3. Nikolai
Every step I take is an attempt to put distance between myself and that dining hall, between myself and her.
But I can’t outrun it.
The scent is trapped in my lungs. A smell that used to bring back memories of stolen summers and warmth now tastes like ash in my mouth.
“You’re a fucking idiot, Nikolai,” my wolf, Fenris, growls in my mind, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that scrapes against my skull. “Turn around. She is ours. You left our mate behind.”
“Shut up,” I snap back, my fists clenching so hard my knuckles pop. “She’s a leech. A parasite.”
“She’s the one we have been hunting for,” Fenris counters, his claws digging into the subconscious walls of my mind, desperate to break free and take control. “Our soul recognizes hers. You cannot deny the Moon Goddess.”
“I can, and I fucking will,” I answer him furiously.
I storm past the gothic archways of the lower floors, ignoring the few students who are smart enough to throw themselves against the walls to escape my path. They can smell the pure rage rolling off me.
I’ve been looking for her for what feels like an eternity.
A year and a half ago, I was back home in Norway.
As the son of the Alpha King and the heir to the throne, I’ve been more and more involved in pack leadership.
My father had taken me on a tour of the smaller packs scattered close to the Swedish border, ensuring they were thriving and mediating any minor territorial disputes.
It was tedious work, the kind that required a diplomatic mask I hated wearing.
But then, it happened.
We had been standing in the courtyard of a border-pack settlement when a scent caught the wind.
It wasn’t the heavy, suffocating scent I smelled today.
No, back then, it was faint, elusive—the crisp, clean scent of a forest right after a summer rain.
It was a smell so pure it made my wolf instantly sit up, scratching at the surface.
I thought she belonged to that pack. I spent hours scanning the crowds, tracking every female wolf, but found nothing.
Desperate, I broke away from my father’s guard and shifted, throwing myself into the woods.
I ran until my feet bled, chasing a ghost through the pines until the rain picked up and washed the scent completely away.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It became an obsession.
Last summer, I practically begged Lukas’ father—the Alpha over the Swedish packs—to let me conduct a formal diplomatic visit to their border territories to look for my mate.
For two weeks, every waking second was spent lifting my nose to the wind, praying to catch that phantom scent of rain and earth again.
I never did.
Until today. The moment it hit me in the dining hall, the invisible thread in my chest had snapped taut, dragging me toward her. For a fraction of a second, when I looked into her pale, striking face, I thought the search was finally over. I thought the Moon Goddess had blessed me.
What a sick, twisted joke.
A cruel mockery of my destiny. The Moon Goddess didn’t bless me; she spit in my face.
“She doesn’t make mistakes,” Fenris snarls, his anger rising to match my own. “You’re letting your pride blind you. Look past the fangs. She is our match.”
“She’s a monster,” I bellow back in my head as I reach the West Wing. “And so are you if you want to claim her.”
Blackmere Academy is supposed to be a neutral ground, a prestigious institution built to keep the peace while educating the elite of the supernatural world. It hosts werewolves, vampires, and witches alike. But neutrality is a myth.
There are two main residential wings. The East Wing is a crowded, noisy labyrinth for the regular students—the lesser wolves, the low-tier witches, and the common vampires. Then there is the West Wing.
The West Wing is reserved exclusively for high-ranking nobility. It has five floors and an unwritten rule: the higher the floor, the larger and fewer the apartments. It is a physical manifestation of power.
The fifth floor features only a single, massive penthouse apartment. In the two years I’ve been at this academy, it sat completely empty, dark and locked up. I can’t imagine the special circumstances required to claim it.
I live on the fourth floor. It’s a level reserved for the absolute peak of the student hierarchy.
My Beta, Magnus, has his apartment here too.
Julian Vane, the ruthless leader of the Ravenclaw Clan—the largest vampire clan in North America—occupies the suite across the hall.
The final apartment on our floor is vacant.
The other Council heirs—Lukas, Elias, and Aiden—all live on the third floor.
