The classroom was immersed in expectant silence when I entered. The fluorescent lights illuminated the table, occupied almost entirely by young she-wolves and a few human females, whose laughter and whispers faded at my presence. My gaze swept across the room with deliberate slowness, searching for one particular face, a figure I hadn't been able to get out of my mind since she had appeared in my life. But she wasn't there.
Eliza wasn't there.
My hands closed into fists at my sides as I moved toward the podium at the front of the classroom. My control, always so solid, seemed to teeter on the edge of an abyss whenever I thought of her. Where was she? Why hadn't she come? The last time I saw her, her fragrance still hung in the air like a persistent echo, and now, her absence was like an unbearable void devouring me from within.
