8 Chapter 8 Elegant Stranger
Elena’s POV
I walked through the front doors of the school with my jaw set and my bag slung over my shoulder.
Every step toward Brooks‘ office felt like a march to a firing squad. The fluorescent lights buzzed over my head. The hallway was empty. Everyone else was in class, where I was supposed to be, where I wanted to be, because at least in class I could see what was coming.
I knew what this was. Brock’s parents had finally gotten to the board. Someone had decided that a low–pack girl who put her fist through the face of a warrior’s son didn’t deserve a diploma. I had my speech half–ready before I touched the doorknob.
I knocked once. Hard.
“Come in, Elena.”
I pushed the door open.
Brooks was behind his desk, a thick manila folder squared up in front of him. He gestured to the chair across from him. Calm. Not angry. Not even a little.
That made me more nervous, not less.
“Before you say anything,” I said, sitting down and gripping the arms of the chair, “whatever Brock told you, he started it. I have witnesses. I am not-”
“Elena.”
“-going to be punished for defending myself when he—”
“Elena. Stop.”
I stopped.
He slid the folder across the desk toward me.
“This is not a disciplinary meeting”
I stared at the folder. I didn’t touch it.
“Then what is it.”
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“Open it.”
I flipped the cover back.
My transcripts. Page after page of them. Grades. Credits. AP exam scores from tests I had sat for alone in a freezing library annex because no one had wanted to proctor for a girl from my side of pack territory. Highlighted rows in yellow.
“I don’t understand.”
“You have enough credits,” Brooks said, “to graduate. Today, if you want. Technically, you graduated early. We just didn’t process it.”
My head snapped up. “What.”
“You’ve accumulated enough AP credit to satisfy every requirement the state has for a high school diploma. Several times over, actually.” He folded his hands on the desk. “You’re done, Elena. You don’t have to come back tomorrow if you don’t want to.”
My mouth was open. I closed it.
“No.”
Brooks tilted his head. “No?”
“No. Why now.” I leaned forward. “Why today. Why this morning”
“Because it was brought to my attention-”
“By who.”
He hesitated for the first time.
There it was.
“Was it him.” My voice dropped. “Was it Alpha Marcus.”
“Elena-‘
“He’s been shadowing me everywhere. And suddenly, today, I get yanked out of school permanently. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence, Brooks. I was not born yesterday.”
Brooks met my eyes and held them.
“This is not the Alpha’s doing. I reviewed the transcripts myself. You earned this. Every credit. Every point.” He tapped the folder. “I will write you the strongest college recommendation letter that has ever come out of this office. Any school you want to
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apply to. Any program. You have
I stared at him.
my word.”
He did not blink.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted it so badly my chest hurt.
I took the folder.
“Thank
you, Brooks.”
“Go see your mother,” he said quietly. “I heard.”
I was out of the chair before he finished the sentence.
The private wing still felt like a mistake when the elevator doors opened. Carpet. Soft light. A nurse in pressed scrubs standing outside my mother’s door, arms crossed, looking like she was trying very hard not to laugh.
“—like a prisoner! Do you understand me? A prisoner! I have rent to pay, girl, I have shifts to cover-”
“Ma’am, the doctor hasn’t seen you yet this morning—”
“Then fetch him! Fetch him now!”
I walked in.
My mother was sitting up against the pillows, her hair wild around her shoulders, one thin finger stabbing the air at the nurse. Color was back in her cheeks. Not much. But
some.
The nurse turned to me with the patient, amused look of a woman who had met my kind of stubborn before.
“She’s yours, I take it.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Good luck.”
The nurse slipped past me and out the door.
“Mom.”
“Elena. Tell this woman I’m fine. Tell her I have jobs. Tell her-”
8 Chapter 8 Elegant Stranger
“Mom.” I sat on the edge of the bed. I took her hand. It was still too thin. But it was
warm. “The doctor hasn’t been in yet. You are not going anywhere until he has.”
“It’s nearly afternoon.”
“I know.”
“Elena, the diner-”
“Mom.”
She stopped.
I squeezed her fingers. “I have news.”
She went still. “Good news or bad news.”
“Good, I think.”
“Tell me.”
“Brooks called me in this morning.” I breathed out. “I have enough credits. I’m done with high school.”
Her eyes filled instantly. Of course they did.
“Oh, baby.”
“I’m going to work through the spring,” I said quickly, before she could start. “I need to save for housing. Textbooks. The application fees alone—‘
“Scholarships.”
“Mom.”
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“You will get every scholarship you apply for. Every single one. Do you hear me?”
“Mom, I just need to be realistic—”
“I am being realistic.” She gripped my hand with more strength than I’d thought she had left in her. “You are the smartest girl in that pack. The smartest girl in any pack. And anyone who reads your transcripts is going to see that.”
I kissed her knuckles so she wouldn’t see my face.
The doctor finally came by late afternoon. Against his strong advice, my mother signed the discharge papers, insisting she couldn’t afford to miss more work. I walked her back to the trailer, tucked her into bed, and held her hand until she dozed off, then
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kissed her forehead.
I had a dress to put on.
The trailer was quiet when I let myself in.
I showered.
I stood under the weak hot water for a long time. I washed my hair twice. When I got out, I wrapped myself in a towel and sat on the edge of the bed and did something I had not done in a long time.
I put on makeup.
Light. A little color on my cheeks. A sweep of something soft across my eyelids. Mascara. I pulled my hair over my left shoulder and worked through it with a curling iron I’d borrowed from a neighbor a while ago and never given back, until it fell in long, heavy waves down the front of my body.
Then I walked to my closet and pulled out a dress.
It was the obsidian blue silk gown Marcus had sent, hidden in the back of my mother’s wardrobe. The sweetheart neckline dipped low. The delicate straps crossed my collarbone like strands of spun sugar. The silk ran deep, almost black, until the light caught it and it shimmered like water at midnight, falling cleanly to the slit at my thigh.
I zipped myself in.
I stepped into white strappy heels and laced the ribbons up my ankles.
I turned to the full–length mirror.
The woman who looked back at me I barely recognized. Her shoulders were bare. Her waist was small. Her mouth was soft. Her eyes were my mother’s eyes, before everything.
I straightened.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
The bedroom door opened.
Marcus walked in, adjusting his cufflinks.
“Are you ready-”
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He stopped mid–sentence.
As his intense gaze swept slowly from my face down to my feet and back up again, his whole body locked.
My pulse thundered in the hollow of my neck.
He did not say a word.
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