Black Umbrellas and Shadows
Autumn at St. Laurent Academy always arrived with an endless, drowning deluge.
When the black Rolls-Royce, emblazoned with the twin-headed serpent crest of Clan Ventrue, glided to a halt before the classical Gothic school building, the bustling corridors instantly fell dead silent. The pooled water on the asphalt reflected the towering spires and the bruised, heavy sky, ripples fracturing with every fat drop that struck the surface. 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 immaculate black tailcoat, his bowtie knotted without a single wrinkle, his leather shoes snapping crisply against the rain-washed pavement. 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, carrying just the right amount of magnetic warmth and perfect boundaries. Elegantly, he extended his other hand, shielding the top of the doorframe, using his own broad frame to block the biting, slanting rain from reaching the occupant inside.
Then, a slender ankle clad in a black lace stiletto stepped out.
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 skin was translucent, nearly porcelain, and 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 the wet, freezing floor, not daring to lift their eyes. In this centuries-old academy of elites, Clan Ventrue was absolute royalty.
Eva marched across the red carpet, as regal and haughty as 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. He held the massive umbrella flawlessly steady, ensuring not a single freezing drop marred Eva’s magnificent uniform cloak. Meanwhile, his own left shoulder was already drenched, the wet fabric clinging miserably to his rigid spine.
“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 sheltered cloister, Eva tilted her head slightly. Her voice was ice, devoid of a single shred of warmth, a faint mist clinging to her long eyelashes.
Asher bowed slightly and collapsed the umbrella, his movements fluid as he proffered a clean handkerchief infused with a subtle scent of peppermint. Every gesture had been drilled ten thousand times; it was elegant beyond reproach. “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 with a cold sneer. “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. Eva handed it back, adjusting the dark red satin ribbon at her collar. 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 suffocating, dark midnights of the Ventrue Manor, it was this lowly human whose gentle hands massaged away the agonizing 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, arrogant voice rang out. Rhett Lasombra leaned against a Roman pillar, his custom-tailored uniform intentionally left unbuttoned at the collar. His lackey, Victor, hovered beside him like a loyal lapdog. The moment Rhett caught sight of Eva, a smug, possessive smile broke across his sickly pale yet handsome face. He ate up the distance with his long strides, deliberately unleashing a heavy wave of dominant Alpha pheromones the instant he neared her.
The violent, hyper-aggressive scent of cedarwood and raw leather instantly flooded the air. 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 instantly, a flash of violent disgust igniting in her eyes. She forced the Pureblood power within her veins to churn, fighting back against the sickening, invasive pressure. But for some reason, because the pheromones had hit so abruptly, her blood flared with a bizarre, completely abnormal heat.
Rhett keenly caught the fleeting tremor in Eva’s eyes. He smirked triumphantly, his gaze dropping to Asher, who stood half a step behind her with his head bowed. Glancing with sheer revulsion at this human—a creature devoid of any presence or vampire energy—Rhett deliberately raised his boot and kicked away the black umbrella Asher had just leaned against the pillar.
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 a careless hand, attempting to twine a strand of her silver 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 in eagerly, “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 the shadows where no one could see, his pitch-black eyes turned venomously dark, resembling an abyss frozen over for millennia. Beneath his cuffs, his knuckles turned stark white from the sheer force of his clenched fists, emitting a faint, dangerous pop.
In that split second, the atmospheric gravity in the corridor seemed to multiply exponentially. A barely perceptible, world-crushing 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. Her crimson eyes blazed with lethal light, her sharp fangs baring slightly. The suffocating Pureblood aura of the Ventrue family slammed into Rhett like a tidal wave, forcing his Alpha pheromones back by a full three feet. “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. It was calm, dead, and clinical—like a medical examiner looking at a corpse laid out on an autopsy table. Meeting that gaze, Rhett’s heart inexplicably skipped a beat, a primal terror seizing him from the soles of his feet to the crown of his skull. 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 her wide 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. The musty smell of the old corridor and the scent of rain vanished, replaced by a devastatingly sweet, intoxicating fragrance blooming from her own skin—the scent of overripe red berries bleeding into night-blooming jasmine.
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, unwavering 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 deep, dark eyes, a feral, maddened 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 lethal, dominant Alpha blood coursing through his veins—blood specifically engineered to hunt vampires—to roar and boil after being suppressed for over a decade.
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.
He lightly rubbed his fingers hidden within his sleeve. 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 heavy oak doors of her private lounge loomed at the end of the hall. Eva practically stumbled through, throwing her weight against them. Asher followed, closing the door behind them.
Click.
The crisp sound of the lock sliding into place echoed ominously in the silent room. The first domino had officially fallen on this miserable, rainy morning.
