1
Autumn at St. Laurent Academy always arrived with an endless, drowning deluge.
When the black Rolls-Royce glided to school building, the corridors instantly fell silent.
The car’s windows were heavily tinted with one-way privacy film.
ruthlessly walling off the outside world—and the gazes of awe, envy, and malicious curiosity that came with it.
The door clicked open, and a massive black umbrella snapped to life first.
The hand holding it was long-fingered, clean, and sharply defined, yet starkly pale. Its owner wore an、black tailcoat. He kept his head slightly bowed, his demeanor meek and reverent. This was Asher, a mere human servant.
“Watch your step, My Lady.”
Asher’s voice was low and smooth.Elegantly, he extended his other hand, shielding the top of the doorfram.
Eva Ventrue crossed the threshold of the vehicle.
She possessed a waterfall of silver hair that cascaded down her back, gleaming with a frigid luster under the bleak sky.
her blood-red eyes swept coldly over her surroundings, radiating the suffocating pressure of ancient nobility.
The surrounding vampire students bowed their heads in quick succession.
Behind them, the human blood-slaves they kept trembled, dropping to their knees on floor, not daring to lift their eyes. In this centuries-old elites, Clan Ventrue was absolute royalty.
Eva marched across thecarpet, as regal an empress inspecting her territory.
Asher followed half a step behind her, a distance so precise it could have been measured with a ruler—close enough to shield her with his body at a moment’s notice, yet far enough to never cross the boundary of master and servant.
“I heard that fellow, Rhett, opened his mouth at the Student Council today. He claims he’s going to propose to me at this year’s Hunt Festival?”
As they entered the cloiste。
the umbrella, he proffered a handkerchief.
“Master Rhett does indeed harbor such intentions, My Lady. Shall I draft a rejection for you? Or perhaps I should personally remind his attendants to mind their station.”
Eva took the handkerchief, casually dabbing at her fingertips。
“He’s nothing but a peacock in rut, relying entirely on his pheromones to bully others. Ignore him. If he dares extend his claws too far, I don’t mind snapping his bones in front of the entire academy.”
The handkerchief held not only the crispness of mint but also a trace of Asher’s lingering warmth.
To the outside world, she was an untouchable Pureblood, the future heir to the Grand Duchy, and Asher was merely a disposable asset.
No one knew that in the midnights of the Ventrue Manor, it was this human whose hands massaged away the migraines brought on by her bloodline’s purification.
However, at the turn of the corridor, the peace shattered.
“Well, well. If it isn’t our noble Lady Eva.”
A flippant voice rang out. Rhett Lasombra leaned against apillar, his custom-tailored uniform intentionally left unbuttoned at the collar.
His lackey, Victor, hovered beside him like a lapdog. The moment Rhett caught sight of Eva, a smu smile broke across his face.
He ate up the distance,deliberately unleashing a heavy wave of dominant Alpha pheromones the instant he neared her.
The pressure of a high-tier Alpha swept through the corridor like an invisible tsunami.
Several lower-ranking vampires and human Betas went pale, their knees buckling as they nearly collapsed to the floor.
Eva’s brows knitted. She forced the Pureblood power within her veins to churn, fighting back against the pressure. But for some reason, because the pheromones had hit so abruptly, her blood flared with a bizarre heat.
Rhett caught the fleeting tremor in Eva’s eyes.
He smirked his gaze dropping to Asher, who stood half a step behind her with his head bowed —Rhett deliberately raised his boot and kicked away.
With a sharp clack, the expensive umbrella rolled across the floor, caking itself in muddy water.
“Eva, you still love carrying this pathetic human toy around,” Rhett sneered, stepping closer.
He reached out hand, attempting to twine a strand of her hair around his finger.
“A useless blood-slave who doesn’t even possess a vampire’s basic instincts doesn’t deserve to stand by your side. St. Laurent isn’t an asylum. Once we are betrothed, I’ll personally gift you a dozen pets that are far more obedient and strong. As for this thing...”
Rhett shot Asher a mocking glare, looking at him as if he were a pile of garbage.
The surrounding crowd erupted into a chorus of malicious snickers.
