I Hid My Supreme Rank, Regret of the Pack novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Application Night
Cassandra says her score aloud in front of the whole pack and nobody listens, then applies to a faraway academy in secret. The reply names her Supreme.
On Application Night, my father wrote my twin sister's name in the pack ledger, and nobody asked me what I scored.
The whole pack was crowded into the hall, two hundred wolves in their good clothes.
Every spring, each graduating family stood up and named the academy their child would attend.
Then the Alpha wrote it down in the big green book, so the pack could never say it hadn't heard.
My father had the pen.
"Beatrix Harrowgate," he said. "Moonridge Academy."
The hall clapped for a full minute.
Bea laughed and covered her face with both hands. She was my identical twin, and she had never once been tired in her life.
"Dad, stop," she said. "I haven't even been accepted."
"You've been accepted," my brother said. He was twenty-one and sat at the head of our table next to Dad. "Moonridge would be crazy to say no."
Mom leaned over and slid half a piece of toast onto Bea's plate.
Then she set a small white cup in front of me and filled it from the pot.
The tea smelled like boiled bark.
"For your nerves, sweetheart," she said. "Drink up while it's hot."
I drank half of it and put the cup down.
Zachary Wiltshire stood up at the next table.
He was the heir of the Redwater Pack, and I had known him since we were six and he ate a whole jar of my grandmother's plum jam on a dare.
"Alpha Harrowgate, can I say something?" he said.
My father waved him on.
"I got into Black Hollow Warrior Academy," Zachary said. "I've wanted it my whole life."
People murmured. Black Hollow took one student from each territory.
"I'm turning it down," he said. "I'm going to Moonridge. I'm going where Bea goes."
The whole hall roared.
Bea shrieked his name and ran across the floor, and he caught her and spun her around.
Somebody whistled.
Somebody cried.
I sat there with my hand in my pocket, and my fingers closed around the envelope I had carried all day.
It had been delivered that morning by a courier in a grey coat. It had a registrar's seal on the back.
Nobody had asked me about it.
I stood up.
"I got my aptitude results today," I said.
Nobody turned around.
I said it louder. "I scored nine hundred and twelve."
The old record was seven hundred and forty-four. Everybody in the hall knew that number. We learned it in school.
A few heads turned.
My brother Dunstan jabbed his finger at the ledger on the dais and glared at me across the table.
"Cassie. Sit down. This is Bea's night."
"It's the highest score anyone has ever had."
"Tests don't make a wolf," said an old woman behind me, not unkindly. "Sit, child."
I looked at my mother.
She picked up the pot, and I watched her pour me a second cup.
"Drink your tea, Cassandra," she said.
I walked up to the dais instead and held the envelope out to my father.
He looked at the seal on the back for a moment.
He didn't open it.
He handed it right back, smiling, and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Very nice, Cassie," he said. "We'll celebrate later."
Then he turned to the hall and called for the next family.
Bea found me in the corridor afterward with her cheeks still pink.
"Cassie, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear a thing in there. What was it, nine something? That's amazing."
She meant it. She always did.
"It's fine," I said.
"Zach's an idiot," she whispered, giggling. "He gave up Black Hollow for me. Can you believe it?"
"I believe it."
She squeezed my arm and ran back inside to him.
That was when I stopped waiting for someone to ask.
I went up to my room, sat at my desk, and opened my laptop.
Cinderfall Academy was in the Southern Territory, nine hundred miles from our mountains. It took forty first years a year, on score alone. It took late applications from anyone above eight hundred and fifty, with no letter from an Alpha.
I had read that line in the school library two years ago and never thought it would be about me.
I typed in my number.
I typed in my name.
I didn't type in my father's.
I pressed send.
The reply came in less than a minute.
"Cassandra Harrowgate. Your score is registered as Supreme. Admission is granted. Your file is sealed. Report to the south gate on the twelfth."
I had never seen that word next to my name.
I read it again, and my hands were shaking.
Then I heard my mother's voice rise up the stairs, sweet and patient.
"Cassandra? Your tea is getting cold."
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