The Hunted Sworn

[KAELIA BRYNN HALLOWAY]

The Damned hunt Sworn.

That single line from our mandatory Fanged History texts had always read like a distant legend, a dark bedtime story designed to keep human children from wandering past the iron boundary lines of the academy after twilight. Now, sitting trapped within the suffocating walls of the head office, the phrase beat against my skull with the heavy, sickening cadence of a funeral drum. It drowned out the rhythmic ticking of the antique mahogany wall clock. It smothered the frantic, shallow breaths rattling in my own chest.

My fingers dug into the thick cotton of my twelve-year-old sister's coat. Liora sat tucked halfway behind my chair, her small frame shuddering in relentless waves. Every few seconds, a tiny, hitching sob escaped her, muffled against the fabric of my sleeve. She was terrified to look up, and I could not blame her. Across the expanse of the massive oak desk, four pairs of predatory eyes watched us without blinking.

Principal Belmont sat front and center. His dark, tailored suit jacket was discarded over the back of his leather chair, revealing a snow-white dress shirt rolled to the elbow. A thick slab of medical gauze wrapped his left forearm, but the dressing was failing. Seeping through the white weave was a sludge of oily, pitch-black blood, trailing an acrid stench of dead tissue and sulfur into the room. Beside him sat the academy’s senior governing board: Mr. Gideons, Miss Gemma, and the deputy principal, Mrs. Braxley. Their greyish skin looked taut over sharp cheekbones, their pupils pinpricks of crimson that caught the yellow desk lamp.

To their left stood Miss Blythe. The academy’s liaison witch had already recovered from the blast in the hallway. The vicious red burns that had mottled her jaw and neck ten minutes ago were smooth pale skin again, knitted together by raw craft. Only the singed hem of her velvet dress and the lingering reek of ozone gave away the fact that she had stood ground-zero against an abomination from the deep dark.

It was Liora’s birthday. Twelve years old today. We were supposed to be sharing dry lemon cake on the cracked counter of our kitchen, laughing over Dad’s burnt frosting while he handed her a wrapped box containing a second-hand microscope. We were supposed to go home and administer the standard suppression vial, the same bitter draught I had swallowed every spring since childhood to keep our human scents dull and quiet. Instead, catastrophe had dropped through the ceiling.

A Burner had tracked her into the south corridor at midday. Not a scavenger, not a smoker, not one of the lesser shambling corpses that fed on border scrap. A high-order assault beast of the Damned had breached three layers of silver wards just to sink its claws into my baby sister.

That attack carried a single, devastating reality. The Damned did not risk annihilation for ordinary humans, and they rarely spent high-tier shock troops on common Sworn. They came in legions only when a human girl’s soul was bound by ancient blood to a True Born.

Liora was Sworn to royalty.

Principal Belmont shifted his arm, a brief grimace tightening his aristocratic features before his cold, aristocratic mask smoothed out again. He leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the polished mahogany.

"Regional Vampire Lord Zarok was formally notified six minutes ago," Belmont said, his voice flat, completely devoid of empathy. "A tactical extraction convoy from the central garrison has been mobilized. They are en route to Eclipse Academy as we speak."

Miss Blythe adjusted her thin wire-rimmed spectacles with a manicured finger. She cast a look of practiced pity across the desk, her voice soft and calculated.

"You must understand the severity of this development, Kaelia. The presence of a Burner on neutral school grounds confirms your sister's biological resonance. She cannot return to your family residence. Her scent will act as a flare to every pack of Damned stalking the eastern ridge. Her only hope of survival lies within the reinforced interior of the North House Fang Court. She will be granted full sanctuary behind the silver-forged gates, attended by high-ranking guardians until she comes of age."

A bitter chill rushed through my blood, freezing my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Sanctuary. It was the exact word they had used six years ago. The district enforcers had stood on our front porch with stamped warrants and false smiles, telling my father that our mother would be treasured, protected, and honored in the High Wolf preserves. They had promised us letters. They had promised us visits. We had never seen her face again.

The supernatural courts did not shelter human Sworn out of benevolence. To them, a Sworn girl was political gold, a biological bargaining chip to be locked away in a gilded cage until the Alpha or High Lord who owned her claim arrived to collect his property.

Liora felt the tremor running through my hands and gripped my knuckles harder. Her voice was a cracked, barely audible squeak.

"Kaelia, please. Don't let them take me. I want to go home with Dad."

