Adeline’s pov~
Zyran didn’t just want me gone.
He wanted me to lose every ounce of dignity. He wanted me raped. He wanted me ruined so utterly that I would never be able to look another person in the eye, let alone his precious Highborn brothers.
The sheer depth of his hatred was a bottomless, terrifying chasm. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes, burning and heavy, spilling down my bruised cheeks.
"Look at her," the scarred one sneered, his heavy, dirt-caked hands reaching out toward the torn fabric of my hoodie. "She’s trembling now. Where did all that icy pride go, whore?"
Their laughter was a sickening, collective rumble that echoed off the damp stone walls.
Every instinct in my body screamed that I was outnumbered, outmatched, and physically broken. I had leverage. A major key. The upper hand. My shoulder throbbed with a sickening heat, and my breath hitched painfully against my fractured ribs. But beneath the agonising shock, beneath the terrifying realisation of Zyran’s malice, a primal, white-hot spark of rage ignited.
I hadn’t survived the slaughter of my entire bloodline just to become a trophy for rogue omegas on a Highborn’s payroll.
"Look at her, still trying to act tough," the other omega sneered, his chest puffing out as he stepped closer. "You think that pretty little stare is going to save you out here? We know exactly what you are. A nobody."
"Come here, pretty girl," the leader barked, his eyes flashing with a disgusting, hungry heat. He lunged forward, his thick, calloused hand snapping out like a vice, wrapping violently around my neck and cutting off my air. "Let’s see if you make those same pathetic noises when we’re tearing you apart and dragging you through the dirt."
I would rather die than let them touch me. I didn’t care about the blinding pain in my ribs. I didn’t care about the hot, metallic taste of blood pooling in my mouth. My mind slammed shut against the panic, instantly locking into a cold, clinical clarity.
He thought I would scream. He thought I would beg for my life. I am not the girl to wait for a man to come and save me.
Instead, I leaned into his grip, using his own forward momentum against him. Before he could tighten his fingers to lift me off my feet, I drove my knee upward with every single ounce of desperate strength left in my body, striking him straight between the legs—the absolute weakest point of any man, wolf or human.
The impact was brutal. He didn’t see that coming, not in his wild nightmares. The leader’s eyes went completely wide, the pupils shrinking to pinpricks as the air rushed out of his lungs in a choked, pathetic wheeze. His grip vanished from my throat instantly as he crashed to the slick cobblestones, doubling over and clutching himself as a violent tremor wrecked his body.
"Fucking... bitch!" he howled, his voice cracking into a desperate, high-pitched scream of agony. "Tear her apart! Shift and wreck her and fucking kill that bitch!"
He thrashed on the ground, his muscles expanding and his skin stretching violently as he tried to force his inner wolf to the surface. His bones popped, his jaw unhinged slightly, and he growled through his teeth, straining against his own biology to trigger the transformation.
But nothing happened. The fur didn’t grow. The claws didn’t sprout.
The other two omegas froze, completely paralyzed by shock. They stared down at their captain writhing in the mud, then up at me, their minds entirely failing to comprehend how a scentless defect had just brought down their leader in a single move.
And now their leader can’t shift. What the fuck is going on? That is what they must be thinking.
A dark, mocking smirk slowly stretched across my lips. I didn’t step back. Instead, I took a deliberate, menacing step forward into the green-tinted mist, looking down at them like they were the bugs.
They thought I was stupid. They thought because I was desperate enough to chase a cryptic text message, I had walked out past the academy’s protective wards completely unprotected. They thought a stray didn’t know how to carry her own safety.
Their loss.
"What’s the matter, boys?" I purred, my voice a freezing wire cutting through the fog. "Can’t find your inner beasts? I thought you were apex predators."
"What did you do to him?!" the second wolf roared, his desperation turning into pure panic. He didn’t wait for an answer. With a furious, uncoordinated cry, he lunged directly at me, his arms outstretched to tackle me to the stones.
I didn’t even flinch. I planted my left foot firmly on the cobblestone, whipped my right leg up in a seamless, blinding arc, and kicked him square in the balls with the solid, heavy heel of my boot.
Crunch.
He let out a high-pitched, strangled yelp, his knees buckling instantly as he hit the dirt right next to his boss, weeping in agony.
"Get up! Shift, you idiots, shift!" the captain screamed from the mud, his face pale and dripping with sweat. "Kill her! Just fucking kill her!"
