28. Nikolai
My head feels incredibly foggy, a dull, rhythmic thudding vibrating behind my eyes. I blink against the harsh sunlight streaming through the windows of my dorm room, the familiar layout slowly grounding me.
“Welcome back.”
The dry, low snort draws my eyes to the corner of the room. Magnus is leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression a mixture of profound exhaustion and heavy annoyance.
I shift to sit up, throwing the duvet off my body, and realize I am completely naked. As werewolves, we get comfortable with nudity early on. Being bare doesn’t phase me, but the total lack of memory regarding how I got here certainly does.
Magnus doesn’t wait for me to speak. He reaches into my closet, pulls out a pair of grey athletic shorts, and throws them at my chest.
“What the actual fuck, Nik?” his voice is tight, laced with an anger he usually reserves for enemies.
I catch the shorts, shaking my head to clear the lingering cobwebs. “What happened?” I rasp, my throat feeling like it’s been lined with sand.
Magnus lets out a dark, breathless laugh, pacing a short line near my desk.
“What happened? You lost your fucking mind, that’s what happened. The vampire said the word betrothed, and your eyes went pitch black. You lost control, Nik. You shifted. Right there in the middle of a crowded campus cafe. You exploded out of your clothes, shattered the entire table into splinters,
and threw yourself across the room to rip Julian’s head off.”
Hope blossoms in my chest. “Did I kill him?”
“No,” Magnus snaps, stopping his pacing to glare at me. “But only because Julian possesses the kind of freakish speed that allows him to vanish through a window before your jaws could snap shut on his throat. You completely wrecked the cafe. We barely managed to pin you down and drag you back here.”
I look down at my hands, my chest heaving as the gravity of the situation settles in.
Fenris, I demand. What the hell were you thinking?
Fenris doesn’t sound remorseful. He lets out a low, satisfied rumble in the back of my brain, his teeth baring in our shared consciousness.
Julian is lucky he’s fast, Fenris replies, his tone dripping with malice. Otherwise, I would have torn his spine out through his throat right there. He claimed what is ours. He spoke the word like he owns her. I will kill him if he breathes her air again.
The foggy curtain in my mind abruptly tears away, and the memory of the cafe rushes back in excruciating, high-definition detail. Julian’s smug, aristocratic smile. The casual, offensive confidence in his eyes. The absolute certainty that Casandra belonged to him.
The rage returns with the force of a physical blow. It’s not just a slow burn; it’s a sudden, catastrophic inferno that sets my blood on fire. My skin tingles, my muscles coiling as the urge to destroy threatens to take over my body for a second time.
She is mine. The Moon Goddess wrote it into the fabric of our souls.
I don’t care anymore that she’s a vampire, I don’t care about the laws of nature, and right now, I don’t even care about the crushing weight of my duty to the crown.
I cannot, will not, let another man put a ring on her finger or a mark on her skin.
I pull the shorts on with violent, jerky movements, not bothering with a shirt or shoes. I stand up, the floorboards groaning under my sudden weight.
Magnus steps into my path, his eyes narrowing as he reads the lethal intent radiating off my bare chest. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Get out of my way, Magnus,” I growl, my voice dropping into the low, vibrating register of an Alpha command. “I’m going to her apartment.”
Magnus’s jaw drops, a look of sheer disbelief crossing his face. “Are you insane? You just tried to murder her fiancé! What are you going to do at her place?”
“I’m going to mark her,” I state, the words cold, heavy, and absolute.
“What the hell?!” Magnus shouts, reaching out to grab my shoulder, but I am already moving.
I brush past him with a force that sends him stumbling back against the desk. I tear open my dorm door and storm out into the hallway. Every instinct I possess is screaming, a deafening, white-hot roar that obliterates logic, strategy, and caution. I am a predator on a singular trajectory.
I reach the stairwell and run up the steps, taking them two, three at a time. The concrete walls blur past me. My heart is a frantic, heavy hammer in my chest, pumping pure adrenaline through my veins.
By the time I reach the fifth floor, my breathing is heavy, my chest heaving. I stride down the carpeted hallway, the scent of forest and rain hitting my senses from twenty yards away, acting like a beacon.
I reach her door and bring my fist down against the wood, a succession of massive, violent pounds that cause the entire frame to rattle.
“Open the door!” I roar.
The lock clicks, and the door swings open. Ilinca stands there, her eyes wide with confusion and immediate fear as she takes in my bare, sweat-glistened chest, my wild hair, and the raw, unhinged energy rolling off me.
“Prince Nikolai? What—”
Before she can finish her sentence, heavy footsteps echo behind me. Magnus arrives on my heels, breathless and flushed, his hand instantly wrapping around Ilinca’s waist to pull her back, out of my path of destruction.
I don’t need to ask if Casandra is home. The moment the door opened, her scent flooded the hallway—intoxicating, pure, and completely free of Julian’s lingering stench.
I push past them into the apartment without a word. My feet move automatically, following the invisible trail that leads down the short corridor directly to her bedroom.
I don’t knock. I grasp the handle, twist it, and fling the door open so hard it cracks against the interior wall.
The room is dimly lit, the sheer curtains drawn against the afternoon sun.
Casandra is lying on her stomach in the center of her unmade bed.
She’s wearing a thin, flowery dress—a soft, delicate thing that barely covers the curve of her ass, leaving her long, pale legs completely exposed.
She has a pair of massive, over-ear noise-canceling headphones resting over her dark curls, her eyes closed, completely detached from the world outside.
The sight of her hits me like a physical impact, the raw, possessive lust of my wolf instantly tangling with the black fury in my gut.
It takes her a fraction of a second to register the sudden displacement of air and the violent entry.
With the lightning-fast, supernatural speed of her species, she twists her body and turns around to face the door, her legs swinging over the edge of the mattress as she pulls the headphones down around her neck.
In my head, Fenris lets out a low, desperate groan. Do not fuck this up, Nikolai. Do not drive her away.
I slam a mental iron wall down on him, blocking his voice entirely.
Casandra sits on the edge of the bed, her dark hair a beautiful, tumbled mess around her shoulders. Her chest is heaving slightly from the sudden movement, her crimson eyes scanning my bare chest, my clenched fists, and the unhinged rage written across my face.
The fierce, defensive red in her eyes slowly fades, replaced by a deep, genuine confusion. Her brows furrow, her lips parting as she looks at me.
“Nikolai?” she asks softly, her voice a quiet, breathless question that cuts straight through my defenses.