Chapter 75
Ellie POV
By the time I made it halfway across campus, the bandage on my head had started to itch.
Our ‘relaxing’ outing didn’t exactly include nearly drowning. Not great for my stress levels right now.
I tugged my hood lower, hoping no one would notice the wrap beneath it. The scrape wasn’t even bad, just dramatic-looking at the time. Too much blood. I’d patched it myself-mostly because I refused to let Dominic hover over me like some furious, overgrown Saint Bernard.
My memories played over in my head. I remember his lips on mine. Warm, compared to my cold.
And his face in that moment…
The fear.
The way he’d said my name like it was something fragile. I haven’t heard that… in a long, long time. Maybe our wedding night being the last.
It kept replaying in my head whether I wanted it to or not.
My hands slapped hard to my cheeks, jump scaring a few ladies passing me.
Nope. No. Not thinking about him. Back to reality.
I stepped into Emergency Med class, took my usual seat, and tried to pretend the room wasn’t spinning in slow, nauseating circles.
At least I culd count on today being away from everyone. I was a healer now, and there was no chance of seeing Dom, Lucas, or anyone until lunch.
Hopefully.
“Class,” The Professor said, clapping her hands, “today we have an extra special assignment! Today, you’ll be doing routine check-ups on volunteers from the Pack Management Academy! What a fun collab of students!”
A deep breath slowly rose through my nose.
Deep breaths. Calm. We are calm.
My eyes drifted to the door as it opened. I was begging, praying to see Sarah for a partner, but my hope slowly shriveled by the second.
Blonde hair, a blue and silver hoodie. Charming smile.
Lucas waved when he saw me.
The, between a mix between a few girls, a towering man ducked his head to enter the room. Dark locks sweeping haphessardlessly over his head. Eyes like judgement glancing my way.
Dominic didn’t wave. He was too busy staring directly at me like he could read my skeleton through my hoodie.
Gross.
The professor began pairing us off.
“Ellie,” she called. “You’ll be working with… Lucas.”
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I glanced up, unsure if I should have been relieved that is wasn’t Dom. Or… more concerned after Lucas’s sly smirk to Dom as if he’d won something.
Dom only straightened his posture.
“Dom,” The professor continued. “You’re with Karina.”
Karina cheered, snatching his arm with glee.
I rolled my eyes as Lucas walked over to me grinning, the picture of enthusiasm, while I was faintly considering just skipping the day
“Hey, sunshine,” Lucas said, sliding onto the exam cot. “Nice head accessory. Is that new?”
“It’s called a bandage,” I muttered. “One you might be leaving here with if you keep pushing it with Dominic.”
He leaned forward suddenly and touched just above my ear.
I flinched. “Hey! What are you-”
“Just checking the bump you’re trying to pretend isn’t there.” His expression softened. “You okay?”
I looked away. “It’s just a scrape.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, clearly not buying it. “How’d it happen?”
My shoulders tensed. “It was an accident.”
“Weird,” Lucas’ head tilted. “Because the cut, your hair, smells like him.”
Lucas’s eyes flicked across the room-to Dominic-sharpening into a glare.
Dominic, looking relaxed as Karina trace a hand down his chest fo rhis heart, glared back immediately, jaw clenched.
“You know,” Lucas murmured, “how every time you’re around him, something catastrophic happens.”
“Right?!” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Then I quickly coughed to pretend I hadn’t agreed.
“Nevermind,” I waved it off, approaching the cot. “It actually was an accident. I…owe him a thanks. So, if we could just get this done without pissing him off, I would appreciate it.”
Lucas snuggled into the cot with a grin, holding his wrist over his head dramatically. “But Ellie,” he croaked. “I think… I’m dying…I need…mouth to mouth.”
I frowned.
Too soon.
My hand smacked him away to his chuckle.
Focus. The assignment. The test next week. Literally anything but the two idiots who were bound to burn holes in
each other across the classroom.
