Chapter 115: Promise Dressed in Pretty Words - Callista's POV

The hallway had gone completely still around us. It wasn’t the kind of quiet where people were just pretending to listen. No, they were very invested, because this silence was raw and uncomfortable.

Everyone had stopped moving entirely because what was happening in front of them was too real to look away from. I could feel every set of eyes on us as if they were bearing down on me. For once, I didn’t have the energy to care.

Riven’s gaze hadn’t left my face.

I couldn’t read him at all, because he was too controlled for that, but what came through the bond was enough. It felt as if he was…devastated. I couldn’t quite place it. It felt more than just guilt and was something I couldn’t fully name.

“Callista,” he said softly.

"Not here," I said sharply.

"You're right." His jaw tightened. "Not here."

Sabine made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You keep saying that. Not here, not now, later. But later never comes, does it? You just keep burying it."

"Sabine." My voice came out sharper than I intended. “Stop this. Now isn’t the time to do this and—”

“No,” she said, her voice cutting me off. She took a step closer, and I saw her fighting the tremor running through her body. Her wolf was so close to the surface that one wrong move would bring her out. “You always do this. You protect everyone from the truth of what you went through, including him, and then you wonder why you’re still carrying it alone.”

The words landed somewhere tender, and I felt them settle there whether I wanted them to or not.

"She's not alone," Riven said quietly, and the evenness in his voice was the careful kind. The kind that meant he was holding something very still, so it didn't break through. "Not anymore."

Sabine's gaze moved to him, slow and assessing, and I watched her weigh him the way she always weighed people. Very thoroughly.

"She shouldn't have been alone in the first place," she said finally.

"No," he agreed. "She shouldn't have and I was wrong for that.”

Something shifted in her expression. She didn’t soften or even flinch. There was a sharp edge to her that wasn’t normally there in her angelic face. Her claws flexed. I felt her wolf growing angrier by the minute, especially when I noticed her eyes were shifting back and forth between normal and not.

But I couldn’t deny that something in the way he hadn’t argued with her, hadn’t defended himself or redirected the blame, had reached something under all that fury.

She looked at me again. “Did you sleep last night?”

The question came out so much quieter than everything before it that it took me a second to catch up. I blinked.

"Some," I said, nodding. “It was more than I usually get and my wolf was at peace.”

Her eyes moved to Riven briefly, then back to me, and I understood the question she wasn't asking. Was he there? Did he stay?

"He was there," I said softly.

She exhaled through her nose. It wasn't forgiveness. I wasn't naïve enough to call it that, but it was something. A slight lowering of the blade.

The professor who had intervened was still hovering at the edge of the hallway, clearly unsure whether the crisis had passed or simply paused. Most of the students had started moving again, though the ones closest to us were still watching with barely concealed interest.

"Monroe," the professor said carefully. "Class."

Sabine looked at her, then back at me. Her wolf was settling now, the ripple of fur beneath her skin fading. She reached out and straightened the strap of my bag in a motion so familiar it ached. She had done that since we were children, when she was finally old enough to help. It was a habit of hers, a small, wordless act that meant she loved me even if she was furious with me at the moment.

"Tonight," she said. "You're going to sit down and actually talk to me."

"Tonight," I agreed. “Will you come to the mansion? I think I have to begin training.”

She held my gaze for one more beat. Then she looked at Riven with an expression that was somewhere between a warning and a reluctant acknowledgment.

"You have one chance," she said firmly. "Don't make me regret not finishing this today. I will see you at the mansion.”

Riven met her eyes without blinking. "Understood."

She turned and walked away, her shoulders straight, her head up, and I watched her go until she rounded the corner and disappeared. The hallway breathed again around us.

I stood there for a moment, just breathing. Riven's hand found the small of my back.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, and I wasn't sure which part of it I was apologizing for.

"Don't," he said sharply. "Don't apologize for any of that."

"I should have told you how bad it got."

"Yes," he said, and his honesty was gentler than it had any right to be. "You should have. But we'll get there."

I turned my head and looked up at him. There were still students nearby, still eyes that hadn't fully moved on, and his expression was closing off and becoming more controlled. But his hand at my back flexed and our bond became warm.

"Class," I said finally.

"Class," he agreed.

We walked together in the direction of our second period room, and for a few steps neither of us said anything. Then his voice came low beside me.

"The nights your wolf forced your shift." He paused. "How long did that last?"

I stared straight ahead. "Months and I handled it until…the last few.”

His hand tightened slightly at my back before dropping as we reached the point where the corridor split.

"Callista."

I stopped and looked at him.

"I'm going to spend a long time making that right," he said simply.

It wasn’t a promise dressed up in pretty words. The way he said it was all I needed to know that he meant it. Something in my chest pulled tight.

"I know," I said.

For one second he looked at me the way he looked at me when no one else was supposed to see it—open, unguarded, with something in his eyes that didn't need words and probably couldn't survive them, anyway.

Then a group of students pushed past us in a burst of noise and laughter, and the moment closed.