I pressed my forehead against the top of her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of strawberry shampoo beneath the sharp tang of smoke.

"I've got you," I whispered, though my chest felt hollowed out with terror. "I'm right here. I'm not leaving you."

"Your sentiments do you credit, Miss Halloway, but they carry no weight under imperial jurisdiction," Belmont interrupted, sliding a heavy stack of vellum documents toward the edge of his desk. "Your sister is no longer classified as a civilian minor. Under Treaty Article Nine, she is ward property of the regional seat until claimed by her True Born counterpart. We are merely following protocol."

Before the principal could pick up his gold-nibbed pen to authorize the preliminary transfer seal, the heavy double doors of the office blasted open with a concussive bang that shook the framed diplomas on the wall.

Both oak panels slammed back against the plaster, gouging deep trenches into the paint.

My father filled the doorway like a tempest.

Arthur Halloway was breathing as if he had run five miles through broken glass. His frayed white lab coat was splattered with clinic antiseptics, dark grease, and damp soot. His spectacles hung crooked across his broad nose, one temple piece held together by electrical tape, and his dark brown hair stood up in wild, sweat-drenched clumps. His chest heaved in violent, ragged hitches, stretching the faded fabric of his work shirt.

The second his wide brown eyes cut through the room and landed on Liora, the madness in his face fractured into pure, desperate agony. He cleared the space between the entrance and the desk in two massive strides, dropping hard onto both knees before the chairs.

"Liora!" Dad gasped, his voice breaking into a rough, choked sob.

Liora launched herself out of the chair, throwing her small arms around his neck with a desperate wail. Dad scooped her up, hauling me into the circle of his massive arms at the same time. His calloused, ink-stained hands trembled violently as he buried his face in Liora's curls, inhaling her scent, rocking back and forth as if trying to shield her from the very air in the room.

"I have you, baby," he choked out, his eyes squeezed shut against a flood of hot tears. "I have you. Daddy's here. I'm right here."

I pressed my face into his shoulder, closing my eyes for a single second to let the smell of cedar, clinic iodine, and home wash over my frayed nerves. But there was no peace to be had. When Dad pulled back, his jaw was clamped in a rigid, murderous line. The gentle, eccentric scientist who spent his nights telling terrible puns over microscope slides had vanished completely. In his place stood a man standing on the edge of an abyss.

Dad rose to his feet, pulling both of us behind his broad frame. His muscular shoulders squared, blocking the vampires' view of my sister. He leaned over the mahogany desk, his knuckles turning white where they struck the wood.

"She is not going anywhere!" Dad roared, the sound rattling the glass panes of the display cabinets.

The three board members stiffened, their lips drawing back over their teeth in identical, silent snarls. Miss Blythe took a cautious step backward, her fingers twitching with gathering craft. Only Belmont remained still, leaning back against his leather cushion with a look of cold, patronizing pity.

Dad pointed a shaking, soot-stained finger directly at the principal's face.

"You listen to me, Belmont! I know your treaties! I know every miserable word of your jurisdictional codes! You came into my home six years ago with your fancy seals and your grand promises of protection, and you stole my wife! You took Sarah, and you buried her in your political meat grinder! You think I'm going to stand here and let you take my youngest daughter too? Over my dead body! She belongs to me! My family stays together!"

Belmont didn't even blink. He reached up with his uninjured hand, casually adjusting the knot of his silk tie as if Dad were nothing more than a noisy draft rattling an open window.

"Your grief is noted, Arthur, as it was six years ago," Belmont said, his tone chillingly smooth. "But screaming at this board will not change the laws of nature. Humans are fragile creatures. You have no claws. You have no speed. You possess neither the sorcery nor the kinetic force required to hold off the Damned. A Burner tracked your child to this institution. If you take her back to that clapboard house on the edge of town, she will be ripped to pieces before the week is out, and you will die trying to stop it."

"Then let me die!" Dad yelled, slamming both fists onto the desk with enough force to crack the polished finish. "That is my choice to make! She is my child, Belmont! Not your ward, not your collateral, and not Lord Zarok's bargaining chip!"

"It is not your choice," Mrs. Braxley hissed from the corner, her grey face contorting with predatory irritation. "The blood of a True Born mate does not belong to a mortal clinic worker."

Dad lunged forward, his face dark with fury, ready to vault the desk with his bare hands.

