CHAPTER FOUR

The transition from being an invisible nobody to the absolute epicenter of school gossip happened in less than twenty-four hours.

When I walked through the double doors of Nevermore High the next morning, the typical low hum of morning chatter instantly died down to an eerie, suffocating silence. Necks snapped in my direction. Whispers erupted like a sudden wildfire, passing from locker to locker as students openly stared, pointed, and snickered.

*“There she is.”*

*“The pathetic wolfless girl who wrote that letter.”*

*“Did you hear what the new boy did to Nicholas yesterday? He actually slammed him against a locker for her.”*

I clamped my jaw shut, gripping the straps of my backpack until my knuckles turned white. My face burned with a toxic cocktail of lingering humiliation and sheer anxiety. I kept my eyes glued to the scuffed linoleum floor, desperately wishing the ground would crack open and swallow me whole. The memory of Lydia reading my private, raw confession to the entire hallway—and Nathaniel’s utterly cold, indifferent response—still felt like a fresh blade twisting in my ribs.

I hurried toward my locker, needing a physical barrier between myself and the predatory stares of my peers. But as I reached for the metal latch, a towering shadow fell over me.

My heart did a violent flip against my ribs. I looked up, expecting to see Nathaniel’s golden hair and judgmental scowl. Instead, I was met with a wall of solid chest clad in a dark leather jacket, and a pair of piercing, bottomless green eyes.

Timothee.

He was leaning casually against the adjacent locker, one hand slipped deep into his pocket, looking completely unaffected by the chaos he had caused the day before. His black hair fell effortlessly across his forehead, and up close, I could smell the faint, intoxicating scent of pine, ozone, and something dark and crackling—like a thunderstorm rolling in.

"You look like you're about to faint, little wolf," Timothee said, his hoarse, low voice cutting through the ambient noise of the hallway.

"I'm fine," I mumbled, avoiding his intense gaze as I quickly grabbed my geometry textbook. "And please don't call me that out here. People are already looking at us."

Timothee let out a dark, amused scoff, shifting his weight. "Let them look. Werewolves spend half their lives barking at things they're too afraid to bite. They don't scare me."

"Well, they scare me," I admitted under my breath. "I don't have a wolf to protect me, Timothee. Yesterday was... a lot."

A subtle shift passed over his features. The mocking glint in his green eyes vanished, replaced by a sudden, intense seriousness. He took a half-step closer, crowding my personal space just enough that I could feel the unnatural warmth radiating from his skin.

"I told you yesterday, Mercy," he murmured, his voice dropping to a dangerous, velvety register that made my stomach do a strange, fluttering dance. "Nobody touches you while I'm around. I meant it."

Before I could process the sudden, heavy thumping of my heart, a sharp, clicking sound echoed down the corridor. The crowd of students parted like the Red Sea, and the heavy scent of vanilla and expensive perfume filled the air.

Lydia.

She was flanked by her usual sycophants, her blonde hair perfectly curled and her blue eyes flashing with pure, unadulterated malice. Beside her walked Nathaniel, looking every bit the alpha prince, though his jaw was tightly clenched and his eyes narrowed the moment he spotted Timothee.

Lydia stopped a few feet away, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at me, completely ignoring Timothee's imposing presence.

"Well, well. If it isn't the charity case and her terrifying new stray," Lydia sneered, her voice dripping with venom. "I'm surprised you showed your face today, Mercy. If I had been caught writing pathetic, desperate love letters to someone who clearly views me as a peasant, I would have transferred schools."

I shrank back against my locker, the old, familiar shame washing over me. I looked instinctively at Nathaniel, hoping for even a shred of the kindness I had always imagined he possessed. But he just stood there, his arm wrapped tightly around Lydia's waist, his expression hard and unreadable. He didn't say a word to defend me. The silence from my childhood crush hurt infinitely worse than Lydia's taunts.

"You have a really loud mouth for someone who completely relies on others to fight her battles," Timothee's voice cut through the tension like a jagged razor.

