Chapter 112

My hands curl into fists in my side as I glare at my father, my jaw set.

I’m well, well aware that I’m supposed to quail under the look my father is leveling at me now – that it’s sent many big tough Alphas running for the hills.

But, well, I’m my father’s daughter, aren’t I?

And I am not giving in that easily. No way in hell.

“I’m going back, dad,” I growl, my voice matching his own even though it’s several octaves higher. “You can’t stop me.”

“The hell I can’t – ”

“I have worked too hard!” I shout, getting up on my knees and leaning towards him now. “I have been busting my ass at that school, proving myself! I –”

“And it almost killed you, Ariel!” my dad shouts back, leaning in so that our faces are only inches apart.

“I survived, didn’t I!?” I whip my finger up between us, a move I’ve seen my mom make a thousand times, but my dad just swats it away. “I’m proving myself, dad. I already beat

twenty percent of the candidate class getting into the school, and now I’ve beat forty percent of the men who have been training just as hard as me! You cannot discount me and say that I haven’t earned my spot!”

“You were carried over the finish line bleeding and barely breathing, Ariel,” dad says, and his anger snaps a little as he speaks the words. He groans again as he pictures it, straightening up and closing his eyes against the mental image. “I cannot, in good faith, send you to your death – you are not built, physically, for this world noveldrama

–

((

“So, the only people who are worthy of the education,” I say, sitting back on my butt and crossing my arms as I glare at him, “are big guys, like you?”

His

eyes fly open to stare at me, and then they narrow. “You know that’s not what I mean.” “In this school I am not your daughter – I’m Ari Clark, who is a boy,” I argue, knowing perhaps that it won’t make as much sense but needing to make the point anyway. “He’s small, but he’s smart. And he’s earned his place there. You can’t take this away from me not when I…” I hesitate now, biting my lip. “Not when it’s the only life I think I’ve ever really wanted, dad!”

He groans again, pressing his eyes shut as he whips his head to the side. And despite his actions, I know he’s hearing me – I know he’s listening. He just really, really doesn’t like it.

“She’s not wrong, Dominic,” my mom says softly, and a rush of joy runs through me when I hear her support, though I don’t turn to look at her, keeping my eyes on him. “You’re being if she was a boy; or, hell, if she was more of a dad than a military commander right now anyone else’s girl…you’d let her go back.”

—

“Quite frankly, Dom, if you keep her out you’re just being sexist.” My eyes go wide as I turn to stare at Aunt Cora, and my dad and mom do the same. She just shrugs, her chin high as she stares him down. “I’ve said from the start that this school was on the wrong side of it to only let in boys. It’s been running for more than twenty years now, and you finally have a girl Cadet who has genuinely proven that she’s better than half the boys who showed up and tried.”

Cora gestures to me here, and another rush of joy pulses through me.

“Again,” my dad says, his teeth gritted. “She nearly died.”

says

“But I didn’t,” I say, seeing my opportunity. “Dad, check the rulebooks. If there’s a rule that

that you have to cross the finish line of your own power, then…” I bite my lip, not wanting to say it, but taking the gamble anyway, “then…I’ll go back to the Palace with you. But if other cadets have passed the Examination when they were carried across the line…you have to let me stay.”

Dad sighs, closing his eyes, and I clench my hands in hope because I know he sees the logic in that. I know that he’s a fairer man than he’s being right now that he is, as mom says, acting on his dad instincts more than anything else.