Chapter 60: A Loneliness Only He Could Worsen
{IRIS}
The first class of the day had been tolerable enough—mostly theories, which demanded nothing more from me than to sit still and pretend I belonged amongst the others.
But when the bell tolled for lunch, a familiar dread rose like cold water around my ankles.
Lunch. The battlefield of the social world. The one place I had hoped the gods would smite from the schedule entirely.
Jay, for all his strange mannerisms and bizarre humor, always seemed to survive this hour effortlessly. He carried an odd jolliness, a quirkiness that made people gather around him despite his insistence on living in a world of his own. He didn’t need to try. People simply gravitated to him—because he was funny, because he was gay, because he was... Jay.
I, on the other hand, was none of those things.
Not funny.
Not brilliant.
Not charming.
And worse—my very first day had been branded by humiliation. Being dragged into the lake by a mermaid was not exactly the anecdote that inspired social confidence.
I wanted to be friends with Jay, truly. He was the closest thing to someone I could talk to, someone I didn’t instinctively shrink from.
But he made it very clear—perhaps without meaning to—that he preferred his own company. That he didn’t need, or want, anyone straying too close. It would have been strange... humiliating, even... to cling onto him like some lost creature begging for companionship.
So, I thought, perhaps I could ask Caroline. She was my roommate, after all, and had been kind enough to speak to me during breaks.
I gathered what little courage I had left, approached her desk—only to watch her leave the room with her peers, laughing brightly as if the world was hers to claim.
By the time I opened my mouth, she was already gone. And I was alone.
Again.
With no other choice, I walked to the cafeteria by myself.
The moment I stepped inside, a wall of noise, bodies, and scents struck me. Students clustered together in dense crowds, filling every corner of the space. It was disorienting.
I had grown accustomed to seeing only a handful of students wandering the halls before class, not this tidal wave of chatter and energy.
I ordered my food quietly and searched for an empty table. Just one empty chair—anything.
But each time I thought I had found one, someone would slide their bag onto the seat, or another would swoop in and claim it before I could take a step toward it.
Some tables were occupied by groups that sprawled across the benches as if marking territory. Others simply stared at me in that way that meant, Not here. Don’t even try.
Wonderful.
My gaze drifted across the dining hall until I spotted Caroline’s group seated together. They had a table, a spacious one at that—and there was a seat open.
Caroline was my roommate... my friend, or something close to the word. Surely, she wouldn’t mind if I joined—
"Sorry, only humans sit here," one of her friends said sharply before I had even taken a step.
The words struck harder than they should have.
My eyes instinctively met Caroline’s. She gave me a small, apologetic wince, hands clasped together as if in prayer for forgiveness.
"Sorry, Iris," she said softly. "We... we have friends from another section joining us." She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "It’s nothing personal."
Another girl gestured toward the far side of the cafeteria, where the werewolves gathered around long wooden tables, their presence loud and unmistakably territorial.
"Why don’t you sit over there?" she suggested. "You’re a werewolf, right? That’s where you belong."
The dismissal was casual. Cruel in its ease.
I managed a small, brittle smile. "Of course. My mistake."
But I didn’t walk to the werewolf section. I didn’t walk anywhere near them. If they knew that I have no scent they would ask and they would find out that I’m unshifted.
Instead, I turned away from the table entirely and walked straight out of the cafeteria, food tray trembling just slightly in my hands.
The air outside was far more forgiving. At least the benches did not judge me for sitting on them.
Or so I thought.
I didn’t make it far. Before I reached the doors, the noise behind me began to fade. Conversations dropped to whispers. Footsteps slowed. A hush swept through the cafeteria so swiftly it felt unnatural.
I turned slightly—and my heart dropped into a cold pit.
Lord Val had entered the room from the other side of the door.
He walked with that effortless, regal grace that only vampires possessed. The air seemed to shift around him; even the light clung to him, refracting off the pale coldness of his skin.
Other vampires followed him like a procession of shadows—Sol included, gliding silently behind him.
If Jay was strange and Caroline was bright, Lord Val was something else entirely. A force. A presence. The kind of beauty that hurt to look at for too long, as if the gods sculpted him only to remind mortals of their insignificance.
They called him the prince of vampires, and in that moment, surrounded by admirers who parted like waves before him, I understood why.
Every creature in the cafeteria seemed drawn to him—either out of reverence or fear. His existence alone was enough to command silence.
It was now, amidst this suffocating awe, that the truth crashed down on me.
We were worlds apart.
In status.
In power.
In everything.
And here, within the school’s walls, that gap was even more painfully clear.
For a fleeting moment, I thought his eyes found mine. A tiny spark inside me dared to believe he saw me—would acknowledge my existence.
But just as quickly, he looked away.
Effortlessly.
Indifferently.
As though I were nothing more than a shadow on the wall.
Of course. I should have expected nothing else.
He had warned me.
We are strangers here.
Almost two months beneath the same roof had meant nothing. Sharing daily routines, passing each other in the corridors, exchanging small words—none of it held weight here.
Here, he was Lord Val, the untouchable noble vampire. And I was... nothing worth noticing.
The ache inside my chest deepened, sharp and humiliating. It was too close to the ache Lorcan left behind—the reminder that I had never truly been wanted by anyone.
Some wounds, it seemed, did not fade. They only found new ways to split open.
I lowered my gaze, exhaled a quiet sigh, and stepped out of the cafeteria before anyone could see the tremble in my hands.
Lunch would be quieter outside anyway.
