The elevator doors closed with a heavy metallic clank, cutting off Valerius’s low, lingering chuckle.
Scarlett leaned her head against the cold steel wall, her breath ragged and uneven.
Her forearm still tingled where his tongue had mapped her blood, a burning sensation that felt branded into her flesh.
But worse than the heat was the phantom sensation lingering on her fingers—the memory of his torn flesh forcefully knitting back together over her stylus pen under her own touch.
He was a monster.
But he wasn’t just a monster who hunted; he was a psychopath who thoroughly enjoyed being cut, as long as it meant pulling her deeper into his web.
By the next morning, the heavy, suffocating atmosphere of the Thorne Academy of Cognitive Sciences had shifted from raw panic to cold, elite politics.
The ruined amphitheater from yesterday’s beast attack was already completely hidden from public view, blocked off by massive, towering obsidian screens.
In the central gothic lecture hall, the air was thick, smelling of expensive amber colognes, old leather books, and the sharp, underlying ozone scent of active magic.
Scarlett sat in the very back row, tucked into the dimmest corner of the room.
She kept her black cloak wrapped tightly around her, her hood pulled down just enough to shadow her eyes.
She wanted nothing more than to be invisible, to blend into the shadows of the background, but the universe had other plans.
”Look at her, still breathing,” a sharp, aristocratic voice cut through the morning chatter, instantly drawing unwanted eyes to her corner.
Three elite students stopped directly in front of her desk, blocking her only exit.
The speaker was Julian Vane, a high-ranking pureblood from a prominent vassal house directly under the Thorne Syndicate.
He was sharp-jawed and handsome in a cruel way, wearing a flawless silver-trimmed uniform.
Between his fingers, a small, spinning crystal of blue kinetic flame danced effortlessly.
Beside him stood his twin sister, Lyra, her pale, colorless eyes locked onto Scarlett’s covered wrist with intense, malicious curiosity.
”A scholarship rat from Sector 4 gets caught in the epicenter of a vault-class beast attack, and somehow, the High Council doesn’t immediately incinerate her for questioning,” Julian sneered, leaning heavily over her desk.
He lowered his hand, letting the heat of the blue flame singe the dark wood just inches from her arm.
“Worse, rumor is flying around that Lord Valerius personally evaluated you in the sublevels last night.
What did you do to survive, human?
Did you beg on your knees?
Or did you offer him something else?”
Scarlett’s eyes darkened, her pulse spiking for a split second before she forced her mind to drop into that familiar, icy neural block.
The classroom faded into an absolute, freezing silence inside her head.
Beneath the desk, her fingers slid smoothly toward the concealed dagger strapped to her thigh.
She calculated the distance to Julian’s throat in milliseconds.
Before she could draw the blade, a cold, heavy hand clamped firmly onto Julian’s shoulder.
The spinning blue flame in Julian’s hand instantly choked out and died.
”Move, Vane,” a rough, gravelly voice commanded from behind them.
Standing there was Ethan, the top-ranked combat elite of the senior class and the Academy’s Chief Enforcer.
Unlike the others, Ethan didn’t belong to the high nobility, but his brutal, raw kinetic magic made him entirely untouchable.
His uniform jacket was rugged, scarred with deep, faded claw marks from real battlefield deployments.
His sharp green eyes scanned the lecture hall with the cold precision of a soldier.
Julian stiffened, his arrogant smile tightening into a defensive straight line as he stepped back.
“Enforcer Ethan.
Relax.
We were just greeting the lucky survivor.”
”You’re disrupting the class atmosphere.
Sit down before I personally dock your house points and drag you to the discipline hall,” Ethan said, his tone entirely flat and deadpan.
Julian and Lyra exchanged a bitter, venomous look but reluctantly backed away, taking their seats in the front row where the high nobility belonged.
Ethan didn’t leave immediately.
He turned his piercing green gaze down toward Scarlett.
There was no disgust in his eyes like the other purebloods; instead, he looked at her like a complex tactical puzzle that didn’t fit the map.
