Reborn at the Academy

Chapter 1

Maya

“Stop breathing like that. You’re going to pass out before they even call your name.”

Lena’s hands are a frantic buzz on my shoulders, smoothing a wrinkle that isn’t there for the tenth time. My own hands are clenched in the folds of my simple gray dress, knuckles white. “I can’t help it. My heart is trying to escape my body.”

“Let it,” she says, her voice fierce. She pulls back, her bright green eyes scanning me from head to toe. “You look beautiful. Not that it matters. The Moon Goddess doesn’t care if your dress is silk or sackcloth.”

“Some people seem to think she does.” My gaze drifts across the crowded antechamber. It’s a sea of rustling fabrics and nervous laughter. Everyone is eighteen. Everyone is holding their breath tonight. The air is thick with the scent of pine from the ceremonial wreaths and something else, something electric and wild. Hope. It smells like hope.

Finn pushes himself off the stone wall he was leaning against. He doesn’t say much, he never does, but his presence is a solid, calming weight. “The probabilities of an unmated calling are less than one percent. You have nothing to worry about.”

I offer him a weak smile. “Thanks, Finn. Very reassuring.”

“He’s right,” Lena insists, looping her arm through mine. “And we all know the name you’re waiting to hear. It’s the only name you’ve ever waited to hear.”

Kael. Just thinking his name makes a nervous flutter start in my stomach. Kael of the Silvercrest Pack. Son of the Alpha. Future Alpha himself. He’s everything I’m not. Bold, confident, born to lead. I was born to fade into the background. ‘Don’t make waves, Maya,’ my mother has whispered to me my entire life. ‘Our family is safest when it’s unnoticed.’ My father would just nod, his eyes holding a quiet sadness I never understood. So I learned to be quiet. I learned to blend in. I became the girl no one really saw, sitting in the back of the class, training in the shadow of others.

But I saw him.

I’ve watched him for years. The way he leads the pack drills with an easy authority. The way his laughter rings out across the dining hall. The kindness in his eyes when he helps a younger student who’s struggling. He is my perfect, impossible fairytale.

“He probably doesn’t even know my name,” I whisper, the confession feeling like a betrayal to the desperate hope I’m clinging to.

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” Lena snaps, her loyalty a sharp, protective shield. “I saw him at the sparring grounds yesterday. You were practicing against that dummy, and you did that spinning kick you’ve been perfecting.”

My cheeks burn. “I tripped at the end.”

“It doesn’t matter. He was watching you. Not Seraphina, who was practically draping herself over his shoulder. You, Maya. His eyes were on you.”

Speak of the devil. A ripple of whispers follows Seraphina as she glides through the crowd, her crimson dress a slash of color in the muted room. She’s flanked by two of her followers, and her eyes, cold and calculating, land on our small group. She gives me a slow, deliberate once-over, her lip curling into a smirk.

“Still trying, Maya?” Her voice is like honey laced with poison. “It’s admirable, I suppose. In a pathetic sort of way.” She doesn’t wait for a response, just sweeps past, her gaze flicking over to where Kael is standing with his friends near the great oak doors.

I feel myself shrink. My mother’s words echo in my head. Don’t make waves.

Lena’s grip on my arm tightens. “Viper. One day she’s going to bite off more than she can chew.”

“She’s right, though,” I mumble. “Look at her. Look at me.”

“I am looking,” Finn says, his voice quiet but firm, forcing me to meet his steady gaze. “And I see the girl who outscored Seraphina on the tactical exam. I see the girl who sat with me for a week after my father died. I see Maya. The Moon Goddess sees that, too. Not the dress.”

Tears prick my eyes, and I blink them back fiercely. I can’t ruin the minimal makeup Lena forced on me. Tonight isn’t about tactical exams or being a good friend. Tonight is about something older, something elemental. The Mating Ceremony is everything. It defines your future, your status, your entire life. Your destined mate is your other half, your strength. To be chosen is a blessing. To be rejected… it’s a fate worse than death. A life sentence of pity and shame.

A deep, resonant chime echoes through the hall, silencing the nervous chatter instantly. It’s time.

“This is it,” Lena breathes, squeezing my hand one last time. “Your whole life is about to begin.”

We move with the rest of the students into the Great Hall. Torches flicker in their sconces, casting long, dancing shadows on the stone walls. The pack elders and our families are seated on raised platforms, their faces a mixture of pride and anxiety. At the front of the room, Headmaster Alistair stands before the sacred Moonstone, a massive, glowing crystal that pulses with a soft, silver light.

I find a spot near the middle of the crowd, Lena and Finn flanking me like guards. My eyes scan the room, searching, until they find him. Kael. He stands tall near the front, the firelight catching the silver streaks in his dark hair. He looks like a prince from one of the old stories.

For a single, breathtaking moment, his gaze sweeps over the crowd and our eyes lock. It’s just for a second, maybe less, but it happens. My heart doesn’t just flutter; it soars. A warmth spreads through my chest, a dizzying, powerful surge of hope. It’s a sign. It has to be.