I reach the door to my apartment and slam it open, the wood groaning under my strength. I storm into the living room, but as I turn to close the door, a hand catches the edge.
Magnus steps inside, his face pale, his usual calm demeanor completely shattered.
I turn my back on him, my hands shaking with a rage that refuses to die.
“What the hell was that, Nikolai?” Magnus’s voice is quiet, but it carries a dangerous weight.
I scoff. “A joke. A fucking cosmic joke.”
Magnus doesn’t answer right away. He just stands there, crossing his arms, his intense gaze drilling holes into the side of my head. He watches me with an expression I’ve rarely seen on him—a mix of profound disbelief and brewing judgment.
I whip around to face him. “What?!”
Anyone else in the academy—hell, anyone else, period—would have recoiled. They wouldn’t dare challenge my actions or question a decision made by the future Alpha King. But Magnus isn’t just anybody. He’s my Beta. He’s also been my best friend for as long as I remember.
“Don’t you think you were too harsh?” Magnus asks, his voice infuriatingly steady despite the tension tightening his jaw. “You didn’t even talk to her, Nikolai. As soon as you realized what she was, you publicly humiliated her in front of three hundred people.”
I bark out a sharp, ugly laugh. The sound echoes off the high stone walls of my apartment. “Talk to her? About what, Magnus? Inquire about her favorite type of blood?”
I take a menacing step toward him, the sheer weight of my Alpha aura flaring, trying to force him to submit, to see reason. But Magnus holds his ground, his eyes narrowing.
“She is your fated mate,” Magnus says, his voice dropping an octave. “The Moon Goddess chose her for you. For the throne. Do you have any idea what it means to reject a fated bond like that?”
“I don’t give a fuck!” I roar, the sound ripping from my chest, my wolf completely aligned with my fury for once. “I don’t care what the Moon Goddess intended! Being mated to a vampire? To a leech? It would be a spit in the face to my family. It would be a disgrace to Freja’s memory.”
The mention of her name drops like a lead weight into the space between us.
The atmosphere in the room instantly shifts, freezing into a suffocating, painful stillness. Magnus’ chest heaves, his arms dropping to his sides.
I was only three years old during the final, bloody months of the Great War. I don’t remember much from that time, my memories are mostly fragments of smoke, the sound of tearing flesh, and my mother’s endless, agonizing screams. But I remember the aftermath.
I had a twin sister. She was born minutes after me, a perfect, bright-eyed little girl. But during a coordinated, cowardly raid in the castle, she was torn away from our home.
The vampires didn’t just kidnap her. They didn’t use her for ransom or political leverage. They took her and brutally murdered her. They drained every drop of her blood in front of us, only to not even release her body so we could bury her.
She left a jagged, bleeding hole in my family’s heart that nothing will ever fill.
My mother became a ghost of herself, and my father transformed into a hardened, ruthless king who rules with an iron fist.
I grew up in the shadow of a ghost, looking at my own reflection and knowing that half of my soul had been murdered before it ever had a chance to really live.
Even now, twenty years later, just thinking about the word vampire makes the copper taste of blood fill my mouth. It gives me a feral desire to hunt down every single undead leech on this planet and slaughter them until the debt is paid in full.
I glare at Magnus, my breathing ragged, my fangs scraping against my lower lip.
“My sister was slaughtered by her kind,” I hiss, my voice dropping to a low, venomous whisper that promises death. “I will see this academy burn, and I will see my own crown turn to dust before I ever allow one of those monsters into my bed. It will be a cold day in hell before I accept her.”
Magnus looks at me, the anger in his eyes slowly draining away, replaced by a heavy, profound sadness. He opens his mouth to speak, but he stops. His jaw tightens, and a sudden, sharp spasm of pain crosses his features.
Without another word, Magnus turns on his heel and bolts out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
I stand alone in the center of the room, the silence crashing back down over me like a wave. I look at the closed door, then down at my hands, which are still trembling with rage.
I am the future Alpha King. I am born to rule and to protect my people from the monsters that lurk in the dark. I do not need a mate. And I certainly do not need her.