The exam should've taken everyone at least forty-five minutes.

But Bria stood up thirty minutes into the class with all her answers bubbled in and words scribbled all over her test. She handed me the papers, barely looking me in the eye. I grabbed them from her tightly, wanting to tell her to go sit back down, to look over her answers again.

She might've been good at mythology, but she hadn't seemed focused since she came back from the bathroom. And our mindlink hadn't formed yet, so I couldn't hear what was bothering her, or tell if it was me who was being overbearing or not.

"Bria," I said quietly when she let go of the paper.

After glancing up at me briefly, she turned on her heel and hurried down the walkway toward the auditorium exit. I balled my other hand into a fist behind my back, loathing the way that she refused my orders to stay with Jasmine and Levi at all times and wanting to run after her, snatch her by the back of the neck, and sit her on the desk in front of me.

But that would be too obvious to the humans here.

When the door closed, my phone buzzed.

I set the phone down on the auditorium front desk and pressed my lips together, my canines slicing into my bottom lip. All I wanted to do was run after Bria and bring her back here. She shouldn't be out there alone. Who the hell knows—

"Alpha," Beta Milo said through the mindlink. "Adan was spotted leaving university grounds."

The desk broke beneath my death grip, the wood snapping and garnering attention from some of the human students. Werewolf students tensed, listening through the mindlink. Jasmine glanced up at me and sucked in a breath quickly scribbling the last of her answers and smacked her unfinished test in my hand.

"I'll find her," she said.

Jasmine rushed down the walkway and disappeared through the doors. My heart pounded in my chest, my throat drying. That fucking asshole had the damn audacity to step onto my school grounds, where Bria was roaming freely. She didn't know what was really going on, and I knew that I should've told her.

I fucking knew it.

But this was all new to her. She might've read up on some wolf romance books, but she didn't understand that the killing actually happened. It wasn't a fable or myth. Wolves killed each other and, sometimes, had no remorse for it.

Adan wouldn't care.

My stomach tightened, my wolf about to take over in front of all these people. I blew a deep breath from my nose and waited impatiently for Jasmine to say something, anything, through the mindlink, because... fuck.

"She's with me," Jasmine finally fucking said.

My shoulders slumped forward, yet I still had a bit of annoyance that Bria decided to go directly against my wishes. She was putting herself in harm's way, and she knew it. She fucking knew it. I couldn't lose my mate, not after all this time.

~~~

The moment the last student finished his test, I hurried out of the room and toward Bria's dormitory. I had never been inside before, but I didn't care. I needed to get in there to have a little chat with Miss Bria Benton.

After passing the security guard who was in my pack, I pounded my hand against Bria's door. Jasmine pulled the door open, and Bria sat on her bed in her small room and sighed, pulling the blankets over her head. "Why?"

"We need to talk."

Jasmine excused herself from the room and shut the door behind her.

"I told you not to leave class."

No response.

"Why did you not listen to me?"

No response.

Instead of talking to her, I grabbed the blankets and ripped them off of her. Bria was curled into a ball with tears pouring down her face and her eyes puffy and red. She placed a hand over her mouth and bit back a cry.

"Go away," she whimpered.

My anger dissipated quickly. I stepped closer to her, sat on the edge of her bed, and scooped her into my arms, placing her head on my shoulder and gently rubbing circles on her back. "What's wrong?"

Entire body tensing at the question, she shook her head. "Nothing."

"You're crying. It's obviously not nothing, Bria."

"My parents are being... stupid." She glared down at the carpet floor and pressed her lips together. "I hate them so much. I left, because they had been nothing but rude to me. And now... now they want me to come back."

"You're not going anywhere," I assured.

Nobody would take Bria from me, not even her parents.

"Come on," I said, hopping off the bed and heading for the door. "I'm taking you home."

"No." She jumped out of my hold and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I don't want to go. I want to stay here tonight. I've been at your pack all weekend and I'm so tired."

"Well, you're not staying here and crying all night by yourself."

"I don't want to go."

I gritted my teeth together. "You're coming with me. You're not safe here."

"I'm not safe anywhere!" she shouted, then quickly regained her composure and looked at the ground. "I mean, you haven't left me alone for days. Nobody has. I'm constantly being looked over or watched."

"I'm protecting you."

She crossed her arms. "I'm still not going."

"The hell you're not."

I threw Bria over my shoulder and walked out of the room with her. Bria was mine, and I wouldn't let her sulk here alone.