8. Nikolai
Every stride I take away from Casandra is a violent strike against the ground. My hands are clenched so tightly into fists that my claws prick my palms, the sharp bite of pain the only thing keeping me from turning around and tearing this entire campus to pieces.
Behind me, another pair of boots follows. Magnus. He’s breathing hard, his rhythm uneven, but I don’t slow down for him. I don’t slow down for anyone.
“You left her again,” Fenris growls, his voice finally breaking through the heavy, suffocating silence he’s maintained since yesterday. It’s a low, serrated sound that scrapes against the back of my skull. “You let the silver-furred bastard stand in our space. You let him touch what belongs to us.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I fire back, my mental walls slamming down like iron gates. “She doesn’t belong to us. She’s a parasite. A corpse that happens to walk.”
“She’s our mate!” Fenris roars, a sudden wave of his possessive, feral energy surging into my veins, making my vision flicker with gold. “Casandra. Her name is Casandra, and you left her with him.”
Hearing her name inside my own head makes my chest give a violent, agonizing heave.
I didn’t even know it. I’ve spent years dreaming of the woman who would sit on the throne beside me, and I had to learn her goddamn name because I overheard Lukas say it.
Casandra. It tastes like honey and venom on my tongue, and I hate it.
I hate how easily it fits into my thoughts. I hate that Lukas said it first.
Yesterday, after I walked out of the dining hall, Fenris went completely dark.
It was the ultimate silent treatment from a wolf who felt betrayed.
He was grieving, curling up in the shadows of my mind because I refused to claim a vampire.
But the second we stepped out of the auditorium today and saw Lukas leaning against that stone pillar, his shadow overlapping hers, Fenris woke up like a beast being branded with a hot iron.
I saw red. The transition from cold logic to pure, unadulterated fury happened in a fraction of a second. How fucking dare he? How dare Lukas stand in my light, breathing in the air that belongs to my mate, looking at her with those smug eyes?
But that was just Fenris. I force myself to swallow the bile rising in my throat, repeating the lie like a mantra.
It’s just the wolf. I don’t actually care.
She could go and crawl into bed with Lukas, she could fuck the entire student body of this miserable academy, and it wouldn’t matter to me. I don’t care about a leech.
Yet, as another wave of possessiveness ripples through my chest, the lines blur.
The heat in my blood is so intense, the urge to protect and claim so overwhelming, that I can’t tell where Fenris’ emotions end and my own begin.
The boundaries are melting, fusing us into a single, chaotic mass of instinct and rage.
“Nikolai, wait,” Magnus calls out, his voice rough and laced with an exhaustion that matches my own.
I don’t wait. We cut across the northern edge of the campus, steering toward the training grounds.
It’s a direct, unpaved route to the West Wing, bordered by heavy iron fences and the low, stone structure of the blood bank—the place where the academy stores the synthetic and donated blood for its.. nocturnal students.
Just the sight of the building makes my stomach turn.
“He called her princess,” I growl aloud, the words tearing from my throat before I can stop them.
I glance back at Magnus, my jaw locked. “She is not a fucking princess. I haven’t marked her. I haven’t claimed her, and I sure as hell haven’t brought her before my father. She has absolutely no claim to my throne.”
“Nikolai, calm down—”
“And the nicknames,” I white-out, ignoring him entirely as the memory of the courtyard poisons my mind. “Cass. He called her Cass. Like he fucking knows her. He’s climbing so high up my shit list he’s about to break his fucking neck.”
I’ve never liked Lukas. He’s always been too polished, too calculating, a silver-tongued bastard who thinks his refined Swedish lineage makes him superior to the raw, rugged strength of the northern packs.
But this? This is a declaration of war. He knows what she is to me.
He saw what happened in the dining hall yesterday just like everyone else, and he’s circling her like a vulture, waiting for me to drop the leash.
Magnus freezes. The air is sucked out of his lungs in a harsh, agonizing gasp.
His pupils instantly dilate, swallowing the blue of his eyes until they are nothing but vast wells of midnight, rimmed by a terrifying, liquid silver.
His chest heaves once, twice, and then a guttural, terrifying sound rips from his throat.
“She’s here,” He chokes out.
He lunges toward the tree line, his fingers twisting into lethal claws, his instincts completely taking the wheel. I recognize that look. He’s not a man right now; he’s a predator that has found the track of its missing half.
“Magnus, no!”
I throw myself into his path, my larger frame colliding with his chest.
The impact is like hitting a brick wall, the sheer force of his desperation driving us both back into the dirt.
He snarls in my face, his fangs fully extended, his eyes completely vacant of the friend I’ve known for years.
He snaps at my throat, trying to tear through me to get to that scent.
“Snap out of it!” I bellow, channeling every ounce of my Alpha command into the words. The authority rolls off me in a heavy, crushing wave, a physical weight that forces his head down and slams into his nervous system.
Magnus reacts to the command, his muscles locked in a brutal tremor as his wolf fights the biological mandate to submit to his Alpha. He groans, a sound of pure agony, his forehead dropping against my shoulder as he fights for control.
“Hold it together,” I growl, my hands gripping his jacket, dragging him up by his lapels. “You heard what the leech said. She’s terrified of you. If you go hunting her like a wild animal right now, you’ll lose her before you even know her name. Control your wolf, Beta.”
Slowly, the silver in his eyes begins to recede, leaving his irises bloodshot and raw. He takes a long, shuddering breath, his hands digging into the turf beneath us before he nods, his jaw trembling.
“I’ve got it,” he chokes out, his voice completely wrecked. “I’ve got it. Just... get me out of here.”
I pull him to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his arm.
We don’t speak as we clear the remaining distance of the training grounds.
I keep my eyes forward, ignoring the faint trail of pine and rain that continues to haunt the air, focusing entirely on getting my broken Beta back to the safety of our quarters.
We reach the West Wing, the massive gothic doors offering a temporary shield from the outside world. I push them open, stepping into the grand, dimly lit entrance hall.