Headmaster Alistair raises his hands, and a profound silence falls over the hall. The only sound is the crackling of the torches and the frantic beating of my own heart.

“Let the Mating Ceremony commence,” his voice booms, resonating with age and authority. “Let the Moon Goddess reveal her will.”

Chapter 2

Maya

My name is a whisper on the Headmaster’s lips. Then it is a boom that echoes in the silent hall.

“Maya of the Whispering Creek.”

I forget how to breathe. The world narrows to the glowing Moonstone and the ancient man standing before it. Time stretches, thin and fragile. Beside me, Lena’s nails dig into my arm, but I feel nothing. This is it. The moment that will define the rest of my life. My heart beats a frantic, desperate rhythm against my ribs.

Please. Please. Please.

Headmaster Alistair draws another breath, his eyes scanning the crowd of boys.

“And Kael of the Silvercrest Pack.”

A sound escapes my lips. A gasp. A sob. I don’t know which. The world explodes back into focus, brighter and more beautiful than I have ever known it. Lena is shrieking, a high, joyful sound that makes people laugh around us. She throws her arms around me, squeezing the life from my lungs. Finn claps a hand on my shoulder, and when I look at him, he’s giving me a smile so wide and genuine it transforms his entire face.

It’s real.

It’s not a daydream. It’s not a hopeless fantasy whispered into my pillow at night. The Moon Goddess heard me. She saw me.

Murmurs ripple through the hall. I see some girls looking disappointed, others surprised. But mostly, I see smiles. They’re happy for us. For the fairytale. The quiet, unnoticed girl and the future Alpha.

“Go,” Lena whispers, pushing me forward gently. “Go get your mate.”

My feet feel disconnected from my body, but they move. One step, then another. I’m floating toward the front of the hall, toward him. My simple gray dress feels like the finest silk. Every torch seems to burn just for me. My eyes find Kael, and they don’t let go.

He’s standing there, tall and perfect. Our eyes are locked, just like they were before the ceremony began. But something is wrong. The warmth from before is gone. His face isn’t breaking into a relieved, happy smile. It’s a mask. A sculpture carved from ice.

The happy chatter in the hall begins to falter. The energy shifts. A cold knot of confusion begins to form in my stomach, pushing against the euphoria. Maybe he’s just in shock. Maybe he’s nervous.

I’m only a few feet away from him now. I can see the rigid set of his jaw. The way his fists are clenched at his sides. He doesn’t move toward me. He doesn’t extend his hand. He just watches me come to a stop before him, my hopeful smile starting to feel brittle on my face.

“Kael?” I whisper his name. It’s barely a sound.

The silence in the hall is absolute. Everyone is watching. Waiting. Kael’s eyes are cold. So cold. He looks at me, but it feels like he’s looking straight through me.

He raises his chin, and his voice rings out, sharp and formal and utterly devoid of emotion. It cuts through the silence like a shard of glass.

“I, Kael of the Silvercrest Pack, reject Maya of the Whispering Creek family as my mate.”

The words don’t register at first. They are just sounds, meaningless and alien. My mind tries to piece them together, but they refuse to form a coherent thought. Reject. The word hangs in the air, vibrating with a terrible power.

Then, it hits me. Not like a thought, but like a physical blow. The air is punched from my lungs. The light from the torches seems to warp and bend. The hundreds of faces in the crowd blur into a smear of pity and shock. A low roar starts in my ears, drowning out the collective gasp that sweeps through the hall.

My fairytale shatters.

Kael doesn’t look at the devastation he has caused. He doesn’t spare me a second glance. His duty done, he turns his back on me. On us. He walks away, his steps firm and purposeful. He walks straight to Seraphina.

She stands there, her crimson dress like a drop of blood against the stone. A perfect, delicate expression of shock is on her face, but her eyes, her triumphant eyes, are locked on me. Kael reaches her and takes her hand in his. Her fingers lace through his possessively. Her feigned surprise melts away, replaced by a look of pure, victorious pity. It’s the cruelest expression I have ever seen. It says, you never had a chance. It says, of course he chose me. It says, you are nothing.

The roaring in my ears gets louder. The floor seems to tilt beneath my feet. I can feel every single stare like a physical touch, burning my skin. Humiliation is a fire, shame is an ocean, and I am drowning in the flames.

The pain is a living thing inside my chest. It’s a clawed beast, tearing me apart from the inside out. It’s more than I can bear. It’s too much.

Something inside me cracks.

It’s not a sound anyone else can hear. It’s a deep, seismic fracture in the very core of my being. A dormant fault line, buried under years of being quiet and making no waves, finally gives way under the unbearable pressure.

A tremor runs through me, a vibration that starts in my bones and shakes my soul. For a terrifying second, I feel a surge of something raw and hot and utterly unfamiliar. It’s a power I don’t recognize, a sleeping monster awakened by the shattering of my heart.

Chapter 3

Maya

The days after the ceremony are a new kind of quiet. Not the comfortable silence I used to live in, but a loud, suffocating one. It follows me down the corridors, a vacuum that sucks all the normal chatter away as I pass. Whispers sprout in my wake like weeds. Her. The rejected one. Did you see his face? I feel their stares like little pinpricks on my skin.

