Roman had no idea why he had bothered attending the residential orientation in the first place.
The entire event had been painfully predictable, painfully ceremonial, and painfully filled with people pretending to care about rules they would inevitably break by the end of the week.
After all, there were far more interesting ways to spend an afternoon than listening to the academy explain traditions he had known since childhood.
And yet, as irritating as it was to admit, perhaps attending had not been a complete waste of time after all.
“Enjoyed yourself, didn’t you?” Jett’s voice cut through the silence beside him, carrying the unmistakable tone of someone who had witnessed something far too amusing to let it go unmentioned.
Roman glanced sideways at him.
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“How observant.”
Jett rolled his eyes.
“I mean it. You were actually enjoying yourself.”
Roman looked ahead, the faintest trace of mirth still lingering on his face.
“Was that so difficult to believe?”
“With an orientation? Yes.”
A quiet laugh escaped him, which made Jett shook his head, almost disbelieving.
“I thought you were going to leave halfway through the first speech.”
“I considered it,” Roman admitted, his fingers brushed idly against the silver crest hidden in his pocket.
“But apparently, fate decided to make the evening less unbearable.”
Jett immediately knew who he was referring to.
“Your partner.”
Roman’s smile widened.
“Who else?”
“Interesting choice of words,” Jett remarked.
“Considering she spent most of the day looking like she was trying to survive an encounter with a wild animal.”
“That’s a rather strange way to describe someone being flustered.”
Jett let out a scoff.
“You know, you have a very concerning habit of interpreting every uncomfortable reaction as admiration.”
“Because, historically, I have been correct.”
Jett opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Annoyingly, he had no immediate argument.
Roman Laurent had never exactly struggled to attract attention.
Whether it was noble daughters, ambitious students, or people who claimed they were completely unaffected by him while somehow appearing every time he entered a room, the pattern had remained remarkably consistent.
“Besides,” Roman continued casually, “she was clearly affected.”
“She looked terrified.”
“Flustered.”
“Terrified.”
Roman elbowed him lightly on the shoulder, as though Jett was the one being unreasonable.
“You are deliberately ignoring the obvious, Lordling.”
“And you are deliberately refusing to consider another possibility.”
“Such as?”
“That perhaps she genuinely just wanted to escape.”
Roman’s expression shifted into mild disbelief.
“Why would she want to escape me?”
Jett gave him a long, unimpressed look.
“That sentence alone explains the problem.”
Roman laughed again, unable to help himself.
Because perhaps Jett had a point.
Perhaps Lillian Shaw had not been trying to impress him.
Perhaps she had not been attempting some elaborate act of shyness or playing difficult to approach.
But that was what made it entertaining.
“Speaking of partners,” Roman said after a moment, glancing toward Jett.
“Who was yours again?”
Jett immediately looked suspicious.
“You forgot?”
“I met several people today. Forgive me for not memorizing every name attached to a synchronization registry.”
“You remembered Shaw.”
“She was memorable.”
Jett stared at him.
Roman simply smiled.
“Right,” Jett muttered.
He looked ahead, expression turning mildly exhausted.
“My partner is Chase Vargan.”
Roman’s brow lifted slightly.
That name was familiar.
“Vargan?”
“The very one.”
Looking at how distressed Jett become, Roman let out a quiet hum.
“That’s a rather dramatic response.”
“You didn’t spend an afternoon trying to convince a brooding lycan that punctuality is a requirement rather than an optional suggestion.”
Roman glanced at him.
“Why, was he late?”
Jett snorted.
“Late would imply he arrived eventually. He didn’t even attend the first class. He simply decided the academy schedule was beneath him.”
“Interesting.” Both because it was rare to see his friend being this affected by anyone at all and the fact that he was paired with one of the most wanted heirs in the academy.
“My, I didn’t know he’s worse than me.”
“That is exactly what I was afraid of.”
Roman ignored him.
“Where is he now?”
Jett’s expression flattened.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“You lost your assigned partner?”
“I did not lose him. He disappeared before I had the opportunity to keep track of him.”
“Oh, really…” Roman trailed off.
The name Chase Vargan carried enough weight that even Roman was intimately familiar with it.
The Alpha heir was not exactly known for being approachable.
He came from a monstrously powerful bloodline, born with a ridiculous, innate combat ability that made him a lethal legend even among the upper tier.
He was a Vanguard too, one of the academy’s elite, weaponized front-liners, and he held a reputation for being distant and volatile enough that most students thought twice before breathing in his direction.
“Well, you’re going to have one hell of a ride this term,” Roman offered a mock bow as they approached the residential towers.
“My condolences.”
Jett immediately punched his arm.
“You’re enjoying this far too much.”
Roman barely reacted.
“I’m simply appreciating the rare opportunity to witness someone else suffer.”
