Resumption day,

Author

The gates of Obsidian University had not changed.

Aria noted this with the detached assessment of an operative returning to a compromised location.

Same ironwork, same obsidian pillars, same pretentious inscription about "shaping tomorrow's Alphas" etched above the archway. The building was a monument to hierarchy, a factory that processed young predators into older predators and called it education.

She walked through with Lycian on her left, Fenris on her right, and Drako trailing behind with his pockets already bulging with objects he had collected from the street. Three children in matching gray uniforms that Aria had commissioned from a military tailor in the capital. Three pairs...