Chapter 107

KATHERINE.

The dorm Lenore was staying at was called Wilxes Hall and it overlooked a cliff… a very high cliff. “That’s quite the drop,” I muttered to myself while dialing Lenore’s number; the moment she answered the call, I stopped staring at the rocky bottom. “Hey, Lenore. Can I talk to you?”

“Sure, what’s up?” she asked before muttering ‘stop’ to whoever was with her, and I raised a brow, looking for an out.

“Are you busy?” If she was, I’d leave and it wouldn’t be like I hadn’t even tried.

“No, no, what do you want to talk about?” she replied and I pursed my lips before clearing my throat.

“Uh, I mean in person. I want to talk to you in person.”

“Oh. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. I just need to…” I heaved a sigh as I stared at the hostel. I didn’t even know how I’d bring up the alliance talk. “I just need to ask you something. Sorry, I know it’s late.”

“No, it’s fine. Where are you?” she replied while I heard rustling on the other end as a guy asked if she was talking to Satomi, and she replied with a ‘No’.

“I’m in front of your dorm.”

“Okay. I’ll be right out.” With that, she hung up and I sucked in a breath before quickly trying to come up with what I was going to say about the alliance, and wondering if I should just start with it or slowly lead our conversation in that direction. It ended up being a trial and failure though because my mind ended up drifting to Blake accepting only her favor from all the people in the arena. I wouldn’t have liked it if he’d accepted a lot of favors too, but what made his action bug me even more – apart from the fact that she’d be a perfect candidate for his Luna – was that he’d been the champion of the jousting match and he’d given his prize – a crown of flowers – to Lenore. Again, she was his friend, it shouldn’t bug me, but it did.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and let out a harsh breath before spotting someone standing right at the edge of the cliff next to the hall and I gaped at how reckless they were being before recognizing who it was. “Well, well, well. Look who it is,” I called out and Theo glanced over his shoulder before the corner of his mouth turned up while I walked over, stopping a couple of feet behind him.

“Why are you everywhere?”

“I could ask you the same,” I replied and he tsked while I remembered that he didn’t participate in the match like Hunter said he would. “You didn’t participate in the jousting match.”

“Did you want me to?” he asked and I blinked at him once, twice, before I managed to respond.

“Huh?” Had I wanted him there? I hadn’t thought of that when I noticed he was present in the stands and not on the field, but now that he asked, I began to wonder. “I don’t… I heard you were good at it, so I was kinda looking forward to seeing you play.”

“You mean joust,” he corrected and I rolled my eyes.

“Whatever. Why didn’t you participate?”

He stared at me for a couple of seconds before speaking. “Blake bribed me not to. He knew he’d have lost if I participated.”

“Really?” I asked, raising a brow as I tried to imagine that conversation, and he shook his head sideways, making me sneer at him. Someone walking out of the hall drew my attention from him and when I saw it wasn’t Lenore, I returned my gaze to his. “Are you staying here too?” I added and he nodded.

“Here to see Lenore?”

“Yeah. She’s on her way down.”

He nodded again before he turned around and began to head back to the hall.

“Oh, come on. Keep me company till she comes out,” I called out after him and he glanced over his shoulder, shooting me a look.

“You’ll just talk my ear off, so I’ll pass.”

“I won’t talk then.”

“You can’t keep quiet to save your life.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s not true. During the scavenger hunt, when Noah was…” I trailed off as I realized I didn’t need to tell anyone that. It would just seem like a baseless accusation since he hadn’t actually done anything – making me come out of the crawl space beneath the tree with a ball of flame in his hand had been a threat, but to others, it would have been a tactic to get my flag. Also, I’d watched clips of the scavenger hunt match with Staerdale, and it turned out that no one had ‘physically’ pushed me into the water, so I couldn’t tell anyone he was responsible for that since he was a fire elementalist; it was his another one of his friends – the son of Blue Moon’s Beta – that was an air elementalist – and again, they could just say he’d tried to get my flag with his element and his power spiraled out of control. I was on the losing side here.

“When Noah was what?” Theo asked, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I gave him a small smile as I shook my head sideways.

“It’s not important.”

Theo’s frown deepened at that and he took a step towards me. “Is he bothering you?”

“No…” It sounded more like a question than an answer, and again, Theo’s frown deepened. He opened his mouth to say something else but stopped when he glanced past me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Lenore walking out of the building before Theo walked past me.

“See you around.”

“Bye, Theo.”

He and Lenore high-fived each other as they walked past each other, and when she got to me, she flashed me a smile before saying, “Hey, what’s up?”

