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 me feel like I was a part of something ordinary.

But today, the air felt completely wrong.

The moment I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the wide brick pathway, I felt it. The heavy, suffocating weight of a hundred stares.

It was immediate. 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 me. 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. *Omega instincts.* They screamed at me 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 me like a dark, creeping shadow.

"Is that her?"

"I think so. Look at her clothes."

"Did you see what happened yesterday?"

The disjointed, hushed fragments 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 time the heavy wooden door of the classroom opened, I violently flinched, bracing myself for a threat I couldn’t even name.

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 me alive.

Then, I spotted a girl from my anatomy lab. Her name 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 me 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 me, 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 me? Why are they whispering?"

Lily bit her lip. She looked extremely 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 someone say something about me? 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 hammered a frantic, terrified rhythm against my ribs. "What happened?"

"A man came 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 something 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 someone," 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 name. 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 named Irina, right?" I babbled frantically, pure denial taking over. "It’s a common name. 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 plummeted 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 name? What did he look like?"

"I wasn’t there," Lily whispered, shrinking back slightly from my sudden, desperate intensity. "I didn’t hear a name. 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 stammered, trying to remember 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 me 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 memory of those forest green eyes crashed over me. I saw the dark, suffocating halls of Greystone. I remembered the metallic stench of blood. I remembered the heavy, crushing weight of his unhinged alpha aura pressing me into the cold floor.

*He found me.*

The thought echoed in my mind like a death sentence.

*How?* How did he find me 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 me.

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 me, he would drag me back to the nightmare. He would lock me in the dark. He would use his terrifying, explosive violence to keep me 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 me 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 men 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 hammered 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.