ELARA
“Today, we find your breaking point.”
Master Borin, the combat instructor, paces the expansive training mats. His voice is gravel, honed by decades of shouting at recruits. He’s built like a boulder, and just as unforgiving.
“Power without control is just a tantrum. Here, you learn control.” His sharp eyes sweep over the assembled students, lingering on the polished silver emblems of the Elites before flicking dismissively over the drab grey uniforms of my Omega class.
We are lined up on opposite sides of the hall. Two separate worlds forced into one room for mandatory training.
“Pair up!” Borin barks. “Elite with Omega. Let’s see if any of that shine rubs off.”
A collective groan comes from the Omega side. A series of smug chuckles from the other.
Bianca stands with her friends, looking bored, as if this is all beneath her. Her gaze drifts over me for a second, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes, before she dismisses me.
“Thorne, you’re with Liam,” the instructor calls out. Liam visibly pales beside me. Bianca rolls her eyes, the picture of suffering.
“Jax, you take the Vance girl.”
A wave of snickers erupts from the Elite line. Jax, a broad shouldered brute with an ego to match, cracks his knuckles. He was one of the hyenas with Bianca in the courtyard.
“My pleasure, Master Borin,” Jax says, his voice loud enough for the whole hall to hear. “I’ll try not to break her.”
My stomach twists into a knot. I walk towards the center mat, my boots feeling like lead. My body feels heavy, useless. A Null against an Elite. This isn’t a spar. It’s a public execution.
Jax meets me in the middle, a predatory grin spreading across his face. “Well, well. The Beta’s little disappointment. Don’t worry, Null. I’ll make this quick.”
I just stare at him, my mouth dry. I square my stance, the way my father taught me, but it feels like a hollow echo of a life that is no longer mine.
“What’s the matter?” he taunts, circling me slowly. “Feeling a little empty inside? No wolf to call on? It must be so quiet in that head of yours.”
My hands clench. The hum. That strange, low vibration from the courtyard starts again, a faint tremor deep in my bones.
“Begin!” Borin yells.
Jax doesn’t hesitate. He lunges, not with skill or form, but with pure, arrogant force. He expects me to crumble. He expects me to fall.
My mind goes blank. The world slows to a crawl.
The hum inside me roars to life, a sudden surge of adrenaline that feels electric, alien. It’s the same primal energy from my dream of the great runic wolf.
My body moves before I tell it to.
It isn’t my movement. It’s too fluid, too precise.
My right foot pivots. My hips turn. I sidestep his clumsy charge with an impossible, effortless grace. He barrels past, his momentum carrying him forward.
He stumbles, turning back with a look of pure shock on his face.
But I am already there.
My hand shoots out, not in a fist, but with an open palm. It connects with the center of his chest. It’s barely a push.
But a shockwave of force, a power I don’t recognize, erupts from my palm. It’s not my strength. It’s something else. Something ancient.
Jax’s eyes go wide. A strangled gasp escapes his lips as he is lifted off his feet. He flies backward, sailing through the air as if thrown by a giant, and lands in a heap on the far side of the mat, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs.
Silence.
Absolute, deafening silence falls over the training hall.
No one is moving. No one is breathing.
I stand in the center of the mat, my arm still outstretched, my hand tingling with a strange, residual energy. My heart hammers against my ribs. What was that? How did I do that?
Master Borin stares, his jaw slack, his face a mask of utter disbelief. Liam’s mouth is hanging open. Anya is looking at me with a new, fierce light in her eyes.
My gaze sweeps across the room, past the stunned faces of the students, and finds Bianca.
Her expression is not just shock. It is pure, unadulterated fury. Her face is pale, her knuckles white where she grips her own arms. She looks at me as if I’m a monster, a cheat, a thing that should not exist.
The silence is broken by a low, almost silent chuckle.
My eyes dart to the source of the sound.
Across the room, leaning against the far wall as if he were part of the shadows, is Kaelen Nightshade. He’s been there the whole time, watching.
He isn’t surprised. He isn’t stunned.
A slow, knowing smirk spreads across his face. His glowing silver eyes lock onto mine, and the look in them is not one of mockery, but of recognition.
He saw it. He understood it.
And in that moment, that is far more terrifying than anything else.
