[POV Hope]
I said goodbye to Ethan with a brief nod and started walking back to the main building, my head still spinning from everything I had just heard. It was too much to process.
I walked up the steps, crossed the main lobby without paying attention to anyone, and headed up the stairs toward my room. There was another problem hammering away in my mind for weeks—one that, until this morning, had been the only thing that truly mattered: money.
I needed a passport. I needed money to get a passport, and money to use that passport to go after my father, wherever he was. Seven years. Seven years since the last time I had actually seen him face-to-face, without it being through a rushed phone call or a letter sent from some random corner of the world. I had saved coins, sold a few belongings, but I was still nowhere near enough.
I was so lost in these calculations that I almost didn't hear the voice calling me.
"Hope."
I stopped mid-staircase and turned around. Henry was standing a few steps below, looking up at me with a tense expression I had never seen on him before.
"Henry," I said, my brow furrowing. "Again? I thought I said we could talk later."
"I need to talk now," he said, his voice low, barely a whisper. He cast a quick glance down the empty hallway behind me before continuing. "Just... a minute. Please."
Something in his tone made me hesitate. I sighed and walked back down the steps toward him.
"Alright. One minute."
He guided me to a more isolated corner of the hallway, near a window overlooking the side garden, far from the stream of students still moving around the lower floors.
"What is it?" I asked, crossing my arms.
Henry ran a hand through his hair, visibly nervous.
"I need your help, Hope."
"My help," I repeated, confused. "With what?"
"The vampires," he said, his voice growing tighter. "They aren't going to stop. Yesterday was just... the beginning. They've been picking on me all semester, and now that they realize they can beat me up without anyone doing anything about it, it's only going to get worse."
"Ethan saved you yesterday," I pointed out, remembering what had happened earlier. "Didn't he?"
"He did," Henry confirmed, nodding. "And I'm grateful for that, I really am. But I can't keep relying on him every time, Hope. He's not always going to be there. I need to do something real. Something that fixes this for good."
I frowned, still not understanding where he was going with this.
"And where do I fit into this?" I asked. "If you want some kind of protection, I should be the last person you come to. Talk to Mr. Saltsman and Caroline. They handle this kind of thing."
"I can't go to them," Henry said quickly, bordering on desperate. "That would turn into an investigation, there'd be suspensions, the other guys' parents would be called... and in the end, I'd still just be the weak guy who had to run to the headmaster. No. I need something else."
"Which would be...?"
He hesitated for a second, his eyes darting away from mine before locking back onto me.
"I need your blood."
The words hung frozen in the air between us for a moment. My entire body locked up.
"My... what?"
"Your blood," he repeated, firmer this time, as if he had rehearsed it. "I know what you are, Hope. Every young wolf in this school knows who your dad is and who your mom is. Hybrid blood, especially yours... it's rare. That's real power. If I have a little of that in my system, the vampires will think twice before coming anywhere near me again. Only you can do this, Hope."
I stood in silence, processing the request, feeling a mixture of indignation and pity rising inside me at the same time. Before I could respond, he continued, his voice dropping, almost as if he were trying to win me over with a different kind of argument.
"I can pay you for it," he said. "I know you've been needing money. Everyone here knows you're always scraping together change, selling things here and there. I have savings. It's not a lot, but it's something."
My chest tightened. I thought of my father—his face, the last time I heard his voice over the phone, promising he would visit as soon as he could, a promise he never managed to keep. I thought about how desperately I needed that money, how every single cent counted toward the total I had been trying to build for months.
And then, without even meaning to, I thought of Ethan. The way he had spoken about his own father just minutes ago—the raw bitterness in his voice, the genuine hatred for a man he had never even met.
I loved my father. Despite everything—the absences, the excuses, the distance that seven years had carved between us—I still loved him, in a way that hurt. And there was Ethan, on the exact opposite side, carrying such a deep hatred for a father he had never seen.
Two sides of the same coin. And I had no idea which side hurt more.
I shook my head, pulling myself back to the present, to the hallway, to Henry standing in front of me waiting for an answer.
