Apex Elite Academy, Year 3

Chapter 1

slater

. . .

Aura’s scream sliced through the melody in the air.

One second, the event was a glittering nightmare, thanks to Dimitri’s asshole parents, and the next, the music ceased as everyone turned the same direction.

“They took her!” Aura barreled through the archway, eyes wild and lips white with what looked like genuine fear.

“Who? I was just with her!” Dimitri vanished on instinct in a vampiric blur, then reappeared in the same breath as if he’d hit a wall he couldn’t explain. His red eyes were blown wide. “Where is she? Why can’t I feel her?”

Jesper’s hand slammed to his chest. He sucked in air like it hurt to breathe.

Zuko staggered, one palm clawing at the column, the bandage across his eyes soaking against him from tears. “I can’t feel her—I can’t—”

“Humans,” Aura choked, running her hands through her short blonde hair. “I—I couldn’t—I went to tell you about your parents, but when you left, a human came up behind her and injected her with something. She went limp, and I ran here for help.”

Drecken lifted a hand, then froze as if a string had yanked hard at his sternum. His pupils blew wide as raw magic crackled and struck off him in arcs.

“The matebond…she’s on campus, I think,” he said, voice like gravel. He disappeared through a portal, then came back and staggered toward her parents. “No, she—my magic can’t—” His jaw locked, but the panic and fear were plastered on his expression. “Tourmalyke. They masked her from us.”

My vision tunneled. Everything in me went cold, then too hot. The only metaphor for how I felt in this moment was that a live wire had been stripped and jammed into my spine.

“Lockdown!” Headmaster Bloodwyne thundered, but the wards only fizzled.

“The wards.” Magic exploded from Drecken as he moved his hands and laid more magic circles and wards around the academy with ease. “They had been stripped in spots, tampered with. No wonder the humans got through.”

“No wonder my parents got in,” Dimitri muttered in disbelief. “They were a distraction.”

His parents didn’t react. They just looked bored.

Drecken finished laying the wards, and they snapped shut like a thousand doors slamming. The exits sealed in an absolute way that made the hair on my arms stand up. “No one leaves. No one.”

Sabine was frozen. “Rune.”

The way she said my mate’s name would have scared the Fates themselves.

Dimitri spun on Aura. “Where?” His fangs were down, control fraying, and his voice broke on that singular syllable. “Where?”

“I don’t know!” Aura flinched, hands up. “I was in the corridor when you left. They came from behind, and I ran. I’m sorry for running. I needed help.”

“Help?” Professor Bloodwyne croaked out. “It was Rune who needed help!”

“Stop.” My voice came out wrong. Too calm. “You’re an imp. An imp could’ve easily beaten a human.”

“Not with their poisons and tourmalyke,” Aura defended herself, sniffling. “I don’t know what happened. I was scared.”

“You’re an agent!” Dimitri snarled at her, his control torn in half as he paced. “We have to find her; you don’t understand. I can’t feel her!”

“Their bond snapped,” Jesper whispered in a pained voice.

“What?” Dimitri’s mom gasped.

“You can’t—” his dad started.

Dimitri turned on them. “I can, and I have! I have marked her, and she’s marked me.” He tugged his collar down and showed her mark over the scar on his neck that was barely there now. Instead, the punctures of her fangs took up the space. “I cut ties with you as my parents. I’m done.”

They said something else, but he shut them out.

“My daughter isss gone,” Sabine hissed, stepping toward them.

They stumbled back.

“And your presence here is suspicious. You’re detained.” She motioned for some watchers to take them into custody and hold them on the other side of the room.

Everyone ignored their pleas.

“We’ll find out what happened.” I was already moving, shoving up the platform to the back where the warded console was. “We watch what happened, and then we get her back.”

“I don’t know how you knew this was here,” Lake grumbled, “but find my daughter.”

“He knows more than we do about the fucking system,” Professor Bloodwyne snapped at his brother-mate.

“On it.” Snakey uncoiled from me and tasted the air with a forked tongue.

“We’re going to find out what happened,” I whispered.

Snakey dove into the glass screen.

The wall of feeds flared.

