Chapter 4 Chapter four

ZORA’S POV

The words hit me hard. 

‘What?!!!’

Valen’s entire posture went still. The arrogant, untouchable mask he had worn since the train completely cracked. “You cannot be serious. You want me to share my private wing with a stray? Absolutely not.”

“It was not a request, Valen,” the Principal said coldly, turning her back on both of us as she began walking down the corridor. “Take your new roommate to your quarters before I decide to strip you of your captain position.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Valen turned his head slowly to look down at me, his dark eyes completely wild with a chaotic, dangerous energy.

He did not say a single word. He turned on his heel and stormed down the dark path toward the residential towers.

He slammed the door to his executive suite open, throwing it back so hard it embedded into the wall. The suite was massive, luxurious, smelling heavily of him. 

The moment I stepped over the threshold, Valen turned around, grabbing the front of my heavy winter coat and violently pinning me against the solid oak door.

The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. His face was only centimeters from mine, his chest heaving with shallow breaths as his massive strength trapped me completely. 

“Listen to me very carefully, you little parasite,” Valen hissed, his voice dropping to a deep growl that vibrated straight through my chest. “I do not care what my mother said. You do not touch anything in this suite. You stay in that dark corner room, you do not look at me, and you do not breathe the same air as me. If you step out of line even once, I will make your life a living hell.”

“Get your hands off me, Valen,” I choked out, refusing to look down as I tried to pry his iron fingers away from my coat. “Your mother ordered this, not me. If you have a problem with it, go fight her instead of taking it out on me like a coward.”

“A coward?,” he repeated, his grip tightening as he leaned even closer. His eyes were completely dark, the pupils dilated until the iris was almost entirely gone. “You have absolutely no idea what I am capable of doing to you.”

The physical proximity was overwhelming, our breaths tangling together in the dark room.

I wanted to bite him, to hit him, to use the hidden magic in my blood to blast him away from me.

But then, my true nature violently surged forward.

My inner mermaid core—the deep, ancient empathetic instinct that my family had died to protect—unlocked within my chest. It bypassed my conscious anger and reached straight into the energy rolling off his body.

And what I felt made me completely freeze.

Underneath the violent threats, beneath the arrogant posture and the terrifying Lycan dominance, Valen was radiating a massive wave of genuine distress.

It was an agonizing mental pain that felt like a parasite eating him alive from the inside out. He wasn’t just angry about a roommate. He was truly, deeply suffering in a way that made my own chest ache with an unwanted stab of sympathy.

His grip on my jaw faltered for a fraction of a second, his breath hitching as he stared down at me, as if his own dark subconscious could feel my nature probing his pain.

I swallowed hard as I stared directly into his wild, tortured eyes. “You are truly miserable, aren’t you?”

Valen blinked, a sudden look of absolute shock blooming on his features before his expression hardened into pure venom. He violently released my coat, stepping back as if my touch had burned him.

“Get out of my sight,” he growled, turning his back to me as his hands began to visibly tremble. “Get into your room before I lose my mind completely.”

VALEN’S POV

The train carriage vibrated violently against the tracks as we went deeper into the mountains. 

I sat in the corner of the leather booth, staring out the window while chewing on a thick piece of black, bitter root.

The taste was absolutely disgusting, coating my throat in a weird, burning residue, but I forced myself to swallow it without changing my expression.

Around me, the rest of the hockey mates were loudly joking, laughing, and sharing stories about their summer breaks.

“Man, the incoming Fae freshmen this semester are supposed to be incredible,” Jax, our defenseman, said with a wide grin as he leaned back against the seat. “My girl already told me half of her sorority is planning to camp out by the rink just to watch our opening match against the alpine division.”

“Just make sure you keep your head in the game this season, Jax,” Garrick laughed, slamming his massive, rocky fist against the table. “Coach will kick us straight to the bench if we lose the first tournament.”

I kept completely quiet, staring at the white snow passing by the glass while my teeth ground down on the last of the root.

Jax glanced over at me, his expression softening into a look of sympathetic concern. “Hey, Valen, it is better if you just eat up all that root early in the trip. Your mom is always on your case about the academy health regime before the season starts. Just get it over with.”

“Yeah, I am almost done,” I muttered, my voice tight.

They thought it was just my mother’s strict dietary instructions for the athletic program. 

They had absolutely no idea that the bitter, toxic plant was the only thing holding the  demon core inside my soul back from tearing my body apart from the inside out.

Without the root to numb my senses, the dark energy in my blood would consume my Lycan half entirely, exposing the monstrous secret my family had spent decades hiding from the high council.