Before violence could break out, Belmont raised his right hand in a sharp, authoritative gesture.

"Enough," the principal commanded, his deep baritone cutting through the room like iron. He looked at my father, taking in his ragged breaths and wild, bloodshot eyes. "I will grant you five minutes, Arthur. A temporary recess in the side alcove to compose yourself and bid your daughter a proper farewell while we finish processing the transfer registry. Do not make this harder than it needs to be. When the guards arrive, she will leave with them."

Belmont rose, gesturing toward the small, wood-paneled conference alcove to the left of the office. Miss Blythe and the board members followed him, retreating toward the far corner of the main room to review the parchment files, leaving the alcove doorway open just enough to allow us an illusion of privacy.

The moment the three of us stepped into the narrow space, Dad pulled Liora and me down into a tight, desperate huddle. His hands clamped onto my shoulders with bruising force. His wild eyes darted past my head, fixing on the narrow frosted-glass fire door at the end of the short corridor.

"Listen to me," Dad whispered, his breath hot, fast, and smelling of burnt coffee. "We aren't staying here. The old station wagon is parked behind the maintenance shed. The engine is running. We grab what we can carry, we hit the logging roads through the north woods, and we cross the provincial line into human-held territory before midnight. Their ward monitors can't track her scent once we hit the salt flats."

He was speaking with terrifying speed, his pupils dilated with raw panic. He was ready to throw away our entire life in the span of thirty seconds.

I grabbed Dad’s wrists, digging my fingernails into his skin until he stopped shaking.

"We can't run from them, Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking on a harsh, desperate note. "Look at me. Please. We tried that before."

He stared at me, his mouth opening to protest, but I squeezed his wrists harder.

"We ran when Mom's mark started to burn," I pressed, tears finally spilling down my cheeks, hot and bitter. "We packed the car in the middle of the night, we made it forty miles out onto Highway Nine, and what happened? The patrols boxed us in within two hours. Their scouts tracked our tires from the air. Their enforcers ran us off the road, and they ripped Mom out of the passenger seat while we watched from the ditch. If we run in a vampire province, they won't just take Liora. They will slaughter you on the asphalt, and they will throw me into an indenture camp. We won't even clear the county line."

Dad’s face crumbled. The desperate fire in his eyes died out, replaced by a look of crushing, suffocating helplessness. He slumped back against the wood paneling, dropping his head into his hands. His broad back shook with silent, agonizing sobs.

"Then what do we do, Kaelia?" he choked out against his palms. "Tell me what to do. I can't lose her. I can't watch another one of my girls disappear behind those gates."

My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged beast, but my thoughts suddenly snapped into razor-sharp focus. Running was suicide. Fighting a room full of immortals with bare fists was suicide. If the law gave us no ground to stand on, we had to find a crack in their armor.

I looked Dad dead in the eye, my voice turning dead, quiet, and firm.

"I'll go with her," I said.

Dad snapped his head up, staring at me in complete disbelief.

"No," he rasped immediately, shaking his head. "No, absolutely not. You're human, Kaelia. You have no protections, no status. If you enter a vampire court without a bond, you're nothing more than livestock to them. I won't sacrifice you too."

"You aren't sacrificing me," I insisted, leaning in close so my words wouldn't carry past the door frame. "I'll go with her and I'll protect her. I'll keep her safe. I'll be her eyes, her ears, and her shield until she's old enough to handle herself. I'll buy us time, Dad. Time for you to figure something out. Time for us to find out who this True Born is."

Dad grabbed my upper arms, his expression tortured.

"Kaelia, be realistic," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "Belmont isn't going to let you walk through those gates. The academy charter strictly prohibits non-Sworn family members from accompanying candidates into court custody. You know how rigid they are. They will laugh in your face and throw you back into the dormitory."

"Then we make them let me," I whispered.

A cold, calculated realization sparked in the back of my mind. I released Dad's wrists and dropped to my knees on the hardwood floor, pulling Liora down until we were eye to eye.

My sister's face was completely blotched with red, her hazel eyes swimming with unspilled tears, her bottom lip trembling violently. She looked tiny, fragile, and utterly broken.

"Liora," I said softly, taking both of her freezing hands in mine. "Look at me. Look straight into my eyes."

She sniffled, blinking rapidly, and locked her gaze onto mine.

