chapter 3

“Good lord, Ivy!” she whispered, her eyes wide as saucers. “Look at that man. He’s... he’s a walking sin. Look at those shoulders... it looks like he could devour us all and we’d say thank you. He’s a purebred Alpha, you can tell from a mile away.”

I couldn’t respond. It was him. The man from the bar. The man who had stripped me of my clothes and my innocence just a few hours ago. He wore a charcoal gray suit that fit him like a second skin, highlighting his predatory musculature. His hair was perfectly styled, not a single trace of the man who last night buried his fingers in my hair while making me scream his name.

Killian stood behind the podium. His gaze swept the first row, then the second, and finally... it locked onto me.

My body betrayed every one of my defenses. I felt a sudden heat rise up my neck, a sinful wetness between my legs that made me want to close my eyes in shame. He didn't pretend not to know me. There was no doubt. His lips curled into a cynical smile, almost imperceptible, but loaded with a promise of destruccion.

He began to talk about laws, about hostile takeovers. His deep voice resonated in the lecture hall, vibrating in my chest, making me remember how that same voice had growled in my ear while he possessed me.

“The law…” Killian said, walking slowly down the center aisle, his footsteps echoing like whip cracks, “is not about justice. It is about who has the strength to impose their will on the other. It is about contracts that cannot be broken. It is about possession.”

He stopped right in front of my desk. The classroom fell into a deathly silence. Killian tilted his head slightly, his gaze descending across my face until it stopped at my hair, right where I was hiding his mark.

With a torturous slowness, he ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip, a gesture so lascivious it made me moisten my lips out of pure instinct.

“More attention to the class, Miss Sterling,” he said aloud, his tone cold, but his eyes burning with predatory malice. “I hope your performance in the classroom is as... intense and devoted as you usually demonstrate in other areas.”

He didn’t mention sex. But the way he drawled the syllables made it clear he had me exactly where he wanted: under his expensive leather boot.

The classroom exploded in whispers, and I felt the ground opening beneath my feet.

“Did you hear that?” a girl behind me murmured, her voice laced with an envy that cut like a blade. “Where the hell does he know her from?”

“Did you see how he looked at her?” another hissed

“Please, she’s probably the type who opens her legs to get better grades. You can tell she’s just a whore disguised as a good girl.”

“How fast the Omega moved on the first day. She’s already got the owner of the facultty between her sheets.” a boy mocked, with a cruel laugh that hit me in the back of the neck.

Tears stung my eyes, burning like acid. Humiliation wrapped around me like a shroud, sticking to my skin. Leyla looked at me confused, and I saw with horror how a hint of suspicion began to cloud her gaze. Even she, was starting to doubt my light.

But the most terrifying sound came from the next row. A low growl loaded with primal fury vibrated in the air, making the hair on my arms stand up.

I turned slowly and met Mark’s gaze. His knuckles were white as he gripped the edge of the table, and his eyes glowed with a wild amber hue.

Mark could smell it. The mate bond, though wounded and betrayed by his own infidelity, was still sensitive enough to detect the disaster. He could feel that another man’s scent was impregnated in every pore of my skin.

“Ivy…” Mark growled, my name coming out like a threat between his fangs.

Killian didn’t flinch. He straightened up, adjusting his shirt cuffs with a lethal elegance, and glanced at Mark sideways, as if he were an annoying insect barely deserving to be crushed by his boot, and then he fixed his ice-cold eyes on mine again.

“Miss Sterling,” Killian ordered, his voice returning to that professional steel that made my knees tremble. “After class, I expect you in my office to discuss the terms of your... special tutoring. Don’t keep me waiting.”

The air in the classroom became dense, almost solid, as if oxygen had been replaced by static. Everyone was looking at me: some with disgust, others with a morbid curiosity.

Mark seemed about to pounce on the stage, a pup trying to challenge a black wolf, and I... I could only feel the weight of the throne Killian had just erected around me.

***

POV: Killian Blackwood

The scent of fear is different from that of desire, but in Ivy Sterling, both mixed into a heady cocktail that filled my lungs and awakened the beast I keep under this fifteen-hundred-dollar suit.

From the stage, I could see her. She was pale, sunk into her seat, trying to be invisible while the whispers of her classmates stabbed her. Poor little bird. She didn't understand that, in my world, invisibility is a luxury she lost the moment she let my tongue travel over her skin.

But I wasn't the only one reacting to her presence. To her right, the pup. Mark Richards was on the verge of collapse.

I could feel his hostility, that wounded mate instinct screaming that I was an intruder in his toy territory.

