The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 527

Callum’s POV

The gate outside the school had a new padlock on it and two guards posted that neither of us recognized. Just to be safe, we entered over the wall, avoiding the gate entirely, and dropped down to the other side in the shadows.

The grounds had changed. The training yard lights were already on at four-thirty in the morning, and down in the yard, students were running drills in formation while someone in an all-black uniform barked orders at them.

“Gods. It’s like a boot camp,” Zane said from beside me.

It was. And if that was what the main yard looked like at this hour, I didn’t particularly want to be around in broad daylight.

Zane and I stayed there for another moment, studying the campus. I didn’t spot any of the wolfless, which was concerning.

The dorms were quieter than usual. Every bed was perfectly made with hospital corners. Everything was spotless. No one was sitting on the furniture in the lounge or making shitty bagels for breakfast or coming in hungover from being out too late the night before.

It was sort of freaky.

We stopped in the entryway, looking at a bulletin that had been posted on the wall. The wolfless were listed by name; kitchen duty started at four a.m.

I looked at Zane. He looked at the roster, shrugged, and we kept moving.

None of the wolfless were in their rooms. In fact, Amy’s old room had been converted into what looked like a torture chamber; a single chair in the center with a table next to it, a list sitting on the table, and several implements that were already covered in blood.

“The hell is this?” Zane whispered, picking up the list. “A naughty list?”

“It’s Alder’s punishment list,” a voice said from behind us.

And the wolfless became the slaves. By the second day they had all had their heads shaved, forced into uniforms, and made to cook, clean, and perform hard labor.

Anyone who fought back was also… “removed”.

Zane shuddered at that part.

“There’s talk,” she said, looking at her hands, raw and swollen from cleaning chemicals, “from some of the other students and the guards.” She paused. “When Bianca takes the throne, she’s going to make it official. Wolfless will become property. Kingdom-wide.”

I squeezed the bridge of my nose. Of course. Leave it to Bianca to try going back to the old ways, the ones that hadn’t been a part of our kingdom for centuries, the moment she had the chance. She’d always looked down on the wolfless, treated them like less than dirt. Even Liora.

“I’ve been working on getting everyone out.” She glanced around, then reached into the front of her dress and pulled out a piece of paper. She handed it to me, and I unfolded it. It was a map, along with times written along the side, numbers that likely indicated amounts of guards, and choke points circled in red on the map.