Page 202 of Ruthless Knot

Movement catches my peripheral vision.

More figures joining the Alpha cluster—two more that I recognize, even from this distance.

Blaze.

His golden hair catches the light like actual flames, and there's an energy to his movements that suggests barely contained chaos. He's grinning at something—probably a joke, probably inappropriate—and even from here I can see the way the other Alphas react to him. Part wariness, part amusement, the particular response reserved for people who are entertaining but dangerous.

Kai.

The pack leader enters last.

He doesn't walk so much asprowl—each step deliberate, controlled, radiating the kind of authority that makes people instinctively move out of his way. His dark red hair is swept back from his face, and even in simple sportswear, he looks like someone who could buy and sell the entire academy without noticing the expense.

My enemy, I remind myself.

The son of the man who killed my parents.

The person I'm supposed to destroy after this alliance ends.

But the reminder doesn't land the way it should.

Because I've seen behind the mask now. Seen the vulnerability he hides beneath the power. Seen the boy who just found out his own father wants him dead.

We're not so different, I think, and the thought is more unsettling than comforting.

"Incoming object."

Ro's voice cuts through my drifting thoughts.

Sharp.

Urgent.

I blink—coming back to reality, realizing I zoned out again, fuck—and lift my gaze just in time to see it.

A volleyball.

White and blue, spinning through the air with more velocity than a casual throw could produce. Aimed directly at my face. Moving too fast for me to dodge, too close for me to duck, already in the moment before impact where flinching would just make it worse.

Someone threw that.

Intentionally.

While I wasn't paying attention.

Time does that thing it sometimes does—stretching, elongating, each millisecond expanding into something I can observe and analyze. I see the ball. See its trajectory. See the exact point on my face where it's going to connect—nose, probably. Maybe the bridge of my eyes. Hard enough to hurt. Maybe hard enough to break something.

A normal person would flinch.

Would throw up their hands, turn their head, try to minimize the damage.

I stay completely still.

Not because I'm brave.

Not because I'm stupid.

But because some part of me—the part that's been hit before, that's learned to take pain without showing weakness, that knows flinching only invites more abuse—has decided that showing fear is worse than bleeding.