, he needs to score in the upper range. The pack council has requirements for the alpha heir's academic record before the formal ascension process can begin. It's traditional. It's been traditional for a hundred years." He paused. "It has not historically been a problem because alpha heirs have historically taken the requirement seriously. Carl…" He trailed off. "Carl has not taken it seriously," Elise supplied, because Mr. Smith seemed to be struggling. "Carl has not taken it seriously," he agreed, with the expression of a man confirming a natural disaster. "His father, the Alpha is aware of the situation. The council is not yet aware. We have three months before finals. I need someone to tutor him." He looked at her directly for the first time since she'd sat down. "I need you to tutor him for two months." The library, Elise thought. She should have stayed in the library. "Mr. Smith..." "I know what you're going to say." "Do you?" She kept her voice polite and even. The voice she had developed specifically for conversations where she needed to push back without appearing to push back, because an omega pushing back too visibly at Fang Crest had a way of going badly. "You're going to say you're busy. That finals are around the corner and your own preparation—" "I was going to say," she interrupted gently, "that I'm probably not the right choice. There are other strong students. There's Daria Thornton, she's second in our year. Jonah Reeves does exceptional work in—" "I asked Daria," Mr. Smith said. "She declined." A beat. "I asked Jonah. He also declined." He had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "I've asked four students, Elise. You are the fifth. You are also, and I say this with full sincerity, the best." Elise looked at the crystal paperweight. Then at the photograph of the pack council. Then back at Mr. Smith. "You want me," she said slowly, "to spend two months, before my own finals, tutoring Carl Daxton." "Daily sessions. One hour each, at minimum, more if Carl requires it. You'd be compensated, of course. A stipend from the school fund—" "It's not about the money." "—and I want you to know that Alpha Daxton himself has been told your name. He's grateful. Gratitude from the alpha's household, Elise." He said it meaningfully. Like it was a gift being handed across the desk. Maybe it was. She wasn't sure. She thought about Carl Daxton. Everyone knew the alpha's heir. It was not possible to attend Fang Crest Pack School and not know Carl Daxton, in the way that it was not possible to stand in a field during a thunderstorm and not notice the lightning. He was 6'5 and built like the universe had been specifically designing him for the role of Alpha since before he was born. His wolf was the kind of massive that made older wolves stop and stare. She had seen him shift once, at a pack run two years ago that she'd watched from the tree line because no one had told her she was invited, his wolf was dark grey and enormous and moved like the ground owed it something. He was also, categorically, the most exhausting person she had never spoken to. Changes girlfriend every week. Different one at every pack event, always beautiful, always laughing at something he said. Lazy in class in the particular way of someone who had decided, long ago, that effort was for people who weren't already guaranteed to win. She'd seen his test scores posted on the communal board twice, the school still did that, old pack tradition, top and bottom performers displayed and both times she'd felt a confusing mix of academic offense and resigned understanding. He simply did not care. Why would he? The pack was his. The title was his. The future had his name on it in permanent ink and he had never once had to pick up a pen to write it there himself. She did not want to spend weeks in a room with Carl Daxton. She thought about the Alpha's gratitude, about what that meant, practically, for a stray omega with no family name and no formal standing, the kind of tangible goodwill that could quietly open doors that had always been, not locked exactly, but discouraged. She thought about how she was very good at convincing herself that things were fine, and how she was equally good at recognizing when they were, in fact, not. "One hour per day," she said. Mr. Smith straightened. "Yes—" "At a time and location I choose." "Within reason—" "And if he misses a session without notifying me in advance, the session counts as completed on my end." She met his eyes. "I have my own finals, Mr. Smith. I can't reorganize my schedule around his availability on a whim." He was already nodding. "Absolutely. Absolutely, that's entirely fair." Elise stood, smoothed her cardigan, picked up her bag. "When do I start?" *** She found out later after she'd walked back to the library and sat back down at her corner table and stared at her Advanced Biology textbook for a full ten minutes without reading a word, that Carl Daxton had also been asked if he was willing to work with a tutor. He had said, reportedly, and she was given this information by Kevin-the-office-aide who had apparently decided they were now on speaking terms: "Whatever. Who cares." Elise uncapped her yellow highlighter. Who cares, she thought. Two months before finals, she could survive that. She had survived considerably worse. She bent over her textbook, found her place, and read. The secondary hormonal cascade in shifted wolves differs significantly from baseline readings, suggesting that the physiological changes of the shift are not merely structural, but— From somewhere across the building, as if the universe wanted to remind her of exactly what she'd agreed to, she heard a corridor full of students erupt into laughter and cheering. A familiar, easy, effortless laugh rose above the rest, the kind of laugh that had never once worried about whether it was welcome. Elise highlighted a sentence she hadn't actually read. Two months, she told herself again. She had a feeling she was going to need to keep saying it.