Page 21

Chapter

Sixteen

Bloom

Blood and Bone

“ L et us in!”

The dead scratched at my window, their pleas echoing like those from the first night, their fingernails dragging against glass. The gothic arches above melted into shadow, fog condensing on the stained glass like ghostly breath.

Rumors claimed Forsaken Academy sat atop Hellgate. Was that why the dead seeped through stone and glass?

It couldn’t be me.

Dante’s words slithered back:“You woke the dead.”But Dante was a kidnapper. Why trust him?

“Go away!” I hissed.

Their wails dissolved, only to be replaced by a scream raw and terrified that sliced through the night before cutting off with sudden finality. I flashed my eyes open, gasping for air. My body reacted before my mind could process what had happened.

I jerked upright, satin sheets tangled around me, heart slamming against my ribs. Cold sweat slicked my skin.

“Did you hear that?”Sindy’s whisper slid through the dark.

Hope flared.“You hear them too? The dead?”

Her silhouette shook.“A scream. Outside. Like someone…fell.”

Sindy flicked her wrist. Witchlight flared, painting the windows in ghostly outlines. Beyond the glass was only endless night.

“I think I saw something.”My throat closed.

The memory flooded back—that space between sleep and wakefulness where I’d caught sight of something falling past my window. Not something. Someone. A body plummeting down eight stories of ancient stone.

I lunged for the window, pressing my palms to the icy glass. Far below, a figure lay broken on the cobblestones, hair fanned out.

Red.Even in the moonlight, I knew.

“Someone fell,”I whispered, my voice hollow with shock. The words tasted like ash.Jumped? Pushed?

Doors banged open in the hallway. Voices tangled in panicked confusion.

“We need to go down there,”I said, already moving.

Sindy hesitated.“Is that safe?”

I threw on my cloak. After a beat, she followed.

We followed the flood of students down the spiraling staircase, our footsteps echoing against the black stone. The wards tingled against my skin as we burst into the cold night.

The body lay broken on the cobblestones. Legs bent at impossible angles. Arms splayed wide. Face turned skyward with eyes staring sightlessly at the starless sky. Blood pooled beneath her skull.

“It’s Angelina Wood,”someone gasped.“From Kingsley Tower.”

My blood turned to ice. The girl who’d challenged me hours ago now lay broken beneathmywindow.

“Angelina wouldn’t jump,”a voice hissed.“She was pushed.”

Footsteps pounded behind us. Orren and Dante materialized at my side, their attention snapping from Angelina’s corpse to me. Orren edged closer, as if to block me from the grotesque sight.

“What happened, Carrot?”Dante’s voice was uncharacteristically tense.“Did you see anything?”

“A scream,”I managed.“Then a body fell past my window.”

Orren gripped my arm.“Are you hurt, Bloom?”

I blinked at him. A girl wasdead, and he was worried aboutme?

“She’s in shock,”Dante muttered.

Orren rounded on him.“Itoldyou one of us should’ve stayed in the tower. The game has started early!”

What was he talking about?

A sudden cold realization slithered into place.

Angelina didn’t belong in Ravencrux Tower. She lived across campus in Kingsley Tower, home to the elite. For her to be here, someoneinsidehad to have invited her in to get past the wards.

Sebastian’s warning hissed in my memory: “He has a thing for redheads.”

My gaze dropped to Angelina’s hair, two shades darker than mine, spilling into a pool of blood.

The killer hadn’t chosen this spot at random.

Beneath my window.

Hours after our very public confrontation.

This wasn’t just murder. It was a message. A threat. A stage set formeto take the blame. Or worse…become the next victim.

And if Ravencrux truly had an obsession with redheads…

Early game. Orren’s words lodged in my throat like ice. Was I the quarry in someone’s hunt?

Acid rose in my throat. There was no escaping this place, its violence, its secrets, and its hungry darkness.

“Move!”

Nero Ravencrux’s harsh command sliced through the crowd. Students scattered as three figures emerged, each radiating enough power to make the air hum.

