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“Those renegades are planning something! I'm sure of it!” I heard Dimitrio Rolanow's angry voice echoing from Nicholas's study. “This can't be allowed to happen! It will ruin you!”

The Russian sounded furious. Suddenly, he appeared in the double doors, his eyes blazing with rage.

I froze in the middle of the entrance hall of the Copeland estate because the man was the epitome of terrifying.

He slammed the door shut unexpectedly and I heard him continue to rant.

“If you don't act now, Nickolas, they'll ambush you!”

“The hacker attack was directed at Professor Harlow and has nothing to do with us,” I heard Alarik's muffled, albeit audibly annoyed voice.

“You're next!” the Russian yelled back. “And who gave you permission to speak anyway?!”

“Dimitrio is right. It may have been a harmless attack, but whoever is behind it has violated our university's policies,” the Alpha now interjected.

I heard Alarik snort morosely, which reminded me of the way he had smirked during Harlow's speech, and it brough my own smirk back to my lips.

“I'm telling you! Those dirty bloodsuckers are behind it!”

Dimitrio sounded like he was about to fly into a rage, and I was grateful that there was a wall between this man and me.

“Perhaps we should calm down first,” I heard Alarik now more composed than usual when he was in a room with the Russian Alpha.

“I’ve had enough, Alarik! Your talk is of no use to your Alpha or the pack!”

I flinched but tried to shake off my paralysis. After all, I wasn't here to listen to Alarik being talked down because the number of Ruisangor students had increased sevenfold and now a hacker was terrorizing the dearly beloved co-director.

This was my chance to go in search of Alarik's apartment.

Something I had been putting off, not because I didn't think I could do it, but because my conscience was gnawing at me.

Alarik had brought me to safety, treated me with consideration, and I could communicate with him on a level I couldn't with anyone else in this place.

He was the only person in this town who gave me the strange feeling that we spoke the same language, because he loved complex literature, poetry, history, old things, beautiful things...

His literature seminars were the only classes each week where I didn't feel out of place, and where that dark throbbing deep inside my head seemed to subside.

Every time I felt the urge to flood him with questions, to expand on discussions, or to reply to his comments on my essays. But I remained a silent observer and held myself back, because the last thing I wanted was to steal this man’s precious time, since I already was a grave burden.

Breaking into his place felt like betrayal.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed all these thoughts aside, because uncovering what had happened in the late nineties was more important than my personal interests.

My friends needed me.

I had to be careful and make sure he wasn't there. Just like now.

As much as my conscience was eating away at me, there probably wouldn't be a better opportunity, because I had packed my module schedule so full this semester that I spent as much time as possible at Vanderwood and as few hours as possible at this estate, where I felt like either an unwanted intruder or easy prey.

Vanderwood, on the other hand – despite all the drama and danger that seemed to lurk around every corner there – was a fairytale place, the most beautiful university I had ever seen, and I felt more at home there than I should.

A strange sense of nostalgia permeated this place, as if it were part of the walls trying to whisper their stories to me before transience could track them down and make them vanish from their hiding place for all eternity.

This university was the only refuge I had left, where I had not only sat in courtyards on sunny autumn afternoons and in the winter evenings in the dimly lit literature section of the huge Gothic library, escaping into fictional worlds, but where I also had people to spend my time with, even though my predicament had made even that a challenge.

Slowly, I crept up the stairs.

The hallway was unusually empty. Not even Nash's friends were here, and I hadn't been able to find Mia anywhere today.