Chapter 5: Poisoned Chalice
The journal was a live wire against her ribs for three days straight. Jennie carried it everywhere, tucked into the waistband of her jeans under a sweater, sleeping with it under her mattress. His words were a loop in her head, a secret soundtrack to her classes, her runs, the silent dinners with her father. “I would have her flawed roar.”
She almost didn’t go to the party. The thought of the noise, the bodies, the performance of being Alpha Minho’s unshakable daughter made her skin feel two sizes too small. But Jisoo had begged. “It’s just a party, Jennie. Not a tribunal. Come for one drink. For me.”
So she went. And regretted it the moment she stepped into the Immortal College Ballroom.
The scale of it was meant to intimidate. Obsidian floors mirrored a ceiling lost in shadow and the crystal teardrops of a hundred chandeliers. The air was thick with perfume, pheromones, and the sweet, smoky scent of enchanted roses that wilted and bloomed in a perpetual cycle on the walls. Music with a deep, primal beat thumped through the floor, vibrating in her teeth. Clusters of students—witches in shimmering gauze, vampires in elegant severity, werewolves in purposeful casualness—dotted the room like rival ecosystems.
She saw him immediately.
Leonid was a slash of stillness against the riotous movement. By the great stone fireplace, he lounged in an armchair, legs stretched out, a crystal tumbler of something dark loose in his hand. He wore a suit that was more weapon than clothing—black, impeccably cut, the fabric seeming to drink the light around him. His unruly curls were slightly tamed, his pale throat exposed. And he was, as always, surrounded.
Three women—a siren, a witch, and a werewolf from the Coastal Pack—were perched on the chairs and hearth around him, leaning in, laughing at nothing. Their bodies were angled toward him like flowers seeking a corrupted sun. Jennie’s jaw tightened.
Then she saw the fourth. A human girl, her neck bare and tilted, was seated on the ottoman at his feet. Leonid’s hand was gentle on her shoulder, his thumb stroking the line of her collarbone. His head was bent, his lips close to her skin, words murmured too low for even Jennie’s wolf ears to catch. The girl shuddered, a flush of pleasure-pain blooming on her cheeks, her eyes glazed with devotion. He fed, not with violence, but with a terrifying intimacy, his dark red eyes open and half-lidded, watching the room over the curve of her neck.
Jennie’s stomach twisted. She felt her canines press against her lower lip. It was one thing to know vampires fed. It was another to see him do it, to see the rapturous surrender on the girl’s face. A hot, shameful jealousy curdled in her gut, mingling with the memory of his poetry. Who was he sketching now?
“Disgusting, isn’t it?”
Kai’s voice was close to her ear, his breath smelling of bitter ale. He stood beside her, his gaze also locked on Leonid. “Acting like he’s doing her a favor. Like he’s some god accepting a sacrifice.”
Jennie forced a shrug, tearing her eyes away. “Their business. Not mine.”
“It should be,” Kai said, his voice dropping, intense. “He’s a predator in our territory. He humiliated me. He looks at you…” Kai trailed off, his jaw working. “He looks at you like you’re next on the menu.”
“He doesn’t look at me at all,” Jennie lied, the journal’s corner digging into her skin.
“Good.” Kai handed her a drink she hadn’t seen him holding—a shallow coupe of something fizzy and pale pink. “Here. You look tense. Moon Rose Fizz. Jisoo’s recipe. She said it’d take the edge off.”
Jennie took the glass, her instincts humming a low warning. But Jisoo’s name disarmed it. She took a sip. It was sweet, floral, with a faint effervescence that caught in her nose. “Thanks.”
Kai watched her drink, his eyes dark. “We protect our own, Jennie. Always. You know that, right? No matter how… distant you’ve been.”
She took another, deeper swallow to avoid answering. The sweet liquid was deceptively smooth. It left a strange, warming trail down her throat, settling in her chest like a low ember. “I’m going to find Jisoo,” she said, turning away from his penetrating stare.
“I’ll be around,” Kai said. His tone was off. A mix of expectation and anxiety.
The music seemed to grow louder, the lights sharper. She wound through the crowd, the ember in her chest beginning to spread. A slow, unfamiliar heat uncoiled in her abdomen. It was wrong. This wasn’t the fever of a coming heat. This was sharper, more insistent, a chemical itch under her skin.
She saw Jisoo near a window, talking animatedly with a group of witches. “Jisoo!” Jennie called, her voice sounding a little strained.
Jisoo turned, her smile bright. Then it faltered. Her witch’s eyes swept over Jennie, narrowing. “Jen? What’s wrong? Your aura is… sparking.”
“The drink,” Jennie managed, holding out the half-empty coupe. Her hand wasn’t quite steady. “The one you made. Kai gave it to me. It’s…”
Jisoo took the glass, sniffed it, and her face drained of color. She dipped a finger in, touched it to her tongue, and spat on the obsidian floor. The spit sizzled for a second. “Moon Rose Fizz my ass,” Jisoo hissed, fury tightening her features. “This is laced with Crimson Mandrake. It’s a lust potion. A strong one. How much did you drink?”
The words landed like physical blows. Lust potion. Kai. The heat in Jennie’s veins surged, becoming a roaring flush. Her skin felt too sensitive; the brush of her own sweater against her arms was almost agonizing. A deep, aching throbbed low in her body, a pulse that echoed between her legs. She looked across the room, through the haze of bodies and candlelight.
Kai was watching her from near the fireplace, his arms crossed, a satisfied, possessive gleam in his eyes. He’d moved closer, cutting off her easiest path to the exit.
And Leonid… Leonid was still by the hearth. He had finished feeding. The human girl was leaning against his knee, looking dazed and blissful. He was wiping his mouth with a cloth, his movements slow and deliberate. Then his head lifted. His dark red eyes cut through the distance, the noise, the crowd, and found hers.
He saw it. He saw the panic, the flush, the unraveling control. His predatory stillness shifted. He gently moved the girl aside and stood up in one fluid motion. The women around him made sounds of protest, but he ignored them, his gaze locked on Jennie.
The world tunneled. The music became a dull roar. The heat was a living thing inside her now, clenching and demanding. She needed to get out. Now. But the exit was too far, and Kai was blocking one path, and the crowd was a wall of confusing scents and touching bodies.
Leonid began to move through the throng. He didn’t push; people simply melted out of his way, sensing the purpose in him. He was coming toward her.
Jennie’s back hit a cold marble pillar. Trapped between the cool stone and the advancing heat of her own body, between Kai’s jealous plot and the vampire whose poetry was burning a hole in her soul, she felt the last threads of her control snap. A low, helpless whimper escaped her throat, lost in the thumping bass. Her golden eyes, wide with fear and a terrible, unwelcome need, watched him come.