”You’re an anomaly, Scarlett,” Ethan murmured under his breath, his voice low enough that only she could hear over the ambient noise of the room.
“Humans don’t survive vault-class beasts without a scratch.
And Valerius Thorne doesn’t conduct private evaluations unless he intends to bury the body afterward.
Keep your head down.
I won’t always be around to step between you and the purebloods when they decide to hunt.”
”I don’t need a babysitter, Enforcer,” Scarlett replied, her voice sharp, even, and entirely devoid of fear.
Ethan gave a faint, grim smirk, his eyes lingering on her for a moment longer.
“We’ll see.”
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the lecture hall swung open with a booming echo.
The entire room went dead silent in less than a second.
The temperature in the room plummeted so fast that Scarlett could see her own breath misting into a faint white vapor in front of her face.
Lord Valerius Thorne walked in.
He wore his full professor-commander uniform today—a striking, structured charcoal grey with silver epaulets, buttoned perfectly up to his chin.
The exceptionally high collar completely hid his neck from view.
Scarlett’s eyes instinctively locked onto his throat.
There wasn’t a single mark visible, no bandage, no hint of blood.
The dangerous man who had been on his knees last night, lost in a psychotic trance while tasting her blood, was now standing at the grand podium like a flawless, untouchable god.
His dark, infinite eyes slowly swept across the rows of students.
For a fraction of a second, his gaze snagged directly onto Scarlett in the very back row.
A dangerous, almost imperceptible glint danced in his eyes before he looked away, turning his attention to the massive main holographic board.
”Today’s lecture is on tactical survival and perimeter breach,” Valerius’s voice resonated through the stone hall, smooth, rich, and utterly commanding.
“Yesterday, a Class-4 vault beast bypassed our external defenses.
The Syndicate Council wants you to believe it was an isolated, freak incident.
I do not.”
He tapped the obsidian console, and a glowing, highly detailed digital blueprint of the Academy’s underground grid materialized in the air.
”The beast didn’t wander in by mistake.
It was targeted.
Someone inside these very walls deliberately deactivated the silver-wards,” Valerius stated calmly.
Though his voice remained soft, the underlying lethal threat in his tone made half the purebloods in the front rows break into a cold sweat.
“And to root out the traitor, the Council has authorized an open combat trial.
Tomorrow morning, the entire elite class will enter the restricted Obsidian Forest sector.”
Panicked whispers erupted through the hall like wildfire.
The Obsidian Forest was a deadly, forbidden training ground crawling with rogue shadows and lethal beasts.
Julian raised his hand, a smug, cruel look returning to his face as he looked back at Scarlett.
“Lord Thorne, does that trial include the non-magic scholarship students?
Sending humans into the Obsidian Forest is basically signing a death warrant.
They won’t last an hour.”
Valerius looked up from his console.
His gaze drifted slowly, deliberately back to the back row, locking eyes with Scarlett.
A dark, wicked playfulness danced behind his cold, professional facade.
”Everyone participates,” Valerius murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, silken tone that made the hairs on the back of Scarlett’s neck stand up.
“After all…
some hidden weapons only show their true edge when they are pushed directly into the dirt.
Let us see who among you has the right to survive the hunt.”
As the class dissolved into anxious chatter and frantic planning, Scarlett clenched her fists tightly under the desk, her fingernails biting into her palms.
She knew exactly what this trial was.
This wasn’t a school exam.
This was Valerius throwing her directly into a den of hungry wolves just to watch her bleed again—a calculated move to force her to use her forbidden bloodline power in front of the entire academy.
The chessboard was set, the pieces were moving at his command, and the predator was waiting in the shadows, eager to see her next move.
Meet Julian, Lyra, and our grumpy Chief Enforcer, Ethan.
But can we talk about that open combat trial announcement?!
Valerius is truly a magnificent demon.
He really said, “If you won’t show me your secrets in private, I’ll make the whole academy hunt them out of you.”
Drop your comments: How do you feel about Ethan?
Ally or another dangerous player?
What will Scarlett do to survive the Obsidian Forest hunt?