Instructor Warren stood at the front with his clipboard, and the energy in the room had shifted into something buzzing and desperate.
This was it. The selection.
I stood in the first year group and tried not to sway on my feet.
My eye was swelling shut, my vision narrowed to a slit. I'd stopped thinking about the pain in my shoulder because thinking only made it worse. Every breath pulled my broken ribs together in protest.
Instructor Warren said. "When your name is called, move to stand behind your assigned instructor."
He flipped the page on his clipboard. "Alden, Bryce."
A boy two rows ahead of me exhaled, glancing wistfully at the Lycans before jogging over to Beta blood, Bryce. Everyone wanted to be chosen by them, but they only watched us all with varying expressions of boredom and disinterest.
"Calloway, Seth. Carter, Seth. Cross, Adriana. Cole, Damien."
Four more peeled off. Cole walked ahead with a smirk. Damien was one of two of the only Alpha blooded instructors in the room.
"Jennifer, Imani."
Jenny tosses me a worried look before going ahead, clutching her still bleeding forehead.
Regina leaned in. "You're going to be fine," she whispered. "We'll find a way out of this–"
"Regina, Adriana."
She squeezed my hand once before she went. Nick was called two names later, going to a Gamma. Tucker and Reid were assigned to the same instructor as Cole.
The hall continued to empty around me.
Names fell in steady rhythm. Harrison. Danny. Becca. Claire. The cluster of first years around me shrank slowly and then quickly and then it was very, very small.
"You're fine," I told myself. "You're fine, you're fine, you're–"
"Lana, Adriana."
She strutted out of line and knocked into my bad shoulder on purpose, sending a shock of pain up my neck. I bit down hard to silence my cry.
Then there were four of us.
Then three.
Then two.
Then the boy beside me heard his name, and the sound of his footsteps crossing the hall floor was very loud in the sudden, stretching quiet, and I was standing alone in the centre of the room.
Just me.
The pause stretched longer than it should have. The selected groups were already murmuring. I could feel every pair of eyes in the room and their guess was good as mine.
No one chose me. I was a problem none of the fourth years wanted to be responsible for. An Omega who couldn't shift and had been beaten bloody by another Omega had to be a bar in hell.
Don't cry. Do not cry. Not here. Not in front of all of them. You can fall apart later, somewhere private, somewhere no one can see it and use it. Not here.
I blinked back the tears, even as the motion caused me more pain.
Instructor Warren cleared his throat. Opened his mouth. "Maisie Adams–"
A voice cuts him off. It ripples across the room unlike anything I've ever heard before. I could feel the buzzing vibrations of the rich timbre along my skin, prickling it with heat and awareness of something otherworldly.
"She's with us."
The quiet that followed was total.
Then the hall exploded.
Everyone was talking, voices colliding and overlapping, heads twisting to look, nearly as befuddled as I was.
I thought, for one impossible moment, I heard wrong.
That the stone cold handsome redhaired Lycan with the intense black eyes wasn't looking directly at me, but at someone else. Maybe there was someone else beside me. Or behind me. Maybe there was another girl at school named Maisie Adams. Maybe she was new.
I looked back. Around. My swollen eye widened as my pointer finger rose to my face. "M-me?"
But the Lycan merely cocked his head to the left, eye twitching with mild irritation.
Instructor Warren's voice broke through the silence. It was low, but with our heightened hearing, we could all hear him. "I was of the opinion neither of you was interested in partaking this year." His lips pinched as he scribbled down. "Why her? Cole Hayes would've made the better choice. He is the best of his year."
The Lycan merely gave Instructor Warren a frosty stare. "We want the girl."
Instructor Warren clearly had more to say, but the Lycans were already leaving, slinking off cooly with hands into their pockets and–
My brain had stopped working in any useful way, so when the red haired turned back and leveled me with a hard look as he said, "Can you walk? Or shall I have to drag you along, Ms. Adams?", I completely forgot that my ankle was hurt and attempted to join them as swiftly as I could.
And ended up face planting, hard.
I felt warm hands grip my shoulder and settle underneath my knees and I gasped–the entire hall collectively gasped–as I was lifted off the ground into sturdy arms.
Violet eyes twinkled down at me. "What did I say about floors, nice legs?" Prince Soren crooned.