Irina’s POV

The lecture hall was massive. I sat in the middle row this time. Not the very back. Not hiding. But I felt completely exposed.

My chest felt incredibly light, but not in a good way. The phantom weight of the baby carrier lingered heavily against my collarbone. For months, Luka had been strapped to me. He was my shield. He was my anchor. Now, there was just an empty space.

My worn sneaker tapped frantically against the carpeted floor.

I checked my phone. It had only been twelve minutes.

My wolf paced restlessly in the dark corners of my mind. She was whining. It was a low, anxious sound. *Where is the pup?* she demanded. *We left him. We shouldn’t leave him.*

I gripped my cheap plastic pen so hard my knuckles turned stark white.

*He is safe,* I told my wolf desperately. *Clara has him. Clara is kind.*

But the fear was a stubborn, heavy thing. I imagined a hundred terrible scenarios. What if he wouldn’t stop crying? What if he choked? What if Clara got tired of him, realized he was too much of a burden, and left him all alone? I was a runaway from the werewolf underground. I was heavily conditioned to expect the absolute worst from people.

I bit my lip, staring blankly at the massive whiteboard at the front of the room.

The professor, a tall man with wire-rimmed glasses, cleared his throat. He tapped his keyboard, and an intricate, brightly colored diagram of the human nervous system flashed onto the massive projector screen.

"The central nervous system," the professor began, his voice echoing clearly through the microphone. "It is the command center of the human body. It processes every sensation, every pain, every single instinct to survive."

I blinked.

I looked at the glowing diagram. The sprawling, complex web of nerves and synapses.

"When the body experiences severe physical or psychological trauma," the professor continued, pacing slowly across the wooden stage, "the nervous system remembers. It maps the pain. It fundamentally changes the way the brain responds to future stimuli."

The words hit me.

They didn’t just hit me as an eighteen-year-old college student. They hit me as a survivor. My body remembered Maxim’s heavy blows. My nervous system had brutally rewired itself to flinch, to hide, to freeze at the slightest sign of danger.

I leaned forward slightly in my hard plastic chair.

The professor moved to the next slide. He started explaining the process of cellular regeneration. How broken bones knit back together. How torn tissue miraculously heals itself.

My own healing gift flared warmly in my chest. I knew how to heal. I knew the instinctual, supernatural magic of it. But I had never understood the actual *mechanics*. I had never known the human science behind the miracle.

I opened my spiral notebook. I clicked my pen.

I started to write.

At first, my handwriting was shaky. My anxious thoughts kept drifting back to the private estate. To Luka. But the professor’s steady voice was captivating. The sheer, overwhelming depth of the knowledge laid out in front of me on that screen was completely intoxicating.

This was what I had begged for. This was the exact world I had envied when I looked at Mia’s heavy anatomy textbooks in her apartment. I was finally here. I was finally allowed to learn.

I copied the diagrams. I wrote down every single word the professor said. I furiously highlighted key terms.

The anxious, frantic tapping of my foot completely stopped.

The terrified pacing of my wolf quieted down. She settled deep in my chest, watching the white pages fill with dark ink, intrigued by my intense, burning focus.

For the very first time in my entire life, I wasn’t a broken, abused omega. I wasn’t a terrified mother running from a mafia king. I was just a student. A girl sitting in a classroom, entirely absorbed by the absolute magic of science.

The heavy, suffocating weight of my past completely dissolved. I was lost in the lecture. I was breathing in the knowledge like it was pure oxygen.

"That concludes today’s lecture," the professor’s voice suddenly cut through my deep concentration. "Read Chapter four for Thursday."

I blinked.

I looked up from my notebook, completely disoriented.

The massive hall was suddenly filled with the deafening sound of two hundred students packing up their things. Chairs squeaked against the floor. Zippers zipped. Heavy backpacks swung onto shoulders. The quiet, focused academic bubble had burst.

I looked down at my phone screen.

An hour and a half had passed. It felt like ten minutes.

I stared down at my open notebook. I had filled six entire pages with dense, detailed notes and hand-drawn diagrams. A massive, brilliant smile broke across my face. I traced the ink with my fingertips. I had actually done it.

The classroom emptied out quickly. I didn’t move. I was still sitting at my desk, staring at a complex diagram of a cell membrane, trying to memorize the labels, completely immersed in the lingering high of the class.

A sudden, light tap on my shoulder made me jump.

"Aren’t you leaving?"

I gasped and spun around.

Asher was standing right behind my desk. He was wearing his dark jacket, his canvas messenger bag slung across his broad chest. His striking golden eyes were warm and crinkled at the corners with amusement.

"Asher!" I breathed out, pressing a hand to my chest to calm my startled heart. "What are you doing here?"

"My class got out ten minutes ago," he smiled, leaning casually against the desk next to mine. "I figured I’d walk you to the subway. But you looked like you were trying to burn a hole through that notebook with your eyes. Class is over, Irina."

I stared at him.

Then, the reality of the time crashed into me like a brick wall.

*Luka.*

"Oh my god," I gasped, the maternal panic instantly flooding back into my veins. "Luka! I’ve been gone for almost two hours!"

"Hey, relax," Asher laughed softly, reaching out to steady my frantic hands as I wildly started shoving my pens and highlighters into my bag. "He’s fine. Clara is a saint."

"I have to go! I have to get back to work!" I zipped my cheap canvas backpack with a sharp, violent tug. I practically threw it over my shoulder.

"I’ll walk with you," Asher said, effortlessly keeping pace with me as I sprinted up the carpeted stairs of the lecture hall.

We burst out of the science building and into the crisp autumn air.

I didn’t walk. I ran.

I ran across the brick pathways of the campus quad. My sneakers slapped loudly against the pavement. My lungs burned with the cold air, but I didn’t care. The brief, beautiful escape of the classroom was over. The fierce, desperate mother was back in control.

"Slow down!" Asher called out, jogging easily beside me. He wasn’t even out of breath. "You’re going to trip!"

"I can’t!" I panted, dodging a group of students holding iced coffees. "He might be crying! He might be hungry!"

We caught the subway just as the doors were closing. I stood in the crowded, swaying car, my hands gripping the metal pole so tightly my knuckles ached. Every single stop felt like an absolute eternity. The train crawled. My wolf paced again. *Faster. We need to go faster.*

When we finally reached the station near the estate, I bolted up the concrete stairs.

The massive, imposing gates of Obsidian Holdings’ private estate loomed ahead. I swiped my new employee badge with a trembling hand. The heavy iron gates clicked open.

I sprinted down the long, paved driveway. The grand mansion rose up into the grey sky, but I didn’t look at the beautiful architecture. I headed straight for the discreet side entrance meant for the domestic staff.

I pushed the heavy wooden door open and practically fell into the hallway.

I gasped for air, my chest heaving violently. My blonde hair was a tangled mess around my flushed face.

I practically scrambled down the corridor, rounding the corner into the massive staff kitchen.

"Luka!" I gasped out, terrified of what I would find. I expected screams. I expected Clara to be exhausted, angry, and completely done with me.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

The kitchen was incredibly warm, smelling of fresh bread and lemon polish.

I looked toward the staff lounge area.

When I arrived, I found Clara holding Luka, smiling and waiting for me.