Chapter 61
Her lips trembled.
“I… I… Mia stammered, glancing nervously around the room.
This school was one of the most prestigious in the country, and getting in had been no easy feat. Her parents had pulled countless strings, begging and bribing their way to secure her spot.
Dropping out wasn’t an option–her parents would never forgive her.
Linda, Mia’s closest friend and ever her defender, jumped to her rescue.
“Sophia, there’s no need to be so aggressive!” she exclaimed, her tone filled with indignation. “We’re
all classmates. Let’s not take this too far.”
The class immediately chimed in after Linda’s speech, murmuring their support.
But where were these voices when Mia was spreading rumors about me? When I was the one being
humiliated?
turned my gaze to Linda, my voice calm but pointed.
“You’re so concerned about Mia. Why don’t you drop out for her, then? How about it?” Linda’s face turned pale as she stared back at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, as though she was the one being bullied.
“You…” she began, but the words caught in her throat. The room watched in tense silence.
I turned back to Mia. “You don’t want to drop out, fine,” I said with a shrug. “I didn’t expect you to have that kind of integrity anyway.” My voice hardened. “But if you’re staying, how about running fifty kilometers? If you can’t manage that, then leave.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “T–fifty kilometers?” she gasped, incredulous.
Even for a werewolf, that distance would push anyone to the brink of exhaustion. The disbelief on ber face was palpable.
“If you can’t handle it, then quit.” I sat down, crossing my arms.
Whether Mia dropped out or not didn’t matter much to me.
61
But I needed to make sure there was a consequence for her words–something that would ensure no one else dared to step on me so easily again.
Mia’s face hardened, her pride clearly warring with her sense of self–preservation.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll run.” Her voice was laced with resentment, but there was no mistaking her
resolve.
“Not just running,” I added with a smirk. “You’ll shout an apology with each lap. Let the whole school hear how you wronged me and falsely accused me of cheating.”
Mia’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t back down.
After class, we made our way to the track, where Mia began her humiliating ordeal.
She started running, her voice cracking as she yelled apologies between ragged breaths.
The other students gathered, watching the spectacle with a mixture of pity and curiosity.
I sat on the steps nearby, my eyes fixed on her struggling form, making sure she didn’t try to weasel her way out of it.
Linda approached me, her voice low and pleading.
“Sophia, this is enough. Mia’s learned her lesson. You don’t have to be so cruel. Isn’t it better to be
kind?”
I laughed, genuinely amused by her words.
Did she think I was naive enough to fall for her act?
“Kind?” I echoed, pointing toward the track where Mia stumbled through her next lap. “If you’re so convinced I’m being unfair, why don’t you take her place and finish her run?”
Linda’s face drained of color, and without another word, she walked away, defeated.
The sun dipped lower in the sky as Mia continued running.
Sweat poured down her face, her legs shaking uncontrollably.
Each step seemed heavier than the last, and her voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper now.
By the time she finished, it was late at night, and Mia was close to collapsing from exhaustion.
The Alpha’s Subvine
na: A Heart Claimed. A Soul Reborn
*எ
Her breaths were shallow, her body trembling as she sat down on the ground, utterly spent. I stood up, brushing off my skirt.
“Remember this,” I told her, my voice low but firm. “If there’s a next time, it won’t just be fifty kilometers.
After that day, Mia no longer dared to act superior around me.
The other students, once so quick to mock and spread rumors, now looked at me with a mix of fear and respect.
They didn’t call me names to my face anymore, but whispers still followed me in the hallways..
Online, it was a different story.
One afternoon, as I scrolled through the school forum, I saw a new post–my name in the title, my picture below it. The thread was filled with cruel comments, accusing me of being a “gold digger,” suggesting that I was being “kept” by an older man.
The rumors were baseless, but that didn’t stop them from spreading like wildfire.
