Chapter 1

1

ALEKSANDER

Why was I here?This was absolutely idiotic.

I understood why I needed to go; I even knew that the group of men I’d been informally working with this past year would be in closer proximity and easier to communicate with if I did go…but I still couldn’t shake the annoyance that plagued me.

The feeling was undoubtedly enhanced by the hour I’d just spent with my father before being dropped off here. Now I stood in the large stone entrance of Garnet Hall, staring at the sizable group of other freshmen.

I didn’t belong here.

Not only did I not belong here, but my talents were needed elsewhere for the majority of the summer. I needed to ensure that a certain member of my father’s circle had his son take the test to get into DIA this upcoming year instead of immediately joining his ranks. I needed to keep a watch on him, because he was a sick bastard—truly. Worse than his own father.

With a heavy sigh, I walked forward. People immediately scattered out of my way, allowing me a direct line of sight to a group of unoccupied tables. Choosing the one farthest away from anyone else, I sat and leaned my elbows on my knees, looking down at the stone floor and wondering how much time I would actually need to spend here before I could sneak away.

“Hey, come on. You’re sitting with us—you said your name is Deva, right? I’m Lavinia.”

The high-pitched voice had me wincing slightly as I watched four pairs of shoes walk past to a table across from me, the last a pair of worn black sneakers that didn’t match the others’ expensive leather.

“Yes.” The voice was soft and soothing, but with a tinge of tension that had me fighting the urge to look up.

It was stupid to take any interest in the students around me; they were bodies in a war that they didn’t realize was being fought, a wall of innocents that were being used by their parents.

“This is my cousin Briar, and this is⁠—”

“Odessa,” the other woman said for herself.

The newcomer—Deva—didn’t respond right away. I finally looked up, my gaze moving across the room before I found my target. She gave the girls a small smile, and her ‘nice to meet you’ was so soft I barely heard it.

Or maybe it was the fucking static in my ears that was the problem. My vision turned fuzzy around the edges and my body went still, unsure how to handle what exactly I was seeing. Perfection. That was one fucking word for it. But was it enough?

It was certainly one of many terms that could be used to describe her, yet it didn’t even begin to encapsulate the experience of this woman.

Her unique navy hair, intertwined with silver and indigo, was hidden partially underneath the hood of a dark sweatshirt, the ends coming out the front and framing her face. Her skin seemed to glow with a silver undertone that matched her mercury-colored eyes, which darted cautiously across the faces of the women around her.

I recognized that caution. It was a look often directed at me.

Yet despite the caution, there was a dark vibrancy to the woman. Those two things should have been in conflict with one another, but the combination made perfect sense when it came to her. It was maddening and mesmerizing, making it hard for me to look away or pay attention to anything else around me⁠—

Her gaze collided with mine.

In a single look I was able to garner so much and so little. The one thing I did see? Pain. My chest squeezed uncomfortably as a wave of anger slammed into me, no doubt contorting my expression. I promised in that moment that I would figure out what had caused a look like that to flicker through her gaze and remove the person or thing responsible from existence.

I suddenly hated that I needed to leave for the next few weeks, that I wouldn’t be able to watch over her myself—but I would sleep better knowing she was here, safe in a warded, institute-run building. And when I did come back, all my attention would be focused solely on her. Even if she didn’t realize it.

Even if it was from the shadows.

So much had changed since that moment this past summer. Now Deva was mine and I was hers, the urge to completely claim every inch of her body and soul intensified with each day that passed as the need to protect her grew stronger.

Which is why I was absolutely livid that security was infiltrating our dorm with a level of elite precision that I’d yet to come across on DIA’s campus.

Power sparked as they flooded the room, their dark protective gear clustering together to create a wall blocking our exit. These were not the school’s normal security guards, and the bloodlust emanating from them was not something I wanted around my woman, much less aimed at her.

“You have been charged as the main suspect in the murder of two unblessed witches,”the last guard said as he stepped into place.

“What? What are you talking about?” Deva asked, the slight hitch of her voice revealing not only her surprise but her panic. “There have been more deaths? When⁠—”

“You are to come with us—now. Further information cannot be disclosed at this time.”

“By whose orders?” I demanded, my accent deepening as my magic surged through the room, creating a halo of shadows that had some of the guards scrambling back nervously. I could feel the runes under my skin shifting as I tried to contain my magic, not wanting to give into the rage filling me.

If one of them made a move towards Deva or tried to grab her, it would be completely out of my control. There were a lot of things I could handle, but a threat to my zaya was absolutely not one of them.

“You are to come with us,—” he began, repeating the same fucking line rather than answering my question. Clearly he was set on one task—getting his fucking hands on my bunny.

Over my dead body.

“They aren’t going to answer shit—they probably don’t even know.” Deva cursed softly as I wrapped an arm around her and eyed the door, wondering if there was any chance of breaking through the wall of bodies. Not unless I used my magic…

“Whatever you do, don’t leave my arms, zaya,” I murmured against her ear.

“What are you—” Her eyes widened as I released every type of magic I had at once, not bothering to hide it. If ever there was a time to showcase it, it was when it came to protecting Deva.

My shadows surged out and collapsed over the soldiers as my blood magic fused with the dark mass and began to pull screams from their hidden bodies, the few unaffected stumbling away and looking on in terror before being blinded by my lunar magic flashing out. Magic flew at us from all directions, attempting to stop us—but it was too late. I pulled my shadows back in like an elastic band, not giving them even a millisecond to recover, and all at once the two of us were submerged in complete darkness as I portalled out of the dorms with Deva in my arms.

