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“A contact stole it. There are more, all redheads. But Ravencrux warded them against me specifically.” His jaw tightened. “He’s made threats.”

Chills sank into my bone marrow. “You believe he killed her. And Angelina too?” I asked in a shaking voice.

Sebastian’s gaze held terrifying certainty. “Not belief. Knowledge.”

I forced myself to study the photograph again. The resemblance was uncannily similar. “She could be my…me.” The words ended with a bone-deep fear flooding my system.

“Your bloodline seems to be his obsession.” Sebastian leaned forward. “That’s why I sought you out, to prevent you from becoming his next masterpiece.”

Mom’s secrecy, our constant moves—had she known? But— “My mother had dark hair.”

“Are you certain she was your birth mother?” The question landed like a punch in the gut.

“What? Of course!” I replied automatically. Now the seed of doubt unfurled thorns in my chest.

Mom’s terror of losing me suddenly made horrific sense.

Her isolationist rules, the way she’d flinch at strangers’ glances—had she been hiding me?

The cabin deep in the woods, her refusal to speak of family.

Had I been stolen? Every deflected question about my father, every angry diversion took on new, sinister meaning.

The ground beneath my identity crumbled.

Sebastian’s voice reeled me back. “Ravencrux doesn’t just hunt women. He romances them first.” He twirled his glass. “He lures, seduces, then destroys. I’ve seen his violent records. He isn’t just dangerous. He’s a bad man, an abuser. And pain isn’t a byproduct; it’s the whole point.”

The memory of his teeth on my skin flashed hot. Worse—how my body had arched toward that pain. The realization curdled in my stomach: this dead woman and I shared more than features. We might share appetites.

I’d stumbled into a darker net. Ravencrux had arranged to have me kidnapped and brought to Forsaken Academy.

But why bring me here if he wanted me dead?

My isolated cabin had offered easier opportunities.

Unless the hunt itself aroused him—the stalking, the claiming, the slow unraveling, then the pouncing.

“How did you get to Forsaken Academy?” Sebastian pressed. Light gilded his thick lashes, but his eyes stayed shadowed.

“Plane. Then car,” I answered evasively, my finger tracing the photograph’s frayed edge.

His gaze sharpened. “I mean how they located you. What led them to your door?”

He knew. Or guessed. After his revelations, silence felt like betrayal. Still, I hesitated. My instinct whispered to shield Nero, even now, even with the photo of this woman’s corpse between us.

The contradiction made no sense.

Sebastian had seen me that first night, disheveled, shaking in sleep clothes. The truth was already in his hands.

“One moment I was home,” I offered. “Then darkness. Then this place.”

Fury twisted Sebastian’s perfect features.

“That sounds exactly like that fucker.” His fist struck the table, making the photograph jump.

“Kidnapping’s just the start. He’s got centuries of violations to his name, including rape.

” His lips rolled in distaste. “Teaching here isn’t his profession. It’s his prison sentence.”

Each accusation landed like a hammer blow. The man who’d awakened my magic, whose touch had set me ablaze. Was he truly this monster?

“Why would any institution hire a kidnapper and rapist?” My voice shook. “There’s something fundamentally wrong with the school.”

“Founding members make their own rules.” Sebastian’s golden eyes turned glacial.

“Ravencrux is too powerful. He’s woven a dark network through these walls.

I mean to burn it all down.” His eyes ignited with fervor.

“Help me give those women justice. Bring down that brutal immortal serial killer. Be the voice they lost.”

Immortal serial killer. The word weighed down my spine.

“I need proof. I need to make sure it’s him,” I insisted, caution tempering my trembling fear.

“Then you’ll get it,” Sebastian promised. His fingers hovered near mine, close enough to feel his heat. I didn’t pull away—but didn’t yield either. “Just promise me this: Be very careful. See him as the threat he is before he makes you his next tragedy.”

“Same tired script,” a voice thundered from above, each descending footstep vibrating through the marble floors.

The air grew thick with salt and the iron tang of unleashed power.

