Page 7

Chapter

Six

Bloom

His Winter Eyes

M y right eye twitched a warning and my left earlobe burned with promise. Danger and desire warred under my skin.

The dream rushed back: his mouth between my thighs, his roar as the water swallowed me. Now here he stood in flesh and fury.

Light and shadow carved him into existence—broad shoulders straining against a dark shirt. Rolled sleeves revealed forearms corded with muscle, golden-brown skin glinting with barely leashed power. Every inch of him was weapon and temptation fused together.

My breath shallowed. The academy’s energy thrummed through me, sharpening my senses until I couldtaste the courtyard’s collective hunger. Female students swayed subtly, lips parted, their arousal a thick perfume in the air.

They couldn’t help it, just as I couldn’t help it.

His scent of burning sandalwood and primal male drowned us all out. His mouth was the cruelest contradiction: that brutal face softened by lips made for sin. My own tingled in remembered pleasure.

And then?—

He looked through the adoring crowd.

Past their held breaths.

Straight into me.

A shiver cascaded down my spine, pooling hot and heavy at the base. Thirty yards separated us, yet his attention seared like a brand.

Then, just for a heartbeat, his stone mask cracked. Something raw and wounded flashed in those green depths before vanishing. My pulse stuttered.Did he remember? Did he feel this too?

I waited for him to look away, but his piercing gaze locked on me as if no one else existed. As if we were the only two souls left in creation.

The air turned to syrup in my lungs. Ancient emotions, thick as blood, rose from some buried place inside me. My vision darkened at the edges, heartbeat thundering in my ears.

My hand spasmed toward my pocket. The inhaler waited, but using it now would brand me as weak. Prey.

Not here. Not before him.

I dug my nails into my palms, the pain grounding me. The darkness behind my eyelids swam with fragmented images:

his mouth on my skin,

his roar in my ears,

the icy water swallowing me.

When I opened my eyes, he still watched.

A collective gasp rippled through my kidnappers. They stared between us like witnesses to some mythical collision.

Heat flooded me, settling low and heavy. The thin nightgown clung to my damp skin, the rough robe chafing my peaked nipples. Worse—the slick evidence of my arousal trickled down my inner thighs. I squeezed my legs together, but the movement only drew attention.

Every head swiveled toward me, following their dark god’s rapt attention.

Mortification scalded my cheeks. This was their fault. These kidnappers who’d dragged me here barefoot and half-dressed. Now I stood exposed before a courtyard of wolves.

The trio moved as one, forming a living barricade between me and the gawking crowd.

As if answering my silent plea, the sky darkened, clouds boiling overhead like a vengeful god’s wrath.

Thunder growled in the distance, closer with each heartbeat, until a spear of black lightning struck the stairs mere inches from the dark stranger’s boots.

The impact should have shattered stone. Should have sent him reeling.

He didn’t flinch.

The violent wind tousled his raven hair, the strands falling across his forehead like a crown of shadows.

His features sharpened—cheekbones cut from marble, jawline like honed steel, those winter-green eyes freezing into glacial ice.

Power radiated from him in visible waves, distorting the air like a heat haze.

With one last lingering look that seared through my three companions, he turned. One moment there, the next, gone. Vanished into the storm’s gathering fury.

Yet the spell didn’t break. The imprint of his presence remained.

A deep ache filled my chest, like my heart was shattering, every piece trying to escape my chest to chase that man.

“Bloom?” Orren’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Carrot?”

I blinked, the world rushing back with dizzying clarity.

“Uh,” I cleared my throat, willing my voice steady, “who was that scary man?”

“The devil.” The new voice dripped like honey laced with arsenic.

I turned to find a golden-haired boy sauntering toward me, all predatory grace and feline confidence. His lion’s gold eyes gleamed with amusement, a stark contrast to the storm-eyed stranger’s intensity.

“Take my advice, new girl,” he purred, circling me like a shark scenting blood, “if you want to survive here? Stay far, far away from the devil.”

Orren lunged forward, his features twisted into a snarl. “Fuck off!” His fists clenched so tight I heard knuckles crack.

The golden boy merely smirked, stepping back gracefully. “Relax, guard dog. I’ve no interest in stealing Nero’s newest toy.” His eyes flicked to me, lingering on my trembling form. “Let’s hope you mongrels finally brought home the right stray this time.”

My breath caught. If the dark stranger was the devil, then hell burned colder than his gaze. That lightning strike hadn’t been natural—I’d seen shadows coil around his fingers like loyal serpents, felt death’s whisper in the static-charged air.

But that was madness. Only the Death God wielded such devastating power if one dared believe what the ancient texts claimed.

The dark clouds dissipated as suddenly as they’d appeared, pale sunlight washing over the obsidian campus. Yet instead of softening the academy’s edges, the light carved deeper shadows between the towers, stretching across the courtyard.

I was sure now that Forsaken Academy wasn’t your average school. I squared my shoulders. Frail lungs and a weak heart didn’t make me weak. I’d survive this place.

Then the scream tore through the air.

I whirled in time to see a girl drive a dagger between another student’s shoulder blades. Blood arced in a crimson spray as she wrenched the blade free, only for the wounded boy to tackle her to the ground with a snarl, his injury seemingly forgotten.

“What the hell?”I lurched forward.“He’ll bleed out!”

Morrigan’s grip on my arm was iron.“Leave them.”

“But—”

“If they’re too weak to survive,”she said,“they don’t deserve to walk these halls.”

Horror iced my veins. “That’s just cold.”

Before I could do something, Dante and Orren closed ranks, steering me away as casually as if we’d just passed a minor squabble.

“Cheers, Carrot!”Orren beamed, his earlier fury gone as if a switch had flipped.“Nothing like a little bloodshed to brighten the day.”

Behind us, the sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bones faded into Forsaken Academy’s ordinary hum.