“Alright, class,” the professor announced. “You’ll perform a routine check-up. Vitals and documentation. Accuracy matters.”
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I nodded, simple enough. Until Lucas sat up straighter, suddenly looking like he took academics seriously for the first time in his life. He held out his wrist.
“So,” he murmured, eyes glinting, “I’m not pretending to be sick today?”
“No,” I said, reaching for his wrist. “Just… be normal.”
But the second my fingers brushed his skin, his thumb grazed the inside of my arm light, and teasing.
I froze. My pulse jumped. His lips curved.
“Don’t do that,” I hissed under my breath. “This is serious.”
“Is it?” he asked softly.
He shifted slowly-too slowly-rolling onto his side so that he faced me fully, head propped in his palm. The movement brought him closer than he had any right to be. His voice dipped lower.
“Maybe I’m just adding difficulty to your test,” he said. “Seeing if you can stay focused.”
I glared, but my hand was still wrapped around his wrist… and his heart beat warm against my palm.
“I am focused,” I insisted. But my own was bumping in my ears.
“Mm.” His gaze traveled over my face, just watching. Really watching. “If you say so.”
I swallowed. The air felt suddenly thicker.
He shifted his wrist slightly, fingers brushing mine again. I tried to ignore it, my pen moving automatically, muscle memory taking over.
“Careful,” he murmured. “I can be distracting.”
“More like annoying.”
I pulled out my stethoscope to my ears and stepped closer, pressing the small cicle to his chest.
His pecks were…bigger then I thought. But I forced my focus as he looked up at me, near nose to nose.
I nearly stepped back but kept my spacing. “Deep breath in for me.”
“Anything for you.”
I felt his minty breath on my collar bone.
My frown hardened as my pen moved. “Again.”
But I suddenly, I stopped.
Wait.
Then I glanced down at the number I’d written and froze. That couldn’t be right.
No. No way. That pulse belonged to a dying man. Someone minutes away from collapsing.
My stomach bottomed out. Had I realy been so distract? Had I actually wrote it wrong? But-
My Professor stepped behind me, peering over my shoulder. “Ellie,” she said slowly, “are you absolutely sure about this reading? Because… to my knowledge, Lucas is in perfect condition.”
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Heat crawled up my neck. My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
A loud snort cut through the room.
Karina.
“Oh my gods,” she cackled loud enough for half the building to hear, “this is basic stuff Ellie, you do realize this is the Healer track? You can’t just guess numbers. Guess she really did get into here with alpha influence. What a fraud.”
Gods, I was sick of her.
A few students snickered. Someone whispered, “She’s so out of her depth.”
“She’s such a fake. I can’t wait for this little game they are playing to be over with.”
I stared at the paper reading it over and over. I was sure I was right… that’s what I heard.
Dominic suddenly shifted, shoulders tense, as if ready to intervene.
Everyone’s laughing stopped except…one started. Louder than everyone.
Lucas was clucking his ribs, chuckling hard next to me.
“Well,” he said brightly, “I give it to the healers, you all are quick to notice what’s wrong, but never what’s possible.”
Everyone paused, even the teacher.
“You seemed to have forgotten one special trait about some Alpha’s,” He tapped his wrist with a grin.
Lucas lifted a hand, attaching the cords to the heart beat machine next to him, and in a single breath his pulse
slowed. Slowed. Slowed.
The rhythm and number exactly to the number I’d written.
Gasps rippled around the room.
Lucas winked at me. “She wrote it down because it was my pulse. She was right. Just a little test.”
The professor stared. “You… can voluntarily lower your heart rate?”
“Yep,” he said cheerfully. “Family trick.”
Karina’s jaw dropped.
Dominic’s expression flickered.
And me?
I sat there feeling like the world’s biggest idiot and the luckiest one alive. Because I hadn’t been wrong, and yet this stupid. Idiot.
I snapped his way with a look that could melt ice and he pursed his lips with a cheeky grin.
