Chapter 3: The Brutality of Want

St. Valen’s kept its own weather: fog that clung like a second skin, light that didn’t dare arrive uninvited, and shadows that fucking listened. The very air was a conspiracy, thick with the weight of legacies that had drawn blood on these grounds for centuries.

Noah Laurent didn’t watch people. He assessed. He cataloged threats, filed away weaknesses, and kept his distance. It was the only way to keep the Laurent part of him - the cold, strategic weapon part - in its cage. It kept his world orderly.

Althea Sombra ended that order.

At first, he’d told himself it was just… analysis. The new legacy, the whispers of her power, the rottweiler that prowled at her heels like a possessive guardian. But ‘analysis’ was a cold, thin word for what this felt like. This was recognition.

He learned her schedule, marking his hours by her. South cloister. Music with. The library chair by the fire. He wasn’t a predator learning its prey. He was a man with a proximity mine, and she was the only other one in the field. He knew that look. The forced calm. The control that was too perfect. He called it “observation”. The word tasted like a lie. This was a compulsion.

He found her in the quiet places. At dawn, behind the chapel, shoes cast aside, bare toes curling the wet grass. Her hair, a fall of midnight, unbound. He watched her feed the beast, Umbra, from her own hand.

“Dahan, dahan,” she’d murmur, the word a caress. Slowly.

When the dog nudged her, she laughed - a low, genuine sound that vibrated in the cold air. And it hurt. It was the sound of peace he’d been trained to believe he didn’t deserve.

Noah watched from the colonnade, a shadow among shadows, and a damning thought struck him: She’s not a weapon yet, but she’s trying to make her one.

He should’ve walked away. He was a goddamned Laurent. He didn’t.

Steel singing against steel was the only language that made sense at St. Valen’s. Professor Deveraux, the old bastard, must have smelled the blood in the water.

He paired them.

From the bleachers, Luca Ashford leaned forward, a lacy, predatory smile touching his lips.

“En garde,” Deveraux said, pleased with his own mischief.

It wasn’t a duel. It was an interrogation. He feinted; she dodged. He pressed; she lured. But with every clash, he felt something else. A… volatility… in her, a coiled chaos that mirrored the very thing he kept chained inside himself.

He saw the opening. He lunged. But it wasn’t the ‘Laurent’ who lunged. It was the part of him trained to end a fight.

She shouldn’t have been able to stop it.

*Clang*

Their blades locked. The vibration ran up his arm, a shockwave that settled deep in his gut.

*Thud*

Her back hit the wall. His blade was at her throat. The tip of it, hovering over the hollow where her pulse hammered, a frantic bird against the cage of her skin. His free hand slammed against the wall by her hip, trapping her.

They breathed the same air. Hot. Stale. Theirs. Mask to mask. He could smell her - sweat, iron, and something underneath. Something that smelled like home. The monster in him was purring, and he was disgusted.

“Yield,” he snarled, but the snarl was at himself.

Through the mesh, her eyes were bright. Feral. She wasn’t scared of him. She was scared for herself. “Make me,” she whispered.

A sound tore from his throat, something not human.

“Ahem.” Deveraux cleared his throat, snapping the spell.

Noah stepped back. It felt like ripping his own skin off. “Touch, Laurent,” Deveraux said, blissfully unaware. Noah saluted. His hand was shaking. Not from exertion. From shame.

Althea pulled off her mask. Her face was infuriatingly cool, but that pulse - that beautiful, traitorous pulse - was still hammering for him. She met his gaze, and he knew.

He had shown her the monster. And she hadn’t even flinched.

He found her in the stone corridor, the heat of their duel still radiating between them. He had to. He had to know if he’d broken something.

“Althea.” Her name felt rough on his tongue. She turned, her back braced against the wall.

“Came to apologize, Laurent?”

His jaw worked. He looked exhausted. “I… yeah. I am.” He’d shocked her. She’s been braced for an argument, not a surrender. “That… in there,” he said, his voice low, clipped. “That wasn’t… it was a slip.”

“A slip?” she shot back, a tiny wound at the corner of her perfect lips. “You wear ‘almost’ well, Laurent.”

A sound tore from his throat, something raw. “You’re not helping.”

“Wasn’t trying to.”