"You have to listen to every single word I'm about to say," I told her, keeping my voice steady, slow, and iron-clad. "The vampires holding this building think they own you. They think you are an object they can pack into a black sedan and hand over to Lord Zarok. But they are terrified of one thing. Do you know what that is?"

Liora shook her head slowly, her breath hitching.

"They are terrified of the monster who owns your mark," I whispered. "You are bound to a True Born. That means whoever your mate is, he has more power, more rank, and more blood authority than Belmont, Miss Blythe, and all their board members combined. If they deliver an injured, broken, hysterical girl to a True Born Alpha, he will tear their court down brick by brick for mistreating his mate."

Liora’s eyes widened slightly as she absorbed the weight of my words.

"When we walk back through that door," I continued, squeezing her hands firmly, "you don't stay quiet. You don't nod, and you don't cooperate. You throw the biggest, ugliest, most relentless fit of your entire life. You scream, you cry, you drop to the floor, and you refuse to move a single inch unless I am holding your hand. You demand that I come with you. You tell them that if they separate us, you will tell your mate the second he finds you that they abused you. Do you understand me? You make them fear what will happen if they say no."

Liora stared at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly. For a second, the overwhelming terror in her hazel eyes threatened to swallow her whole. Then, slowly, a flicker of stubborn, desperate defiance sparked in her gaze. She swallowed hard, wiped her wet nose on her sleeve, and nodded.

"I understand," she whispered.

"Good girl," I said, leaning forward to press a hard kiss against her temple. "We survive this together. Always."

Dad stood above us, his face pale and conflicted, but he didn't argue. He knew as well as I did that it was the only card we had left to play.

A sharp rap sounded against the open alcove door. Principal Belmont stood in the opening, his pen tucked into his breast pocket and a thick leather folder clamped beneath his uninjured arm. Behind him, Miss Blythe and the board members were already standing by the office exit, waiting.

"Time is up, Arthur," Belmont said coldly. "The escort detail has entered the lower courtyard. Bring the girl out."

I stood up, smoothing down the front of my wrinkled uniform shirt. I took Liora’s small, cold hand in my right grip, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin until my spine felt rigid as steel. Dad stepped up beside us, placing a heavy, protective hand on each of our shoulders.

Together, we walked back out into the center of the office.

The heavy air in the room felt thick with tension. Principal Belmont walked behind his desk, setting the folder down on the dark wood. He didn't look up as he began organizing the parchment sheets.

"Mr. Gideons will escort you and your father back to the residential sector, Miss Halloway," Belmont said, waving a dismissive hand toward the door. "Liora will be escorted through the rear transit bay to avoid unnecessary student panic."

I took a deliberate step forward, pulling Liora slightly closer to my hip. Every ounce of fear, every memory of my mother being torn away, every shred of childhood vulnerability was locked away behind a wall of cold, unyielding defiance.

"Liora will go to the North House Fang Court," I announced clearly, my voice ringing across the quiet office without a single tremor. "And I'm coming with her."

Belmont paused. He slowly lifted his head, his dark eyes narrowing into an expression of dry, patronizing amusement. He let out a low, insulting scoff, shaking his head as if listening to the unreasonable demands of a toddler.

"That is a completely absurd notion, Miss Halloway," Belmont said, his tone dripping with dismissive arrogance. "Academy policy and Imperial Treaty law explicitly forbid non-Sworn human civilians from entering regional court wards. You have no status, no biological immunity, and no legal standing. Furthermore, your academic term is still in session. You will return to your assigned dormitory immediately."

"I am not going to class, and I am not staying in this town," I fired back, my fingers locking tightly around Liora's. "There is nothing in this school for me, and there is no future for an unprotected human in your district. My sister is twelve years old. She needs someone to care for her, and that person is me. I am going with her."

Belmont picked up his fountain pen, unscrewing the brass cap with slow, deliberate precision.

"You seem to be laboring under the delusion that this is a negotiation," Belmont said, his voice dropping into a harsh, metallic drawl. "Humans simply have no say in these matters. You will step away from your sister right now, Miss Halloway, or I will have security remove you by force."

Dad lunged forward, his face dark with fury.

"You touch my daughter and I swear to God I'll tear your throat out with my teeth!" Dad bellowed.

"Sit down, Arthur!" Belmont snapped, slamming his uninjured hand down onto the desk, his fangs extending slightly past his upper lip as his eyes flashed crimson. "Do not test my patience!"