“Fuck,” Sebastian hissed, muscles coiling. “He wasn’t supposed to be here.” With a sharp gesture, the sound barrier shattered around us.

He moved like liquid moonlight, placing himself between me and the staircase. His posture transformed from relaxed elegance to battle-ready tension, shoulders braced as if against a coming storm.

The empty hall pulsed with the newcomer’s unrestrained might, a pressure wave that made my eardrums throb.

Unlike Ravencrux, who kept his power tightly leashed unless provoked, this presence made no attempt to mute its overwhelming force.

Sebastian’s magic rose in answer, though he tried to veil its brilliance.

Peering around Sebastian’s protective frame, I saw Professor Carl Kingsley descending like a menace given human form. Silver streaked his tied-back hair, framing a face too perfectly symmetrical. His eyes, that impossible, shifting silver, fell on me.

Instantly, I felt the crushing weight of fathomless oceans pressing down on my chest. My lungs tightened, a sensation of drowning seizing me despite the dry air. Something primal within me recognized the danger, as though my body remembered what my mind couldn’t.

“Sebastian.” Kingsley’s voice could have frozen hell. “Who is your guest?”

Sebastian angled his body, blocking Kingsley’s line of sight. “Just some girl,” he said, voice light though his shoulders remained rigid.

Kingsley’s gaze sliced through me again, not just dismissive but erasing. His lip twitched like he’d stepped in something foul. “Are we now reduced to entertaining mortals in our halls? Their existence is shorter than a mayfly’s, their ambitions insignificant as motes.”

The way he spoke to Sebastian befuddled me. This wasn’t professor to student; it was near-equals, one chastising the other for poor judgment.

What did that make Sebastian?

“Mortals have their uses,” Sebastian purred smoothly.

I stayed motionless behind him, then remembered the photograph. My pulse spiked until I saw the table bare. Sebastian had vanished it before I’d even thought to act.

“Ta ta duar tag mor long sagh vey durith nell…” Sebastian suddenly shifted to speaking an ancient tongue.

The syllables vibrated with power, thrumming in my bones. Though incomprehensible, two fragments stuck: Underworld War before the rest vanished like mist before I could grasp them.

A shocking realization hit me, raising the fine hairs on my neck. How could I understand part of that ancient tongue? French and English were all I’d ever known, yet these archaic syllables stirred something primal in my blood, like a nursery rhyme sung to me long ago and nearly forgotten.

As their exchange continued, Sebastian shifted again, this time completely shielding me from view. His hand slipped behind his back, fingers flicking sharply: Leave. Now.

I wavered. I was dying to unravel this mystery, but Sebastian’s tension spoke louder. If someone of his power feared Kingsley’s attention falling on me, I wasn’t going to question his assessment.

With practiced stealth from years of moving through forest undergrowth, I eased away from the table. My steps traced the wall’s shadowed edge toward the exit, each movement measured to avoid the telltale click of heels on marble.

Kingsley stood angled away now, his focus locked on Sebastian, whose voice lifted just enough, a perfect distraction.

The door handle chilled my palm as I risked one final glance back. Sebastian stood silhouetted against the tower’s golden light, hands carving dramatic shapes through the air as he held Kingsley’s attention captive.

Then I was through, out into cold, crisp air and under the disguise of the gnarled oak’s branches.

The drowning came without warning.

My lungs seized as phantom water filled them, that same oceanic pressure from Kingsley’s gaze now crushing my chest from within. Invisible hands pinned me in the darkness. The terror was so complete I fumbled for my inhaler with numb fingers, its medicinal bite the only anchor to reality.

It was like my body remembered what my mind had long forgotten.

I staggered away from Kingsley Tower, heels skidding on frost, as I put as much distance as possible between myself and the imposing structure. The image of the dead redhead burned in my mind like a brand, her face—my face—twisted in final terror.

Arms wrapped tight around my ribs, I fled toward Ravencrux Tower, my supposed sanctuary that now felt more like a trap.

An omen hung in my head—whatever game was being played at Forsaken Academy, I was clearly a pawn, or perhaps a prize, in a conflict that spanned centuries between these lethal immortals.