PRELUDE; The Betrayal (Chapter 1-74)

Chapter 1

~Analiese~

The angry scream of my alarm rattled across the nightstand beside me, and with a groan, I slapped blindly toward the sound until my fingers finally found my phone. Squinting at the screen, I immediately regretted opening my eyes. 7:22 a.m.

“Freaking fantastic,” I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. I should have been up twelve minutes ago.

Instead of moving, I stayed exactly where I was, tangled in blankets and staring at the ugly water stain on the ceiling above my bed. If I tilted my head just right, it looked vaguely like a wolf. Or maybe I was spending too much time reading mythology books and frying my own brain.

A nervous little flutter rolled through my stomach. First week back. A new semester. Ancient Spells and Religion at ten.

I’d wanted this class since freshman year. The second I’d seen it buried in the course listings, I’d practically harassed the registrar until they confirmed it would actually be offered this semester. While everyone else obsessed over parties and football games and whatever dating disaster was currently spreading across campus, I liked old stories, forgotten religions, and superstitions people once killed over.

I wasn’t that I believed in magic…exactly…more because I liked understanding why other people did.

With another groan, I shoved the blanket aside and sat up, instantly regretting it when cold air hit my bare arms. “Move your ass, Dawson,” I groaned.

My dorm room looked exactly like what happened when an exhausted college student developed a personality entirely built around caffeine and historical obsessions. Star charts covered one wall. Shelves sagged beneath books that had nothing to do with my actual major, and empty mugs crowded my desk in varying stages of abandonment.

A candle I’d burned two nights ago still lingered faintly in the room, vanilla and cedar mixing with paper and coffee.

I shuffled toward the tiny sink near the door, toothbrush hanging from my mouth while I glared at my reflection. My dark hair was sticking up in several directions. My eyes still looked swollen with sleep, and one strap of my tank top hung halfway down my shoulder.

“You look feral,” I mumbled around the toothbrush. Sleep-deprived, my brain corrected automatically. Academically feral.

“Shut up,” I muttered to myself.

By eight-fifteen, I looked significantly more human. Worn jeans, paired with a black long-sleeve shirt. Scuffed boots, and my messy hair pulled up into a half-up knot.

Across the front of my shirt were the words; HISTORY LOVES A WITCH HUNT, which felt appropriately dramatic for a ten a.m. mythology class.

After grabbing my bag, I checked for the essentials by touch alone: notebook, pens, highlighters.Overpriced campus granola bar. Dog-eared mythology text I absolutely did not need to carry everywhere but somehow always did anyway.

My phone buzzed just as I headed for the door.

Trin: You alive or did a demon finally get you

I snorted.

Me: Alive. Demon hit snooze too

Trin: Nerd

Trin: You coming home this weekend? Mom wants to make that weird casserole

Me: Depends if school kills me first

Trin: dramatic

Trin: Text me if there are hot guys in your creepy class

Warmth flickered through me despite myself. My younger sister didn’t really understand my obsession with old religions and folklore, but she entertained it anyway.

Me: If I find one covered in tattoos carrying forbidden knowledge, I’m keeping him

Trin: rude

Trin: Have a good day baby witch

Shaking my head, I shoved the phone into my pocket and stepped into the hallway. The dorm smelled like burnt toast, laundry detergent, and somebody’s aggressively terrible body spray. Music thumped faintly through one of the walls as I headed downstairs.

Halfway down the stairwell, two girls passed carrying laundry baskets while arguing loudly about whether one of their boyfriends counted as cheating if they were technically “on a break.”

“Emotionally, yes,” one of them declared. “Legally, no.”

I snorted quietly to myself and kept walking.

Outside, January air sliced straight through my clothes, and I hissed a breath through my teeth. Tucking my hands deeper into my sleeves I crossed the campus. Students moved around me in clumps. Someone skateboarded past too fast. A girl nearly collided with a bike while trying to eat a bagel. Normal college chaos.

A gust of wind whipped across the quad hard enough to sting my cheeks. Dead leaves scraped along the sidewalk while conversations drifted around me in broken pieces.

“…failed that quiz so hard…”

“…frat party got shut down…”

“…swear to God if Professor Greene assigns another essay…”

The humanities building rose ahead in dark brick and old stone, its tall windows reflecting the pale gray sky overhead, and I felt excitement tighten low in my gut as I climbed the stairs.

Ancient Spells and Religion…finally.

I’d built this class up in my head for almost two years now. Late nights scrolling through archived course descriptions and professor reviews had painted Professor Smith somewhere between eccentric genius and sleep-deprived crypt keeper.

Honestly? My favorite type of academic.

The hallway outside the lecture room already buzzed with conversation when I arrived.

“Apparently he makes people translate fragments by hand,” someone whispered nearby.

“Good,” another voice answered. “If I wanted easy, I’d take Intro classes.”

A guy leaning against the wall flipped through a thick textbook covered in sticky notes while another girl complained about the reading list already being thirty pages long.

I smiled faintly and pushed through the lecture hall doors. The room spread upward in rows of bolted desks and fluorescent lighting. Backpacks hit tables, chairs scraped, and voices layered together into background noise.

I stepped farther inside, then stopped, not because of magic. Not because the universe shifted, but because every instinct in my body suddenly snapped awake.

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag, as something about the guy in the back row pulled my attention instantly: black hoodie. Dark jeans, and boots that were planted wide beneath the desk.

His dark hair curled slightly around his face, longer than most guys on campus wore it, messy in a way that looked unintentional. He wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t speaking, or trying to draw attention. Still yet, my pulse stumbled.

He sat differently than everyone else, alert, too alert. Almost as if he noticed every movement in the room without appearing to look at any of it directly.

The fine hairs along my arms lifted, and then his eyes found mine. Brown. Dark enough to look almost black beneath the fluorescent lights.

His stare held too steady, too focused. Not flirtatious, something other than that. The kind of stare that made me suddenly aware of my own breathing.

Heat crawled slowly into my cheeks. What is wrong with you?

I forced my feet to move again, climbing toward an empty seat halfway up the room.

My boots sounded too loud against the steps before I sank into the chair, setting my bag down a little harder than necessary.

You see one hot guy with emotionally unavailable serial killer energy and suddenly you forget how to exist.

Fantastic…absolute peak behavior, Dawson.