Victor chimed
“Young Master Rhett is right. Humans belong in the cattle pens.”
Faced with such humiliation, Asher merely lowered his head further,
his bangs falling over his eyes to obscure his expression.
In that split second, the atmospheric gravity in the corridor seemed to multiply exponentially.
A barely perceptible pressure of a primordial Alpha flashed from Asher’s form. It was too fast, too deeply hidden.
Rhett only felt a sudden, icy shiver run up his spine, his temples throbbing violently. He brushed it off, assuming it was a mere illusion caused by overexerting his own pheromones.
“Rhett. Mind your feet, and mind your filthy eyes.”
Eva violently slapped Rhett’s hand away.
“Asher is a servant of the Ventrue family. Even if he were a dog, he is not for a Lasombra to kick. If I see you touch my property again, I will personally submerge your feet in holy water.”
Without giving the pale-faced Rhett another glance, Eva spun on her heel, sweeping past him with Asher in tow.
“My Lady, you forgot your umbrella!”
Victor shouted mockingly from behind.
Asher didn’t bother retrieving the mud-stained umbrella; he kept tight pace behind Eva. The moment they turned into a deserted hallway, he shot a backward glance toward Rhett.
What kind of look was that? There wasn’t a shred of human fear or submission in it.
like a medical examiner looking at a corpse laid out on an autopsy table. Meeting that gaze, Rhett’s heart inexplicably skipped a beat.
Damn it. How could he be intimidated by a mere human?
Meanwhile, Eva, walking ahead, had no capacity to notice the undercurrents behind her.
Her strides were frantic, and the hands hidden beneath sleeves were trembling uncontrollably.
Triggered by Rhett’s Alpha pheromones, the abnormal heat inside her hadn’t subsided.
Instead, it felt as though someone had poured oil onto a roaring fire.
The heat surged from her abdomen, racing up her spine, instantly flushing the tips of her ears crimson.
It was the scent of an Omega.
Eva instinctively pressed her pale fingers hard against the smooth skin at the nape of her neck, a wave of unprecedented panic crashing over her.
This is impossible! Absolutely impossible!
To conceal the dangerous secret of her rare Omega sub-gender, she strictly took the highest-grade vampire suppressants gifted by the Grand Duke every month.
Her next heat cycle wasn’t due for another three months. Why... why was her body suddenly burning? Why were the suppressants failing?
Worse, this was the academic building. In five minutes, the morning bell would ring, and hundreds of restless vampire Alphas would flood the halls. If they caught a whiff of a Pureblood Omega in heat, it would trigger an absolute catastrophe.
“My Lady, your breathing is erratic,” Asher’s voice drifted over smoothly from behind.
Eva’s body stiffened completely. Not daring to look back, she grit her teeth, masking her panic with a razor-sharp, commanding frost: “Shut up, Asher. To... to my private lounge. Now!”
“As you wish, My Lady.”
Asher bowed his head, his voice dripping with his usual obedience.
Yet, in the blind spot of Eva’s vision, the servant who had always behaved like a shadow slowly lifted his gaze. In those eyes, a feral, glint flickered—the look of a predator locking onto its prey.
In the air, the sweet aroma of wild berries grew heavier and more intoxicating.
To a vampire, this was the ultimate mating signal; but to Asher, it was a volatile catalyst. It caused the Alpha blood coursing through his veins—blood specifically engineered to hunt vampires.
He took a deep, slow breath, inhaling every drop of Eva’s sweet fragrance into his lungs.
“My Lady seems to be feeling a bit under the weather,” Asher murmured, watching the silver-haired girl ahead whose steps were turning soft and clumsy.
A deeply hidden, terrifying smile touched the corners of his lips.
Why would the suppressants granted by the Grand Duke fail three months ahead of schedule? Because for the past week, the morning black tea My Lady drank daily contained a tiny, human-engineered “special seasoning.”
The web had been spun, and his most noble, most arrogant lady was walking straight into the trap he had meticulously laid out.
The doors of her private loomed at the end of the hall.
Eva practically stumbled through, throwing her weight against them. Asher followed, closing the door behind them.
Click.