He had her. One step, and he was in her space, his hands slamming on the stone on either side of her head. Caging her. He breathed her in. God.

“Tell me to leave,” he whispered, his voice pleading

Her eyes, smoke and shadow, held his. “Why? So you can ignore me again?”

He leaned in, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear. He felt her shudder. Good. “Because I’m not the good guy, Althea,” he breathed, the confession ripped from him. “I’m just… contained. And right now, with you… I’m not.” His voice was a wreck.

Her hands came up, meaning to push him away. They didn’t. They fisted in his shirt, right over his heart. It hammered against her knuckles, a desperate, trapped thing.

“People are watching,” she whispered, her voice breathy.

“Let them.” He lowered his head, his gaze dropping to her mouth. That soft, defiant, perfect mouth. His lips were a breath away. A single, damning inch. He could taste her. “Tell me to leave, Althea.”

“I…” she whispered, her worn control shattering. “I don’t…”

“Please,” he begged, and the word broke him. He closed his eyes. And that… that shattered her control. “Both can be true,” she whispered, and the confession was a litany.

He ripped himself away. His palms hit the cold stone. Fuck. He’d almost asked her to save him. He couldn’t do that to her.

She stared at him, her chest rising and falling, her composure cracked.

“You’re very good at almost,” she said, her voice shaking.

He swallowed, his throat raw. “I’m trying,” he bit it out, “to not be what they made me.” And then he left.

Althea leaned against the stone, her bones buzzing. “In for four… out for six.”

Down the hall, a shadow detached itself from the wall. Noah. He watched her gentle herself, his gaze a physical, burning weight. He looked like a man starving.

Luca Ashford found her by the fountain. He’d been watching her since she’d dared stand up to him.

“Miss Sombra.” His voice was a caress over steel.

“Mr. Ashford.” She didn’t even look up. God, he loved that.

“The courtyard,” he said, gliding closer. “You’re either brave. Or reckless.”

“I’m bored,” she replied, finally meeting his gaze.

He laughed, a cold sound. “I like people who are not afraid to be rude.”

“And what do you want, Mr. Ashford?” she asked, all patience and steel.

He took the last step. " I want to know if you’re ‘no’ is a promise, or foreplay.”

Umbra growled. Althea’s eyes flashed.

“Don’t mistake my interest for permission.”

“Oh, I’m not,” he purred, his smile all teeth. “I keep wondering what it would take to make you break. Whether I want to be the one who makes you laugh, or the storm that finally makes you scream.”

“You don’t get to be both, unfortunately,” she said. “We’ll see.”

A new presence. The air chilled.

Noah.

He stepped out of the administration building, his eyes black holes. He looked at Althea first, a raw, protective look that made Luca’s blood sing. Then he looked at Luca. He was looking at a man who enjoyed pulling the pin on a grenade just to see what would happen. And his disgust was palpable.

“Luca,” Noah said, his voice a quiet threat.

“Laurent.”

“Is this business?” Noah asked, all polite violence.

“Pleasure,” Luca returned, his gaze sliding back to Althea. “She’s terrible for me. I find I… enjoy it.”

“Good,” Althea said, and Noah looked like he was about to commit murder.

The three of them stood there, a triangle of want and power and secrets.

“Walk with me,” Noah commanded Althea. It wasn’t a request. It was a lifeline.

“Another time,” she replied, cold as stone, dismissing them both.

Luca bowed, a prince’s gesture. “Miss Sombra.”

They watched her walk away, her Rottweiler at her heels.

One, a man who wanted to unleash the chaos.

The other, a man who would die to contain it.

And the air cackled with the promise of war.

Night fell. Althea sat on her floor, hands buried in Umbra’s fur.

“Shhhh…Tahimik,” she whispered to the dog or maybe to the buzzing in her own veins. Quiet.

In the east colonnade, Luca stood with an unlit cigarette between his fingers, needing to hold something that wasn’t the memory of her defiance. He liked the moment before the fall. He wanted the ruin.

Across campus, Noah stared out his window, his hands clenched so tight his knuckles ached. His father’s text lit up his phone.

You are a Laurent before you are anything else.

He let it burn.

They’re all trying to make her a monster, he thought, his jaw tightening just like they made me.

At dawn, she would be there again, barefoot in the grass.

Hinga, apat… labas, anim. In for four… out for six.