My Hidden Heritage Made Me a Target — Until the Royal Heir Risked Everything for Our Bond
Part 1
The fever hit me during a quiet Tuesday dinner.
A sudden, burning sensation ripped through my body, making it feel like my bones were slowly rearranging themselves.
My mother, Carol, dropped her fork against her plate.
My father, Greg, shoved his chair back and rushed to my side.
I collapsed onto the kitchen floor, gripping the tiles as a guttural growl tore from my throat.
That was the exact moment the heavy wooden door of our home splintered open.
Tall, broad-shouldered strangers stepped into our hallway.
They did not ask for permission.
They told my terrified parents that I was a danger to the human world.
They claimed I belonged to their pack now.
Before I could even pack a bag, I was forced into the back of a black SUV.
That was how I found myself exiled to an elite, hidden academy deep in the northern woods.
It was a sanctuary for shifters.
A training ground for people who turned into monsters under the moonlight.
I had been raised by humans.
I didn’t know how to track, how to fight, or how to summon the beast beneath my skin.
I smelled like a human to them.
The other students curled their lips in disgust whenever I walked past their tables.
Brenda made it her personal mission to ensure I knew my place.
She was the undisputed queen of the student body.
She dumped my fresh laundry into the mud on my second day.
She whispered cruel rumors about my impure bloodline in the echoing hallways.
Her cruelty wasn’t a surprise once I met her mother.
Heather was the dean of the academy.
She ran the institution with a quiet, terrifying grace.
Heather looked at me like I was an infection spreading through her pristine corridors.
Brian was the only student who showed me an ounce of kindness.
He sat next to me in history class when everyone else left the row empty.
He taught me the academy rules and showed me how to mask my scent with pine needles.
Most importantly, he warned me to stay far away from the royal heir.
Tyler was the future king of our kind.
He carried the weight of the pack on his broad shoulders.
Students bowed their heads and stepped aside when he walked down the stone paths.
He never smiled.
He never looked at anyone.
Until the afternoon he looked at me.
We collided near the archives in the library.
The heavy leather-bound books I was carrying scattered across the floor.
I dropped to my knees to gather them.
His hands brushed against mine as he reached for the same volume.
A violent shockwave traveled up my arm.
His gaze locked onto mine.
The air in the room grew suffocatingly thick, pressing against my lungs.
He stood up abruptly and walked away without uttering a single syllable.
I thought I had offended him.
The night of the academy dance changed the trajectory of my entire life.
Brenda had snuck into my dorm and shredded the dress my mother had mailed to me.
I was forced to attend in a borrowed, outdated gown that fit me poorly.
Murmurs rippled through the grand hall as I stepped through the double doors.
Brenda snickered into her punch glass.
Then, Tyler stepped down from the raised dais.
The room went dead silent.
He walked straight toward me and extended his hand.
The string quartet began to play a slow melody.
We moved across the polished floor together.
His grip on my waist was entirely too tight.
He leaned in close, his chest brushing against mine.
His breath grazed my ear as he spoke.
He told me he had been waiting for me his entire life.
A vision of the celestial goddess came to me in a fever dream that very night.
I saw a massive silver wolf standing in a moonlit clearing.
A voice echoed in my skull, declaring that Tyler and I were destined mates.
I woke up tangled in my sheets, drenched in a cold sweat.
I rejected the idea completely.
I wanted absolutely no part of a preordained life in a world that hated me.
I actively avoided Tyler for weeks, ducking into empty classrooms whenever I saw him.
My first full moon tore through my stubborn defenses.
The transformation fever hit me early, leaving me delirious and burning up from the inside.
I wandered out into the freezing woods, unable to control the instincts taking over my mind.
Tyler found me shivering in the snow beside a frozen creek.
He didn’t lecture me.
He draped his heavy wool coat over my trembling shoulders.
He stayed by my side all night, guarding me from the older wolves roaming the territory.
He never pushed for more.
He never demanded I accept our bond.
He simply kept me safe.
I genuinely thought things were finally stabilizing.
I managed to convince Heather to grant my human parents special permission to visit for the holiday feast.
Carol and Greg arrived at the grand gates with wide smiles and a tin of homemade cookies.
I hugged them so hard my ribs ached.
Brenda sneered at our reunion from across the courtyard.
Heather watched us with dead eyes from the dean’s balcony.
That evening, we all sat at the long wooden banquet tables.
Tyler stood up and raised his glass to offer a toast to peace.
Mid-sentence, his hand began to tremble violently.
The crystal glass shattered against the stone floor.
Dark, jagged veins crawled up his neck.
His eyes turned a violent, unnatural shade of yellow.
A terrifying roar ripped from his chest.
He lunged across the table.
He pinned my father against the stone wall, baring his fangs.
My mother screamed in sheer terror.
I threw myself directly between them.
Tyler’s razor-sharp claws stopped mere inches from my face.
He gasped for air, his chest heaving.
Then, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed heavily onto the ground.
A faint trace of silver residue dusted the edge of his broken cup.
Wolfsbane.
Someone had intentionally poisoned the heir to the throne.
The academy healers rushed into the hall, shoving me aside.
They cast frantic diagnostic spells and checked his fading pulse.
They turned to the crowd and announced that the toxin was too deep in his system.
He lay there dying, and the only way to save him was to accept the one thing I had sworn to reject.