Before Dad could throw himself across the wood, a small, cracked voice sliced through the shouting.

"K-Kaelia is coming with me," Liora whimpered.

Belmont didn't even look in her direction. He dipped his pen into the black inkwell, keeping his eyes fixed on the vellum.

"This matter is settled, child," he grunted dismissively. "Be silent."

"She’s coming WITH. ME."

The tone of Liora's voice changed so violently that the temperature in the room seemed to plummet five degrees in an instant. The childhood stutter, the trembling pitch of a terrified twelve-year-old girl—all of it vanished. In its place was a deep, resonant vibration that hummed against the floorboards, an unnatural cadence that made every hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

Belmont froze, his pen hovering a fraction of an inch above the signature line. He slowly looked up, his brow furrowing in genuine irritation.

"I said, be silent," Belmont growled, glaring down at her.

Liora’s chest expanded. Her small hands ripped out of mine and rose into the air, her fingers curling into rigid, claw-like hooks. Her chin jerked upward, and an ear-splitting shriek tore from her lungs, loud enough to rattle the glass inside the picture frames.

"SHE'S COMING!"

The world went mad.

What happened next broke every known law of supernatural physiology. A Strike—the divine, elemental power gifted to a Sworn by her bond to a True Born—was supposed to remain dormant until the onset of late adolescence. It required biological maturity, hormone spikes, and physical proximity to the mate's territory. It was never supposed to awaken in a twelve-year-old child standing in an elementary principal’s office.

The air in the room instantly turned arctic, so bitterly cold that our breath plumed white in thick clouds, yet the pressure was suffocating, as if thousands of gallons of deep ocean water had suddenly flooded the room.

A guttural, agonizing howl tore from Principal Belmont's throat.

Across the desk, the thick medical bandage on his left arm didn't just come undone—it exploded. The white cotton disintegrated into shredded threads as the wound beneath violently ripped itself wide open. The laceration, which had been a few inches long, tore upwards toward his elbow with a sickening sound of parting flesh. Viscous, pitch-black vampire blood surged out in jagged, airborne ribbons, defying gravity completely. Instead of dripping to the floor, the necrotic fluid hovered in the air, twisting into razor-sharp black filaments that sliced back into his own muscle.

Belmont collapsed to his knees behind the desk, his fingers clawing frantically at the wood as his own poisoned blood turned against him like a swarm of miniature scythes.

"L-Liora!" Miss Blythe cried out, raising both hands to weave a defensive ward.

Liora’s head whipped toward the witch.

Pure terror seized my soul. The warm, innocent hazel of my sister's eyes was completely gone. Her pupils had dilated with terrifying speed, swallowing her irises until her eyes were two bottomless, abyssal voids of obsidian black. Her pale skin had turned ashen, mirroring the dead grey of the vampires around her.

With a sharp, violent flick of Liora's tiny wrist, Miss Blythe was yanked entirely off her feet.

The witch flew backward through the air as if hooked by a steel cable, slamming violently against the reinforced plaster wall with a sickening thud. She hung there, pinned two feet above the floor by an invisible, crushing vice clamped around her throat. Miss Blythe’s eyes bulged, her lips turning blue as she choked on her own tongue. A second later, dark, thread-like rivulets of crimson blood welled from her tear ducts, spilling down her pale cheeks like bloody tears.

"Gideon! Gemma!" Belmont rasped from the floor, his face soaked in black bile and sweat. "Stop her!"

The two vampire board members tried to rise, but neither of them could move an inch. They remained frozen rigid in their high-backed leather chairs, their spines locked against the wood. Beneath their translucent grey skin, dead, blackened veins began to bulge frantically, swelling until the vessels threatened to burst through the surface. They couldn't draw breath. They couldn't summon their supernatural speed. The very fluid running through their immortal veins was being crushed into absolute stillness.

It wasn't basic magic. It wasn't telekinesis.

Liora was controlling the vital fluids inside their bodies.

Blood-bending. A forbidden, ancient Strike spoken of only in whispered myths of the First Brood.

"Liora, stop!" I screeched, terror completely overwhelming my shock.

I lunged forward, grabbing her tiny, rigid shoulders. Her skin felt like solid ice, vibrating with a terrifying, foreign hum of raw kinetic power. Miss Blythe's skull was trembling against the plaster, the pressure inside her capillaries building toward a lethal rupture.