Lena and Finn form a wall around me. They walk me to classes. They sit with me in the dining hall, trying to fill the silence with pointless chatter.

“The stew is extra watery today,” Lena says, pushing the brown liquid around in her bowl. “It’s an insult to stews everywhere.”

Finn nods, his eyes scanning the room. “The caloric value is likely suboptimal.”

I don’t answer. My food is untouched. I can’t eat. It’s hard to do anything when a hollow cavern has opened up in my chest. Across the hall, he laughs. Kael. It’s a sound that used to make my heart soar. Now it just makes the cavern ache.

He’s with Seraphina, of course. They are never not together. She has her hand on his arm, her head tilted just so, a picture of adoration. He leans in and whispers something in her ear, and her answering smile is blinding. It’s all for show. A performance for the entire academy, and I am the unwilling audience for every single act.

Seraphina’s eyes find mine across the room. She gives me a tiny, pitying smile before turning her attention back to Kael. The performance continues.

“Don’t look at them,” Lena hisses, her voice a low growl. “They’re not worth your energy.”

I pick up my water goblet. My hand is trembling. “I can’t help it.”

Suddenly, they’re standing up. Walking. And they’re coming our way. Lena straightens her back, ready for a fight. Finn just watches, his expression unreadable.

“Maya,” Seraphina says, her voice like sweet, sticky poison. They stop right at our table. Kael stands slightly behind her, his arms crossed, his face a mask of indifference. He won’t even look at me. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. We’ve all been so worried.”

The lie is so blatant it’s almost funny. “I’m fine, Seraphina.”

“Are you sure?” She leans in, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “You just look so… fragile. It’s understandable. A rejection like that. So public. I told Kael he should have been more gentle, but you know how he is. He just can’t abide weakness.”

My grip tightens on my goblet. A deep, unfamiliar anger, hot and sharp, surges through me. The thick glass groans under the pressure.

Crack.

The goblet shatters in my hand. Water and shards of glass spill across the table. A few drops of blood well up on my palm where a piece cut me.

Lena jumps to her feet. “Look what you did, you viper!”

Seraphina takes a delicate step back, her hand flying to her chest in mock horror. “Oh my. How clumsy. You see, Kael? Utterly falling apart.”

Kael finally looks at me. Not with concern, but with something that looks like disgust. He shakes his head slightly and turns away, leading a smirking Seraphina from the hall. The whispers around us explode into a roar.

Later, the buzz in the academy changes. The news of my humiliation is replaced by something new. A transfer student.

“From the Northern Clans,” I overhear a girl say by the armory. “They say his family is ancient. Powerful.”

“I heard he challenged his own Alpha and didn’t even get a scratch,” her friend replies.

The stories get wilder with each telling. He’s a monster. He’s a prince. He’s here because he was exiled. He’s here on a secret mission. It’s a welcome distraction from my own pathetic story.

I’m in the training hall, trying to lose myself in the familiar motions of combat practice. I need to hit something. The rough material of the training dummy scrapes against my knuckles. I ignore the pain, pouring all my frustration, all my shame, into each strike.

“You’ll break your hands before you break that dummy.”

I freeze. Seraphina’s voice. I turn slowly. She’s leaning against the doorway, flanked by Kael. They look like a king and queen surveying their domain.

“What do you want, Seraphina?”

“I just came to watch the show.” She saunters into the hall, her footsteps echoing in the large space. “It’s just so fascinating. Watching you try so hard. All that effort. All that training. And for what? To end up alone and rejected.”

I clench my fists. My mother’s voice is in my head. Don’t make waves.

“It’s no wonder he rejected you,” she continues, circling me like a predator. “You’re nothing. A quiet, little mouse from a worthless bloodline. You never stood a chance.”

Every word is a deliberate cut. I can feel that hot, terrifying thing building inside me again. The floor beneath my feet seems to hum.

Kael steps forward, his voice bored and dismissive. “Seraphina, let’s go. She’s not worth the effort.”

That’s it. That’s the final push. The dam of control I’ve been desperately holding together doesn’t just crack. It explodes.

My anguish and rage boil over. It’s not a scream. It’s a force. A raw, uncontrolled wave of power erupts from my body, shaking the very air in the hall. A low groan comes from the ground beneath me, and a spiderweb of cracks spreads across the thick stone floor, radiating out from where I stand.

Seraphina stumbles back, her face finally losing its smugness, replaced by genuine shock. Kael’s eyes widen, his casual disdain gone, replaced by disbelief.

At that exact moment, the heavy wooden doors at the far end of the hall swing open.

A tall figure stands silhouetted against the light. He moves with a quiet, dangerous grace, his presence instantly commanding the attention of the room. The transfer student. He has to be. His piercing eyes bypass a stunned Kael and a fearful Seraphina. They bypass everyone and everything else.

They lock onto me. And in their depths, I don’t see pity or curiosity. I see an expression of pure, stunned recognition.