My father. The passport. The travel tickets. Every dollar counted, and I had already lost months trying to gather enough by selling trinkets and doing small favors for other students. This, as wrong as it felt, could be the answer I had been searching for for weeks.
"Five thousand dollars," I finally said, my voice coming out firmer than I expected.
Henry blinked, visibly caught off guard.
"Five... five thousand?" he repeated, swallowing hard. "That's a lot of money, Hope."
"That's the price," I replied, not breaking eye contact. "My blood doesn't come cheap, Henry. If you want real protection, you're going to have to pay for it."
He stayed silent for a beat, calculating, the desperation in his eyes clearly outweighing his hesitation.
"Fine," he said at last, nodding slowly. "I'll... I'll get the money. I don't know exactly how yet, but I'll figure it out. You'll have your money, Hope. I promise."
"Great," I said, adjusting the strap of my backpack on my shoulder. "When you have the cash in hand, find me. Until then, don't approach me for anything."
Without waiting for a response, I turned and started heading back up the stairs, leaving Henry standing there to absorb the weight of the deal we had just made. It was only when I shut my bedroom door behind me that I finally let my shoulders drop, as the full weight of everything that day hit me all at once.
Five thousand dollars. That was almost everything I needed for the passport, for the tickets, to finally go after my father after seven long years.
I knew it was wrong. I knew my blood shouldn't be treated like a commodity, that giving in to that request opened a door I probably shouldn't open. But in that moment, staring up at the bedroom ceiling, all I could think was: finally, maybe, I'm one step closer to seeing him again.
After a few minutes of lying there, still processing everything, I remembered the other matter that had been bothering me since the conversation under that tree. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and dialed my aunt's number without thinking twice.
Riiiing... riiiing...
"Hope?" Freya's voice came through the line, calm as always. "What a surprise. Is everything okay?"
"Hey, Aunt Freya," I said, sitting up on the bed and crossing my legs. "I need to ask you something. Have you ever heard of something called an 'imprint'?"
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.
"An imprint," she repeated, her tone distinctly thoughtful. "No. Not that I can recall. Why do you ask?"
I sighed, almost expecting that answer. If even Freya didn't know anything about it, it was very likely it didn't actually exist—or, at the very least, wasn't part of any records she knew of, and my aunt knew practically everything.
"Where did you hear that, Hope?" she asked, curiosity now evident in her voice.
"From Ethan," I admitted, choosing my words carefully. "You know, the new guy I told you about a few days ago. He told me his father spoke to his mother about a bond like that—a destiny kind of thing that only some wolves feel, and only for one specific person."
"Interesting..." Freya murmured, and I could almost picture her frowning on the other end of the line, that habit of hers when processing new information as if solving an equation. "And this boy... did he tell you anything else about his father?"
"His name is Clark," I replied. "But that's all I know. He never met his dad."
A longer silence stretched over the line this time.
"Clark..." Freya repeated the name softly, almost to herself, before speaking again, her voice now carrying a different weight. "Hope, if what this boy said is true... you understand what that could mean, don't you?"
My stomach turned.
"You think he could be..." I couldn't even finish the sentence.
"Your counterpart," Freya finished for me, her voice cautious, almost gentle, as if testing the ground before proceeding. "If this imprint story is real, and if he genuinely feels something like that for you... Hope, what if it really is that? What are you going to do?"
I remained silent for a long moment, staring out my bedroom window, with no answer to give.
"Aunt Freya..." I began, still trying to organize my thoughts. "I don't even know if I believe in this yet. But the name Clark... for some reason, it made me uneasy the second I heard it. I can't explain why."
There was another pause on the line, longer this time, heavy in a completely different way.
"Clark..." Freya repeated the name once more, but now there was something altered in her tone. Deeper. More guarded. "I know that name, Hope."
My heart skipped a beat.
"Wait... what? What do you mean you know it?"
"Did your mother ever tell you anything about him?" Freya asked, the question settling over me like a cold weight.
"No," I answered, feeling confusion mingle with a growing sense of dread. "What are you talking about, Aunt Freya? Who is Clark?"
