Chapter 3 Ego

Aurora's POV

When I whirled around, my gaze landed on a random student and I exhaled.

"He is just a student."

I said it to the empty corridor like it owed me a response.

"He does not have authority over you. He is not your Alpha. He is not your anything." I shifted my bag on my shoulder and kept walking. "You have faced worse. You faced Melanie's fist and survived. You can face Nolan Blackwood and survive. You have better words than him."

A junior passing in the opposite direction gave me a wide berth.

I did not blame her.

"You are not afraid," I told myself.

The east courtyard appeared at the end of the corridor.

Nolan was already there. Alone. Unlike expected, he had no team mates or the self proclaimed queen bee; Melanie with him. His hands were in his pockets and he was standing in the late afternoon light like it had been arranged specifically for his benefit.

Every word I had just said dissolved.

I kept walking anyway, because stopping would have been worse.

He turned before I reached him. Far too early for someone who should not have heard my footsteps from that distance. The reminder that he was a wolf and I was not arrived right on schedule.

He looked at me. I looked back and said nothing, because I was already losing and we had not started yet.

"The video," he said.

"Was not me."

"You embarrassed me in front of that class."

"I answered a question. Mr. Hayes asked. I answered. That is how Biology works."

Something in his jaw shifted. "And the recording."

"Was not me," I repeated. "I did not record anything. I did not post anything. I do not know who did."

He looked at me for a long moment. Like I was a problem he was calculating the cost of.

"You expect me to believe that."

"I expect you to consider the possibility that not everything that goes wrong in your life is my fault, yes."

It was a good line. Here, alone, with him standing close enough that I could see exactly how unimpressed he was, it landed with considerably less force.

He took one step closer.

I did not step back. I wanted to. But stepping back meant he would see it, and I had already given him enough material this week. I felt something crawl through my spine the moment he got close enough, my fingers twitching nervously, my gaze fixated on his cold piercing eyes even when my body suggested that I retreat.

"You think this is a joke," he said quietly.

Quiet was worse than loud. Loud I could match.

"I think you are angry about something I did not do."

"You did plenty."

"In a Biology class. With my mouth." My voice cracked slightly on the last word. I pushed through it. "That is the full extent of my crimes, Nolan."

His expression did not change. Nolan was controlled in a way that made you feel like you were always one sentence away from finding out what he was actually capable of.

"You know what I think?" he said.

I said nothing.

"I think you forget where you are." He tilted his head slightly. "You walk around this academy like you belong here. Like the scholarship your family begged for means something."

There it was.

"My father did not beg for anything," I said.

"Your father could not afford the application fee."

The words hit clean. Melanie left marks on the outside. Nolan found the exact place that had no protection and pressed directly on it.

"My father worked harder than anyone in your family has ever needed to." My nails pressed into my palm inside my pocket. "He built everything he had without a pack behind him and without a father handing him a title."

"And still ended up needing mine to bail out his family." His voice did not rise. Did not sharpen. "Interesting legacy."

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

In two semesters I had always had something. A redirect. A deflection. This time the cabinet was empty.

He was not finished.

"My father has been very generous with your family. The scholarship. The job. The late meetings at his office." A pause. "Your mother seems to find reasons to stay well past business hours."

The courtyard went very quiet.

"You are a nobody," he said. "You have always been a nobody. Stop making yourself my problem."

He walked away. Unhurried. As though the conversation had been a minor errand he had now completed.

I stood in the empty courtyard and did not move.

The tears came without asking permission. Not even because of what he implied about my mother. It was my father that broke through. After Melanie's fist and eight months of nicknames and a broken nose I had worn to school with my chin up.

He had worked until his hands shook. Skipped meals I did not find out about until years later. Loved us with the ferocity of someone who knew the world was not going to make things easy and decided to stand in the way of it anyway.

Nolan Blackwood had reduced all of that to a punchline in under a minute.

I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth and stared at the oak trees until I could breathe.

Then I picked up my bag and walked.

Sienna was waiting at the courtyard entrance.

She took one look at my face and said nothing. Did not ask. Did not reach for her phone.

She just pulled me in.

I let her.

For once I had absolutely nothing to say.

The walk home was too quiet.

My mother worked as a receptionist at one of Victor Blackwood's companies. Victor had sponsored my scholarship after my father died. He had stepped in during the worst year of our lives and I had always understood that as loyalty. An old friendship honored.

But late meetings?After business hours?

I turned the key in our front door and stood in the hallway, listening. I heard the radio on low, something on the stove.

I put my bag down and went in.

She knew something was wrong before I sat down.

"You are quiet," she said, not looking up from the stove.

"I am fine."

"You have been fine since you walked in. That is usually when I start worrying."

I set the table. Kept my hands busy so my face could sort itself out.

It did not sort itself out.

She asked about school. I gave short answers. She asked about my nose and I said Sienna had walked me to the pharmacy. She did not push.

Halfway through dinner she put her fork down.

"Aurora."

I looked up.

"What happened?"

I looked at her. At the woman who had stood in a graveyard holding my hand ten years ago and kept her grip tight for everything that came after. Who came home later some evenings than others and alw

ays had a reasonable explanation.

"Mom." I set my own fork down. "What is actually going on between you and Alpha Victor Blackwood?"

Her eyes widened.