Ash & Oath

The morning tasted like ash and regret.

Aria's eyes shot open, heart hammering against her ribs, her breath clouding in the bitter air of the drafty attic. It always smelled like mildew and the sweat of fear up here—old sweaters, broken boxes, and the faint metallic tang of her own dried blood from the last time Gerald had decided she wasn't moving fast enough.

She kicked off the thin, moth-eaten blanket, her bare feet cold on the rough-sawn planks, and listened.

Nothing yet. That was somehow worse than the usual clatter. Silence meant the storm was brewing, not yet raging.

Her wolf was a hollow ache in her chest, silent as a tomb. It had been years since her inner animal had offered so much as a protective growl, beaten into submission by the constant, low-grade fear of her life. A low-rank wolf from a disgraced line, she'd learned quickly that instinct was a liability, and silence was the only survival skill that mattered.

Downstairs, the house creaked—the heavy, purposeful sound of her stepfather, Gerald, finally waking. That meant she had exactly fifteen minutes to become invisible: clean the kitchen, brew his disgusting chicory coffee, and disappear before his hangover made him cruel.

She scrambled down the pull-down ladder, landing softly, already moving toward the cracked sink. Last night’s dishes were stacked in the drying rack, greasy from her stepsister’s midnight feast of takeout fries and chicken wings. She washed them quickly, her hands raw from the industrial soap, careful not to let the porcelain clatter against the basin.

“Don't forget the floors,” came a saccharine voice from the hallway.

Aria froze, turning slowly. Cassandra stood in the doorway, framed by the morning light. She wore an oversized crimson T-shirt that definitely belonged to a boy—probably one of the middling Beta ranks she currently had on rotation—and was brushing out her unnaturally perfect blond curls while sipping a vibrant green protein shake.

“Wouldn't want your mate to think you're dirty,” Cassandra continued, her eyes sharp with malicious amusement.

Aria didn't reply. She bent down and scrubbed the linoleum with a rag until her knuckles scraped the tile. The kitchen floor had seen too many spilled drinks and too much dried grime ever to look truly clean, but Aria scrubbed until her muscles burned. Cassandra watched her for a few seconds more, the smirk widening into a predatory smile, before flouncing back into the hall.

“Dad!” she called. “You promised me the car! I need to get to Crescent Ridge early to meet Finn and Liam!”

A grunt, low and guttural, resonated from the main bedroom. Aria’s fingers tightened around the rag. Finn and Liam. They were two of the higher-ranking wolves at Crescent Ridge Academy—an elite, brutal boarding school designed to train the next generation of packs. Aria and Cassandra were both starting their junior year, but only Cassandra was expected to succeed. Aria was just the necessary burden, Gerald’s way of keeping her mother’s meager assets.

Her heart twisted with a sick mixture of terror and anticipation. Crescent Ridge. It was the place where wolf bloodlines were forged and broken, a fortress of power nestled deep in the shadow of the ancient woods. And today, she was walking back into the fire.

The old pickup truck, which smelled faintly of stale beer and gasoline, rattled Aria up the paved road toward the Academy. Gerald drove, eyes bloodshot, silently ignoring both girls. Cassandra, beside him, was too busy texting to even look out the window. Aria sat in the back, clutching a worn leather satchel containing the sum total of her belongings.

The air grew cleaner, sharper, as they climbed the ridge. The trees lining the road were impossibly tall pines, thicker than any she’d ever seen in the valley below. They seemed to possess a heavy, silent magic, and a cold dread tightened Aria's throat. She had read the stories about this land—tales of wolves with deep, frightening magic, of ancient beings stirring beneath the roots.

Then, they reached the gates.

They weren't gates so much as towering columns of granite etched with the sprawling, stylized crest of the Crescent Ridge Academy—a howling wolf silhouetted against a cracked crescent moon. Magic, old and potent, pulsed from the stone, a dizzying thrum that instantly resonated with the suppressed wolf inside her.

