The SUV came to a smooth halt in front of the familiar limestone facades of the campus. Ethan stepped out, the cool morning air hitting his face. Beside him, Max climbed out, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else on Earth.

Ethan looked around, a nostalgic smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "MIT... feels like a lifetime ago," he murmured.

He couldn’t help but think of Alexandria. He had initially expected her to return here as Dean after the dust settled, but Alexandria had surprised him. She had chosen to leave academia behind to manage the human heart of his empire. Now, as the head of Human Talent, she directed the intensive training of new personnel, staying true to her roots in education but applying it to the lethal efficiency of Royal.

"Let’s move," Ethan said, snapping out of his reverie.

They reached the second floor just as the shrill ring of the bell signaled the end of the period.

From inside the classroom, they heard the muffled voice of the professor. "Alright, class, that’s all for today. See you tomorrow. Don’t forget to review the thermal dynamics Chapter."

The door swung open, and the professor walked out, barely glancing at the four men standing in the hall. Ethan stepped into the doorway.

His eyes immediately locked onto Hailey. She was gathering her things, her face pale and drawn. Standing far too close to her was Ryan Mitchell. He was leaning over her desk, a smug, persistent grin on his face.

"Come on, Hailey, just one lunch," Ryan was saying, his voice oozing a forced charm. "I know this great place downtown. Five stars. I promise you’ll actually have a good time for once."

Hailey didn’t look up. She kept her eyes on her bag, her movements mechanical and stiff. "I’m busy, Ryan. Please move."

"Busy doing what? Sulking?" Ryan laughed, reaching out. "You’ve been a ghost lately. You need a real man to take you out and—"

Hailey finally stood up and tried to brush past him toward the door. But as she lifted her gaze, she saw him.

She froze mid-step. Her breath hitched, her eyes widening as they locked onto Ethan standing next to Max. The shock was so profound it was as if her heart had simply stopped beating.

Seeing her pause, Ryan thought he had finally made a breakthrough. He surged forward and grabbed her upper arm firmly. "See? I knew you’d reconsider. Let’s go, I’ve got the car waiting—"

"Take your hand off her," a voice vibrated through the room.

It wasn’t a shout. It was a low, command that felt like a physical weight dropping onto everyone’s shoulders.

Ryan blinked, irritated by the interruption. He didn’t turn around immediately. "Back off, pal. We’re in the middle of a—"

As he turned, the words died in his throat. His face drained of color, turning a sickly, translucent white. For months, he had lived in a fragile, forced peace, trying to bury the memory of what he had done. He and his father had waited for news from the hitmen they had sent to eliminate the "scholarship kid," but the men never returned. Instead, the leader of the mercenary organization had called them, trembling with a rage that bordered on terror, demanding an astronomical sum of money for being fed false information.

They had told the mercenaries Ethan was a nobody—a student with no backing. The error had cost Ryan’s father nearly half of the family’s entire fortune just to appease the gang’s fury. For weeks, they had lived like men sitting on a red-hot stove, waiting for the reaper to knock. When Ethan didn’t appear, they eventually calmed themselves, whispering that perhaps he had died somewhere else.

But here he was.

The person they had tried to erase was standing five feet away, looking at him with eyes that didn’t belong to a human. Ryan felt his knees buckle. His grip on Hailey’s arm went slack as his hands began to shake uncontrollably.

"No... it can’t be..." Ryan stammered, his voice thin and high-pitched. "You... you can’t be alive. You... you’re a monster! Get away from me!! STAY AWAY!"

Panicked and hyperventilating, Ryan turned and bolted toward the door, shoving past desks in a desperate attempt to escape the suffocating pressure radiating from Ethan.

Ethan didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He simply tilted his head toward one of the Royal guards flanking the doorway and gave a sharp, imperceptible nod.

The guard blurred into motion. He caught Ryan before the boy could even reach the hallway, effortlessly slamming him against the wall. With the practiced efficiency of a butcher, the guard bound Ryan’s hands behind his back with high-tension zip ties and began dragging him back through the classroom toward the exit.

"HELP! POLICE! SOMEONE HELP ME!" Ryan shrieked, his heels scuffing against the floor.

Several university security officers and a few campus police officers rushed toward the commotion, their hands hovering over their holsters. But as they got closer, they saw it—the stylized, golden "R" embroidered on the lapel of the guard’s tactical suit.

The officers froze. The air in the hallway turned to ice. Not a single person moved to intervene; not a single hand touched a weapon. They stood there, sweating through their uniforms, watching in terrified silence. Everyone in the state knew that symbol. They were all wondering the same thing: What did this pathetic idiot do to provoke the most powerful and ruthless organization on the coast?

Ryan’s screams faded into muffled sobs as he was dragged away like a sack of trash. Ethan turned his attention back to the room, where Hailey was still standing as if turned to stone.

"Now," Ethan said, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. "I believe we were interrupted."

Hailey watched the scene unfold, her breath hitching in her throat. As Ryan’s desperate cries were swallowed by the cold silence of the hallway, something deep inside her finally snapped. The tears began to spill over, hot and silent, tracking through the pale dust of her terror.

In the ringing quiet, the echoes of her parents’ voices resonated in her mind like a funeral dirge. She remembered the way they spoke of Ethan now—with a reverence that bordered on worship and a fear that bordered on insanity. She knew the truth, even if it had never been said aloud: if this man demanded her life, her soul, or her body, they would hand her over with a trembling smile and call it an honor.

She had spent her nights scouring the dark corners of the web, falling down rabbit holes of leaked documents and terrified eyewitness accounts. The rumors were no longer just whispers; they were a legend of horror. They spoke of a shadow that swallowed armies, a monster that devoured its enemies whole and left nothing—not even a splinter of bone—behind.

As Ethan stepped closer, the light from the classroom windows catching the unnatural amethyst glint in his eyes, Hailey didn’t see a former classmate or a scholarship student. She saw the predator from the stories. She saw the end of her world standing right in front of her.

Ethan reached out, his gloved hand hovering near her face, and Hailey flinched so violently her books clattered to the floor.

"Hailey," he said softly, his voice a velvet caress that felt like a blade against her skin. "Why are you crying? The trash has been cleared away."

She couldn’t answer. She could only stare at him, her body shaking with the realization that she wasn’t being rescued—she was being claimed.