Rain fell on Nightfall Academy like a judgment.
It sheeted down the ancient Gothic spires, blurred the glowing amber windows of the Great Hall, and turned the meticulously manicured courtyard into a shallow, reflective lake.
It was the kind of storm that felt personal, as if the sky itself was trying to wash away the secrets etched into the old stone.
Lia Black stood at the wrought-iron main gate, a single worn duffel bag at her feet, and let the water soak her through.
Her first impression was of impossible size and oppressive grandeur. The academy wasn't a school; it was a fortress-city carved from shadow and ambition. It sprawled across a mist-shrouded Scottish cliffside, a labyrinth of lecture halls, libraries, and dormitories that looked older than some countries.
To the mundane world—the world of tax returns and supermarkets and normal universities—it was an exclusive, obscenely expensive boarding school for Europe's ultra-elite. A finishing school for future CEOs and diplomats.
Lia knew better.
She knew the truth was written in the subtle, impossible details her scholarship-student eyes weren't supposed to see. The way the rain seemed to bend around certain turrets, repelled by unseen forces. The faint, silvery shimmer that clung to the edges of the tallest spire, visible only if you knew to look for it at the exact moment the lightning flashed. The air itself tasted different here—charged, ancient, heavy with magic that smelled of ozone, cold stone, and something darker, like old blood and older earth.
Elena, she thought, the name a blade twisting in a wound that had never closed. This is where you died.
Three years. Three years of grief that curdled into a cold, singular purpose. Three years of poring over the official reports that called it a "tragic hiking accident" on academy grounds. Three years of listening to her parents' quiet, broken sobs in the room next door. Three years of training her body, honing her mind, and perfecting the most important weapon in her arsenal: the lie.
She looked down at her reflection in a puddle. The girl staring back was a masterpiece of calculated mediocrity. Mousy brown hair, flat and darkened by the rain, hung limply to her shoulders. Thick, unflattering glasses with plain plastic frames obscured the upper half of her face. A cheap, oversized navy blazer—bought two sizes too large from a thrift store—swallowed her frame, its shoulders drooping, the hem hitting mid-thigh. Beneath it, a faded grey crewneck sweater and nondescript black jeans completed the picture of a painfully ordinary, scholarship-dependent nineteen-year-old who was in way over her head.
Lia Black, psychology major. Orphaned younger sister of the tragically deceased Elena Black. Desperate for opportunity. Grateful. Meek.
The perfect mouse.
She adjusted the glasses, a nervous habit she'd practiced in the mirror for months, and hoisted her duffel bag. The movement pulled the soaked cotton of her sweater tight across her chest for a split second before the blazer settled back into its shapeless drape. It was enough. She'd spent years layering, binding, hiding the curves that felt like a betrayal—a cruel genetic inheritance from a sister whose own beauty had been radiant and fearless. Lia's was a quieter, more dangerous kind, all sinuous muscle and hidden strength, and it had no place in her disguise.
She took a deep breath, the damp air filling her lungs, and stepped through the gate.
The courtyard was a chaos of organized arrival. Black luxury cars with tinted windows glided soundlessly to the main steps, disgorging students who looked like they'd stepped from the pages of a European fashion magazine. Laughter and shouted greetings cut through the drumming rain, conversations in a dozen languages weaving together. Lia moved through them like a ghost, her head down, her bag bumping against her leg.
She felt the stares. They were brief, dismissive glances that slid over her and moved on. She was part of the scenery, a slightly damp, poorly-dressed piece of the help. Good.
The massive oak doors of the Great Hall stood open, revealing a vaulted ceiling lost in shadow and the glow of a thousand real candles in iron chandeliers. A buzz of anticipation filled the cavernous space. Long tables were arranged in a U-shape, and at the head of the room, on a raised dais, sat the faculty. They were an imposing group, men and women whose faces seemed carved from the same stone as the walls. Their eyes, even from this distance, held a disconcerting sharpness.
Lia found the check-in table for new students, a long trestle manned by older pupils wearing prefect badges. She waited in line, her heart a steady, controlled drumbeat in her chest.
"Name?" The bored-looking blonde girl didn't even look up from her tablet.
"Lia Black."
