The gates of Blackmoon Academy didn’t open.
They judged you.
Twenty feet of black iron twisted into spikes that reached for the sky, with silver runes carved between them that pulsed like veins. Like they were alive. The upperclassmen called them the Teeth. Because if you didn’t belong, they bit down.
I stood in front of them with my duffel bag digging into my shoulder and felt nothing.
No hum. No warmth. No Alpha recognition.
The girl in front of me in a designer uniform worth more than my entire wardrobe turned around and looked me up and down. Her lip curled.
“Your wards are dead,” she said, loud enough for everyone in line to hear. “What a surprise.”
I didn’t answer.
Ten years living in Alpha Gideon Vale’s house with Selene had taught me one thing: silence kept you safe. Words gave them ammunition.
“Next,” the guard snapped. He didn’t look up from his tablet.
I stepped forward.
“Aria Vale.”
The typing stopped.
He finally looked up. His eyes did that thing everyone’s eyes did when they heard my name. Pity, mixed with something uglier. Contempt.
“Oh.” He exhaled through his nose. “You’re the one Gideon took in.”
He said ‘took in’ like he meant ‘scraped off the street.’
“West dorm. Room 4B.” He jerked his thumb toward the gates. “Try not to embarrass the family name more than you already have.”
The gates groaned and swung open with a sound like bones grinding.
I stepped onto Blackmoon Academy grounds and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Blackmoon wasn’t a school.
It was a flex.
Everything here was designed to remind you exactly who you were and who you weren’t.
The marble floors were so polished I could see my reflection. And the reflection looking back at me was wrong.
Wrong boots. Scuffed. Two years old.
Wrong jacket. Hand-me-down from Selene.
Wrong hair. Black and tangled because I didn’t have money for salon treatments.
Wrong everything.
Students moved in packs, laughing, their family crests embroidered on their blazers in gold and silver thread. Drake. Rivers. Black. Vale. Names that meant power. Names that meant money. Names that meant your wolf had awakened at 12 and you’d been training to lead a pack since you could walk.
My wolf hadn’t awakened at all.
“Is that her?”
“That’s the charity case.”
“I heard she’s eighteen and still dormant.”
“Gideon must be desperate to let her in.”
I kept walking. Eyes down. Shoulders back.
Rule one: Stay invisible.
Rule two: Don’t cry.
Rule three: Graduate and get out.
A voice cracked over the speakers, making me jump.
“All first-year students went to the Grand Hall for the opening ceremony. Immediately.”
I let the crowd carry me.
The Grand Hall was ridiculous. Three stories high with a glass ceiling. And through the glass, even though it was 9AM, the moon hung in the sky. Full and silver and impossible.
Magic. Everything here was magic.
Except me.
The hall was already packed. Two hundred students in perfect rows, all wearing the same uniform but somehow making it look expensive. And at the front, on the stage, standing like she’d been born there, was Selene Vale.
My adoptive sister.
Long brown hair that probably cost 400 dollars to maintain. Blue eyes that could cut glass. The Vale crest on her blazer in real gold thread.
She spotted me the second I walked in. Her smile sharpened.
Of course she did.
The Headmaster stepped to the podium. Ancient. Stern. His wolf had to be massive to get him that position.
“Welcome to Blackmoon Academy,” he began, voice booming. “Here, we forge the future leaders of our kind.”
Selene raised her hand before he finished.
“Headmaster, if I may?”
He nodded immediately. Of course. She was Gideon Vale’s daughter. The heir.
Selene walked to the center of the stage. Her heels clicked. Every eye followed her. She’d been trained for this since birth.
“I just wanted to welcome everyone,” she said, voice sweet and dripping with honey. “And to remind us all what makes Blackmoon special.”
She paused. Let it hang.
“Tradition. Legacy. Blood.”
Another pause. Her gaze swept the crowd and landed on me.
“Some of us are born into that legacy.”
She let the words sit.
“And some of us...” Her eyes locked on mine. “...are just fortunate to be allowed to stand in the same room.”
Laughter.
Not loud. Worse. Quiet. Polite. The kind that said ‘we all know she doesn’t belong and we all agree.’
My cheeks burned. My hands clenched at my sides. I dug my nails into my palms.
Stay invisible. Stay invisible. Stay invisible.
That’s when I felt it.
Weight. Like someone was staring.
I looked up.
Three boys. Standing apart from everyone else, like they owned the air they breathed.
First: Kael Drake. Black hair. Silver-gray eyes. Tall enough that he had to duck under the chandelier. The academy’s top student. Ruthless. Brilliant. Future Alpha of the Drake pack. He wasn’t laughing. He was frowning. At me. Like I was a math problem that didn’t add up.
Second: Lucian Rivers. Blond hair. Blue eyes. The kind of smile that made girls stupid. He should have been smiling. He wasn’t. He was watching me. Head tilted. Curious.
Third: Rowan Black.
The moment I met his eyes, my breath caught.
Amber. Dark hair. And a presence that made the air feel heavy. The most feared student in Blackmoon. His wolf was known to be violent. Uncontrollable.
And right now, his wolf was staring at me.
I felt it. Not him. His wolf. Through the distance. Like a growl under my skin.
Rowan blinked. His jaw clenched. And he looked away fast, like I’d burned him.
What the hell was that?
The ceremony ended. Students started filing out. I tried to slip out with them, hugging the wall.
“Vale.”
Kael’s voice. Cold. Right behind me.
I turned slowly.
“Your pendant,” he said. No greeting. Just accusation.
My hand flew to my neck. The silver moon pendant. I’d worn it since I was eight. Gideon said my mother gave it to me before she disappeared.
“What about it?”
Kael’s silver eyes narrowed. “That symbol. It’s a Moon Wolf crest. They’ve been extinct for a hundred years.”
My stomach dropped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” He took a step closer. I could smell him. Cedar and winter and something dangerous. “Then explain why the wards flickered when you walked through the gates.”
“I didn’t”
Someone slammed into my shoulder. Hard.
Selene.
“Careful, sister,” she said, all sweetness. “Wouldn’t want you to fall. You’re not used to standing next to real Alphas.”
She walked away, her friends trailing behind her like ducklings.
I was alone again.
I made it to the dorms. West dorm. Room 4B.
Two beds. One desk. One window overlooking the dark forest that surrounded the academy.
I chose the bed by the window.
On my pillow was a piece of paper. Folded once.
My heart started pounding.
I picked it up with shaking hands.
No envelope. No name.
Just four words written in black ink:
If you want to survive Blackmoon, don't let them see your wolf.
The paper shook in my hands.
I looked toward the window.
For half a second, I thought I saw something. A shadow moving between the trees. Silver eyes. Watching.
Then it was gone.
My pendant went hot against my skin.
And in my head, a voice that was not mine and had never been mine whispered, low and ancient:
*"They found us."*
The lights flickered.
Outside, the moon was fully visible through the glass ceiling of the academy. Even though it was morning.
And somewhere, deep in the forest, something howled.
