Chapter 153

I rushed into class right before it started and slammed into my desk. I had lost track of time during my run and had to eat my lunch late. Even though we ate half the deer, when I shifted back, I was starving. I thought I would have more cushion, but with everything that happened in the woods, I barely made it.

I opened my laptop and waited for the sub to come in. Mr. Oran was a decent teacher, but Rowan had promised to help with my hacking, and then he disappeared. I shook my head, wanting to growl. This was all stupid, and I shouldn’t be wasting my time waiting on him.

I buried myself in coding. We were working on setting up basic firewalls at this point, and I was thoroughly engrossed in the subject. Not only was it fascinating to see what goes into this kind of system, but knowing how it’s built will help me get around it better. Mr. Oren had gone over the subject the past couple of classes, and we were working on our first project: setting up a firewall around one file.

By the time the teacher walked in, I had finally set up the firewall, and I wanted to jump up from my seat and dance. Instead, I just clapped and smiled. I was still buried in my computer when a deep voice sounded over my shoulder. “That looks good.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin, and Megan and Nix were laughing at me. I turned around to find myself face to face with Rowan. “Holy fucking goddess, you scared me.” I clutched at my chest, and he laughed.

“I noticed. You were too busy working on your firewall.” He pointed to my computer, and I nodded. He took my computer and walked to his desk while speaking to the rest of the class. “Welcome. I know I have been gone for a while—the downfalls of being king—but I am here today. And Mr. Oren said you were working on your first project, the firewall.” He sat my computer down and then turned back to the class. “Once you complete the firewall, like Amy here, bring your computer to my desk so I can give your firewall a test. The longer I take to get into it, the higher your grade will be.”

Someone raised their hand. “What do we do after?”

“There is extra course work you can work on. Next week, we will start on setting up new systems, and I don’t want to get into that with only half the time left in class.” Everyone nodded. Then they got back to work, and I just sat there. I watched Rowan as he checked my system. I wanted to see how quick he got in.

It was by no means a complicated firewall, but I still wanted to see. He finally sat down at my computer and connected with his own. After barely five minutes, he looked up at me and smiled. Fuck, he was already in. I wanted to groan. He disconnected my computer and walked it back to me.

“That was quick.”

“Actually, not really. Pay attention to the others and how fast I can get into theirs.” He dropped off my computer and knocked on a corner. His voice dropped lower. “I left a page open. I want you to start reading. It will help us with our session after class.”

I nodded and opened up the page. It was about hacking, so he hadn’t forgotten his promise. I started to read. Every time someone got up to head to his desk, I would stop what I was doing and watch.

Sometimes it took less than thirty seconds for him to crack into their firewall, sometimes a minute. Overall, I had the best time, and it showed with the defeated looks I would get every so often.

Rowan would talk to each of the students about their firewall and what went wrong. He went in depth on each of their programs, and I kept one ear open to hear what went wrong.

“You had a corrupted line of coding halfway down,” he pointed to the last guy’s firewall.

“How do you know?” he asked as he scrolled through it all.

“Well, I have been at this for many years.” His laugh caught me off guard. I felt my brows furrow. How old was he, really? He looked only twenty-five, but that meant nothing. Some wolves looked young well into their first century. Rowan looked up and saw my face, and I watched something flicker over his, but it was gone faster than it was there.

I shook my head and cleared my thoughts as I turned back to the page on the screen. His age has nothing to do with me, but even as I thought it, I felt like I was lying to myself.