Chapter 54: Enjoy Your Power Trip

With the way Damian was gazing at me—those deep, bloody red eyes threatening to strip my soul bare—I couldn’t read him at all. I was flying blind in front of a predator, and I desperately needed to get away from him so I could just breathe properly.

Benjamin looked down at me. For a fleeting second, he saw the genuine, involuntary panic breaking through my mask—an expression he had never seen on my face before. His jaw tightened, and slowly, his fingers uncurled from my arm.

The moment he let go, I turned and bolted. I didn’t care what direction I was running in, and I didn’t look back. I just knew I had to get away from that Alpha.

I ran down the sprawling gothic hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The marble floors blurred beneath my boots, every instinct in my body screaming a single, primal command: Get away.

In my past life, I had faced down warlords and assassins at the top, and all I needed was stamina and technique, but this weak Omega shell was a glaring liability.

Against a monster like Damian Raven—an Alpha whose sheer aura suffocated the air right out of your lungs—my physical limitations felt like a lead weight dragging me down.

He could read my micro-expressions before I even formulated a thought. That calculating red gaze had stripped away every layer of defense I had, reducing me to mere prey in a matter of seconds.

And I hated it. I hated every single second of it.

I rounded a sharp corner and ducked into an empty stairwell, slamming my back against the cold stone wall. I dragged deep, ragged breaths into my burning lungs, forcing my hands to stop shaking.

A mouse sneaking through the shadows, I thought, my fingers curling into tight, white-knuckled fists until my nails bit into my palms. You think I’m a little mouse, Damian?

"Just wait," I whispered into the quiet stairwell, my voice dropping into an icy, lethal register as my eyes narrowed into cold slits. "Enjoy your power trip while it lasts, Discipline Committee President. Keep tracking my record. Keep watching me. Because the next time you try to lean in and threaten me... I won’t be stepping back."

I squeezed my eyes shut right there against the stone wall, forcing my erratic breathing to slow as my pulse gradually settled.

When I finally opened my eyes and looked around the cavernous stairwell, the unfamiliar layout made my stomach drop. In my blind, panic-fueled dash to escape Damian’s suffocating aura, my sense of direction had been completely warped.

Where the hell am I?

Recognizing that I had run far past the main corridors, I decided to retrace my steps back down the stairwell, planning to take an alternate route toward the school gates. But the moment my boot touched the bottom step, a burst of loud, obnoxious laughter echoed across the open space ahead.

I froze, flattening my back against the wall.

Normally, I wouldn’t have given a group of noisy students a second thought. But as the voices drew closer, a distinctly arrogant, drawling tone cut through the air—a voice I recognized instantly.

Kano. And his useless entourage.

A dark, violent itch immediately flared up under my skin. I would have liked nothing more than to step out into the open and put every single one of them flat on their backs if they so much as looked at me sideways. But...

How many extra days would be added to my suspension if I beat up more students on school grounds? I thought, my jaw clenching tightly. Bradford had pleaded for my cause by bowing his head, and I’d hate to give Principal Ashford the satisfaction of acting smug towards me once again.

If this were anywhere else—like the private training facility—I wouldn’t hesitate to break their bones and leave them bleeding in an alley for provoking me.

But this was school. And with classes letting out soon, there were far too many eyes around, far too many witnesses, and a certain red-eyed discipline committee president currently keeping an eye out on me, waiting to punish me for my next offense. Fighting them here right now was a tactical error.

I cut my eyes across the open space, spotting a small, weathered equipment shed nestled right behind the grand auditorium structure.

Without wasting a second, I bolted silently, slipped through the unlocked wooden door of the shed, and pulled it shut behind me, leaving only a tiny crack to peek through.

Hiding like this brought no shame to a master of my craft. Concealment was an assassin’s bread and butter. You didn’t charge blindly into a crowded area when the odds were rigged against you; you lay low, faded into the shadows, and waited for the perfect, lethal opportunity to strike your target down without leaving a trace.

I crouched low between two dusty gym mats, holding my breath as the sound of heavy footsteps approached the shed.

And then, I felt it.

A suffocating pressure materialized directly behind me in the darkness of the shed. The sound of hot, ragged breathing echoed in the cramped space, sounding less like a human and more like a starving, feral wolf.

"You shouldn’t have come in here..." a voice rasped out. It was smooth, disciplined, yet entirely stripped of its usual composure—as if the speaker were using every ounce of his remaining willpower just to hold himself back.

Back from what?

"I..." I began, turning my head slightly toward the shadow, but my voice died in my throat.

Burning through the pitch-black interior of the shed was a pair of glowing emerald eyes. My breath caught, every warning bell in my assassin soul screaming in absolute terror.

No. Absolutely not.

"Was this... your resting place?" I whispered, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. "I apologize for interrupting. I’ll head out now."

I valued my life. So what if Kano and his useless entourage made a little trouble for me outside? I could outrun them, but trapped in a confined space with a beast I knew wiht every fiber of my being and soul that I couldn’t beat? I was a goner.

I reached for the wooden door handle, but before my fingers could make contact, he moved.

With terrifying, blinding speed, he reached out and snagged my arm, yanking me back into the dark depths of the shed. I thrashed against his grip, my boots scuffing violently against the wooden floorboards as we tumbled into the dust, making a racket.

"Hey, did you hear something?" a voice called out from outside the shed.