Alpha and Luna University

0005 -He Remembered

I woke up still on the floor. But something was off.

I was covered in a thick blanket. Not the scratchy clinical kind. This one was soft. Expensive.

I sat up slowly. My ribs still ached, but the rest seemed to be healing fast.

My hoodie was folded beside me on the floor. Clean. Like it had been washed and dried by someone with too much time and too much discipline. My shoes had been polished. There was also a new pair of socks. A new bra. A new Pennington T-shirt. A delicate Crimson Oak scarf that I could only guess was to cover the bruises on my neck. All in the correct sizes.

What the hell. I started to reach over for it and froze when I realized I was wearing Shade's jacket. It smelled like the cologne I'd loved enough to buy him four bottles. It made my wolf go still, content in a way she hadn't been since I left.

It swallowed me. I grabbed the lapel and hesitated. The fabric still smelled like everything I wasn't supposed to want. I buried my nose into it before I could stop myself. My wolf purred.

I didn't let myself or her have it for more than a second. Then I shoved it away like it had burned me.

How the hell had he gotten in here and wrapped in his jacket without waking me?

I stood up. Every muscle protested, but I forced my body to move. On the desk, there was a small box. GET WELL KIT was written on top. It was in his perfectly polished handwriting.

Inside was a sports drink I actually liked. A packet of over-the-counter painkillers labeled TAKE ME. A wrapped breakfast taco, still warm, filled with eggs, ham, and extra cheese. Not mystery meat, not whatever the cafeteria tried to pass off as food.

There was also a tiny packet of green salsa from the little Mexican place near his pack lands. The one I used to beg him to bring me extras from.

He remembered.

I sat down slowly, the coat still in a heap at my feet. I just let my foot rest against it while I ate.

There was no denying I felt better. I quickly kicked the jacket away. He was still trying to manage me.

When I grabbed my hoodie, I felt something heavy inside the pocket. The files were back.

Dalia's was updated. Everything had been rewritten. Pack records, health forms, and school evaluations. All false. All in Shade's handwriting.

What made me stop was the roommate assignment. Harley's name had been scratched out. Deonte was written in. I stared until my vision blurred.

Of all people, he put Deonte with her.

I quickly opened mine. I expected to find my name tied to Shade's dorm. It felt like something he'd do. A calculated move to keep me caged under his roof. But he hadn't. He'd left everything else alone except my name and heritage.

'Ziaria Bettleford, FLQ.'

'Heritage: Initially Unknown. Vetted by Alpha King's historians. Confirmed royal bloodline. UNCONTESTABLE.'

The royal crest and Shade's signature were stamped in red ink.

FLQ. Future Luna Queen.

He didn't have the right. Only his father could name that. But he had. And now the claim was sitting in my lap.

And in my records for everyone to see.

I shoved the door open and stepped out into the Quad. I barely made it ten steps before Dalia nearly bowled into me.

"Zia! There you are. I've been looking all over for you! Are you okay? Oh wow, you looked like you've been hit by a truck."

I nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay."

She grinned. "Good! The Alpha dorm is amazing. Hot water that lasts more than thirty seconds. I didn't stay in that one room for long. Harley was a b***h anyway, so I'm glad they moved me."

I let her talk. I kept my eyes on her face, checking for signs of manipulation, coercion... Anything other than excitement.

"They gave me a huge room. I only share it with one other person. He's quiet. But it's not creepy at all. Very respectable dude, nothing like the guys around here. I think his name's Deon?"

I froze. Of course it was Deonte.

She kept smiling. I didn't know whether to scream or laugh. Shade moved her out of that toxic dorm I was already starting to panic about and picked the one person I wouldn't fight him over.

Still pulling strings. Still trying to manage everything. But she was safe. That part I couldn't be mad about.

I spent the rest of the morning dodging him and anyone that smelled like his pack. I even considered going back to the infirmary for suppressants at lunch. The high-dose kind that block scent. The kind girls used when heat was coming and they wanted to disappear.

I didn't go. Shade wouldn't let me get far, regardless of what I did. Not now.

He probably had backup plans in place seconds after Deonte informed him. Monitoring. Alphas in his pocket. Lower wolves who owed him favors and liked to sniff around. He wasn't going to let me out of his sight again.

That afternoon, he walked straight into my class halfway through the lecture and sat next to me. Said nothing. Didn't touch me. Didn't move. Just watched me. The professor just bowed his head in quiet submission and continued on with the class. I tried not to look at him.

As I walked onto the training field later that evening, someone ran their mouth about class and status. About how Omegas shouldn't be allowed to train with Alphas. Said something about identity matching and purity and all the usual vomit.

Before I could open my mouth, Shade stepped in from the shadows. "Who were you referring to?"

No one answered, so he repeated it so loud even the other Alphas dropped to their knees around us. I had to fight the urge to do the same. It was seconds before we were the only two left standing on the entire field.

I turned and ran.

I shot through the back door of my dorm building and up the old steps, gasping for air like I’d just clawed my way out of drowning. When I made it to the rooftop, a guy was already there, leaning against the barrier with a cigarette in hand.

"You look like shit." He offered me the smoke.

I hesitated.

Shade appeared behind me. He stared the stranger down like he'd already decided how to break him apart. The guy dropped to one knee and held his hands up in surrender.

Shade smirked as he looked back at me. "You used to hate the smell of smoke."

I took the cigarette and tried my best to inhale it. I coughed. Choked. I didn't care at all. "Yeah, well... I used to believe you'd marry me too." It burned, but I did it again.

He rested one arm against the railing beside me as he pulled his pack and lighter out of his pocket. "What do you believe now? Now that I'm standing right here in front of you again? Now that your wolf is screaming at you?"

I looked up. "Why are you here? To torture me?"

He scoffed as he lit the cigarette. He still tilted his chin up to the sky to exhale. Like he always did to keep it out of my face. "I'm not here to torture you. I'm here to show you that you never stopped being mine."

I turned away before he was able to see the tears forming in my eyes.

I made it back to my new dorm room without him following me. I found a box waiting on my new desk.

Inside was the discontinued chocolate I hadn't seen in stores for three years. The one I used to hoard like gold.

Next to it was a handwritten note.

"You left, and this was still sitting in my dorm. I'd ordered all the rest I could find. I'd left it near the shelf where your books used to pile up and spill across the floor for you to discover. Your hair tie was still looped around the doorknob. That dumb little letter you wrote, the one you kissed with that awful red lipstick I could never get out of my collars, was still wedged in the mirror frame. I never touched it. I couldn't. You were in every inch of that space. You never really left. I thought I had lost everything but this candy bar in the earthquake. Then I found you and..."

I tore the letter to pieces before I finished reading it.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

I thought he'd come at me with pressure, with Alpha rank and command. I thought he would try to bulldoze his way back into my life.

Instead, he remembered.

He remembered my favorite breakfast. The one I used to make him steal for me during his morning runs.

He remembered what I said on the roof during the storm when I admitted I hated the smell of cigarette smoke. He remembered the things I liked, the food I hoarded, the brand of pen I stole from his desk. One of those was in the package as well.

He remembered everything.

I cracked the door just wide enough to shove the box out.

He may have remembered, but I did not want to.

It hit something solid. Before I could pull back, a calloused hand locked around my wrist. I caught a glimpse of too-perfect white teeth gleaming on the other side before the door slammed open against my face.