Chapter 75: Marked Before Midnight
{CAROLINE}
Vladimir did not answer immediately.
Instead, he spoke with a slow calm. "Did I not warn you," he said, "that if you were caught causing trouble one more time, you would be expelled?"
Valerius laughed, a short, careless sound. "You and I both know that won’t happen." Then his smile sharpened, turning cruel. "So tell me—what makes her so precious that you would intervene personally?"
His red eyes narrowed. "Don’t you realize that because of this, Morgana and the others will never leave her alone? They’re jealous. Or perhaps..." He tilted his head. "They sense what she is to you."
My brows furrowed.
What am I to him?
I looked up at Vladimir once more.
His face remained cold—perfectly sculpted, immovable—but there was something terrifying in the tension of his jaw, in the way the air around him vibrated ever so slightly.
I could not feel his anger directly, yet it pressed against me like an unseen force.
Then he looked down.
Our eyes met.
My heart betrayed me.
It raced wildly, pounding against my ribs as if desperate to escape. His expression softened—just a fraction—and heat rushed to my cheeks. In that instant, he transformed before my eyes, shifting from impossibly handsome to something divine.
"Looks like I still wasn’t clear enough," he said quietly.
I had seen many beautiful men in my life. Noblemen, warriors, vampires of high blood.
But Vladimir Nightborne was in an entirely different realm.
Not even Valerius could compare.
Perhaps only Valtheris Darkmoon came close.
"W-what are you—" I stammered.
I never finished the question.
He moved.
So fast that my vision blurred.
Before I could comprehend what was happening, his fangs descended upon my neck.
Pain struck—
Then blood spilled warm and vivid against my skin, dripping slow to my dress, soaking it red.
I froze.
I could not scream.
I could not move.
Shock claimed me entirely, swallowing thought and reason whole.
I felt him drink.
Yet my mind refused to accept it.
The world narrowed to sensation—to the tightness of his grip around my waist, to the strange duality of pain and something dangerously close to pleasure, to the murmured gasps I did not remember giving permission to escape my lips.
His hand tightened possessively.
I saw him lift his gaze toward the other vampires, blood staining his mouth as his lips curved into a cold, lethal smirk.
"She’s mine."
The declaration fell like a death sentence.
And in that moment, I understood—my life would never be the same again.
====
{IRIS}
"This is... the Screaming Herbarium."
The words left my lips in a hush, as though the garden itself might wake if spoken to too loudly.
I bent closer to the pot, studying the sleeping leaf within. It lay curled upon the dark soil, its surface veined like old parchment, its edges lined with tiny, sharp teeth—snowing ivory against deep green.
Even in slumber, it looked dangerous. Yet there was something almost tender about it, the way it rested, peaceful and still, as if it had never known the sound it was named for.
I brushed my fingers along the rim of the pot, careful not to touch the plant itself.
"It says here," I murmured, glancing down at the open page of my tome, "that if brewed with—" my eyes lingered on the smudged ink where a reagent had been scratched out and rewritten three times, "—it can strengthen arcane magic by one percent for a short time."
One percent. Such a pitiful number to anyone else. But to me, it felt like a miracle.
"Then maybe..." My voice trailed off. Maybe I wouldn’t fail the next practical.
Maybe I could feel my arcane and summon it and not get expulsion?
The night garden breathed around me. Moonlight spilled through the wrought-iron arches above, silvering the leaves and flowers into pale ghosts of themselves.
Somewhere in the distance, water trickled softly, a fountain whispering secrets to the dark. The air was damp with earth and sap, thick with the perfume of nocturnal blooms.
"What are you doing here?"
I jolted so hard my fingers slipped from the book. My heart leapt into my throat, hammering wildly as I spun around.
Jayson stood a few paces away, half-shadowed by the tall hedges. He was watching me with a curious tilt of his head, as though I were some peculiar specimen he had stumbled upon. Moonlight caught on his face—and that was when I saw it.
Blood.
It stained the corner of his mouth, a dark, glistening smear against pale skin. His eyes gleaming red.
"Y-you..." The word barely escaped me. Fear crept into my chest, cold and sudden, coiling tight around my ribs.
I had known, of course. Everyone here knew. This academy was not a sanctuary for the ordinary.
But knowing something and seeing it were two very different things.
"This is past curfew," Jayson said mildly, as though he were scolding a classmate for forgetting homework. "You shouldn’t be wandering around the gardens alone at night."
I took a step back before I could stop myself. The gravel crunched softly under my heel, loud as thunder in my ears.
"W-what about you?" I stammered. My gaze kept betraying me, slipping back to the blood at his lips, the way it gleamed wetly in the moonlight. "What are you...?"
His eyes flicked downward, following my stare. Then he chuckled.
The sound was light. Amused. Entirely too normal.
"Oh, this?" He raised his thumb and wiped the blood away with an easy, careless swipe. Then—without hesitation—he licked it clean, slow, as if savoring the taste.
My stomach twisted.
"Don’t worry," he said cheerfully. "It’s nothing. I just went to eat dinner."
"E-eat... dinner?" My voice trembled despite my effort to steady it.
I had seen him laugh in the hallways, heard him gossip shamelessly in class, watched him lean too close to people just to make fun of them. Jayson was loud, playful, and funny.
But standing before me now, stained with blood and glowing-red eyes beneath the moon, I remembered.
This place was home to creatures of the night.
And Jayson was one of them.