The truck rumbled onto the perfectly manicured campus. Stone dormitories, built like medieval castles with ivy climbing their turrets, surrounded a vast central quad where wolves—rich, confident, and ranked—were already gathering. They looked like royalty in their crisp navy and gray uniforms, radiating power that Aria felt like a low-frequency hum against her skin.

Gerald stopped the truck abruptly near the girls’ dormitory. “Don’t embarrass me,” he grumbled, not looking at Aria. “You’ll stay out of sight, do your chores, and speak only when spoken to. Keep that low-rank shame of yours locked up.”

Cassandra shot Aria a triumphant glance before leaping out. “See you at supper, loser.”

Aria slid out of the truck, her legs shaky. She was used to being told she was shame, but hearing it echo off the ancient stone walls of this place made it feel dangerously real. She pulled her satchel higher on her shoulder, feeling the weight of the stigma follow her toward the dormitory entrance.

She almost made it inside.

Then, the world tilted.

It wasn't a sound or a sight that stopped her, but a physical strike—a deep, seismic shock that slammed into her chest cavity and instantly silenced the background noise of the campus. It was the feeling of a broken half finally being found, the missing piece of her own soul tearing through the years of suppression.

Mate.

The word, raw and fierce, exploded in the void where her own wolf usually hid. It wasn't whispered; it was howled, a blinding flash of white-hot recognition that nearly buckled her knees.

A ripple ran through the gathered wolves. They didn't understand the sudden shift in the air, but they felt the pressure of something massive changing.

Aria looked up, trembling, and saw him.

He was stepping out of a black, armored SUV near the administration building, a figure who commanded silence purely by existing. He wasn’t merely tall; he was an immutable presence, dressed in the Academy uniform but wearing it like armor. His hair was the color of midnight, falling over eyes that were currently the purest, coldest gold Aria had ever seen. Every line of his body was coiled tension, an Alpha predator barely disguised as a student.

Kade.

She knew the name, though they had never met. Kade Ryloth. The highest-ranked wolf in the academy, heir to one of the most powerful Blood Courts in the region. He was the summit of the hierarchy she existed at the bottom of.

Their eyes met across the quad. The second their gazes locked, the internal howl intensified into a scream. The bond slammed into her with a violence that made her teeth ache, pulling her forward, demanding recognition, demanding him.

He felt it too. She saw the flash of shock, the sudden tightening of his jaw, the flicker of raw, molten instinct behind his golden eyes. He swayed, a barely perceptible movement that only a mate would notice, his controlled composure momentarily fractured by the sheer force of the connection.

Then, with an effort that seemed to drain the color from his face, Kade Ryloth killed the look.

The gold in his eyes went flat, impenetrable. His expression became stone—a mask of utter, frozen contempt. He didn't just break the bond; he severed the connection like snapping an electric wire, leaving her jolted and raw.

He turned his head slowly, deliberately, not looking at her. He took one step, then another, walking past her as if she were a shadow, an inconvenient piece of trash left on the pavement.

The immediate rejection caused a blinding, dizzying physical effect. A spike of unnatural heat shot through Aria, not just in her chest, but blazing under her skin. It felt like her veins were suddenly filled with liquid iron. She gasped, staggering back against the cold stone column, the satchel dropping forgotten to the ground. The shock and the sudden, painful burning were overwhelming.

Kade continued walking, his back ramrod straight, without a pause, without a glance back at the girl he had just utterly and publicly refused.

The sheer, agonizing weight of the one-sided mate bond, instantly rejected, crashed over her. Aria clutched her arms, trying to contain the violent shiver that mixed with the sudden, debilitating fever.

The wolves around them, momentarily stunned by the change in atmosphere, now returned to their mundane conversations, unaware of the internal apocalypse that had just occurred. Aria was left standing alone in the shadow of the crested pillar, scorching hot skin against the freezing stone, the silent scream of her wolf the only sound she could hear.

Kade was gone. And the fire had begun.