“Coming from you, that is deeply hypocritical.”
“Is it? I’m delightful to live with.”
“You are exhausting to exist near.”
“Now that was a matter of perspective. You’re the only one who ever said that.” Roman laughed again, the sound carrying easily through the quiet courtyard as they approached the gates.
Thwip.
A sound like tearing silk cut through the atmosphere as a heavy, silver-tipped crossbolt bolt, coated in a dark sheen of paralysis venom sliced through the shadow of the upper balustrade, aiming directly for the center of Roman’s throat.
He was still smiling at Jett when he raised his hand and caught the blade cleanly between his index and middle fingers.
The force behind it should have been enough to split bone.
Instead, the vibration died between his fingers as though the weapon had struck stone.
His smile slowly disappeared, replaced by a dangerous stillness that made the air around him feel heavier.
Roman tilted his head back slightly, his eyes locking onto the dark canopy of the stone roof.
“You’re getting predictable, Vance.” His voice was a smooth, subterranean friction that carried no anger.
Only a deep, thoroughly exhausting boredom.
Beside him, Jett’s expression hardened.
A second later, the shadows between the columns detached themselves and a tall, broad-shouldered third-year student dropped unceremoniously from the rafters, landing with a heavy, dull thud against the flags.
The faint glow of magic immediately illuminated a familiar face, one that carried no surprise at being recognized.
“Still arrogant as ever, Laurent.”
Roman’s gaze remained calm.
“Still hiding behind cheap tricks, apparently.”
The corner of Vance’s mouth twitched.
His dark vanguard uniform unbuttoned at the throat, a heavy composite bow gripped tightly in his left hand.
His face was set in a hard, bitter line, eyes burning with the distinct malice of someone who had spent three terms watching House Laurent control the academy’s political hierarchy.
“Still so damn smug…” Vance hissed, “You think because you survive a few parlor tricks in the daytime that the rest of the academy is going to let you breathe? There are factions in this tier who are absolutely dying to see your boots dragging on the ground.”
Vance stepped closer, his teeth bared in a desperate, provocative sneer.
“You like to play the fucking God inside these walls. But your family’s legacy is just a rotting carcass the rest of the high houses are waiting to tear to shreds. The vermin are circling, Laurent. You’re a single, well-placed strike away from being a pathetic smear on the courtyard flags.”
Roman could not help the laugh that tore from his throat, but it was nothing like the easy sound of amusement before.
It was jagged, stripped of warmth, disbelief sharpened into menace that it made the shadows around Vance’s boots scatter in sympathetic anxiety.
“Is that what they tell themselves?” Roman asked, his gaze lowering to the captured bolt in his hand.
He turned the metal over with a fluid motion, casually testing the sharpness of the venom-tipped point against his thumb.
“That one day, I’ll make a mistake?” He took a slow, effortless step forward, the ambient temperature dropping instantly.
“That one day, I’ll finally become some pathetic corpse dragged across the floor so they can pretend they won?” He lifted the venom-coated tip beneath his own throat.
Jett sighed, stepping back a pace and leaning against a nearby pillar, crossing his arms.
He had seen this look on Roman’s face too many times before.
It meant someone was about to learn a very expensive lesson in anatomy.
“Here’s the problem, Vance.” Roman murmured, his voice dropping into a chilling register that seemed to make the silence in the corridor rattle against the stone walls.
“Most people who try to kill me are smart enough to learn how first.”
He paused, letting the weight of the needle press deep enough into his skin to draw a solitary, smoking bead of dark red.
“Roman,” Jett’s voice cut in like a warning, but Roman did not so much as glance his way.
“This?” Roman flicked his attention down to the weapon, his smirk sharp and beautifully unhinged.
“This is just lazy. If you’re going to put a fucking weapon in my direction, at least understand where to aim.”
Vance’s lips curled.
“You think I won’t?”
“Oh, I know you will.” The words had barely left Roman’s mouth when Vance strike.
Driven past the brink of reason by the sheer humiliation of the display, he snapped.
The bow vanished from his hand as a silver dagger appeared instead, his body blurring forward in one explosive burst, the blade carving toward Roman’s exposed throat exactly where Roman himself had indicated.
“Tch,” Roman scoffed.
There was no sound of a struggle.
No clash of magic.
In a fraction of a millisecond, the black blade shattered into harmless mist as Roman’s hand cut through the air like an executioner’s ax.
Before Vance could even register the failure of his strike, five cold, iron-hard fingers clamped mercilessly around his throat.
The impact cracked the stone beneath Vance’s heels.
His attack died instantly, the shattered remnants of his weapon clattering across the courtyard. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
For a brief, impossible second, the silence was absolute.
Then Roman lifted him completely off his feet with a single arm, forcing Vance’s eyes to widen in genuine alarm.
