Page 4

Della

“Lyra said Professor Vincent is wearing the tweed again,” Cheyenne says as we leave the dining hall behind us after another delicious breakfast.

All the girls sigh in pleasure.

“Professor who?” I ask.

Focusing on their conversation isn’t easy. I’m down to one small bottle of perfume, and this morning, I stared at the contents, trying to work out how many sprays I had before I run out.

And I can’t run out in here.

“Substitute math teacher. Oh, you missed that class because you were sick, right?”

No. I missed it because I was setting the dining room on fire. “What’s he like?”

“That man knows how to wear the heck out of a tweed jacket. Shame he’s so boring to listen to. But to watch?” Alyce blows a chef’s kiss.

As I enter the classroom, Professor Vincent, a tall, dark-haired man wearing a gray tweed jacket, stands with his back to me, scrawling terrifying equations onto a whiteboard.

Those shoulders are familiar.

I hover just inside the room, eyeing him curiously. It can’t be the alpha hunk with the wet shirt from last night. The odds of that would be?—

He turns.

Hello . I take in cold, steel-gray eyes, a strong nose, and a handsome face carved from granite. He’s hotter in daylight with the sunlight bouncing off his chiseled jaw.

Last night, he pinned me against the wall and growled at me like he was getting ready to throw me to the ground and fuck me.

I was beyond flustered when I returned to the dorms. River asked me why I was so flushed.

I stammered some excuse about getting lost and quickly got ready for bed, where I spent most of the night tossing and turning, thinking of a man with steel-gray eyes doing filthy things to me that the teachers would not approve of.

His gaze sweeps over me before shifting away, his expression unaltered. It’s as if last night never happened. I won’t lie, it’s a touch disappointing that he’s so unaffected when I’m trying desperately not to blush. “You’re all late. Sit.”

We all take our seats, and I pull out my notebook and pen, expecting another surface-level class.

The blond male omega on my left immediately catches my eye. And his scent: caramel corn, the super fresh type from one of those carts at the fair. His lip curves up in a half-smile when he notices me looking.

He’s pretty.

“Hey, I’m Aden.” His hazel eyes lazily survey me, and it’s clear he likes what he sees. “You’re new.”

This experience is new. I've always been the cute redhead, a friend rather than a beauty who attracts flirtatious attention.

I return his smile. “I am new. Do you?—”

“The answer, Miss Farrow.” A cold voice cuts through my response.

I turn to the front and realize I need to learn to stop being so easily distracted. “Yeah?”

His lips flatten, and he gestures toward the whiteboard. “The answer.”

My eyes glaze over. “For the equation on the right or the left?”

“They are the same equation.”

Damn .

I clear my throat and sit up straighter in my seat. “I, uh, I’m not sure.”

From out of the corner of my eye, River’s hand creeps up. “I think I might know?—”

His eyes bore into me. “I am waiting for Miss Farrow to grace the class with the answer.”

“I don’t really…”

“Take the pen.”

I slowly rise and approach the whiteboard, gripping the pen he thrusts toward me tightly in my hand. With dozens of eyes staring at my back, I feel sweat forming on my neck.

I have no clue what this math even is, but hell if I know the first thing about how to solve an equation that gives me a headache just looking at it.

“We don’t have all day, Miss Farrow,” he snaps.

“I don’t know the answer.”

He nods, and I start to hand my pen back when he pulls another one from his pocket.

“Then we’ll start with something easier, just for you.” His judgment raises my hackles.

He scrawls another equation on the board, this one no easier to decipher than the last.

“ Well …” He peers expectantly at me.

“I, uh, don’t know.”

His eyebrows fly up. “Is there anything you do know?”

The room is pin-drop silent.

Pity fills Aden’s eyes, and I look away, cheeks red, humiliated.

I loved school and was always eager to go, but some things are more important than school. Things like family. Like looking out for your sister when she goes missing.

Now I just feel stupid for knowing absolutely fucking nothing.

Every class I’ve had so far has been superficial, it’s obvious that the only thing we’re here to learn is obedience.

Except this one.

In this one, I’m suddenly expected to use my brain.

