CHAPTER 176: _ BRACE FOR PUNISHMENT

Heidi gulps, beads of sweat piling on her forehead. "S-Sierra and Lucan?"

Mrs. Castell scoffs. "Do I have other ones?"

"I–I-I don’t know," Heidi admits honestly. "I didn’t ride with them."

The woman’s brows arch sharply. "Then who did you ride with?"

Heidi’s stomach drops. Oh, Moon.

She can’t say it. She can’t say she rode with Morgan and Grayson. That would be suicide.

"I left early," she lies smoothly. "I walked."

For a heartbeat, there’s silence. Heidi braces herself for the physical barrage that is sure to come next. She inhales, holding her breath and ready to gracefully receive the beating.

However, Mrs. Castell smiles contrary to her expectations. "Good," the woman says sweetly. "It means you’re finally learning your place. In fact..." She waves a hand dismissively. "When my husband returns, you’ll tell him you wish to walk to and from school every day. It’ll build character. I can’t have you staining my children with your filth every time you ride with them."

Heidi nearly chokes. Walk? The manor is five kilometers from campus. Build character, her ass. It’s not like she finds joy in being in the same car with Sierra anyway, but walking all the way?

That’s ridiculous!

Her wolf snarls so loudly in her mind that it almost feels audible. "I’m going to bite her. I swear, I’ll bite her right in her shiny gold-covered face."

Heidi takes a slow, shaky breath. We can’t. Yet.

Mrs. Castell’s voice breaks her thoughts again. "Now go. Drop that filthy bag of yours and return here. You’ll receive your punishment."

Punishment? For?

Heidi’s gaze flickers to the maids, but none of them meet her eyes. They’ve seen what punishment means here. It’s useless to even ask what she’s being punished for since that’s only going to worsen the case. However, seeing as Sierra hasn’t arrived home and Mrs. Castell isn’t more violent than she already is, Heidi knows the woman doesn’t know yet about the Heidi Vs. Sierra’s case.

She can only imagine what they’ll do to her over the weekend. Yes, she can fight back when it comes to Sierra and those crazy ass friends of hers. However, fighting back when it comes to an elderly figure with so much power is another ball game. Not only would the pack prosecute her for her, but no amount of support can get her out of such a mess.

Hence, she only needs to brace herself for the unending mistreatments this weekend and perhaps, the days to come will hold for her.

Her pulse quickens, but she forces herself to nod. "Yes, ma’am."

Mrs. Castell tilts her head, watching her like a spider watching a fly. "That’s a good girl," she croons mockingly. "Obedience suits you better than that pitiful defiance."

Heidi swallows the lump in her throat, forcing her legs to move. Each step toward the staircase feels like walking through fire. Her wolf growls low, burning beneath her skin.

"We’ll make her regret this. One day, she’ll kneel."

Yes, Heidi thinks, gripping the banister. One day, she’ll choke on her own words.

The marble stairs gleam under her feet as she climbs. Her arms start to ache from the earlier days’ chaos, but she ignores it. Every ache, every humiliation, every word Mrs. Castell spat at her... it all becomes fuel.

Halfway up, she pauses, glancing back. Mrs. Castell has already reclined again, laughing with one of her maids as if nothing had happened. The image burns into Heidi’s mind — the perfect portrait of hypocrisy and control.

Heidi turns away. Her wolf murmurs, quieter now. "You feel it too, don’t you? The hunger and the fire."

She does. It’s there, blazing in her chest, sharper than pride and hotter than pain. The urge to climb higher, to break free, to make them all kneel in awe and regret.

By the time she reaches the top of the stairs, her lips curve into a dangerous smile.

They can call her filthy. They can call her worthless. They can punish her all they want.

But one day soon — she’ll be the one holding the leash and Mrs. Castell will be the one bowing. Heidi disappears into the shadowed hallway, the scent of roses and rage trailing behind her, the hunger to rise burning hotter than ever.

Heidi slams her door shut with a force that makes the expensive lock complain. For a breathless second the dorm room is a smaller world with its four cinderblock walls, one crooked poster of a band she can’t remember the name of, three narrow beds, Val’s half-packed suitcase yawning open, the ghost of Junie, and the faint lemon-cleaner scent clinging to the sheets feels like heaven compared to this grand room before her.

