Chapter 23

Zeke followed Ava out of the assembly hall and caught up with her outside the building. She was walking quickly towards the first-year block, but he could see how the Omegas were flanking her. Almost like they were protecting their Alpha.

Could she see that?

She looked too lost in her head to notice. He sensed her confusion through their bond, and she wasn’t scared. It was the Omegas' fear in the air, not hers.

“Ava.”

It was too risky to speak when they were close to the councillors, but he had to know what the hell had just happened.

Ava carried on walking as if she didn’t hear him, so he increased his pace, squeezing past the Omegas until he was next to her.

“Ava,” he tried again.

She finally looked at him but didn't stop walking.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I don't know. I think it was a spell; they were messing with our heads," Ava said quietly. "And it was so hard to shield my thoughts from them. I don't know what they saw."

Shit. If the Council got to her, they could get to him, too. And he had dangerous secrets to keep.

"I don't know what they were looking for, but I think they got it," Ava added.

He sensed a prickling at the back of his head and slowed down. Shadow had been shielding him throughout the assembly even though it had become clear that he hadn’t been the target.

Ava must have sensed it, too, because she stopped and looked back.

“I’ll see you later,” he said before he turned back. He didn’t say where or when in case it gave anyone any ideas to follow him.

As the other students walked around him as they rushed to their lesson, he saw that it was Alpha Diego he had sensed. The demon wolf stood with his hands in his suit pockets in the middle of the path, and everyone gave him a wide berth. His gaze was on him, but he could not tell what the councillor was thinking.

“Are you going to admire my beauty from a distance, Mr Michelson?” Alpha Diego drawled.

He opened his senses to see where the others were, but it was hard to tell. It was as if they could make themselves hard to track, which he didn’t need right now.

He didn’t feel Iulia’s magic in his head, but he didn’t know if the Head of the Council was near and what he could do. But he knew that even if they were not close, Alpha Diego was old enough and powerful enough to sense everything he needed from him without them. And if the rumours were true that he was a demon wolf, then he and Shadow had to push down all their urges as if their life depended on it.

Because it did.

The Councillors had seen his wolf’s eyes, and Alpha Diego had already stated that Shadow was more like him than anybody else. But he didn’t have to confirm anything, not until he knew what they were going to do.

“Well?”

He walked towards the Alpha and stopped several feet away.

“You continue to impress me with your control over your wolf,” the Alpha said. “At your age, I’d already lost count of how many had lost their lives at my hand, how many settlements and villages I’d had to burn down.”

And yet he was part of the Council.

“My wolf doesn't need controlling,” he said.

The Alpha tilted his head and scrutinised him as if he could actually see Shadow.

“I see that,” he said with a grin. “You are in perfect harmony. Although, there was a particular incident during the mock evaluations where you could have easily increased your body count if you hadn’t been caged. That was quite a show.”

Was he trying to tell him that he had somehow seen that? He had assumed the Council had spies reporting to them, but he hadn’t considered the option that they had another way to spy. How much had they seen? And had they seen everything since?

“I have to get to my classes, sir,” he said.

“Come. I’ll walk with you,” Alpha Diego said. “After all, you and I will be working very closely while I’m here.”

He frowned at the councillor.

“Well, how else will we assess the academy without the star student of the campus? Youngest trainer in history and the future Alpha—sorry. Former future Alpha—of the biggest pack in the country,” the Alpha grinned as he turned and started walking towards the Fourth-Year block.

What game were they playing? He had expected to start fighting the moment they arrived, but they weren’t revealing their hand. Was this a recruitment visit, or were they just lining their ducks in a row before they executed them? He would fight both options but needed to know what he was fighting.

“Your mate is quite impressive, isn’t she,” the Alpha continued. “How did you hide her from us, Mr Michelson? It’s something I’ve pondered since we found her little stash of body parts in the forest. Both of you played us for fools.”

And the last thing any Alpha liked was having their ego bruised. It made men like his father start wars with others, like how he had tried to start a war with the Vampire king. What did it do for psychotic Council members?

“I have to get to class,” he repeated as they came up to the entrance of the building.

“Of course,” Alpha Diego said with a nod. “Check your tablet today for changes in your schedule. I will see you and your mate later.”

Zeke walked into the building without looking back but felt the prickling at the back of his head as he walked towards his first lesson. Would they watch his every move? He had that meeting at lunch that he couldn’t miss because the professor had been claiming all this time that he could help.

But how did someone fight a Council that was all-seeing and all-knowing? Didn’t that mean they had already lost?

‘Doesn’t matter. They want Ava. We’ll try to stop them.”

‘They want you, too,’ he reminded his wolf.

Because he and Ava were the same.