“Right,” I said, my voice cutting through the murmurs like an axe. “Let’s start with something basic. The concept of Ownership and Possession. Mr. Richards, since you seem so eager to participate, enlighten us. When is a bond considered inalienable?”

Mark stood up in a jump. The hatred in his eyes was almost picturesque. “A bond is inalienable when there is a pre-existing natural right, professor,” he spat the word like it was poison. “Fate and natural law are above any commercial contract.”

A frigid smile curved my lips. I walked toward him, stopping millimeters from his personal space. I was taller than him, broader, and my Alpha aura hit him like an iron mace, crushing his small Beta-pup ego.

“How romantic, Mr. Richards. But the law doesn't feed on feelings or fates.” I turned toward the class, but my eyes locked onto Ivy. “In the real world, if an owner neglects his property, if he allows it to deteriorate or to seek refuge in more capable hands... that natural right is extinguished. Isn't that right, Miss Sterling?”

Ivy looked down, her white knuckles clutching her pen as if it were her only anchor to reality. Mark growled, a guttural sound that made several students draw back.

“That’s theft!” Mark exclaimed, his voice cracking with rage. “You talk about people as if they were assets on a spreadsheet.”

“Because they are,” I replied with lethal calm. “Everything has a price. Loyalty, honor... even the future. For example, let’s talk about foreclosures.”

I paced in front of Ivy’s row, letting the scent of my cologne, sandalwood and expensive tobacco, envelope her, erasing any trace the pup had tried to leave. I wanted my particles to enter her lungs, for her to know that my mark was on her skin and my name in her mind.

“Imagine a man,” I continued, lowering my voice, making it intimate and dangerous. “A man who believes his legacy is secure, but who spends what he doesn't have and puts his house, his family name, and his daughter’s life as collateral to a bank. If that man fails, the bank owner doesn't just keep the bricks. He keeps everything those bricks protect. Every secret, every room... every body.”

I saw the exact moment Ivy understood. Her eyes widened, meeting mine. The panic in her gaze was a caress that made me smile inside. She knew about her father's debts, but she didn't know I was the bank. I was the owner of the rope circling her family’s neck.

“Any comments, Miss Sterling? Or do you believe fate will save that man from the streat?”

“It’s... it’s a cruelty,” she whispered, her voice trembling with contained rage.

“It is corporate justice. The weak yield to the strong. It’s the only law that matters. Mr. Richards here believes blood claims are enough, but...” I approached Mark again, lowering my voice so only he and Ivy could hear, “...money buys blood.”

Mark tried to respond, but he choked on his own bile. I had humiliated him not just intellectually, but I had reminded him of his impotence. He was a student; I was the man who could erase his future with a phone call.

“Sit down, Richards. Your arguments are as poor as your graduation prospects,” I said, turning my back on him like someone discarding trash.

The rest of the class passed in a tense silence.

When the bell announced the end of the session, the classroom emptied in record time, except for three people. Mark remained standing, looking at Ivy with a mix of plea and toxic possessiveness. Ivy was trying to pack her things with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.

I walked toward my desk and closed my leather briefcase with a dry snap that echoed like a gunshot.

“Ivy, come with me,” Mark pleaded, ignoring me. “We need to talk about the bond, I... I can explain the thing with Sienna... it was an instinctual mistake, you are my mate.”

Ivy looked at him, wanting to say something, but before she could intervene, my voice dropped an octave that made the air vibrate. “She isn’t going anywhere. She has obligations to fulfill.”

I approached Ivy. She stood up, her breathing heavy. I could see the trace of a pitty she refused to let fall. She was so beautiful in her despair that I had to fight the urge to claim her right there, on the table where I just gave my first lesson in power.

“Miss Sterling,” I said, my voice regaining that professional coldness that was a mask for my obsession. “To my office. Now…”

Ivy looked at me with pure hatred, but beneath that hate, I saw the spark of submission that had been born last night. She knew she had no choice.

“Go, Mark,” she said, in a voice that didn't sound like hers.

Mark threw me a look of murderous hatred before storming out of the classroom, slamming the door so it echoed like a hollow sound of his defeat.

I was left alone with her. The silence was dense. I looked her up and down, a smile forming on my lips when I noticed the small mark peeking out from her neck. That mark my lips had left after a night of lust.

“You’re a monster,” she replied, clutching her notebook to her chest like a shield.

“Perhaps,” I smiled, a predatory grin that didn't reach my eyes. “But I’m the monster who has the keys to your house and the contract to your soul. Walk, little bird, I have an exclusivity contract you need to sign if you don't want to see your father on the street before nightfall.”

She took the first step toward the door, and I followed her, watching the movement of her hips, knowing that behind those doors, today’s lesson would become much more private and unforgetable.