Malric
"What on earth were you thinking trying to shift in a hall filled with people?" Headmaster Roiner Locket asked calmly as he sank into his leathery office chair. Quite frankly he was not surprised by the events that unfolded today, he knew the problem maker princes with an ego as big as the school would do something like this one the first day not even twenty four hours on campus and they are already causing trouble.
"The fucking little guy out there threw a plate of mashed potatoes at me" Vance groan on the seat opposite Roiner and next to Malric. The mention of the little jerk sends a shrill down Malric’s spin, he wants nothing more than to rip him after what happened. Where did that boy get his audacity from? how dare he hit him, the prince of all wolf packs, the future main king of kings. Malric clenched his fist and tightened his jaw.
I am going to make you wish you were never born, little rate. I will never forget this insult you have shown me today. He thought to himself as the image of his little rate was plastered everywhere in his mind.
"Malric" Roiner called out this time his voice carrying a ting of irritation. "I asked you a question." he adds and Malric rolls his eyes "Why am I the one in this office, it should be that little rat that’s in here. He... He..." The words die in Malric mouth. The boy prince cannot admit he had been hit by a boy less than him.
Vance burst into a sudden, chest-heaving fit of laughter, slapping a heavy hand onto Malric’s shoulder.
"Oh, this one can’t admit it," Vance choked out between wheezes, ignoring the furious glance Malric shot him. "But I can promise you, Headmaster, he got a sharp slap from that boy outside. Not once, but twice!"
Vance sat back, grinning like a madman, and began mimicking the movements with wild dramatic flair. He cut a hand sharply through the air. "He was like, one slap!" He sliced through the air a second time, cackling. "And then, two slaps!"
Before Vance could pull his arm back, Malric’s hand shot out, smacking the back of Vance’s head with a sound like a pistol crack.
"Shut up!" Malric snapped, his ears burning a fierce red. "He didn’t just insult me, he insulted you too! Did you forget that he hit you with a plate? You’re literally bleeding on the top of your head!"
Vance didn’t even flinch at the blow. He just rubbed the back of his neck, his laughter bubbling over into a smug, infuriating grin. "At least I didn’t get slapped in front of the whole hall." Malric lunged half out of his chair, eyes glowing an black that flickered with dangerous, feral magic. "I will break you into two, Vance. I swear to the Goddess, I will snap you like a dry twig right in this office."
"Enough. Both of you."
Headmaster Roiner Locket didn’t raise his voice, but the sudden temperature drop in the room was enough to freeze the hot fury in Malric’s veins. Roiner leaned back, crossing his pale, elegant fingers over his chest. "You are both being completely ridiculous," Roiner said smoothly, his red vampire eyes scanning the two furious royal wolves. "You need to reflect on your actions and become better individuals."
It was the same line. The exact same tired, script-like sentence Roiner handed them every single time they tore up a hallway, leveled a training field, or terrorized the lower-class students. Never once had the princes been disciplined in any actual, meaningful shape or form. Detentions were never written, privileges were never revoked, and suspensions were a myth. It was always the other party that got disciplined, stripped of points, or quietly removed.
The student body hated it. They wondered constantly why a creature like Roiner, an ancient vampire who had walked the earth for over three hundred years and possessed enough dark magic to crush a mountain, would bend the knee so easily to a pair of teenage prince wolves.
The answer was painfully simple. Roiner valued peace. His own peace. When you are cursed to live on this Earth for eternity, the last thing you want to do is spend centuries embroiled in a blood feud with the ruling royal wolf. Imagine how utterly exhausting, how impossibly difficult life would be if he spent eternity fighting the very kings who funded his academy? It was far easier to hand the princes a soft slap on the wrist and let the commoners take the fall.
Malric sneered, settling back into the leather chair, though his muscles remained taut. "Don’t you dare expel the boy outside."
