Irina’s POV
The campus quad was usually my favorite part of the day.
I loved the crisp autumn air. I loved the red and gold leaves falling from the massive oak trees. I loved the chaotic, noisy energy of hundreds of normal, human college students rushing to their morning classes. It made feel like I was a part of sothing ordinary.
But today, the air felt completely wrong.
The mont I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the wide brick pathway, I felt it. The heavy, suffocating weight of a hundred stares.
It was imdiate. Students who were lounging on the grass suddenly stopped talking. Girls holding their iced coffees paused in the middle of the walkway, turning their heads to look directly at . A group of guys near the science building actually pointed in my direction before leaning in to whisper to each other.
My heart instantly skipped a beat.
The blood in my veins turned to ice water. The deep, ingrained trauma of my past flared up like a violent fire in my chest. *Oga instincts.* They scread at to lower my head. They demanded that I make myself small, invisible, and completely unnoticeable.
I clutched the straps of my cheap canvas backpack. My knuckles turned stark white.
*What is happening?* I thought frantically, my breathing growing shallow.
Did the blonde girl from yesterday spread another vicious rumor? Did she tell the entire campus that I was a freak? I kept my chin tucked down, staring rigidly at my scuffed sneakers as I walked. The whispers followed like a dark, creeping shadow.
"Is that her?"
"I think so. Look at her clothes."
"Did you see what happened yesterday?"
The disjointed, hushed fragnts of their conversations made my stomach churn with a sickening dread. I practically sprinted the rest of the way to the science building, desperate to hide in the anonymity of the massive lecture hall.
The morning dragged on. I couldn’t focus on a single word the biology professor said. My hands shook so badly I couldn’t even take notes. Every ti the heavy wooden door of the classroom opened, I violently flinched, bracing myself for a threat I couldn’t even na.
When the lunch bell finally rang, I didn’t go to my usual spot on the quad.
I went straight to the cafeteria. I found the darkest, most isolated corner booth in the back of the room. I sat down with my cheap turkey sandwich, completely miserable and entirely on edge.
I scanned the crowded room. I needed to know what was going on. The paranoia was eating alive.
Then, I spotted a girl from my anatomy lab. Her na was Lily. She was quiet. She wore thick glasses and always sat near the front. More importantly, she had never once joined in when the other girls mocked or my baby.
I took a deep, shaky breath. I pushed my uneaten sandwich aside and stood up.
I walked over to her table. My knees felt like absolute jelly.
"Lily?" I asked, my voice barely above a raspy whisper.
Lily jumped slightly, looking up from her textbook. When she saw it was , her eyes widened. She quickly glanced around the cafeteria, as if checking to see if anyone was watching us.
"Irina," Lily said. Her voice was incredibly tense.
"I’m sorry to bother you," I started, twisting the frayed hem of my oversized sweater. "But... do you know what’s going on today? Why is everyone staring at ? Why are they whispering?"
Lily bit her lip. She looked extrely uncomfortable. She closed her heavy textbook and leaned forward across the plastic table.
"You really don’t know?" she whispered back.
I shook my head frantically. "I have no idea. Did soone say sothing about ? Did those girls from yesterday make up a lie?"
"No," Lily breathed out, adjusting her glasses. "It’s not about them. It’s about yesterday afternoon. Right after classes ended."
My heart hamred a frantic, terrified rhythm against my ribs. "What happened?"
"A man ca to the school," Lily said, keeping her voice incredibly low. "He didn’t just walk onto campus, Irina. He drove a fleet of black, armored SUVs right onto the main quad. He had a dozen massive bodyguards in dark suits. They looked like... like the mafia, or the secret service, or sothing terrifying."
The air completely left my lungs.
A cold, paralyzing dread swept through my entire body. My wolf whimpered in the dark corners of my mind, curling into a tight, terrified ball.
*Mafia.*
"What did he want?" I choked out, gripping the edge of the plastic table to keep my trembling legs from giving out entirely.
"He was looking for soone," Lily said, her eyes wide with lingering fear. "He was asking the students. He blocked all the exits to the quad. He only gave a first na. He told everyone he was looking for Irina."
My vision blurred.
The cafeteria suddenly felt like it was spinning violently off its axis. A loud, high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears.
*No. No, please no.*
"But... but there are other girls nad Irina, right?" I babbled frantically, pure denial taking over. "It’s a common na. It could be a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence."
Lily hesitated. She looked at my pale, terrified face with deep pity. "Maybe. But... people said he specifically asked about a girl with a baby."
My stomach plumted straight into the floor.
The denial shattered into a million jagged pieces. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a hunt.
"Who was he?" I demanded, my voice cracking entirely. "Lily, please. Did he say his na? What did he look like?"
"I wasn’t there," Lily whispered, shrinking back slightly from my sudden, desperate intensity. "I didn’t hear a na. The people who saw him were too terrified to ask. They said he was absolutely terrifying."
"What did he look like?" I pleaded, tears of sheer panic instantly flooding my eyes.
"They said he was huge," Lily stamred, trying to rember the campus gossip. "Very tall. Broad shoulders. Like a giant in a dark, expensive suit. He had dark hair. And... and they all talked about his eyes."
I stopped breathing.
My knuckles turned white against the table. "His eyes?"
"Yeah," Lily nodded, shivering slightly. "They said he had these crazy, intense eyes. They said they were a really bright, deep green. Like a dark forest."
*Forest green.*
The words hit like a physical, crushing blow to the chest.
Nicholas.
The Mad King. The Alpha of all Alphas. The terrifying, blood-soaked mafia boss who ruled the underground empire with an iron, unforgiving fist.
My knees finally buckled. I stumbled backward, hitting the edge of the next table.
"Irina? Are you okay?" Lily gasped, half-standing up from her chair.
I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t speak.
The mory of those forest green eyes crashed over . I saw the dark, suffocating halls of Greystone. I rembered the tallic stench of blood. I rembered the heavy, crushing weight of his unhinged alpha aura pressing into the cold floor.
*He found .*
The thought echoed in my mind like a death sentence.
*How?* How did he find in the massive human city? He was a creature of the underground. He was a phantom. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to cross into the bright, daylight world of a human university campus.
But he was here. He had driven his armored cars onto the quad. He was hunting .
I wrapped my arms tightly around my own stomach. I felt violently ill. The terror was a living, breathing monster tearing at my insides.
If he caught , he would drag back to the nightmare. He would lock in the dark. He would use his terrifying, explosive violence to keep trapped forever. And worse—so much worse—he would take Luka. He would take my beautiful, perfect son and drag him into a world of blood and mafia wars.
I couldn’t let that happen. I would die before I let the Mad King touch my baby.
I had to run.
I couldn’t stay on this campus. I was completely exposed here. I was sitting out in the open, just waiting for the black SUVs to return and box in.
I needed to hide. I needed walls. I needed security.
I had to get to him. I had to get behind those heavy iron gates before Nicholas’s n scoured the city streets again.
I didn’t say another word to Lily. I didn’t say goodbye.
I spun around on my scuffed sneakers. My heart hamred wildly against my ribs. The adrenaline flooded my veins, completely overriding the terror with pure, fierce maternal instinct.
I grabbed my backpack and headed to my workplace.
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