27. Nikolai
Every step I take across the stone courtyard toward the campus cafe feels like a march toward an execution—though I haven’t decided yet if I’m the executioner or the one heading for the block.
My wolf is a jagged, snarling mess in the back of my mind.
Ever since I stormed out of Casandra’s bedroom, leaving her half-naked and furious, neither of us has known peace.
The scent of forest and rain has stained my senses, but it’s the ghost of his scent that makes my claws itch to tear through my own palms.
Today is supposed to be about business. The Survival Challenge is next week.
Our group was missing its final piece, a late arrival who finally decided to grace the academy with his presence today.
We need to fill him in on our strategy, map out the terrain, and secure a victory that keeps my reputation intact.
“Nik! Over here!”
I suppress a groan as I close the glass doors of the cafe behind me.
Sitting at a large circular table near the window is Arya.
She’s a second-year witch, all sharp smiles, and an irritatingly persistent habit of hovering within two inches of my personal space.
The moment she sees me, her eyes light up, and she waves me over with a manicured hand.
I don’t smile back. I never do. For weeks, Arya has been trying to cling to me, treating my silence as an invitation and my scowls as a challenge. I would have put a brutal end to her little fantasy ages ago, if not for the one singular, glorious service she inadvertently provides.
She makes my mate jealous.
“Oh, so she’s your mate now?” Fenris huffs in my head. I ignore him.
I remember the way Casandra’s eyes had narrowed, the subtle hardening of her jaw when she saw Arya draping herself over my shoulder.
My wolf had howled with primal, possessive satisfaction.
Casandra might pretend she doesn’t want me, but she hates seeing another female near what belongs to her.
I loved it. I lived for it. It was the only proof I had that the bond was tearing her apart just as thoroughly as it was destroying me.
But Arya’s presence isn’t the only trial waiting for me at the table.
Sitting across from her are Magnus and Ilinca.
They are practically glued together at the hip, their chairs pulled so close there isn’t a whisper of air between them.
Magnus has his arm draped over the back of her chair, his fingers idly playing with a strand of her hair, while Ilinca leans into his side, looking up at him like he hung the stars in the sky.
They are so blindingly, shamelessly in love it makes me want to gag.
I slide into a chair across from them.
Jealousy. I want that. I want to hold my mate without betraying my people and the memory of my sister. I want to feel her lean into me, safe and claimed, instead of fighting me tooth and nail.
And then the anger returns, black and bitter.
Why did she have to be a fucking vampire?
The Moon Goddess must be playing a sick, twisted joke on me.
I’m a prince. A future King. My mate is supposed to be a wolf—a strong, fierce Luna who can run under the moon with me, who understands the pack, who answers to the same primal laws of nature.
I didn’t even know it was biologically possible to be mated to a vampire.
They are cold, blood-drinking leeches. Creatures of the night.
A fundamental contradiction to everything my wolf is.
Yet, the Moon Goddess tied my soul to hers, and now I’m trapped in a cage of my own making, forced to choose between the duty to my bloodline and the agonizing pull of the bond.
Arya immediately scoots her chair closer to mine, her flowery, suffocating perfume invading my space.
I ignore her, keeping my eyes fixed on the door. The guy we’re waiting for is Julian Vane. He’s the leader of the Ravenclaw clan, the largest and most influential vampire clan in North America.
The cafe door swings open.
Before I even see him, the air in my lungs turns to ash.
A scent washes over the tables, cutting through the smell of roasted coffee beans and Arya’s cheap perfume. My heart stops. Then, it hammers against my ribs like a battering ram.
It’s him.
It was him outside Casandra’s apartment.
A low, vibrating rumble starts deep in my chest, a sound so feral Arya actually flinches beside me. My vision flashes with a violent tint of crimson. My wolf rises to the surface, baring his teeth, screaming a single, repetitive command: TEAR HIS THROAT OUT.
Julian Vane walks into the cafe with the effortless, sickening grace inherent to his species.
He’s tall, impeccably dressed in a tailored coat that screams old money, with dark hair swept back and pale, aristocratic features.
He looks like a man who has never had to fight for anything in his life because the world simply hands it to him.
Part of me wants to leap across the tables and shred him into pieces right here, consequences be damned. But as I watch him scan the room, another emotion rears its ugly head, deeper and far more toxic than rage.
Loathing. Pure loathing for Casandra.
Of course. Of fucking course the blood-sucking leech attaches herself to the most powerful vampire at the academy.
She’s a social climber wrapped in a beautiful, deceptive shell.
If the Corvin prince finally decided to show up, she’d probably crawl into his bed by nightfall.
She is nothing but a parasite looking for the strongest host.
“Hey everyone,” Julian says, his voice exactly as I remember it from that evening—smooth, dripping with charm, and entirely too confident. He approaches our table, his dark eyes sweeping over us before settling on Ilinca.
“Julian Vane,” he introduces himself, offering a polite bow of his head. “Happy to finally join you.”
Ilinca shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. ”Ilinca,” she says softly, offering a tentative smile.
Julian steps closer, extending a hand to her. “Cassie mentioned you. I’ve heard wonderful things about your family.”
The moment Julian’s hand closes around Ilinca’s, a sharp, threatening growl explodes from Magnus. His eyes darken, his posture instantly turning rigid as his hand drops from Ilinca’s chair to grip the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white.
Julian raises his hands in mock surrender.
Magnus and I don’t need introductions; we’ve crossed paths before, though we’ve never spoken.
Ilinca nervously laughs off the tension, pulling Magnus’s arm back down to soothe him, but she immediately tries to make herself small, leaning further into Magnus’s shadow to avoid Julian’s intense aura.
I am sitting completely still, but inside, I am boiling.
The air around our table feels heavy, charged with static electricity.
My hands are fist-clenched under the table, my fingernails drawing blood from my palms.
Magnus glances over at me, and I see the brief flicker of alarm in his eyes. He knows me.
He arches an eyebrow, his gaze darting between me and Julian.
Leaning forward, Magnus fixes Julian with a hard, probing look. “You seem well-acquainted with our social circles, Julian. How do you know Cassie?”
Her name makes Julian’s smile widen, a flash of genuine amusement crossing his pale face. He pulls out a chair, gracefully sitting down and crossing one leg over the other.
“We’re quite close,” Julian says, his tone casual, almost conversational, as he looks around the table. He catches my eye, his dark gaze locking onto mine with a terrifyingly calm confidence.
“She’s my betrothed.”
The words hit the table like a live grenade.
For a fraction of a second, the entire cafe goes dead silent. The blood in my ears roars like a hurricane, a deafening, blinding rush of sound that drowns out reality.
Betrothed.
The word echoes in my skull, tearing through my mind, shredding my sanity, ripping away every single boundary of restraint, logic, and common sense I have spent my entire life building.
His. She’s promised to him.
A violent, catastrophic rage blurs my vision, turning the edges of the room a bright, suffocating red.
The table beneath my hands begins to groan under the sudden, crushing pressure of my grip, cracks spider-webbing through the wood beneath my palms.
My canines push past my lips, aching for the kill.
My wolf doesn’t just howl anymore. He breaks the leash. He bursts to the forefront of my consciousness, ripping through my mind with a singular, cataclysmic demand.
KILL HIM.