The reason I’d come over here came back to mind and I bit back a groan. “I want to talk.”

“Yeah, I got that. What do you want to talk about?”

“Well…” I started, thinking of how I should bring up the topic, and she raised a brow, waiting for me to continue. After several moments passed without me saying anything, I grimaced and she glanced at the dorm over her shoulder.

“The vending machine here is empty and I need a snack. How about we talk on our way to Stavenger Hall?” she asked and I immediately bobbed my head.

“Sure.” We headed towards the path that was right next to the cliff since that was the quickest way to get to campus from here and after a couple of minutes of walking in silence, I came to a stop and finally spoke. “So you might have heard the rumors about an alliance between your pack and mine…”

“Oh, those.” Lenore’s brows lifted as she also stopped and she gave me a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry about them,” she added before giving me a sheepish smile. “I should have told you that might happen. I’m sorry, I didn’t.”

‘So she knew that was going to happen?’ I thought while sighing in relief because I had been a bit worried that she would find me weird for not addressing the rumors immediately after they started. “Oh, no, no. It’s fine. I just… Do you think it’s possible?” I winced as I asked that, half expecting her to laugh at me, but instead she drew her brows together as she stared at something past me. “...Lenore.”

She suddenly jerked me to the side, startling me, but before she could move, something hard sailed into the side of her head, and a sickening crack filled the air before she fell to the ground. My eyes rounded.

“Oh my God, Lenore.” I rushed over to her side and my heart threatened to beat out of my chest as blood began to pool next to her head as I realized she was unconscious. “Oh God!” My gaze shifted to what had hit her in the head – it was a rectangular metal – before shifting to the direction it had come from to see Noah and his two friends – the son of his pack’s beta and the son of Blue Moon’s beta – walking over to us.

“What the fuck? It’s the Dark Moon girl,” Blue Moon’s beta’s son said, his eyes wide. “I didn’t see her.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see her?!” the other boy said. His eyes were also wide.

“I didn’t see her!”

The both of them were panicking, but Noah, who had a hard expression on his face as he stared at me, didn’t seem to be. I returned my attention to Lenore who was still unconscious and the thought of her dying from a brain hemorrhage threatened to give me a heart attack. I needed to go get help.

I got to my feet, but before I could take off in the other direction, Noah appeared in front of me and tightly wrapped his hand around my neck. “No, no, you’re not going anywhere,” he said. His blue eyes glistened with an unsettling hint of chaos and hatred. It was almost like staring into a frigid, deep, and ominous void, and it made me scared, especially as he lifted me up so my feet dangled in the air, but I was much more scared for Lenore.

“Noah, she’s hurt. I need to get help,” I managed to say despite him cutting off my oxygen.

“You think I give a fuck? She deserves it for meddling in matters that don’t concern her.” His grip was too strong to wiggle out of, and my lungs started to ache while my eyes bulged.

“She had nothing to do with the alliance dissolution.”

“I’m not stupid, Katherine,” he spat before glancing at her as my mind churned. I didn’t know how fast her healing rate was, but it was clearly not fast enough because her head was still bleeding. She shouldn’t have gotten hurt. If I hadn’t come here to talk to her, she wouldn’t be here. The object that had hit her in the head was clearly meant for me, and if she hadn’t moved me out of the way, it would have found its mark. “That’s your fault,” Noah added, gesturing at her. “That’s on you.” He turned to glance at his friends while I clawed my fingers at his hand uselessly and began to scream for help as loud as I could. It wasn’t very loud. “Did she see you?””

The color had drained out of his friends' faces and their expressions screamed ‘I didn’t sign up for this’ before Blue Moon’s beta’s son spoke. “I don’t know. I don’t think so… No…? I think we should…”

“Should what?”

“We can’t just leave her like that. She could die!”

“And?” Noah was unhinged. My head began to spin while my sight started to close in on me, and I was rapidly losing energy to claw at his hand.

“What do you mean ‘and?’?” the son of Silver Bow’s Beta cut in, gesturing wildly. “We’re going to get in a shit ton of trouble if she dies. We’re already in a shit ton of trouble for doing this in the first place.”

“She didn’t see us.”

“He’s not even sure.”

“She didn’t see the both of ‘us’,” Noah said and the other boy’s face became even paler. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times as his gaze bounced between his friends.

“What?” he breathed as the fact that they were going to throw him under the bus so hard, that the bus would get a flat tire, dawned on him. “I…”

“Help!” I used my last breath to scream just before Noah violently threw me to the side and the relief I felt at being able to breathe again was quickly replaced by terror as I realized he’d thrown me towards the edge of the cliff.