Fates Collide

Earlier That Morning after getting enrolled successfully, Calista had spent the entire morning trying to plan the perfect way to introduce herself. It had to be natural. Casual. Not too obvious, but also not so subtle that he didn’t notice her. She had imagined this moment for so long—their eyes meeting, the bond igniting, the recognition clicking instantly between them.

But then—

She ran straight into him. One second, the hallway was empty ahead of her. The next, there was a wall of warmth where there hadn’t been one, and then the floor was tilting and something was burning—her arm, her wrist, the back of her hand. A paper cup bounced off the linoleum. She stumbled back, shaking the liquid from her fingers. Oh, Amara.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. She had planned for a proper introduction, not… this. She had literally crashed into him and spilled burning hot coffee all over him. Calista’s stomach plummeted. She looked up, heart pounding violently in her chest—

And her breath caught. His eyes. They were red, sharp, filled with irritation—but beneath that, there was something intense. Something unshakable. Butterflies exploded in her stomach.

Her soulmate. He was even more striking up close tall, strong, with an air of command that seemed completely effortless. And that was when it happened. Their eyes met. She had waited so long for this moment. Waited for the instant connection. Waited for the moment when he would see her and know. But instead—

He glared at her. Fury etched into every sharp line of his face. “What the hell?!” he barked, voice dangerous and full of authority.

Calista’s breath hitched. Why? Why wasn’t he reacting? Didn’t he feel it, too? The connection. The bond. Her mind raced for an explanation he had to sense something. But there was nothing. No flicker of recognition. No pull of the bond in his expression. Just pure suspicion.

His’s eyes narrowed as he stepped closer. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

Calista’s breath hitched. What? Her mind raced. Why doesn’t he recognize me? Her heart pounded. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t feel it. She stared at him, throat tightening. This was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He should at least sense something. Did the bond not reach him? Did it not work both ways?

No, the other person is supposed to feel it to that’s the way its always been but then. Why wasn’t he feeling the bond? Did something go wrong? His red eyes moved over her slowly, the way someone scans a room after hearing a noise. Her pulse jumped.

She watched his nostrils flare once just once and then something shifted in his face, a stillness that was somehow worse than the anger had been. “Why don’t you have a scent?” His voice dropped lower, more dangerous.

The blood drained from Calista’s face. What? That didn’t make any sense. Her spell masked her wings and compressed her aura, but he should still be able to smell her. “Uh—I—” she stammered.

His gaze locked onto hers, his suspicion deepening. She needed to say something. Now.

“I—I was in a rush,” she stammered. “I—I didn’t see you.” It was a terrible excuse, but it was all she had.

Max’s eyes stayed on her. A muscle in his jaw shifted once, then settled. He said nothing. Calista’s hands clenched into fists. This wasn’t right. He was supposed to feel it. He was supposed to recognize her. So why didn’t he? Her heart twisted, a deep ache settling in her chest.

Had she misunderstood everything? Was this was he not her soulmate after all? No. No, she knew what she felt. She wasn’t wrong. She could feel it now, But that didn’t explain why he wasn’t feeling it. She needed time. Time to figure out what had gone wrong. Time to fix it. Before Max could ask another question, Calista did the only thing she could. She turned and ran.

Max’s feet didn’t move. Down the hall, the door was still swinging. He became aware that he was breathing harder than he should have been, that his jaw hurt, that he had no memory of clenching it. He looked down at his hand. It was still reaching slightly in the direction she had gone. He pulled it back. The door at the end of the hall swung shut. He was still looking at it.

Somewhere in the last thirty seconds he had taken a step forward without meaning to, and now the linoleum was wrong under his feet, the distance between him and where she had been somehow both too much and not enough. He looked down. His coffee was on the floor. There was something wrong with that girl. And Max was going to find out what.

Later at lunch, Calista chose a table near the back wall, behind a support pillar, and kept her tray close to her chest until she was sitting. The Bloodmoon Academy cafeteria was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched along one side of the building, flooding the space with natural light despite the winter sky outside. Rows of long tables filled the massive room, while multiple serving stations lined the far wall. Hundreds of students packed the cafeteria, their conversations blending into a constant roar of voices, laughter, and clattering trays.

The room felt more like a university dining hall than a high school cafeteria. Students moved constantly between tables. Friends gathered in large groups. Athletes occupied several tables near the center of the room. Others lingered by the windows overlooking the campus. Even hidden behind the pillar, Calista could still see much of the cafeteria.

More importantly, she could see the entrance. She didn’t eat. Serenians couldn’t eat most human food not that she was hungry anyway. Every time the cafeteria doors swung open, she looked up, and every time it wasn’t him, she looked back down. She moved the same three pieces of food around her plate for twenty minutes. She had not yet figured out what had gone wrong this morning, and until she did, She wasn’t ready to face him again.

Then she heard a soft, trembling voice, layered with quiet desperation. “Stop… please.”

Calista’s head snapped up. Across the cafeteria, near the vending machines, a group of girls had formed a loose half-circle that wasn’t quite a circle—the kind that leaves one direction open just to make clear there’s nowhere to go. At the center of it, a girl stood with her shoulders curved inward and her chin dropped, her lunch tray tilted slightly in her grip. Her hair was blonde at the roots and deepened to lavender at her collarbone, the kind of color that had probably looked bolder a few months ago. She was blinking too fast, her blue eyes moving between the girls surrounding her the way someone’s eyes move when they are trying to find a door.

She was thin in the way that read as fragile from across a room, her wrists small around the tray’s edge, her collarbones visible above the neckline of her shirt. She was a bit taller than calista but then again everyone was so Calista could tell this girl was about average height. She had her shoulders drawn in, and her chin tucked down, and she was holding her lunch tray in both hands like she was thinking about using it as a shield.

