Page 37 of Academy of the Wicked, Year One

By her.

“Fuck,” I muttered, slamming my fist against the wall. The impact sent water spraying in all directions, but it did nothing to drown out the inferno consuming me.

Her moans came again, sharper this time, and my fangs ached at the sound. It wasn’t just lust anymore.

It was jealousy — pure, unrelenting jealousy that burned brighter with each second. I hated it. Hated how it clawed at me, how it twisted my insides until I felt like I’d explode.

How long had it been since I felt something like this? Since I allowed anyone to get under my skin this way? Centuries, perhaps. Longer still since someone dared to challenge me the way she did.

And yet, she wasn’t even thinking about me, was she?

Not as she cried out his name, not as her body arched for him, desperate and yielding.

“Damn you, Cassius,” I hissed, the words venomous even to my own ears.

I leaned my forehead against the cold tile, the water still cascading over me as I struggled to rein in the tempest within. The thought of her with him was like a poison, spreading through me with every passing second.

Nikolai and Mortimer had to feel it too, I was sure of it. None of us had expected this. None of us had anticipated the hold she’d have on us.

Onhim.

Cassius was supposed to be untouchable, emotionless, and incapable of forming attachments.

Yet here he was, fucking her with a passion that resonated through the very walls of this cursed academy. The bond mark could explain it, sure. Mortimer’s words echoed in my mind, a reminder of how such bonds could manifest as raw, primal desire. But the mark alone wasn’t enough to pierce through Cassius’s fortress of indifference.

No. There has to be more to this unprecedented circumstance.

Something neither he nor I could fully understand.

The bond was supposed to be rare. So rare that most Duskwalkers lived and died without ever encountering it. And now, here she was, a hybrid witch-vampire anomaly, bearing the mark that connected her to him.

Another moan tore through the silence, and I slammed my fist against the wall again, cracking the tile further.

My fangs elongated in response to the primal sound, my instincts screaming for blood, for release.

It was maddening.

I thought of her as I’d first seen her — disguised as a man, her cocky smirk and razor-sharp wit drawing my attention against my will. I’d wanted to break him then and there, to see how he’d bow beneath me, his defiance shattered and broken from my hands.

But now, the thought of him,or her, submitting to anyone else —to Cassius— was unbearable.

“Get out of my head,” I growled, the words directed at no one in particular.

But it was futile.

She was there, burned into my mind, a constant, unrelenting presence that I couldn’t escape.

His scent, his voice, the way his magic seemed to hum in perfect harmony with his every movement during our initial interaction and conflict—it was all-consuming.

The water continued to fall, cold and relentless.

I stayed there, motionless beneath the cascade, fighting to keep it together, and yet knowing deep down I couldn’t function with a clear head like this.

The ache throbbed painfully, relentless, unyielding. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist anymore. Not when the images began flooding my mind, unbidden and intoxicating.

The vision came to me as if it had always been waiting.

Him —stretched across the bed, vulnerable, an enigma laid bare. The contrast of his strength with that softness beneath the surface that he tried so hard to hide.

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