My chaos magic rose to meet it, code after code. The screens were perfect. Too perfect. All clean loops.

“Someone’s already scrubbed it,” Duskwyn muttered, appearing at my shoulder, knuckles white on the console edge.

“Then, we un-scrub.” My claws tingled under my fingernails.

“Do it,” Headmaster Bloodwyne told me.

My demon form rippled out. I split the master feed with Snakey sliding between frames, finding the stitches, and ripped it wide open.

A dozen screens staggered, hiccuped, then rolled backward on command. I dragged the timeline back, frame by frame. Snakey surfaced in the top-left, a wet glitch that slipped through corrupted files.

He hissed and dove again.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I breathed.

There—Rune and Dimitri in the corridor. He was caging her against the wall, and then he bit her. He pulled back, and she bit him.

Their bond snapped into place.

My heart lurched.

Aura rushed in from the auditorium, mouth moving, hands flapping in apology. Dimitri’s face broke, but Rune’s hand stayed on his collar even as he turned to look.

Rune said something soft, her mouth telling him to go.

But his venom hit her system hard.

Dimitri nodded and said something. He stroked her jaw with his thumb, in the gentlest touch I’d ever seen him do, and then he moved toward the auditorium with vampire speed.

I gripped the edge of the console so hard my fingertips went numb.

Out of the right-hand service door—just behind where they were—two figures in black stepped out as Aura and Rune exchanged some words.

The stem of a syringe glinted against one of their cuffs like another finger.

Rune used the wall as support as she faced Aura with a smile.

“No,” I growled through clenched teeth.

The syringe went into her neck so cleanly. What must’ve been liquid tourmalyke vanished under her skin.

Rune’s eyes fluttered shut. Her body collapsed. The human caught her under the arms, like he’d always intended to take her that way. The second man smoothed her hair with a gentleness that made me roar. They must’ve been saying something, but the feeds were fucking muted.

“Get them!” Jesper snarled, already lunging.

Koa barely caught him and held him back.

“Don’t you dare destroy the console,” I snapped without looking. My magic shook the screens. “You’ll destroy the only lead we have.”

“Jesper, you’re trained for thisss,” Sabine scolded him.

His hands raked through his hair as he let out a sharp exhale. “You’re right. I’m sorry, but I struggle with control when it comes to Rune.”

I couldn’t dissect his words right now.

Zuko tore his bandage off, tears slipping down his cheeks. “They masked her. I can’t feel her!”

“Don’t talk.” I rolled the feed forward, fingers flying. “Watch.”

The men moved with her as if they’d had too much practice doing shit like this. They lifted Rune’s dead-weight bridal style and ghosted backward through the service door.

The door didn’t open.

It shimmered. The runes above it, which I’d assumed were there as a protection, flared once in a pattern I couldn’t read.

I’d learned enough about tech and magic to know that it was a ward splice. Human tech braided with stolen magic from shadow demons.

She didn’t appear anywhere else on academy grounds after that.

I backed up the footage.

Zoomed.

Enhanced.

“There.” Duskwyn pointed. Her hand shook. “Those runes—”

“—aren’t ours,” Drecken said, voice flat and deadly. He was at my right shoulder now, white light threading his fingers, eyes moving like the predator he was. “It’s a bridge. They laid a temporary bridge over our ward, timed to our ward’s pulsing breath.”

“Who?” Lake boomed. “Who did this to my daughter at my academy?”

“Our daughter,” Professor Bloodwyne corrected with a growl.

“The same ones who taught a human to wear a gargoyle’s essence,” Sabine answered flatly. “Slater, can you pull the audio?”

“I’ve been trying.” I grabbed the screen and pushed more of my magic inside.

Snakey coiled in the corner of the central panel, a flicker of chaos magic in the system.

I split the sound from the picture. Pushed the static hiss into clarity. There—behind Rune’s soft laugh and Dimitri’s wrecked inhale, a whisper in the staff corridor: “Three…two…”

Aura rushed on-screen on one.

“Why did you come out just then?” I asked without turning. “Aura.”

Every head snapped toward her.