He was losing his shit when he couldn’t shift.
The third wolf joined the other two, panic completely overriding his senses. Collectively, all three of them began violently trying to force their shifts. Their bones cracked loudly, their eyes flared a desperate, unstable yellow, and they clawed frantically at the dirt, begging their wolves to take over and kill me.
The transformation simply refused to trigger. It was a terrifying, incomprehensible mystery to them—a total glitch in their very nature—but to me, I knew it all along about that mystery.
I am that MYSTERY.
"Enjoy the mud, losers," I whispered, looking down at the three broken predators writhing at my feet.
I didn’t waste another single breath waiting for them to figure it out. While they were trapped in their own personal hell, I spun on my heel, broke into a hard sprint, and vanished into the safety of the dark, swirling fog.`
I ran until my lungs burned like fire, the freezing night air cutting into my chest. I didn’t stop until I crossed the iron threshold, collapsing against the shadow of a massive stone archway inside the academy grounds, completely out of breath.
Zyran wanted to break me. And tonight, he had shown me exactly how monstrous the Kings could be.
I dragged myself up the endless stone steps of the East Tower, my body screaming in agony with every single movement. My ribs felt cracked, my shoulder was a throbbing mass of white-hot pain, and the dried copper taste of blood was heavy on my tongue.
When I reached the door of Room 404, my hands shook so violently it took me three agonising tries just to slide the key into the lock. I turned it slowly, millimetre by millimetre, ensuring the mechanism didn’t make a single click.
I pushed the door open and slipped inside like a shadow.
The room was pitch black, saved only by the faint, dying glow of the hearth. Across the room, Miya’s steady, rhythmic breathing told me she was still fast asleep. She hadn’t noticed I was gone.
Closing the door behind me with agonising slowness until the latch met the frame in absolute silence, I stepped toward the adjoining bathroom.
I slipped inside the bathroom and shut the heavy wooden door behind me, finally twisting the lock.
The moment the lock clicked, my legs gave out. I slid down the cold wooden door, collapsing onto the floor. I pressed both hands over my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut as a violent sob tore through my chest.
Sitting there in the pitch-black room, the terror of what just happened finally hit me.
Shaking uncontrollably, I forced myself to stand up, using the marble sink to bear my weight. I reached out in the dark, turned the faucet just a tiny bit, and let a quiet trickle of cold water run. I cupped my hands to rinse the copper taste of blood from my mouth.
As the water hit my split lip, a white-hot wave of pain shot straight through my face. I gasped, gripping the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles popped. The sting was dizzying, raw and sharp, making my eyes water all over again. I spat the pink water into the drain, my breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches.
The face in the mirror didn’t even look like mine anymore. The entire left side of my cheek was swollen, a dark, angry purple bruise spreading across the bone. My lower lip was split open and raw. When I carefully lifted the hem of my shirt, my stomach turned. A massive, deep-red bruise painted the left side of my ribcage, turning purple at the edges.
I touched it with the tip of my finger and immediately doubled over, tears spilling down my face. They weren’t broken, but they were badly crushed. Every single breath felt like inhaling needles.
Biting my uninjured lip to keep from screaming, I took a wet washcloth and dabbed it against the split on my mouth, whimpering at the agonising sting. I cleaned the dirt from my hands, moving with slow, painful deliberation. Once the blood was gone, I pulled my thickest, largest black hoodie over my head. The soft fleece scratched against my bruised cheek, making me wince, but I pulled the hood all the way down, shadowing the purple marks completely.
Why was I relying on him? Raven’s "protection" hadn’t protected me at all. In fact, his involvement was the exact reason Zyran had targeted me. If I hadn’t crossed the gates under the Dravenmoor seal, Zyran wouldn’t have even blinked in my direction.
A hard, bitter anger washed over my fear, freezing it solid.
I never wanted any of this. I never wanted Blake’s flirting, Zyran’s twisted games, or Keiran’s hunting. God, I hadn’t even wanted Raven’s attention. I didn’t care about their thrones, their titles, or their elite world.
All I wanted—all I had ever wanted—was to stay alive. To dig through the archives, find out who murdered my family, see if my wolf side was still alive inside me, and then get the fucking shit out of this school.
I didn’t need a Lycan saviour. I just needed to survive. I can fucking do it by myself.
From now on, I was ignoring all of them. Raven included. I would be invisible.