"Liora, look at me!" I yelled over Belmont's ragged groans, shaking her. "Look at my face! Stop it right now!"

Dad moved with breathtaking speed, but there was no violence in him. He stepped directly into the center of her invisible telekinetic storm, dropping back to his knees in front of her. With absolute, heartbreaking tenderness, he wrapped his broad, warm hands over her trembling, clawed fingers.

"Liora," Dad spoke, his voice low, melodic, and thick with unconditional love. He hummed the soft, soothing tune he used to sing to her when she had fevers as a baby. "You are safe, sweetheart. Look at Daddy. We are right here with you. Nobody is taking you away. Let go... let go, baby."

The words cut through the dark tempest.

Liora’s chest heaved. The terrifying, bottomless black in her eyes fractured, receding in a rapid wave like oil sliding off water, revealing her wide, panicked hazel irises once more.

The invisible pressure in the room shattered like brittle glass.

Miss Blythe dropped from the wall like a marionette with cut strings, crashing heavily onto the carpet. She curled into a ball, gasping frantically for air while wiping the bloody tears from her face with shaking hands. Across the room, Mr. Gideons and Miss Gemma slumped forward in their chairs, clutching their throats and coughing violently as their blackened veins slowly receded beneath their skin.

Belmont lay slumped against the base of his desk, panting hoarsely, his left sleeve drenched in an unholy pool of black, necrotic fluid that refused to coagulate.

A single, thin trickle of bright crimson blood leaked from Liora’s right nostril, dripping down her trembling upper lip. Her small knees buckled under the weight of sudden, crushing physical exhaustion.

I caught her before she could hit the floor, hauling her tightly against my chest.

Before anyone could speak, the office doors were violently shoved aside once again.

Corbin Belmont sprinted into the room, his uniform disheveled, his eyes wide with frantic alarm.

"Dad!" Corbin yelled, skidding to a halt three feet past the threshold.

The young vampire froze dead in his tracks. His gaze dropped to the floor, taking in the grotesque pool of black blood spreading across the polished wood, the trembling witch weeping crimson on the carpet, and his father collapsed against the desk. Corbin’s face went paper-white. His eyes slowly traveled from the carnage to where my father and I knelt, shielding my tiny, pale sister between us.

"Dad... what happened?" Corbin breathed, his voice trembling as he stepped carefully around the black puddle to reach his father. "What did they do to you?"

Principal Belmont slowly, agonizingly hauled himself back to his feet, using the edge of the desk for leverage. His left arm hung limp at his side, the shredded flesh exposed and oozing, completely stripped of its natural vampiric regeneration. His breathing was heavy, wet, and rattling in his throat.

Corbin reached out to support his father’s shoulder, his hands shaking. Miss Blythe scrambled to her feet across the room, hastily grabbing a clean roll of gauze from a cabinet, her blood-stained eyes darting toward Liora with pure, unadulterated dread.

Belmont waved his son away with a weak, trembling gesture of his right hand.

"Get back, Corbin," Belmont rasped, his voice rough as sandpaper.

He didn't look at his son. He didn't look at the board members or the witch. Belmont’s heavy, shadowed eyes locked entirely onto my sister and me.

There was no longer any patronizing arrogance left in his aristocratic features. There was no mention of academy policy, no cold citations of Imperial Treaty law, and no dismissive sneers about human frailty. Behind the pain etched into his pale face, there was only raw, primal terror. He was looking at a twelve-year-old child who had nearly turned his own immortal blood into a weapon of execution.

Corbin looked frantically between them, his voice rising in panic.

"Dad, your arm isn't healing! Let me call the medical ward—"

"I said, I'm fine," Belmont growled through clenched teeth, leaning heavily against the desk to keep from falling.

The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the sound of Miss Blythe’s shaky breaths and the distant rumble of high-powered engines pulling into the courtyard below.

I pulled Liora tighter against my ribs, wiping the trace of blood from her lip with the hem of my shirt. Her heart beat rapidly against my chest, weak and exhausted, but she was alive. And she was whole.

I slowly released a long, shaky breath through dry, cracked lips, meeting the ruined principal's gaze without flinching.

There would be no more debates. There would be no more orders to return to class, and no security guards would be sent to tear us apart. Liora had terrified the very monsters who ruled this town, and they knew now that whoever her True Born mate was, crossing her meant absolute destruction.

She was getting what she wanted. We were leaving together.