I leaned back against the wet stone, burying both hands deep into the oversized pockets of my faded gray hoodie. Beneath the oversized fabric, my breathing remained at an imperceptible thirty beats per minute. To them, I had no pulse of an active shifter. No pheromones. Just empty, fragile human marrow.
"Party's over, charity case," Ryder sneered. He was tall, sculpted like an athlete, with the arrogant smirk shared by young Alphas who grew up believing the entire world was built for their claws. "Unregistered humans aren't permitted off-campus after curfew without a Pack pass. You look cold, sweetheart. Maybe you need an Alpha to warm you up."
I met his golden gaze with flat, vacant indifference. Under the low brim of my hood, the faint, crystalline violet of my irises caught the streetlight, hidden from their crude senses.
My silence drove him mad. His jaw clenched, and his Alpha dominance aura flared outward like a concussive shockwave-heavy with the sickening, burnt-copper tang of ozone. It was the standard pheromone blast designed to break the knees of humans and force lesser wolves to expose their throats in submission.
The asphalt beneath my sneakers cracked slightly under his pressure.
The Beta on his right popped his knuckles with a sickening crunch. "Our future Alpha is speaking to you, runt! Drop your fucking eyes and bare your neck!"
Right at that exact second, the burner phone in my back pocket began vibrating violently.
I pulled it out without looking away. The caller ID flashed a single, uncompromising name: Mother.
I slid the icon across the glass and lifted the phone to my ear, tilting my chin slightly away from the three posturing beasts.
"Cora," Genevieve Kensington's voice cut through the receiver-smooth, aristocratic, and sharp enough to slice through bone. "Tell me you are inside your dormitory."
"I'm on my way back, Mother," I murmured in a flat, tired voice. "Encountered a minor pest problem."
"Do not play games with me," she warned, her voice carrying the ancient, icy resonance of a lineage that commanded empires before werewolves even learned to crawl. "I agreed to let you attend this provincial university under one condition: complete obscurity. Huxley spoiled you rotten during your years in Geneva, but New Haven is Beaumont territory. You are enrolled as an impoverished, wolfless orphan on a corporate scholarship. If you expose your gifts, I will dispatch the extraction jet and lock you back in the ancestral sanctuary."
"I hear you, Mother," I sighed softly. "Trouble simply has an unfortunate way of cornering me."
"Walk away, Cora. Do not use the Touch. Remember the ancient pact."
Click. The line died.
I lowered the device and slipped it away. Ryder's brow furrowed in sudden, irritating confusion.
"Huxley?" he muttered, rolling the name on his tongue. "Who the hell is Huxley? Your sugar daddy?"
He shook his head, spitting onto the asphalt before stepping directly into my personal space. His arrogant smirk stretched wide and grotesque.
"Done playing on your phone, little bitch? Good. Time for territorial tax. Let's see what pretty things you've got under that oversized sweater."
"I suggest you do not take another step," I said quietly. My voice didn't even stir the dry leaves by my feet.
Ryder barked out a laugh. "Are you threatening an Alpha? You? You don't have a shred of wolf scent on you. You're a biological zero. A pathetic piece of glass."
He lunged. His thick, claw-tipped fingers tore through the damp air, aiming straight for my collarbone.
To a normal wolf, he was lightning.
To me, his movement was a fly suspended in amber.
I slipped half an inch to the left. His claws sliced empty mist where my throat had been. In the exact same breath, my right hand darted from my pocket. My index and middle fingers locked together, hard as tempered celestial iron.
Kensington Nullifying Touch.
My fingertips tapped the precise hollow cavity directly beneath his left collarbone.
There was no explosion. No sound. Only a dull, internal thud that reverberated deep within the marrow of his spiritual cage.
Ryder froze.
The smirk slid off his face like melted wax. His pupils dilated into terrified pools of pitch black. His knees dissolved like wet paper, and he slammed chest-first into the filthy asphalt with a hollow, suffocating gasp.
"Ah... guh..." Blood bubbled at the corners of his lips.
Behind him, the two Betas choked on their own breaths, paralyzed.
I stood over him, my hands returning casually to my pockets.
In Ryder's amber eyes, the glowing fire of his inner beast wasn't just suppressed-it was dying. The silver cords connecting his soul to the ancestral wolf were snapping, one by agonizing one, plunging his core into eternal, arctic silence.
"What... did you... take?" he wheezed, his fingers clawing uselessly at his own chest. "My wolf... I can't feel him! WHERE IS HE?!"
I crouched down, whispering inches from his ear.
"You loved looking down on wolfless creatures, Ryder," I purred softly. "So I made you one. Permanently."
I stood, glancing at the frozen Betas. "Carry your human trash away. And tell your Pack Healers that what a Kensington breaks, not even the Moon Goddess can mend."