Even my classmates looked surprised and confused when they saw the whiteboard full of equations, which tells me this substitute teacher either doesn’t know the deal, doesn’t care, or has something against me.

Because of last night?

What did I do to deserve this?

He shakes his head. “Sit down, Miss Farrow. You’re wasting all our time.”

I slump into my chair, fiddling with my pen and notebook while he drones on.

When he’s writing on the whiteboard, Aden tries to catch my eye, but I’m too embarrassed to look anyone in the face.

An hour later, the bell rings, signaling the end of class.

My cheeks are no longer red, and my notebook is full of the equations from the whiteboard. I don’t know the answer yet, but I will.

I fucking will.

River lingers beside me as the room empties. “Are you okay, Delilah?”

“Fine.” I stuff my books into my bag, conscious that Mr. Vincent is still at his desk, and I am positive he hates me.

She glances at Mr. Vincent. “I have a free period now. Do you want to go through the math stuff?”

I smile faintly at her. She deserves better than this place. All the omegas do. They’re lambs on a conveyor belt, and I know the sort of alphas they will be served to at the end.

Alphas who will take pleasure in making them feel small so they can feel big.

Alphas like this dickhead of a math professor who bludgeoned me over the head with his knowledge and made me feel stupid.

“No thanks, I have stuff to do,” I tell her.

Aden finishes stuffing his notebook into his bag and turns to face me. “Did you want to have lunch?”

"Aren't you supposed to be in class, Aden?” Professor Vincent’s icy tone cuts through Aden’s offer.

Tension stiffens my spine as Aden turns away from Professor Vincent, his submissive omega instincts yielding to alpha dominance.

Prick .

I turn to smile warmly at Aden. “Lunch sounds great. Thanks.”

I’m not here to date, so I wouldn’t have accepted the offer. If Professor Vincent has a problem with Aden being nice to me, I’ll be even nicer to Aden.

He gives me a brief smile, casts a nervous glance at Professor Vincent, and grabs his bag before leaving.

“You can go.” Mr. Vincent skewers River with a penetrating stare.

River, like most omegas, lowers her head when faced with a glaring alpha.

Mr. Vincent is an ass, and if I weren’t trying to cause a scene in Haven, I wouldn’t hesitate to kick his chair leg out from under him and watch him smash his face against the table.

A thought suddenly occurs to me. An alarming one.

Did he go to the lake and find my perfume bundle? Is that what this is about?

No. If he found something, I’d be waking up in a police cell for nearly setting fire to the science building.

This is something else.

River leaves after giving me a reassuring smile.

There aren’t many alphas in Haven.

Lawrence, my sister’s former mate, abused her so badly that even though he’s dead and she’s happy with her scent-matched alphas who would do anything for her, she still sometimes flinches when I don’t give her any warning that I’m about to hug her.

I walk to the front of his desk. “Is there a book I need to read?”

“Book?”

“So I can catch up on the things I need to know.”

He reclines in his seat, arms crossed, the fabric of his gray tweed jacket straining. “You won’t catch up, Miss Farrow. Haven Academy isn’t the right place for you.”

His derision stings, but that’s okay.

See, here’s the thing.

After I saw what an alpha did to Everleigh, I refuse to stand by and let it happen to someone else.

Public humiliation is worth it if I can save even one omega from someone like Lawrence -Fucking-Wentworth.

“I’ll see you in the next class.” I turn around and walk away.

“It would be wise for you to leave, Miss Farrow,” he calls after me.

“And it would be wise for you not to bother holding your breath waiting for the impossible to happen.” I stop at the door and look him right in the eye as I add mockingly, “ Sir .”

He opens his mouth. I step out and shut the door, having gotten the last word in.

River is waiting for me down the hall. “Are you okay?”

I drag up a smile. “Fine. You didn’t have to wait.”

“Yes, I did.” She glances back up the hallway. “Professor Vincent wasn’t like that in our last class. He seems to have a real problem with you.”

Yes. Yes, he does.

“I guess he was just having a bad day.”

Or I’ve done something to make him think that maybe I’m not like the other omegas.