Leave Ruthless Academy.
The words keep circling, refusing to settle, too impossiblygoodto feel real.
I clutch the strap of my bag tighter, grounding myself in the texture of worn fabric against my palm.
Don't hope.
Hope is dangerous.
Hope will?—
A scent cuts through my spiraling thoughts.
Ember smoke.
Citrus peel.
Cinnamon.
The combination is distinctive—impossible to mistake for anyone else, because I've only smelled it once before. In the forest. When I had my blade inches from an Alpha's heart and didn't know why I was hesitating.
My head turns before I can consciously decide to look.
And there he is.
Leaning against the doorframe across the hall, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted back against the wood with his eyes closed in an expression of supreme boredom. He's tall—not as tall as Kai, but substantial enough to command attention. His hair catches the fluorescent light, golden blonde shot through with streaks of fire-orange that look almost deliberate, like someone painted flames into his strands.
Blaze.
The name surfaces from the chaos of that night in the forest, from snippets of conversation I half-remember through the haze of poison and performance.
He's being watched.
I notice it in the way I notice everything—compulsively, automatically, my brain cataloguing details even when I don't want it to. A cluster of Omegas has gathered at the end of the corridor, not quite close enough to be obvious but not far enoughto be innocent. They're looking at him the way hungry people look at a feast—with naked want, with speculation, with the particular kind of interest that saysI'd climb that given half a chance.
One of them giggles.
The sound is soft, breathy, nothing like the manic noise that escapes me when my brain shorts out.
Flirtatious.
Deliberate.
Another girl tosses her hair, the motion drawing attention to her neck—bare, unmarked, available.
They're trying to get his attention.
Putting on displays.
Making themselves available in ways that are just subtle enough to maintain plausible deniability but obvious enough that he'd have to be blind to miss them.
He doesn't seem to notice.
Or maybe he's just not interested.
His eyes are still closed, his breathing steady, his posture relaxed in a way that suggests complete indifference to the hormonal chaos happening twenty feet away.
I start walking toward him.