Roiner raised a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I’m going to deal with him personally," Malric growled, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying register. "He is going to learn to fear the Iron Fang rule. I’ll make sure of it." Without waiting for permission, Malric shot up from his seat, his jacket squeaking with the sudden, violent movement. He turned on his heel, ready to storm out and tear the world apart.
"Before you storm off to commit a possible crime, Malric," Roiner’s cool voice checked him right at the threshold, "I think you’d want to know that, you have been assigned a roommate."
The air sucked right out of the room. Both Vance and Malric snapped their gaze back to the Headmaster at the exact same time, their expressions identical mixtures of utter horror and disgust.
"What?" they barked in unison.
Roiner sighed, reaching for a silver fountain pen on his desk. "I planned to tell you boys sooner, but you just had to create a massive mess that I now have to clean up. Because let’s be honest, that boy outside had the audacity to slap you twice, he isn’t going to back down easily when you corner him."
"Don’t be ridiculous!" Malric yelled, taking a heavy step back toward the desk and slamming a fist onto the polished wood. "I don’t do roommates! I don’t want a roommate! I have the grand suite for a reason!"
"It was not up to me," Roiner said flatly, looking up with dark, unbothered eyes. "It was entirely up to your parents. Apparently, one of you did something exceptionally bad during the summer holiday, and your fathers called me personally. You have lost your private room privileges. You will be dorming with an assigned individual starting tonight."
A loud, collective groan burst from both boys.
It was a nightmare. All the princes loved their personal space, they demanded it, really. They didn’t even live in the main Palace anymore, opting for the luxury estate on the outside of the capital because they couldn’t stand being crowded. And now? A stranger in their sanctuary? To Malric, his parents were absolute monsters for taking this from him. Horrid, cold-hearted tyrants.
Yanking his phone out of his pocket with violently twitching fingers, the boy prince began marching out of the office, his heavy boots echoing off the stone walls.
"Oh, like I’m actually going to let some low-life stranger sleep in my dorm," Malric complained loudly to the empty hallway, thumbing furiously at his screen to call his mother. "They can sleep on the grass outside. They’ll see. I’ll throw their trunk off the balcony."
Vance groaned loudly right behind him, walking out of the office without even serving the Headmaster the bare minimum of respect. He didn’t say goodbye, didn’t excuse himself, just slouched past the ancient vampire with a scowl painted across his bruised face.
"This day literally cannot get any worse," Vance muttered, dragging a hand down his face and smearing a bit of blood across his cheek. "A roommate? Are they insane?"
As they rounded the corner into the waiting lobby, Malric froze.
Sitting awkwardly on a seat against the way was his little rat.He was small, impossibly small compared to Malric’s broad, athletic frame. And though Maric could see his rat was small, what irritated him was because he wasn’t cowering. You’d expect him to be crying after hitting a prince and dooming his life.
A fresh surge of hot venom flooded Malric’s veins. In two strides, he closed the distance, reaching out and grabbing the boy by his shirt collar, hauling him upward until he was forced onto his tiptoes. "What is your name?" Malric hissed, dragging the boy close enough that their noses almost touched.
The boy didn’t flinch. He didn’t cry out. He just stared back with a pair of fiercely bright, defiant eyes, keeping his posture rock-solid despite being held off the ground.
"Travis Whitelock," the boy spat out, his voice biting and clear.
I hate this little prick, Malric thought, the words chanting like a dark rhythm in his head. I hate him. I hate him. I hate this little prick so much.
Malric leaned in closer, his voice dropping into an icy, venomous whisper that sent a chill through the hallway.
"Sleep with one eye open tonight, Travis," Malric purred, his grip tightening so hard the fabric of the collar strained. "Because welcome to Moonside. I am going to make your life an absolute hell, first year."
He knew the kid had to be a first year. Only a clueless, green freshman who had yet to see what the Iron Fang prince was truly capable of would ever dare lay a hand on him. And Malric was going to enjoy breaking every single piece of that foolish courage, step by step.