Idiot. You are so dead.
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Dominic POV
I told him.
Lucas needed to keep his damn hands to himself.
I watched the whole exchange from across the room-Ellie trying to work, Lucas leaning in, brushing her arm like they were in some private little bubble he had created just to irritate me.
My jaw locked so hard it hurt.
And then she wrote down the wrong pulse reading, and the class snickered like a bunch of Hyenas waiting for someone else’s weakness to chew on. Karina laughed loudest, a beta’s daughter I vaguely knew.
Ellie straightened her back like she wasn’t bothered, but I saw it.
The way her fingers tensed around the pen.
The way the flush rose in her neck, not embarrassment, anger.
She didn’t understand.
She was surrounded by people waiting for the chance to gut her. This place wasn’t right for her.
I glanced at the bandage on her head and my gut twisted. After a few more laughs, I sigh, standing. Enough.
But before I could say anything, Lucas was cackling loud. He slowly stood and played hero, announcing he could slow his own pulse. The whole class gasped like they were watching some kind of magical performance.
My lip curled. And easy trick. Not one worth playing on healers.
But Ellie blinked up at him with relief, and I nearly put my fist through the wall.
That’s all he got? A glare and a light scolding from her. If that was me she would have—
I shook my head. Whatever.
The moment class ended, I was already walking towards her, finding her in the hallway before she could vanish behind those damn books again.
“Ellie.”
She didn’t even look up from her walking notes. “Not now, Dom.”
I stepped in front of her. “Just stop for two seconds. We need to talk.”
“No, you need to talk, probably about how your mad Lucas touched me or soemthing.” She tried to push past me. “And I need to study.”
I exhaled sharply, fighting the urge to grab her shoulders. “Ellie, listen-”
“No, Dominic.”
Her eyes were tired, shadows under them dark, head still bandaged… and she still looked me dead in the eye like she was ready to go to war.
I lowered my voice. “I don’t give a damn about that blonde-walking, talking campus STD brochure you keep calling Lucas. I care-”
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She choked. “Excuse me?!”
– about
you,”
,” I finished through my teeth, annoyed I’d lost my momentum. I cleared my throat. “I was asking
how your head is. From yesterday.”
Ellie blinked at me. Twice. Slowly. “You did not just call him that.”
“Ellie,” I said, forcing my tone serious as I reached out and set a hand on her shoulder.
That finally stopped her from marching off.
Her nostrils flared. “Look, I’m fine. Told you I rather forget it. So, do that.”
“This place Ellie, it’s not good for you. I’m trying to protect-”
“I don’t want your protection!” she snapped, voice sharp. “I don’t need you watching over me. I don’t need you telling me to quit, or your worried or, gah! I’m not running back to whatever version of me you miss. Get out of my way.”
She shoved past me, her shoulder brushing mine, leaving a wake of fury and worry in her path.
I didn’t follow.
No point. She wasn’t hearing me right now.
I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to think, trying not to feel everything twisting in my chest.
That’s when I heard it.
“Dominic!”
Karina.
She practically bounced over, smiling like she was stepping onto a stage. I started to walk away but she followed happily.
“That was so crazy, right?” Karina babbled, completely missing the fact that I hadn’t said a single word, like we were friends or something. “Anyway-don’t worry. I’ll make sure she fails. And gets expelled. So you won’t have to deal with her much longer. I know she’s been stressing you out.”
I froze.
The hallway noise-the chatter, footsteps, doors slamming-fell away like someone had dropped a soundproof wall between us and the rest of the world.
I stared ahead, not blinking, something cold and vicious unfurling inside my chest.
My head turned toward her so slowly it felt mechanical, like my muscles were moving without permission. Her smile faltered.
“Dominic?” she whispered, suddenly unsure.
My voice came out nothing like my own-flat, lethal, stripped down to bone.
“What,” I said, each syllable carving itself out of my throat, “do you mean… expelled?”
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