Whatever hilarity had been plastered on Roman’s face two minutes ago vanished.
“You people always do this,” he said quietly, his fingers tightening.
Vance’s face immediately began turning a violent shade of purple.
“You spend months talking about killing me.” Another squeeze.
“Then the moment I stop entertaining the conversation, you decide today is finally the day.”
Vance gagged, his boots kicking helplessly inches above the stone.
Roman looked him directly in the eye.
“Do you have any idea how much paperwork follows a corpse?”
Silence.
“Reports.”
Another squeeze.
“Council hearings.”
His voice remained almost conversational.
“Academy disciplinary committees.”
He clicked his tongue, a soft, dangerous sound in the dark.
“And then my father gives me that fucking lecture about ‘restraint’ as if I haven’t heard the exact same speech since I was twelve.”
Vance’s struggles became increasingly frantic, his fingers tearing uselessly at a wrist that felt like solid marble.
Roman watched him with complete indifference.
“So believe me when I say I’d rather not kill you. The maintenance department already hates me.” His eyes finally locked onto Vance’s fracturing gaze.
A strained, broken laugh escaped Vance’s throat.
“You… think… that scares…”
Roman’s grip tightened just enough to cut off the rest.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you. Don’t flatter yourself.”
Another heartbeat stretched between them.
“If you truly want the academy explaining to your mother why I returned her son in a sealed coffin…” Roman leaned in slightly, his shadow completely eclipsing the older boy.
“…keep reaching.”
Vance’s trembling hand froze halfway to the hidden knife at his belt.
Roman had noticed it before Vance had even fully decided to use it.
“Good.” Roman nodded once, the terrifying intensity in his orbs giving way to a flicker of lazy satisfaction.
“See? You’re learning.” He released his grip without warning.
Vance hit the courtyard hard, collapsing onto his knees as air tore violently back into his lungs.
Roman looked down at him for a long moment, the chilling aura evaporating from his posture as he casually brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
“Go back to your dorm, Vance,” Roman murmured, his voice flattening back into its usual aristocratic drawl.
“Find a hobby. Read a book. Fall in love. Do anything that doesn’t involve creating more administrative shit for me.”
He turned away, falling effortlessly back into step with Jett as though the interruption had already been entirely forgotten.
Vance remained on his knees long after the echo of their footsteps vanished, the raw skin of his throat burning where Roman’s fingers had branded him.
“Got you good, didn’t he?” a low voice drawled from the shadows of the adjacent archway.
A young man stepped into the lantern light, silver-white hair falling over eyes as pale as old bone.
“Flick of the wrist and you’re eating gravel. You’re out of your depth, Vance. The guy is completely bulletproof.”
Vance spat another mouthful of blood onto the stone.
“Fuck off.”
The reaper only sighed, entirely unoffended.
“Charging straight at Roman Laurent?” He clicked his tongue.
“That’s where you went wrong.”
Vance shot him a murderous glare.
“Some people are built to withstand blades,” the reaper continued.
“Fortunately, there are plenty of other things that aren’t.”
His pale eyes drifted toward the distant residential towers for the briefest moment before returning to Vance.
“Breaking someone isn’t always about drawing blood. But to find their weakness.”
Vance narrowed his eyes.
“You think that bastard has one?”
The reaper smiled faintly.
“Everyone does. The trick is figuring out whether it’s something they were born protecting…” His gaze shifted back toward the path Roman had taken.
“…or something they accidentally found.”
In the male dormitories building, Roman pushed open the heavy mahogany door to his private quarters, fully intending to enjoy the pristine silence of an empty suite.
The room had been entirely vacant when he checked the registry the night before, a luxury afforded by his lineage that ensured he would not have to tolerate another person’s breathing habits for the term.
The door swung inward with a faint, oiled sigh.
The ambient light inside the room was illuminated only by the silver luminescence of the moon pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Roman halted upon sensing that the room was not empty.
His eyes flickered sharply.
Sitting on the edge of the unmade velvet-draped bed, entirely unbothered by the darkness, was a figure.
The young man was halfway through unlacing a heavy combat boot, his silhouette broad-shouldered and radiating a dense, suffocating aura of pure, unadulterated hostility.
His pale silver hair was slightly mussed, and a leather jacket of a vanguard lay discarded on the floor near his feet.
As the door clicked fully open, the figure froze and slowly, he raised his head.
Their eyes met across the dim expanse of the room.
Roman’s brilliant, predatory crimson locking instantly with a pair of intense, dangerously sharp yellow eyes that carried the unmistakable and heavy pressure of an Alpha.
For one long, agonizing second, neither of them moved as the recognition flared.
Then, in absolute, devastating unison, their expressions flattened into identical masks of existential exhaustion.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” they muttered together.