Headmistress Stardust glided forward, her white gown glowing against the darkness like a fallen star. Beside her, a broad-shouldered man with eyes like polished silver locked gazes with Ravencrux. He must be Professor Carl Kingsley.

Kingsley was carved from ice and steel, pale as moonlight, silver-haired, with a cruelty that clung to him like cologne. His face was all sharp edges. His lips pressed into a blade-thin line of contempt.

Where Ravencrux exuded brutal dominance, Kingsleyvibratedmalice. A giant of muscle, like his opponent, but his power didn’townthe space; itviolatedit. Yet Ravencrux’s energy surged back, muffling Kingsley’s presence. This was his territory.

The hatred between the two powerful males was palpable, a living thing crackling in the space between them.

The collective gasp was nearly deafening. Students stumbled back as if physically pushed, creating a wide berth around the trio. Oddly, their power didn’t crush me the way it did others, but I retreated anyway, melting into the crowd.

Headmistress Stardust’s disapproving gaze flickered between the two professors before settling on Angelina’s body.

“Violence might be expected,”she said, voice crisp.“Murder is unforgivable.”

My attention strayed back to Ravencrux.

Every encounter revealed another facet of him. Tonight, his hair was damp, robe loose over bronzed skin, as if he’d been pulled from the shower. Orinterrupted.

“He’s dangerous…” Sebastian’s warning about him slithered through my mind. Was I truly considering Ravencrux a murderer? I shoved the thought aside.

Moonlight caught on the hard planes of his chest, turning bronze skin to molten metal. His muscles flexed with each movement, not the manufactured strength of mortals but the terrifying grace of a dark god, though he was no god.

But immortal.

And untouchable.

The headmistress’s sharp voice cleaved through the night.

“This is the first premeditated murder in my academy in over a century.” Her glacial gaze pinned both professors before she crouched to examine Angelina’s broken neck, her fingers disturbingly clinical.

“I will not tolerate it. The consequences will be irreversible.”

The courtyard fell deathly silent. A sudden wind whipped through, making Angelina’s blood ripple like dark silk. Ravens burst from the tower above, their cries slicing through the heavy air. I hugged my chest as I shuddered.

“All students return to your quarters,” Ravencrux commanded, his voice like steel on stone. “You’ll be called upon for questioning.”

His gaze found Dante and Orren, who moved as one, forming a barricade between me and Professor Kingsley.

Kingsley’s silver eyes burned with barely contained rage. “You’ll answer for this, Ravencrux. My student died in your tower.”

“Then teach yours to stay the fuck out of my territory,” Ravencrux snarled back.

“Enough!” The headmistress’s power of light crackled through the air. “Whoever violated my laws will pay in blood and bone.”

The crowd began to disperse, students breaking off in clusters toward their towers. My bare feet had gone numb against the cobblestones, Sindy’s grip on my arm the only anchor as we moved toward Ravencrux Tower.

Fortunately, Professor Kingsley and the headmistress had their backs toward me as they studied the grim scene before them.

Then, an instinct, a pull.

I glanced back.

Ravencrux’s burning gaze locked on me. My breath caught in my throat.

The distance between us collapsed. The world narrowed to that single thread of awareness between us.

He was beautiful like a storm was beautiful, wild, untamed, and impossible to look away from, even when it promised nothing but ruin. I’d known it from the first moment, yet knowledge had never been armor against him.

The air hummed with forbidden desire. His jaw clenched, as if he fought to keep himself in place instead of reaching for me. My skin burned, every nerve alight.

Heat flooded me, shameful and undeniable, even with death at our feet. Even with suspicion thick in the air.

All I wanted was to eliminate the space between us. To taste the hunger in his darkened gaze, the one that promised ruin and revelation in equal measures.

The danger only made the craving worse, a knife’s edge of need pressed to my throat.

I tore my gaze away. Forced myself to move. The tower’s wards prickled against my skin as I crossed the threshold, the ancient magic sighing around me in recognition.

Angelina was dead. I might be next.

Yet all my mind could conjure washim, the memory of his hands claiming my body, his gaze chasing me into the dark. Fear and desire twisted together, inseparable.