“I—” she stammered, tears brightening again, hands shaking. “Because it was about his parents, and I knew he’d—I thought he’d want—I was trying to help.”

I stood.

Chaos seethed up my spine, licked along my teeth, and uncoiled as Snakey jumped from the screen and grew impossibly huge, taller than me.

He hissed at Aura, and she screamed, falling back on her ass.

“Slater,” Lake warned.

“She’s not hurt,” I said. “But she is involved.”

“I’m not—” Aura’s voice broke. “I’m not. I swear. Rune’s my friend!”

“Save it,” Jesper snarled. His scales formed and faded from his flesh. “Our mate is gone.”

Dimitri made a whimpering sound. “She was off guard because of me—because of my venom.”

His parents chose that second to sneer something about decorum.

Drecken didn’t turn his head. He snapped his fingers, teleported his parents, and said, “They’ll be locked up at HQ until we can get to them, but I still cannot find my mate. I can’t figure out anywhere to teleport to in order to bring her back.”

“Lockdown is fully engaged,” Lake said. “No one in. No one out. We sweep every inch.”

“Do that,” I said, “and you’ll chase nothing while humans already have her in their territory.” I turned and threw the last frames up on the console. “The rune breaks as soon as they’re gone. She’s with the humans.”

My hands finally started to shake. Anger came first, always. The grief hit after, and it was hitting me now.

Her parents took over calling out orders.

I stumbled back, pulled my phone out, and called Bram.

He answered on the first ring with, “Slater?”

“They took Rune,” I said, and the room seemed to tilt with the reality of hearing it out loud.

“Liquid tourmalyke injection at our formal academy event. It was a two-man team. They spliced a bridge over a staff room through our wards and ghosted her through with some kind of tech-magic spliced action. I need help.”

“Understood.” Bram’s voice shifted. “Send me what you have. Does Sabine know?”

“She’s already looking for her.” I gasped out a breath.

“Slater.” Bram’s voice softened. “Breathe.”

I didn’t know how to breathe without her, though.

Chaos thrummed under my skin, desperate to light something on fire and call it justice. It would be justice.

“Why did you leave her?” I hung up the phone and turned on Dimitri. “Why did you leave her again?”

He flinched as if I’d hit him. “I wasn’t going to,” he said, hoarse and raw. “I—I wanted her. I want her. I was staying.” He gagged as if he were going to puke. “Aura said—my parents, and I—” His voice cracked. “I shouldn’t have left. I didn’t know.”

“You shouldn’t have left!” I roared, but Snakey hissed at me. He was telling me to calm down. Maybe I was lashing out, but fuck.

“Enough,” Sabine hissed. “We will not turn on each other while humans have my daughter—your mate. Dimitri clearly wouldn’t have left her if he knew she was in danger. Slater, gather yourself.”

“Sorry,” I bit out.

“I blame myself too,” he said with anguish, making me feel guilty.

It wasn’t his fault.

“Sorry,” I hissed out. “It’s not on you. I’m just pissed. I’m sorry.”

“Search teams in pairs of three,” Lake ordered. “Houses report every sixty seconds. Drecken—”

“I am already sending a sweep through the wards,” Drecken said. His aura lit up with a mix of emotions. “If there is one breath in our academy that is out of place, I will feel it.”

“Good,” Lake said grimly.

Sabine looked at Jesper. “Take your squad and mobilize others. Comb the human territory. I’m setting up a meeting with the Human Council. Koa, go.”

Koa left with Jesper.

“Their peace treaty is a joke,” Drecken muttered.

I noticed Aura trembling on the ground, tears sliding clean tracks down her cheeks. A watcher stood over her, monitoring her.

I hated her.

She was the same girl who had been kind to us in our first year, but that was clearly all bullshit.

My hatred of her wouldn’t bring my mate home.

I looked back at the feed. I rewound. I zoomed again.

I watched the needle sink into my girl’s neck, and I memorized the exact angle and the exact hands, and the exact breath count so that when I found the man, I could break him with the exactness he had shown when putting a needle into my fated.

“We will find her,” Zuko said with finality.

“We will,” Drecken echoed.

The lockdown wards pulsed in a rhythm like a heartbeat.