The Lunar Crest Academy: Marked by The Lycans

Lorraine’s POV

The hospital bathroom was small, barely more than a cubicle with flickering lights and cracked tiles, but it might as well have been a palace and I wouldn’t have cared, not when I knew what was waiting for me this morning. The warm water stung as it hit the cuts on my skin, a brutal reminder that comfort in this academy was never without pain. I let the water run down my body, washing away the sweat, and the exhaustion, at least the physical kind.

But nothing could rinse the heaviness in my chest. Elise was gone. Just like that.

I closed my eyes, willing the water to numb me, to freeze the storm inside. It didn’t work. It never did.

Once I was done, I stepped out and reached for the folded uniform Adrian had gotten for me, crisp, neat, and smelling faintly of cedar.

I wore the uniform and stared at myself in the mirror.

I needed to survive the conference. I needed answers. And if the Alpha King was the only way to get them, then I would face him wearing whatever mask they expected of me.

When I stepped out, Felix was standing in the room and Adrian was standing just beside him, arms crossed. His eyes swept over me, assessing "You look ready."

I didn’t feel ready. But I nodded.

Together, the three of us walked through the academy’s early morning hush, the cold biting at the corners of my sleeves. The towering northern wing loomed ahead, its polished stone walls gleaming beneath the early sky. The North Conference Room, where power gathered, and where people like me didn’t belong.

We reached the tall arching doors of the conference hall, two guards stationed at either side like statues carved from stone.

Adrian stopped and turned to me. "We’ll wait for you here."

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