Freya let out a long sigh on the other end of the line, the kind I knew meant she was deciding whether or not to tell me something that was perhaps meant to stay buried.
"Maybe it shouldn't be me telling you this," she said finally. "But you're not a child anymore, Hope. You're old enough to know the truth." She paused briefly. "Clark was your brother's father."
The room felt like it spun for a second.
"What do you mean... how is that possible? I..." The words simply wouldn't come out right, caught in my throat.
"Your mother met Clark around the same time she met your father," Freya explained, her voice steady but careful, like handling something fragile. "It was many years ago. Things happened between them, Hope, and Clark even stayed in New Orleans for a while after that—even before I moved there myself."
I sat frozen, the phone pressed tightly to my ear, trying to piece it all together in my mind. My brother. The twin I never got to know, who was stillborn before I even understood what that meant. And now, out of nowhere, a name—a face, almost, through Ethan—surfacing after years of silence.
"Aunt Freya," I whispered, my voice nearly failing. "Does that mean Ethan..."
"Clark met your mother during a trip," Freya continued, as if anticipating my question before I could finish formulating it. "At a bar, from what I gather. It was brief, around the same time she met your father."
"How is that even possible?" The question came out louder than I intended, my voice trembling between confusion and the onset of panic. "What does that mean, Auntie? That Ethan's dad was... what? My dad too? My step-father? What kind of mess is this?"
"No, Hope, calm down," Freya rushed to clarify, her tone firm yet soothing. "Your father is Klaus. Only him. I have zero doubt about that, and you shouldn't either. I was shocked at the time too, but that's not what happened."
I took a deep breath, trying to slow down my heart, which was hammering against my ribs.
"Then what was it, Auntie? Explain it properly."
"What I heard back then was that Clark met your mother during the same period she and your father were together," Freya explained, measuring every word. "You and your brother were conceived at practically the exact same time, Hope. He was Clark's son. You are your father's daughter. I know it's incredibly bizarre, and I really don't want to get into details about what exactly transpired between them back then—that isn't my story to tell. But in short, that's essentially what happened."
I stayed silent for a moment, absorbing every word, feeling as though the ground beneath my feet had become considerably less solid.
"That's... really weird, Freya," I said finally, rubbing my forehead with my free hand. "I'm completely confused by all of this right now."
"I can imagine," she said, her voice softening. "This boy, Ethan... he's a complete wild card, Hope. Quite the mystery." She paused briefly before continuing. "And perhaps it brings us back to what I said earlier. It really could be possible—about the imprint."
"About what he told me," I explained, attempting to structure my thoughts as I spoke. "He said his father told his mother it was a special kind of bond. That not every wolf feels it, that you can't force it or feel it for just anyone—only for someone you're fated to be with. Like the universe conspired for them to be together."
Freya went quiet for a moment before answering, her voice now laden with an almost solemn weight.
"I can't tell you what's right or wrong in this situation, Hope. But nature operates by its own laws, its own fundamental rules. Things that no one can truly see, understand, or control. If something like that exists between you and this boy... it isn't something we're going to be able to explain with logic."
"But do you think it's real, Aunt Freya?" I asked, needing a more direct answer. "This 'imprint' thing?"
Freya sighed over the line.
"Honestly, Hope? I couldn't tell you. It could be real, or it might not be. I've never read about anything like it in any grimoire, any old lore, anywhere. If it exists, it's rare enough that it's never crossed my path." She took a brief breath. "The only thing I know for certain is that this boy's father wasn't an ordinary werewolf. Your father—Klaus—actually mentioned him a long time ago. He said Clark was unlike any wolf he had ever encountered. Said he was just as strong as Klaus himself."
That took me completely by surprise. My father was not one to compliment anyone, let alone compare his own strength to another person's.
"Just as strong as him," I repeated softly, letting the weight of that sink in.
"Exactly," Freya confirmed. "So, if his son inherited anything close to that... Hope, this boy might be far more than you realize. And if this imprint is real, and if there really is something like that connecting the two of you... all I can tell you is to be careful."