Chapter 16 A Seat of My Own
Sable’s POV
The first day of college smelled like ink, paper, and too much perfume. The air buzzed with voices bouncing off stone walls, hundreds of humans jostling with backpacks and coffee cups, their laughter bright and reckless, like they’d been waiting their whole lives for this moment.
And maybe they had.
I stood on the edge of campus, my acceptance letter folded in my pocket until it felt like a talisman, clutching the strap of my secondhand bag so tightly my knuckles ached. Three months at the diner had saved me just enough for tuition and books. That morning Maggie had hugged me, her apron still dusted with flour, and shoved a brown paper lunch bag into my hands. “Go show them what you got,” she’d said.
So here I was, about to pretend I belonged.
My first class was English 101. A lecture hall with squeaky chairs and a professor who smelled faintly of chalk and peppermint. I slid into a seat near the middle—strategic, invisible—not too close to the front, not too far in the back. Just another face in the sea.
Around me, humans traded names, majors, and jokes about all-nighters, voices overlapping like a tide. I kept my head down, scribbling notes as if the syllabus might save me from discovery.
Then a girl dropped into the seat beside me. Blonde ponytail, bright eyes, a smile too open to be anything but genuine.
“Hey. I’m Jenna,” she said, sticking out her hand.
I hesitated, then shook it. “Sable.”
“Cool name,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Let me guess—your parents were hippies?”
I almost laughed at that. Beta’s daughter. Raised on combat drills and moon chants. Not exactly the vibe she was imagining. “Something like that,” I said instead.
By the end of class, Jenna had roped me into grabbing coffee with her and two others—Sam, a quiet boy with glasses and a stack of books, and Tasha, a sharp-tongued history major who already had opinions about everything. We squeezed around a café table, and for a moment, their chatter wrapped around me like warmth.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t the Beta’s daughter. I wasn’t expected to lead, to spar, to serve. I was just Sable, a girl fumbling through her first day of college.
Of course, blending in wasn’t easy.
I had to remember to act human. Slow down my reflexes when I caught a pen before it hit the ground. Pretend I didn’t hear conversations happening three tables away in the dining hall. Choke down cafeteria food without wrinkling my nose at the lack of raw protein.
Worst of all were the scents. My wolf instincts read people too easily—the sharp tang of stress before exams, the sweet adrenaline of flirting couples, the sour bite of lies. I schooled my face into neutrality, pretending I was blind to things my nose screamed at me.
And always, beneath it all, was the faint, lingering pull of the mate bond. Kier. Some nights it was quieter, just a hum under my skin. Other nights it clawed at me until my wolf paced restlessly in my head, distracted and aching. Homework became my only weapon—burying myself in essays and flashcards until the ache dulled.
Still, little by little, I started to carve a place for myself.
I joined a study group. I spent late nights in the library, scribbling notes by lamplight while the campus emptied. Jenna dragged me to a club fair, and before I could protest, I’d signed up for the self-defense group.
When I first stepped onto the mat, the instructor—a broad-shouldered man with a scar over one brow—raised his brows at my stance. “You’ve trained before,” he said.
“A little,” I replied, and then proceeded to wipe the floor with two volunteers.
The applause that followed wasn’t the same as the pack’s—it wasn’t born of hierarchy or expectation. It was pure surprise. Admiration. Respect.
It felt good.
Better than good.
I began to feel something I hadn’t felt in months: possibility. Not just escape, not just survival. Possibility.
Yet at night in my tiny room above the diner, the doubts crept back. Could I really make this work? Could I live among humans forever, pretending to be something I wasn’t? Could I build a life that didn’t unravel the second Kier walked back into it?
I pressed my palms to the window glass, staring out at the city lights like a sea of captured stars. “I choose this,” I whispered to my reflection. “I choose me.”
Even when the mate bond pulsed, whispering Kier’s name at the edges of my mind. Even when my wolf longed for the forest, for the chorus of howls that had been my lullaby.
Because here, for the first time, I was building a future that was mine alone.
A degree. A career. A life on my own terms.
And no matter what the moon or the pack thought, no matter how loud the bond grew, I wouldn’t give that up.
Not yet.