One Night

Chapter 215

Andrey

“Audrey You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet.”

I frore in the midst of my frantic pacing and stared down at my aching feet. Edwin was right; I hadn’t stopped moving since we got here this morning.

Since Judge Fuller had called an emergency meeting with Daniels and Black.

“I can’t help it.” I said, starting to walk again. “What if they don’t believe me? What if Black somehow convinces them that I’m lying? Again?”

My mate watched me from where he leaned against the wall, hands tucked into his pockets. We’d been out here ..ke this all morning, waiting for some kind of answer in regards to my thesis-and Mr. Black.

“Audrey-

They’ve been in there for way too long,” I interrupted, not stopping my pacing this time. “It’s not a good sign. Not good at all”

With a sigh, Edwin pushed off the wall and caught me by the shoulders, halting my frantic movement. He turned me to face him and leveled me with a steady gaze. “Hey. Just try to breathe.

sucked in a deep breath of air, meeting my mate’s eyes. Normally, that stormy gray color would calm me immediately. But not today. Today, the only thing that could soothe my frayed nerves was an answer.

Edwin’s lips tugged upwards in one corner. “You have to let the breath out, too, Audrey.”

Right; I’d been holding my breath. But before I could let it out, raised voices suddenly erupted from behind the closed door. Edwin and I both whirled to face it, his hand tightening on my shoulder.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves!” we heard an irate Mr. Black bellow from behind the closed door. “Believing some good-for-nothing kid over an esteemed member of our community…”

“The evidence is clear, Mr. Black! Kindly see yourself out before=”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll see myself out, alright.”

Suddenly, the door flew open so hard that it banged on the wall behind it, and Mr. Black stormed out, his face red with fury. His eyes landed on me, narrowing dangerously as he took quick strides straight for me. “There you are, you little-“.

Before Mr. Black could reach me, Edwin stepped forward, placing himself between Black and me. He let out a low growl and held out an arm to shield me. “Watch yourself, Black.”

Black froze, his jaw working as he glared at Edwin. After a moment, he cursed under his breath and stormed off down the hallway, grumbling something I could just barely make out: “Damn kid… I want my reward…”

I frowned, wondering what that could mean, but before I could dwell on it, Fuller appeared in the doorway.

“Miss Klein, please come in,” he said, his expression unreadable,

With a deep breath and a reassuring squeeze of Edwin’s hand, I entered the conference room. Fuller and Daniels sat at the long table, their faces solemn. Fuller gestured to one of the empty chairs and I sat, Edwin hovering near the door in case Black decided to return.

“Miss Klein,” Fuller began, “we’ve reconsidered your thesis, and…

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fun apes full of regret. We are so torry this happened to you, Audrey We looked into the matter, and your faims fired up with our own cadence.”

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right confer to what did, we found security footage from campus that was.. **ing Tie waren slipping into an empty cleurons after youre thesis presentation, looking very suspicious and

ing a phone call

When we traced the call” Danich added, “we found that it went somewhere in Coldclaw. Alt ch we weren’t able to trace #further, it’s concerning enough as it is; and combined with the evidence you gave us, we decided that Mr. Black wasn’t the most trustworthy candidate for the position.”

My eyes widened, and I turned to look at Edwin. “Do you think.

Edwin’s face was grim as he replied through our Mindlink, “It’s possible Black was put up to this by someone in Coldclaw We’ll need to look into this further.”

Fuller cleared his throat. “Again, we apologize profusely for the upset. We never should have believed a man like Black over a Grayspring student, especially one such as yourself who has always been a fantastic student, without looking into the matter first.”

took a deep breath, my mind still reeling from everything. “Can you promise that something like this won’t happen to students of Grayspring in the future?”

Daniels nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. In fact, we’ve been discussing implementing a new policy. We’re going to be looking for a Grayspring alumni to serve as a third judge for next year’s thesis presentations.”

I blinked in surprise. “Alumni?”

Fuller smiled. “Yes. We believe that a former student should be included on the judging panel. Faculty who have been teaching for many years may not remember the struggle of presenting their thesis, but alumni only recently went through that experience.”

“We believe that it will be more beneficial to the students who are presenting to have a judge who may be a bit more understanding of the students’ struggles,” Daniels added.

“So from now on,” Fullers explained, “every year, a recent Grayspring alumni will be able to be on the judging panel.”

I nodded, impressed by the idea. It was more than I could have hoped for-a chance for future students to be protected from the experience I had gone through. A better future.

“And Audrey, that brings us to our next point,” Daniels continued, smiling. “We would like to know… would you like to be the first alumni to do it next year?”

My jaw dropped. “Me?”

Fuller and Daniels both nodded. “It’s the least we can do after this awful experience you’ve had.”

I swallowed hard, glancing at Edwin. He flashed me a small smile as he sent an encouraging nudge down the bond. Before I could even think about it, I was suddenly blurting out, “Yes. I’d love to. It would… It would be an honor.”

As Edwin and I left the conference room, I felt like I was floating. The moment we were alone in the hallway, I threw my arms around his neck, tears of joy streaming down my face. He held me tight, his chest rumbling with a low chuckle.

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Later that evening. I returned to my dorm, still riding the high of the day’s events. As I entered the common room, I found Tina Gavin, and Betty sitting on the communal sofa, a giant bowl of popcorn and a deck of playing cards between the three

of them

“There she is?” Tina exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “Well! What happened?”

I couldn’t keep the grin off of my face, no matter how badly I wanted to trick them all into thinking that I had failed again. “I passed.” I breathed, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I’m graduating with you guys!”

Suddenly, the room erupted into a deafening cacophony of cheers. Before I knew it, my friends were surrounding me and pulling me into a group hug that nearly knocked me off my feet.

And I couldn’t have been happier.

Eventually, I returned to my own room for some much-needed sleep-after two days of hardly managing to sleep as all. I tore off my clothes and turned on the shower, barely even giving it a chance to heat up before I was jumping into the water.

The hot shower was exactly what I needed, washing away the last remnants of tension from my body. I took my time scrubbing and soaking, eyes closed and a contented little smile on my face.

When I finally stepped out a little while later, wrapping a towel around myself and feeling immeasurably better, I grabbed my toothbrush and reached up to wipe the steam from the mirror with my hand.

That was when I saw it.

My blood ran cold as the words that were written in the steam on my mirror became more visible:

“Coldclaw awaits you, Silver Wolf…”