The clock on the bedside stand read 4:02 a.m.
Not that it mattered, I hadn’t slept.
I’d spent the entire night tossing and turning, my mind racing with worry about where Charis had gone after our fight. Every creak of the building, every sound in the hallway had me hoping she might return, but my room had remained empty.
I’d sent Kael a message hours ago asking if he’d seen Eamon, but while the message showed as read, there had been no reply. Rhett was offline entirely—probably back at the hospital where he should have been resting.
That left me with nothing. Just my guilt and the memory of the pain in Charis’s eyes when she’d learned I was the one who reported her to the school authority.
And then the way she’d looked at me—like I was a stranger, like I was someone dangerous rather than someone who loved her—made something twist painfully in my gut.
Unable to bear lying in bed any longer, I threw off the covers. I needed a run. Physical exertion was the only thing that might help quiet the millions of emotions running inside.
Though it was strictly prohibited to shift and run in your wolf form within the Academy grounds, I occasionally broke that rule when the need became overwhelming.
I threw on my running clothes, grabbed my communication band from my desk, and strapped it to my wrist, then headed out the door. The air outside was cold and biting, the kind of chill that went straight to your lungs and helped you forget, even if only for a second.
There was a small forest at the back of the dormitory complex, just beyond the official academy boundaries. I jogged through the quiet corridors and across the moonlit campus toward the tree line.
At the edge of the forest, I quickly stripped off my clothes and folded them neatly behind a large oak tree. The transformation came easily and in seconds, Zair emerged.
The moment my paws hit the forest floor, some of the tension began to leave my body. Zair burst through the underbush as he began to run, paws pounding the damp earth, the wind in his fur as he tore through the forest.
Trees blurred past me, their bark streaks of grey and black in the dim moonlight. I ran harder. Faster.
I’ve been at Ravenshore for more than twelve months now, and in those twelve months, the only thing I’ve been able to discover is the repeated mysterious disappearance of students. At first, I thought it was a pattern, but it wasn’t.
Sometimes, it took two weeks, a month or even three days.
The disappearances were random. Most times, the bodies were not found; most times, they were. All the staff members who had initially helped me suddenly changed their minds, got cold feet, or resigned from the academy.
No one claimed to have seen Riley.
They said she didn’t have friends, her social media accounts were filled with sad quotes and strange markings. I was getting nowhere, and now, I also have to deal with my ex-mate, whom I should hate.
And yet, I couldn’t stop caring. It made me want to tear my heart out.
For thirty minutes, I ran through the woods at full speed, allowing Zair to ride out every thought plaguing my human form.
When I finally felt some measure of relief returning, I made my way back to the edge of the forest, where I’d left my clothes and quickly transformed to my human form.
I dressed quickly in the pre-dawn darkness, relying on the fading moonlight to navigate. As I jogged back toward the dormitory area, something on the ground caught my eye.
From a distance, it looked like a discarded piece of clothing or equipment. However, something about the shape immediately caught my attention.
Moving more cautiously, I crept towards the object, ready to shift into my wolf form at the slightest sign of danger.
When I got close enough, I pulled out the small emergency flashlight that came with my Beta Prime communication device and pointed it at the dark shape.
And what I saw made my stomach lurch violently.
It was the body of a Ravenshore student, a third-year, based on the badge on his uniform. The boy was dressed in his ceremonial wear, the formal attire that students wore only during special academy occasions, such as graduation or major celebrations.
But that wasn’t the disturbing part.
Half of the student’s body had that bluish tinge we’d seen on the creature that attacked Charis at the campsite—an unnatural, sickly blue colour that seemed to have frozen the blood in his veins.
The other half was shredded. Deep claw marks and teeth bites were all over his torso and limbs. Puncture wounds that could only have come from the powerful canine teeth of a rogue wolf.
But there was no scent.
Usually, rogue wolves always leave a scent behind to help Gamma or Beta wolves trace them. Even though Alpha wolves weren’t born hunters, we could pick distinct scents of any wolf.
I stared at the student, wondering what had happened. It was as if he was caught between two different kinds of monsters—one that had infected him with whatever caused that blue discolouration, and another that had torn him apart.
I pulled the communication band on my wrist to my mouth. It had a direct channel to the emergency response unit—a safety line all Student Body leadership members had.
I hit the emergency frequency.
"This is Beta Prime Slater Riggs. Code Red. I repeat—Code Red. Student down at Forest Edge B-13. Unresponsive. Likely deceased. Immediate response required."
The line crackled to life with rapid questions about my location and the nature of the emergency, and then with a final.
"Beta Prime Riggs, alert acknowledged. Lockdown protocols initiated. Stay with the body. Help en route in four minutes."
I ended the transmission and turned back to the body.
I hadn’t seen this when I took the path to the forest for the run. So whatever had happened had taken place within that 30-45 minutes I’d spent running.
But the question was, how had a third-year student ended up dead in the woods wearing ceremonial attire? What had caused that unnatural blue colouring? And most importantly, did this have anything to do with the blue creature at the summer camp?
As I waited for the emergency response team to arrive, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this death was connected to the larger mysteries surrounding Ravenshore Academy.
It also made me wonder if there was still a possibility that my missing sister was still alive, because if students were dying under such bizarre circumstances without the school authority informing parents correctly, then this was bigger than what I’d thought it was.