---
The morning air tasted strange—too clean, too normal.
Virella stared at the looming gray building, its glass windows catching the sun like watchful eyes. She had seen this place in Varen's memories. The high school where he had once played the charming new kid, hiding his century-old past behind crooked smiles and forged transcripts.
Now they were doing the same.
The irony wasn't lost on her.
"Are you sure about this?" Callum asked, tugging on his backpack strap. "We're really going undercover as students?"
"It's the only place Varen returned to every century," Alaric said, already striding toward the front doors. "There's something here. Something he wants. And if he's already planted someone, we need to find out who."
Virella adjusted her jacket and walked beside them. The three of them didn't exactly look like average students. They carried battle-worn eyes and tension in their muscles. But magic could smooth edges, alter perceptions. And Rian had forged the documents that got them registered just days ago.
They were now officially enrolled as juniors.
Welcome back to hell.
---
The inside of the school was too bright, too loud. Lockers slammed. Shoes squeaked on tile. Voices overlapped like a buzzing hive.
Virella felt the difference instantly.
Here, no one knew she could shatter bone with a flick of her hand. No one knew she had killed three vampires last week. No one knew her blood wasn't entirely human anymore.
Here, she was just another teenage girl with haunted eyes.
"Okay," Callum said, consulting the fake schedule. "Looks like I've got Physics first. You?"
"History," Alaric muttered.
"Same," Virella said.
She and Alaric exchanged a look. Unspoken tension still lingered from the kiss they'd shared after the last battle. It hadn't been mentioned since. But the air between them wasn't the same.
Callum gave her a slight nod. "Catch you at lunch."
He walked off, leaving the two of them alone.
"Let's get this over with," Virella said, brushing past Alaric toward Room 117.
---
History class was taught by a thin woman with twitchy hands and coffee stains on her blouse. Mrs. Elroy. She didn't question the new students. She barely glanced up.
"Take a seat," she mumbled, scribbling something about the Industrial Revolution on the whiteboard.
Virella sat near the back. Alaric chose the seat next to hers.
Most of the other students were either half-asleep or absorbed in their phones. None of them noticed that two monsters had just entered their world.
Halfway through class, Alaric leaned over and whispered, "Do you feel that?"
Virella nodded.
Yes—something was off.
Not in the classroom. Beneath it.
There was a pulse in the air, faint but rhythmic. Like a heartbeat under the floor. Or a seal waiting to break.
"Varen's been here recently," Alaric murmured.
"I know."
---
They spent the rest of the morning mapping the building. Hidden doorways, locked janitor closets, ducts that were too wide for maintenance purposes. Rian's intel had mentioned a few suspicious blueprints beneath the school—a rumored sublevel not listed in any official document.
During lunch, the three regrouped under the bleachers of the football field.
"Anything?" Callum asked, biting into a sandwich he didn't need to eat.
"There's a weak energy line under the west wing," Alaric said. "Old blood magic. It's dormant, but barely."
"Could be a vault key," Virella added. "Or a containment ward. Either way, Varen's hiding something down there."
"Or someone," Callum muttered.
They fell silent for a moment, all thinking the same thing.
A trap.
And yet, none of them turned back.
---
That night, they returned after hours.
The school was empty, dimly lit by emergency lights. Their footsteps echoed through the halls as they made their way to the west wing.
Virella found the access point first—an old faculty elevator with no working buttons. Runes were etched faintly behind the frame, invisible to normal eyes.
"I'll get us in," Alaric said, placing a hand over the runes. His hybrid blood shimmered silver-blue, reacting to the symbols. The elevator shook, then slid open with a groan.
They stepped in.
Down they went.
---
The sublevel was a labyrinth.
Cold, concrete, filled with dust and forgotten storage. But deeper in, the walls changed—stone replaced tile, old torches replaced lights. This had been built long before the school.
"Looks like catacombs," Callum whispered.
"No," Virella said, running her fingers along the moss-covered stone. "Sanctuary. Or maybe a prison."
Then they heard it.
A soft humming.
They followed the sound until they reached a door covered in black vines—alive, pulsing.
Blood magic.
Alaric took a step forward, but Virella stopped him.
"Let me."
She bit her palm, letting hybrid blood drip onto the vines. The reaction was instant—fire, hiss, smoke.
The door unlocked.
Inside was a small chamber—and a girl.
---
She couldn't have been more than sixteen. Floating inside a glass capsule, eyes closed, surrounded by glowing sigils. Her skin was pale, but she wasn't dead. Her chest rose and fell—barely.
"She's a sleeper," Alaric whispered.
"A blood battery," Virella said, fury rising in her throat. "He's keeping her alive to feed something."
"Or wake something," Callum added grimly.
They didn't recognize her. But the symbol on her collarbone—burned into her skin—was the same one they'd seen in the ruins near Selene's ancient vault.
The vault Varen wanted to open.
"He's using her blood as a key," Alaric said.
Then Virella stepped forward, hand hovering over the capsule's release rune.
"Wait," Callum said. "If we wake her, she could be bound to him."
"She's a prisoner," Virella said. "We don't leave people behind."
And she activated the seal.
---
The capsule hissed open. The girl's eyes fluttered, revealing irises of glowing red. For a moment, panic seized her features.
Then she screamed.
The sound wasn't human.
Alaric grabbed her shoulders. "You're safe—look at me!"
But her eyes weren't focused on them. She was looking beyond them. At something coming.
Then she whispered one word before fainting again.
"Varen…"
---
They carried her out, using another tunnel exit that led to the nearby woods. Dawn was breaking when they reached the edge of the school grounds.
"We need to get her to Rian," Virella said.
But before they could move, they heard it.
Footsteps. Soft. Deliberate.
From the trees emerged a boy—familiar, yet strange. Pale skin, dark eyes, and that damned smile.
"Leaving already?" he asked. "You just got here."
Varen.
---
Virella stepped forward, blood already surging in her veins. "You've been hiding under a school again? Really?"
"It's nostalgic," Varen said, spreading his arms. "Besides, I like teenagers. So dramatic."
Alaric growled low in his throat, hands already shifting with hybrid rage. "Get out of our way."
Varen tilted his head. "Is that any way to greet an old friend, Alaric? We used to be close."
"Until you betrayed me. Until you let my mother die."
Varen's face darkened. "She chose to die. She chose the Council over us."
Callum set the girl gently down beside a tree, unsheathing his silver dagger. "We're not here to argue history. Just try us, Varen."
For a moment, Varen said nothing.
Then his eyes flicked to Virella.
"You kissed him, didn't you?" he asked with a mock pout. "Alaric always was the brooding type. But don't forget, you liked me first."
She didn't flinch.
"I also liked fire," she said. "And I still burned it down."
That made him laugh.
"Fair enough. But the game's only just beginning."
Then, without another word, Varen vanished into smoke.
---
Back at their temporary hideout, the girl remained unconscious, guarded and warded. Rian examined her blood and confirmed it: part-vampire, part something older.
"She was created," Rian said. "Bred to open the second vault. Varen's made more than an army. He's made keys."
Virella sat beside her, watching her chest rise and fall.
"We have to stop him before he finds the others."
Alaric sat across from her, gaze unreadable.
"I'll contact my grandfather," he said. "We'll need all the allies we can get."
Callum leaned in the doorway, arms crossed.
"You sure she's not dangerous?"
"No," Virella said honestly. "But we'll protect her anyway."
Alaric looked at her then. Really looked.
"I meant what I said before," he murmured. "I'm not here to win your heart."
She met his gaze.
"But you have it," she said softly.
And for a moment, the war faded.
----