Lydia's head snapped toward him, her lips curling into a snarl. "Excuse me? Do you even know who I am? Do you know who his father is?" She pointed a manicured finger at Nathaniel. "You got lucky yesterday, new boy. But if you think you can disrespect us in our own school, you're dead wrong."

Timothee didn't flinch. In fact, he took a step forward, shielding me entirely from her view. The air around us suddenly grew heavy, the temperature in the hallway dropping subtly as a dark, oppressive aura began to bleed from his frame.

"I don't care who your parents are, and I don't care about your pathetic little pack hierarchy," Timothee growled, a low, vibration-like sound rattling in his chest. "I gave your boyfriend a warning yesterday. Tell your girl to keep her mouth shut, or I'll personally ensure she can't use it to speak again."

"Timothee, stop," I whispered frantically from behind him, grabbing the edge of his leather jacket. I could feel the sheer, terrifying power vibrating through him. If he lost control here, if his eyes turned red in front of the entire student body, his secret would be blown, and a war would erupt right in the middle of the school.

Nathaniel stepped forward, his alpha aura flaring in response to the challenge. "You need to back off, man. You're pushing your luck."

"Am I?" Timothee challenged, his muscles tensing as he prepared for a fight.

The warning bell suddenly rang overhead, its loud, mechanical blare shattering the standoff. Students began moving frantically to their classes, breaking the suffocating tension.

Lydia let out a frustrated huff, glaring at Timothee with a mixture of rage and deep suspicion. She tried to catch a whiff of his scent, her nose twitching slightly, but her brow furrowed in utter confusion. She couldn't smell a wolf on him, and in a school entirely populated by werewolves, that was an impossible anomaly.

"This isn't over," Lydia hissed, grabbing Nathaniel's arm and dragging him away toward the AP English wing.

As they walked away, Timothee slowly let out a breath, the dark aura fading back beneath his skin. He turned around to face me, his green eyes scanning my pale face.

"Are you okay?" he asked bluntly.

"No," I breathed, my hands shaking as I hugged my textbook to my chest. "You can't keep doing that, Timothee. Lydia is smart, and she's malicious. Did you see the way she was looking at you? She's already trying to figure out what you are. If she figures out you're a demon, they will kill you."

Timothee's jaw clenched, a look of pure annoyance crossing his face. "Let them try. But fine. For the sake of my mission, I'll try to play nice with the local wildlife." He turned on his heel and began walking toward the biology labs without another word, leaving me standing alone in the rapidly emptying hallway.

The rest of the school day passed in a blur of exhausting anxiety. I spent every class dodging whispers and avoiding any eye contact with Nathaniel or Lydia. But as the final bell rang, signifying the end of the day, a different kind of dread settled into my stomach.

The pain.

It started as a dull, throbbing ache right in the center of my chest. At first, I thought it was just the residual stress of the morning, but as I walked out toward the school parking lot, the ache sharpened into a fierce, stabbing agony.

I gasped, stumbling against a concrete pillar near the courtyard. My vision blurred, and a cold sweat broke out across my forehead. The pain wasn't coming from my own body—it felt external, like a phantom blade piercing through my soul, dragging my energy down into a dark, bottomless pit.

*Timothee.*

The realization struck me instantly. Our mating bond. His aunt had said I was the cure to his terminal heart illness, but yesterday on the ice, I had felt the agonizing backlash of his sickness. Right now, wherever he was, his heart was failing him, and because of our bond, my body was mirroring the trauma.

I forced my legs to move, ignoring the agonizing spasms in my chest as I followed the invisible, magnetic pull of the bond. It led me away from the main exit and right back toward the sports complex—specifically, the ice hockey rink.

The heavy double doors of the arena groaned as I pushed them open, the blast of sub-zero air hitting my face and making me shiver. The stadium lights were dimmed, casting long, eerie shadows across the reflective white sheet of ice.

There, sitting on the player's bench near the home-team dugout, was Timothee.

He had his head buried in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking violently as he gasped for air. Even from across the rink, I could see the faint, dangerous red glow illuminating the space between his fingers. His demon form was fighting to break through, triggered by the intense physical stress of his failing heart.