A tap on the screen. "Scholarship hall, west wing, third floor. Room 312. Keycard." She slid a plain white card across the table. "Orientation starts in twenty. Don't be late."
Lia took the card, her fingers brushing the cool plastic. Scholarship hall. Segregated, of course. The mouse would be kept with the other mice.
She turned to merge back into the crowd and walked directly into a solid wall of muscle and wet wool.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Her glasses slid down her nose. Her duffel bag thudded to the marble floor.
"Watch it."
The voice was low, cold, and bored. It wasn't a shout. It was a dismissal, a statement of fact from a height so far above her it didn't require volume.
Lia looked up, pushing her glasses back into place.
And found herself staring into a pair of eyes the color of a winter sky just before a storm—a pale, piercing blue-gray with a ring of darker charcoal around the iris. They were set in a face that belonged on a Renaissance sculpture of a fallen angel: all sharp, arrogant planes, a blade of a nose, and a mouth that was currently pressed into a thin line of annoyance. His hair was the silver-gray of a wolf's pelt, cut short on the sides but longer on top, now darkened by rain into damp strands. He was tall, easily over six and a half feet, with the broad-shouldered, muscular build of an athlete or a soldier. He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, the jacket open over a black shirt, no tie. The rain had barely touched him.
Kane Wolfe.
She knew his face. She'd studied every available photo, every society-page mention. The crown prince of Nightfall. Heir to the Wolfblood fortune and legacy. Student Council President. The apex predator in this gilded ecosystem.
He wasn't alone. A girl stood slightly behind his shoulder, clinging to his arm like a beautiful, venomous vine. She was stunning in a way that was almost aggressive—flame-red hair cascading in perfect waves, emerald-green eyes, lips painted a deep crimson. She wore a dress that probably cost more than Lia's family's car, and she looked at Lia as if she'd just found something unpleasant on her designer heel.
Elara. The Vampyre heiress. Kane's fiancée, according to all the gossip and the unbreakable political contracts of their world.
For a heartbeat that stretched too long, Kane's gaze held Lia's. There was no recognition, only a glacial assessment. He looked from her dripping hair to her oversized blazer to the duffel bag on the floor, and his expression didn't change. It was the look one gave a minor inconvenience, a puddle to be stepped over.
But then… something flickered. A slight, almost imperceptible narrowing of those winter-sky eyes. His nostrils flared, just a fraction. A predator catching a scent on the wind.
Lia's blood went cold. No. It's the rain. The cheap detergent on my clothes. Nothing more.
She dropped her gaze, the picture of flustered apology. "S-sorry," she stammered, hunching her shoulders. "I didn't see you."
She bent to grab her duffel, her movements deliberately clumsy. The soaked fabric of her sweater and blazer clung to her back as she moved, outlining for a brief, revealing moment the strong, defined line of her spine, the curve of her shoulder blades, the taper of her waist before the jeans began.
When she straightened, Kane was still looking at her. That bored irritation was still there, but beneath it, something darker, more calculating, had ignited. His gaze felt physical, like a touch tracing the path the wet fabric had revealed.
Elara's perfect smile was a razor blade. "Darling, the help really should be more careful," she purred, her voice like honey laced with arsenic. "They're letting all sorts in on scholarship these days."
Kane didn't acknowledge Elara's comment. His eyes finally released Lia, sweeping over her once more with a finality that felt like a verdict. "Don't let it happen again," he said, the words devoid of any real heat. A command to an inferior life form.
Then he turned, Elara still attached to his arm, and walked away, the crowd parting for him like the Red Sea.
Lia stood there, the keycard digging into her palm. The spot between her shoulder blades, where his eyes had lingered, felt branded.
She had expected to be invisible. She had prepared for disdain. She had not prepared for the focused, predatory attention of Kane Wolfe. It hadn't been interest. It hadn't been attraction. It had been… recognition. Of what, she couldn't say. But it was a crack in her armor, a flaw in her disguise she hadn't anticipated.
He sees too much.
Swallowing hard, she turned and hurried toward the corridor leading to the west wing, away from the candlelight and the chatter of the elite. The mouse had entered the wolf's den, and the wolf, for one fleeting, terrifying second, had paused its hunt to sniff the air.