Yes, because she’d rather manage in a dorm than in this poisonous manor.

She lets the backpack fall from her shoulder; it thuds against the floor and spills a mess of shirts and a stray sock like a defeated animal. The sound is satisfying. She stands over it and breathes in, the air tight in her chest. Every inhale tastes of lavender and boiling anger.

This is her room. Her small, barely-claimed kingdom in a palace that smells of money and malice. She should feel relief. Instead, every step she takes echoes with the day’s sharp edges: being dragged in front of Master Corvin, Sierra’s practiced crocodile tears, the cruel way Mrs. Castell tossed glass like an accusation. The memory of Corvin’s ledger-stenched office, the hush, still hums behind her teeth. Eight to two. She won in the only tally that matters—the vote of her peers, and still they stole from her. Her throat tightens again at the theft. It isn’t fair. When has fair ever meant anything here?

Her wolf pads along the inside of her skull with an impatient snort. "They think they’ve humiliated you. They’ve merely scratched paint."

"Peeling paint is still vandalism," Heidi mutters. Her voice sounds small even to her ears.

She sits on the edge of her unmade bed, fingers picking at the seam of the pillowcase. The sting of the fight—salt and bite on her jaw throbs beneath her skin. She hates how tired she feels. She hates that her body remembers violence like an old lover and keeps returning for the habit.

She wants to smash things. Throw something heavy. The urge to make the world as ugly as they made her feel wants to rise up, hot and vengeful, and shred the curtains of civility they hide behind. But now—no. Now she needs a strategy, not a spectacle.

Her wolf chuckles like he’s amused. "You’re pouting. Not the most tactical look."

"Shut up," Heidi says, but she can’t keep the laugh from crawling up. It tastes like metal. "Because you’re totally helping."

"Someone must be practical. You, after all, are in possession of emotions."

She glares at the ceiling, letting her fingers run along the scarred wood of the bedside table. She pictures the auditorium; faces turned toward Val, toward some script of virtue the teachers wanted to sell. The applause has long since faded but the sting of the theft remains, like a bruise that blooms after the cold.

If she’d had the Top Girl sash across her shoulders right now, would Corvin have a ledger waiting to name her sins? Would Mrs. Castell have flung a glass at her? Probably not. Titles in this place are not ribbons for achievement; they are keys. Power. Doors that open when pack politics whisper at them.

Heidi rubs the spot under her neck where the marks hide beneath fabric, the faint impression of teeth still warm in memory. The marks throb when she thinks of them—evidence of something sacred and violated at once; a reminder that claim and shame are dangerously close in this world.

A reminder that she’s now forever tied to two Alpha wolves while two more await at a corner.

She thinks of Morgan’s phone lying in her backpack—his plan, his smirk replaying in her head like a movie she didn’t choose to watch. Spy. Go home, act normal, record everything.Be small, be subtle, be clever. Let them confess themselves.

The phone is anonymous in the dark. She knows how to use it... Everyone does, but using it in this house, under these ceilings, is different. Here, cameras and listening ears exist in corners. The walls are not memories; they’re allies to people with the right name.

Her wolf’s voice softens and the notes of male humor slide out like sunlight: "Finally, an actual tool. You could be our little spy-goddess."

"Spy-goddess," Heidi repeats, and the absurdity of it sparks a thin, savage grin. She slides the phone into her pocket, fingers shaking a little. She will need it. She will need everything or she’s going down.

Where the hell are Darien and Amias during this crisis? Heidi wishes she could put a call through to them and throw the question in their faces. They sure know how to command her around, but not get her out of messes.

But the phone is just a key. Proof is a lock. Where is the rest of the mechanism?

She forces herself to inventory. Logical lists quiet the panic... order out of grief. Her wolf hums along with the counting, ironically proud to wear Heidi’s imagination like a glove.

Possible evidence:

One, the phone. Sierra doesn’t seem fazed that her phone is broken. That must mean she’s gotten copies elsewhere. Of course, she should have thought of that, Heidi groans, fisting her own hair.

"What to do? What to do? What to do?" She falls into a trance, descending into insanity as her problems pile and rage in her head.