บททั้งหมดของ I Left the Four Heirs I Grew Up With: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 9

I pushed open the door.The room went dead silent. Everyone turned toward me.Cassian was the first to recover. As heir to the Blood Throne, he was the highest-ranking vampire in the entire territory.Even now, his voice carried the same calm, effortless authority I had known all my life.“Since you’ve already heard it, I’m not going to lie to you.”He glanced at Mira.“Mira grew up without a vampire family. She’s barely adjusted to our world. Ravenwood would destroy her.”Then his eyes returned to me, without a trace of guilt in them.“You’ve always been independent, Avery. You know how to survive on your own.”Mira Ashford, the recently returned daughter of a royal vampire family, tugged at his sleeve, her eyes already red.I didn't bother wondering when the two of them had gotten so close.I looked straight at Cassian.“Who made the fake Ravenwood application forms?”“I did,” Cassian said.Not even a hesitation.“And whose idea was it?”Mira’s gaze flickered.Dante Voss, heir to the

At seven the next morning, I went back to Blood Thorn Academy to pick up my transcripts.I had barely entered the administration building when someone laughed behind me.“Well, look who it is. Blood Thorn’s top student.”A group of girls blocked the stairs.The one in front was a new friend of Mira’s.Her eyes traveled over me before landing on the camera around my neck.“So this is the famous camera? The one with all those precious childhood memories?”She grabbed the strap.I caught her wrist.“Let go.”“Relax.”She raised her voice deliberately.I had won that camera in a competition when I was ten. It had grown up with me, capturing nearly every important moment of my childhood.Most of the footage on Adrian’s hard drive had been filmed with it.The girl smirked.“You grew up with the four most powerful heirs at Blood Thorn and started thinking you were some kind of princess.”Another girl laughed.“Too bad they all chose Mira now.”“Cassian only dated you to get you to Ravenwood.

Cassian snatched the ring off the floor.The bloodstone remained dark.His fingers tightened around the ring, but a slight tremor still ran through his hand.He knew my blood signature had been bound to the stone for years. It couldn’t just disappear.He turned the ring over in his palm, staring at the dead bloodstone.“Cassian?”Dante’s voice came from across the hall.Mira’s graduation party was supposed to start in less than an hour. Music was already playing, and the room was filled with black-and-crimson decorations.Cassian barely saw any of it.“Something’s wrong with Avery’s bloodstone.”Adrian’s stared at Cassian.“What do you mean?”Cassian opened his hand.“It went dark.”Silence.Dante stared at him for a second before laughing.“That’s impossible.”Julian was already walking over.“Bloodstones don’t just go dark.”“Exactly.”Dante frowned.“Maybe the ring’s damaged.”“It isn’t.”Cassian’s voice came out sharper than he intended.The four of them looked at the dead bloodsto

The next morning, Blood Thorn Academy held its graduation ceremony.Near the end, the headmaster stepped up to the podium.“One final announcement.”The hall quieted.“Avery Vale graduated at the top of her class, with the highest scores in blood-control theory and human-world adaptation.”The headmaster paused.“She has also been selected for Ravenwood’s most prestigious research program—the highest appointment available to a graduating vampire.”His gaze swept across the graduating class.“Avery Vale is the first and only graduate from Blood Thorn Academy to receive that appointment.”Whispers swept through the hall.Cassian and the others stood near the back.Someone whispered. “I heard Ravenwood only invites a handful of candidates.”“Didn’t Avery turn them down before?”“Twice,” another student said. “She wanted to stay in Blood Thorn.”After the graduation ceremony, Cassian had barely stepped outside when three girls hurried over.They were the same girls who had cornered me the

Five years later, Ravenwood’s blood-dependency control program passed its final trials.By then, I was no longer the eighteen-year-old girl who had arrived with one suitcase and a sealed blood signature.I was Avery Vale, lead researcher on the project.My name appeared first on the final report.When the five-year restrictions officially ended, Ravenwood returned my phone.The moment my old number reactivated, more than two thousand messages appeared.Most of them were from Cassian, Dante, Julian and Adrian.The earliest demanded that I call them back.Later came apologies.Birthday grettings, life updates, and messages asking only if I was safe.I read a few. Then I deleted them all.At the official presentation, I stood beneath Ravenwood’s crest while representatives from vampire territories across the country listened to our results.When my name was announced as the project’s lead researcher, the entire hall rose.Among them were four faces I hadn’t seen in five years.Afterward,