Page 20 of The Hunt of Night

“Take a seat, Miss Reed,” the professor states as Fairbourne leaves the room, and I do just that, nestling between Brody and Kryll while avoiding both of their gazes.

Brody’s arm instantly slinks around the back of my chair while a tatted arm inches closer to me on the desk. It’s instinctive to push back, demand space, and put distance between us, but instead, I keep my mouth shut. Their proximity is almost…calming. I don’t know what to make of it, but I decide being surrounded by them isn’t a bad thing.

The professor proceeds with the class, discussing what the castle signifies to the kingdom and how its importance is in all of our hearts, rooting us to Floodborn. The words go in one ear and straight out of the other. Nothing sticks as I feel myself shrink in the room.

From the mighty fae that just stood toe to toe with Bozzelli to a crippled student among the masses in a matter of minutes.

The feeling doesn’t shift either, weighing heavier and heavier on my shoulders as one class floats into another. The four walls that surround me change, but the feeling inside of me doesn’t. Anything on the agenda today in these classes is lost on me as one becomes another and another.

I feel more out of place now than I did when my true identity was revealed to the academy. I know things I didn’t then. Things that changed me at my core. Things I don’t want to admit but can’t stop myself from acknowledging.

With every passing moment, I feel myself disconnecting from the world around me, and my mind starts to play nasty tricks, consuming every part of me.

My mother is a wolf.

A Kenner wolf.

My father a fae.

A royal fae.

I’m…what?

A product of love? Impossible. Not with how everything unraveled from there.

A half-breed? The term alone makes my blood boil.

I’m still the same underneath it all. I know that deep down somewhere, but here, at this moment, with my mind tormenting my every breath, I don’t feel the same.

I need to rid myself of these thoughts.

Clenching my eyes closed, I try to ground myself in the room, but nothing is sticking. The countdown to lunchtime looms, promising me a moment to breathe among the madness, but it feels as though time is standing still.

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know if the cloak draped over my shoulders is the right color.

Gray.

Green.

Grayandgreen?

I don’t know anything.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I’ve never truly felt like I belonged anywhere other than with my family, but now it’s even worse. I don’t know how to make it all better.

A hand clamps down on my thigh, startling me from my intrusive thoughts, and my head whips up to find Kryll offering me a soft smile, but I don’t miss the way his eyebrows are furrowed together.

“Are you doing okay, Princess?” his voice is raspy as he whispers.

I try to gulp down the rising stress, but all I can do is shake my head. His grip on my thigh tightens, bringing me a little closer to the present, and I manage to take a deep breath, followed by another.

My lips part in an attempt to express what’s going on in my mind, but my thoughts are cut off by the shrill bell that rings through the air.

I slump back in my seat, gasping with each rise and fall of my shoulders.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

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