"Timothee!" I cried out, my voice echoing off the empty rafters as I rushed down the concrete steps.

He snapped his head up, his eyes entirely crimson, devoid of their usual brilliant green. Black veins were spider-webbing up his neck, pulsing with a volatile, dark energy. "Mercy... stay back," he choked out, his voice a distorted, demonic growl that sent shivers down my spine. "It's... it's too much today. The magic... it's burning me from the inside."

"I'm not leaving you," I said defiantly.

I scrambled over the low partition wall, my sneakers sliding dangerously on the slick ice as I ran toward him. The closer I got, the more the crushing pain in my own chest began to ease, replaced by a strange, magnetic warmth that urged me forward.

I reached the bench and dropped to my knees right in front of him, instantly wrapping my arms around his waist and burying my face into his chest.

Timothee stiffened completely, a harsh gasp escaping his throat. For a terrifying second, I thought he was going to push me away. But then, his large, trembling hands came up, gripping my shoulders with a desperate, white-knuckled intensity as he pulled me even closer, burying his face into the crook of my neck.

The effect was instantaneous.

A massive, sweeping wave of raw energy surged between us. It felt like a torrential downpour extinguishing a raging forest fire. The agonizing friction in my chest dissolved into total, absolute tranquility. I could hear his heartbeat beneath his shirt—frantic and chaotic at first, but slowly, rhythmically settling into a steady, powerful thumping.

The black veins on his neck receded, and the terrifying crimson glow in his eyes faded back into a soft, calm green.

We stayed like that for several minutes, wrapped in each other's arms in the freezing, dark arena, the absolute silence of the room punctuated only by our synchronized breathing. I felt entirely safe in his hold, a realization that terrified me far more than his demonic nature.

Slowly, Timothee loosened his grip, allowing me to pull back slightly so I could look up at him. His face was pale, sweat dampening his dark hair, but his breathing was normal again.

"Are you okay now?" I whispered, my hands still resting gently against his chest.

Timothee looked down at me, his green eyes wide and intensely focused, reading every line of my face as if he were trying to memorize it. His gaze dropped briefly to my lips before snapping back to my eyes, a sudden, heavy tension settling over the space between us.

"Yeah," he breathed, his voice unusually soft, devoid of its usual biting sarcasm. "The pain is gone."

"Good," I smiled faintly, relieved.

But as I began to shift my weight to stand up, my palm accidentally slipped against his bare wrist, brushing right against the skin where his demonic energy stored itself.

*Zap.*

A violent shockwave of pure electricity shot straight up my arm. Timothee's eyes flashed red for a microsecond as an involuntary surge of his power flared outward, sparked by the sudden emotional intensity running through him.

"Ah!" I gasped, a sharp, stinging pain ripping through my nerve endings, feeling exactly like a thousand tiny needles piercing my skin all at once. The sheer force of the energy pushed me backward, and I collapsed onto the cold ice with a hard thud.

Timothee's face immediately twisted in horror and alarm. He leapt off the bench, dropping to his knees beside me as he reached out, his hands hovering over me, trembling, too terrified to touch me again.

"Mercy! I'm sorry—I didn't mean to do that," he said frantically, his voice filled with panic. "My... my powers, they went out of control. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I lay on the ice, panting heavily as the stinging sensation slowly faded from my skin. I looked up at the son of the demon king—the boy who could effortlessly break alpha werewolves, the boy everyone feared—and saw nothing but raw, genuine vulnerability in his eyes.

He wasn't a monster. He was just trying to survive.

"I'm okay," I wheezed, offering him a small, reassuring smile as I sat up. "Just... give me a warning next time your battery overflows."

Timothee let out a breathless, relieved laugh, sitting back on his heels. But as he looked at me, the hidden, unsaid truth hung heavily in the air between us. Our bond was strengthening, pulling us together with a terrifying, irresistible gravity, and despite everything we had both promised ourselves, neither of us was strong enough to fight it.