Calista frowned. The taller brunette standing in front of the girl had her arms crossed, an arrogant smirk plastered across her face. Her dark brown hair was cut to her collarbone, sleek and blunt-edged, with bangs that stopped just above her brows in a way that looked expensive. Her olive skin was clear and even. A thin black choker sat at the base of her throat, and small gold rings stacked on her fingers caught the cafeteria light. The bag hanging from her forearm probably cost more than most students’ monthly allowance.

“Come on, Mina,” the brunette sneered, her voice laced with mockery. “Didn’t I tell you? You don’t belong here.”

Calista’s fingers curled into fists. She stood and crossed the cafeteria without deciding to. The brunette noticed her first her smirk faltered, then reset itself, uncertain. One of the girls in the half-circle turned, then another. The conversation stopped in pieces, like a song losing its instruments one by one, until there was nothing left but the noise of the rest of the room.

The brunette’s smirk finally dropped. She didn’t seem to know it had. Her arms, still crossed, shifted slightly inward. One of the other girls took a small step back without appearing to notice she had done it. Calista said nothing. She looked at the brunette the way you look at something you are deciding whether to pick up off the floor.

Her eyes sharp, piercing, unyielding held a look of pure, regal authority. It was the kind of stare that demanded obedience without a single word. The brunette’s eyes cut sideways once, then came back. Her weight shifted onto her back foot. Calista still said nothing. Somewhere behind her a tray clattered against a table and nobody looked. One of the girls in the half-circle found something to look at on the floor. Another tucked her hair back, slowly, with both hands, the way people do when they need something to do with their hands.

Even Mina, who had been staring at the ground, looked up in surprise at the sudden, crushing tension. The brunette tried to reassert herself, straightening her shoulders. “Who the hell are you?”

Calista’s voice was silken steel. “I would ask you the same,” she said smoothly, her tone eerily calm. “But I already know what you are.”

The brunette blinked, confusion flickering across her face. “Excuse me?”

Calista took a slow step forward. The brunette instinctively leaned back. “A coward,” Calista said simply. The entire cafeteria went silent.

The brunette’s expression twisted. “Who do you think you are?” she snapped, but the usual confidence in her voice was waning.

Calista tilted her head just slightly, her unreadable gaze never breaking. “I am someone who does not entertain the presence of bullies,” she said, her voice low and precise, every syllable placed with calculated elegance.

Calista did not shift her weight. She did not blink first. Her mother had always told her true power does not raise its voice. It does not need to. The brunette was still trying to recover, but it was useless. The power was already shifting. Calista could see it. Feel it. The eyes of the other students were now on her not The brunette.

And the brunette felt it too. Her face turned a shade too red, and with a sharp huff, she flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Whatever. I have better things to do.”

It was not a victory. It was a retreat. She turned on her heel and stormed away. The second she was gone, Mina let out a shaky breath. Calista finally relaxed her stance, letting the sharpness in her gaze soften as she turned to face Mina.

“You are unharmed?” she asked gently.

Mina blinked at her. “Uh… yeah. I—yeah. Thank you.”

Calista smiled faintly. “You don’t need to thank me. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Mina hesitated, then quickly grabbed her tray. “Would you, um… would you like to sit with me?”

Calista tilted her head. Something in Mina’s voice had gone small again. She had just sent The brunette scurrying away, yet Mina still expected rejection. How long had she been alone? Calista nodded. “I would like that.”

After they sat down, Mina seemed to relax a little. Calista learned that Mina was kind, intelligent, and far too used to being overlooked. Actually Mina was very lively and animated when she was being herself. It made Calista’s stomach twist uncomfortably. Then she decided to ask.

“That girl,” Calista said carefully. “Who was she?”

Mina blinked. “Oh. You mean Dana? She’s the Alpha’s sons mate.”

“The Alpha’s son,” Calista said. Though it wasn’t quite a question.

Mina was already pulling out her phone. She held it out across the table. A photo. A party or a gala, something with lights. Dana was in it, her arm looped through the arm of a boy Calista froze it was the guy she ran into, the guy she had been dreaming of since she got here her soulmate. Her grip tightened on the edge of the lunch tray “In case you didn’t know.” Mina said

Max. His name was Max. A soft, unbidden warmth curled in Calista’s chest. But the warmth curdled. Her eyes went back to the photo. Dana’s arm looped through his. Dana laughing up at him, her head tilted toward his shoulder. Her thumb had already found the edge of the lunch tray, pressing into the plastic hard enough to not just crack it but almost crush it. Dana’s mate? “That… cannot be correct,” she said before she could stop herself.

Mina gave her a strange look. “Uh, I mean, yeah. Everyone knows they’re together.”

Calista’s heart was pounding. It didn’t make sense. He was her mate. She felt it. Every time she was near him, every time she even thought about him—

Then why didn’t he feel it too? And more importantly why did he think Dana was his mate? Her hands clenched into fists beneath the table. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Calista had spent the rest of the day avoiding him. She needed time to think. To figure out why he didn’t feel the bond. To fix it. And until she did, she wasn’t ready to face him again. But then, the next morning, as she walked down the hallway—

She saw him. And her heart stopped. Because he wasn’t alone. And he wasn’t just standing with Dana. Kissing her. Calista looked away first. She studied a scuff mark on the floor tile just past his sneakers, then the water fountain, then the exit sign above the far door—anything that was not his hands on Dana’s waist.She knew logically that he didn’t know who she was. That he didn’t recognize their bond.

But that didn’t stop the pain from hitting her like a blade. She had spent her whole life believing that the moment she found him, everything would fall into place. But now? She wasn’t even sure if he was ever hers.