15. Nikolai
The vibration of my phone sounds like a death knell in the silence of my room. I don’t need to look at the screen to know who it is. Only one person calls at this hour.
“Father,” I say, leaning back in my leather chair. My muscles are still tight, the phantom heat of Casandra’s skin lingering on my palms from the elevator encounter.
“Nikolai,” my father’s voice booms, resonant and commanding even across thousands of miles. “I am calling for an update. I assume the meeting with the Corvin heir went well? Has he settled into the academy?”
I stare out the window at the dark treeline.
“He never showed,” I say, my voice level. “I received no word, no message. If the Corvin Prince is at Blackmere, he hasn’t made himself known to me.”
There is a long, contemplative silence on the other end. I can almost hear the gears turning in my father’s head.
“That is... uncharacteristic,” my father muses.
“The Corvins were very particular about you two meeting. They’ve been rightfully paranoid about their heir. Perhaps there was a delay in his travel, or a security concern. I will reach out to the King directly to see what has happened to his son. In the meantime, keep your eyes open, Nikolai.
I don’t need to remind you how important this alliance is.”
“Understood, Father.”
We exchange a few more words of pack business before the line goes dead. I toss the phone onto the desk and bury my face in my hands. The irony is a bitter weight. My father is worried about a missing vampire Prince, while I am losing my mind over a vampire girl.
My family works with the Corvins because they’re some of the few decent ones left.
Most vampires are blood-sucking parasites who still believe they’re the superior race.
The wolves would have been extinguished if the Corvins hadn’t switched sides during the Great War, and that’s a debt we can never repay—but it doesn’t bring my sister back.
The door to my study swings open without a knock.
Magnus strides in, looking annoyingly satisfied.
The ragged, desperate edge he’s been carrying is gone.
He looks settled. Happy. It irritates the hell out of me.
We live on the fourth floor. I have my own suite, and he has his, but he still comes and goes as he pleases. Two decades of friendship does that.
“You look like you’re plotting a massacre,” Magnus says.
“What do you want, Magnus?” I growl.
“The meeting went well,” he says, ignoring my tone. “Her name is Ilinca Morar.”
Morar. Ilinca’s father sits in the Council, and her brother is an arrogant asshole who thinks he’s too good for Blackmere. The Morars are the ones who got the Corvins on our side during the war. They’re basically royalty in the East, a family every wolf owes an unpayable debt to.
“Your mate lives with Ilinca on the fifth floor,” Magnus continues, shifting his weight. “She’s Ilinca’s closest friend.”
A dark, mocking laugh cuts through my throat. Of course. It all makes sense now.
A leech in every sense of the word. A nobody vampire girl playing the parasite, clinging to a high-born wolf to secure a spot in the academy’s most exclusive wing.
She isn’t here on her own merit or even family status; she’s riding the coattails of a Morar, draining their generosity just to breathe our air.
Magnus leans forward, his gaze turning sharp. “You need to get your shit together, Nikolai. Go up there and talk to Casandra. Properly.”
I stand up slowly, the power of my Alpha blood surging. The air in the room becomes heavy, the pressure enough to make a lesser wolf drop to their knees.
“You forget yourself, Magnus,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, lethal frequency. “You may be my friend, but I am your Alpha. You do not tell me how to handle my mate.”
Magnus doesn’t flinch. He’s the only one who can stand in my storm. We’ve been best friends since we were pups.
“I’m not telling you as your Beta,” Magnus says quietly. “I’m telling you as your best friend. I’ve seen the way you look at her. You’re starving for her, and you’re letting your pride kill you both.”
“At least someone has some sense here,” Fenris mutters in my head, and I can’t help but roll my eyes.
Magnus turns and walks out, leaving the door open.