I was going to place us as close as possible to our escape point; I just fucking hoped the others were ready—that they were prepared to leave. There was absolutely no other option at this point.

Deva hissed, clinging onto me as I landed us near the gate leading into the academy’s center pavilion, our frames nearly crashing to the ground at the jostled impact. I cradled her frame, cursing myself for the rough landing, and immediately picked her up and tugged her behind a series of trees that framed the exit. Just out of sight. I had no idea where or when these murders had taken place, but the alarms were blaring louder than ever without pause, and I knew it was only minutes before security would find us again.

“Zaya.” I caught her face and examined her expression, one that was so different from the mastered expression she had donned from the beginning. Now her face showed panic and heartbreak.

I both loved and hated it.

I loved that she felt like she could show me that side of her, but I hated that she felt that way in the first place. “We are getting out of here. The others will be here momentarily. You did nothing wrong, but we aren’t waiting around for the school to ask their fucking questions—you owe them absolutely nothing.”

Her mercury gaze darted across my face as a shaky exhale left her lips. “What about my things? My books and⁠—?”

“We’ve already packed and moved everything to Grim’s estate. Our familiars are there as well. We didn’t say anything because we didn’t want you to worry, but we were already planning on leaving right after your class with Grimshaw.”

Relief flashed in Deva’s gaze. I knew she didn’t like the idea of what happened in class to be the sole reason for our departure, guilt already weighing heavily on her regarding having to leave campus. What she didn’t realize? I would have fucking left the minute she wanted, no matter the cause.

From the start, I hadn’t felt any draw towards DIA outside of my need to be with Deva, so the idea of leaving and submerging myself back into Carmina wasn’t unappealing, especially since I would no longer have to live under my father’s roof—the guise of being a dutiful son long broken.

There was absolutely no way he hadn’t caught on to my shift in allegiances. In fact, I was positive he had spies all over this school. It saved me a conversation, but also meant Deva being directly tied to all of this. His attention on her was something I fucking loathed.

I let out a deep groan as she suddenly surged forward and kissed me hard, my fingers wrapping through her hair as I deepened and took control of the kiss, loving the taste of magic on her lips and the scent of night air that surrounded her.

When she pulled back, her face was flushed, and she began to look around with a calculating edge. “How will the others know where to meet us? What if they go back to the dorm and security⁠—”

“We’re here, starlight.”

The relief in Deva’s face was plain to see as she turned around and found the other men had joined us, and as Oz gave her a once-over, I felt a surge of pride that she had escaped that incident completely unharmed. An incident that they needed to know about.

“We need to leave, now.” I shifted Deva closer to the others as I nodded towards the gate. “Security raided the dorm and tried to apprehend her.”

“They did what?” Grimshaw demanded sharply, turning his attention from the gate back to me.

“Said I was responsible for two new unblessed deaths,” Deva murmured, looking conflicted. “Or maybe they’re talking about the previous ones…I don’t even know anymore.”

“Fucking bullshit,” Lazaro swore, looking down at his watch. “The headmistress was going to meet us in ten minutes anyway—we should go wait by the portal. Security will be searching the area and expecting us to try to leave.”

“Boneclaw.”

Cage’s attention had been elsewhere, and his indifferent voice didn’t match the tension in the set of his shoulders as a tall figure ducked underneath the tree branch and eyed all of us, interrupting our conversation.

The professor’s nod towards the gate was sharp. “Two minutes before security arrives. Move fast.”

I instantly ushered Deva towards the gate of the sector, not looking back or around us, knowing we couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. When Boneclaw appeared at the gate ahead of us and opened it with his magic, I offered him a nod of thanks, understanding that he was ensuring our magical signatures weren’t left behind to be traced.

As all of us stepped through, Boneclaw followed and the gate shut quietly, instantly making me feel a fuck ton better. “Someone made the call to send security after you,” Boneclaw said quietly to Deva. “It wasn’t Mr. Vevau, either.”

Deva turned to face him, her brow contorting. “Professor Ledvot? She locked me into a battle with another student while we did cross-training in Ms. Shade’s class—she forced me to expose…”

My zaya suddenlystopped talking before she could reveal the truth about her magic, but realization was already dawning on Boneclaw’s face. “Yes, that makes sense. The woman is irrational and would immediately call security on a student she considered a threat. She despises people like you and Aleksander who have more than one magic.”

It didn’t surprise me that he was aware of my magic and its differences—the Nyx family was aware of it, and if Boneclaw worked for them then it stood to reason he would be privy to that knowledge. I also had never tried to hide it though. No one ever questioned me, so that had been enough to hide it so far—then again, I’d only been here for a week. Given a few more, I may have found myself in a very similar position as Deva was in today.

“Does she have the ability to arrest me, though?” Deva asked. “Was that even legal?”

“Absolutely not,” Lazaro answered.

“She doesn’t, but she can cause problems…”

The doors to the academic building in the center of campus opened with a loud thunk as magic filled the air, alerting us to Headmistress Estrid’s arrival. There weren’t many people who I respected or who had magic that intimidated me, but she happened to fall into both of those categories. Except as her gaze fell on Deva and she looked over all of us, I started to feel a sense of concern roll over me.

Grimshaw said she was aware of the situation—of what we did outside of these walls and why we had to be able to leave whenever we wanted. In light of what was happening in the sector, though, and the potential ‘trouble’ Deva got in, I was now wondering if she’d changed her mind.

What if she wasn’t going to let us leave? What the hell would we do then?