"Seriously, mate," Aiden pressed, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, looking up and down the empty hall. "What happened? You missed the midterm evaluations. Professor Vane is absolutely furious. I thought you had died in a ditch, or transferred back to whatever mud-hut village you crawled out of."
For a split second, a profound, agonizing wave of nostalgia washed over Devin.
This was Aiden. The boy he had spent endless summers with, swimming in the impossibly pure, crystal waters of Colstar. The boy who had attended lavish royal banquets with the Trangdar family, laughing at the high table.
Devin was this close to stepping forward and wrapping his heavy arms around the prince in a desperate, bone-crushing hug. He was this close to whispering the insane truth into his ear, begging him for the resources of Colstar, begging him to tell him that the world wasn't entirely lost to the dark.
He held back.
Instead, the warm nostalgia blooming in his chest rapidly curdled into a dark, sickening bile. As Devin looked deep into Aiden's bright, oceanic eyes, the dark memories of exactly why their childhood friendship had fractured violently resurfaced.
Devin was this close to punching him right in his perfect, arrogant royal face.
So, he did.
The execution was instantaneous. Devin didn't even consciously command his arm to move; the hatred did it for him. Zain Ricky's augmented, venom-laced muscles fired with terrifying, explosive kinetic energy.
Devin's right fist blurred through the air. It completely, effortlessly bypassed Aiden's natural Stark-level defensive reflexes, and connected squarely with the side of the prince's jaw.
CRACK.
The sickening sound of bone fracturing echoed like a heavy gunshot in the silent marble hallway.
Aiden was instantly lifted completely off his feet by the sheer, devastating force of the blow. He flew backward through the air, crashing hard against the polished stone floor. His expensive blue uniform skidded across the pristine marble, leaving a faint scuff mark.
The Prince of Colstar let out a choked, wet gasp. He curled into a fetal position, clutching his rapidly swelling face, completely paralyzed by the sudden, inexplicable violence from a boy he thought was his friend.
Why assault a prince of an allied nation, a high-ranking Stark student, in the middle of the most prestigious academy in the world?
Because Aiden Colstar was madly, obsessively, and disgustingly in love with Devin's sister.
He had driven Devin absolutely crazy. Aiden wasn't just a boy harboring a fleeting, innocent crush on an older woman. He was a creature of pure, unadulterated depravity. How could a man lust after his own brother's wife?
When they were younger, it was always easily passed off as a harmless joke—a silly, unrequited boyish infatuation. But as they grew older, as Bridget blossomed into the beautiful, fierce, alcohol-loving Queen of Colstar, Aiden's infatuation mutated into something thoroughly grotesque.
Whenever he visited the Trangdar palace, he would corner Devin in the isolated corridors. He wouldn't ask about Devin's rigorous studies or his progressing swordsmanship. He would always, inevitably, want to talk about Bridget.
He would ask highly invasive, repulsive questions with a feverish, slick glint in his eyes. He would ask what size she was. He would ask what sheer fabrics she preferred to sleep in when the castle grew warm. And worse. Much worse.
A close, trusted childhood friend had mutated into a pathetic, lecherous pervert right before Devin's eyes. It sickened him back then when he was a prince, and standing here now, wearing the thick skin of a murderer, it sickened him even more.
Bridget was dead. She had been torn into unrecognizable, bloody pieces by the very monsters Zain Ricky belonged to. And this arrogant prick groaning on the floor had only ever viewed her as a piece of meat to be conquered behind his own brother's back.
Devin exhaled slowly, stopping his reminiscence. The thick, red haze of his fury slowly receded back into the dark corners of his mind, reigned in by his royal discipline.
He looked down at the floor. The Prince of Colstar was groaning pitifully, spitting a thick mouthful of bright red blood onto the pristine white marble.
Then, Devin casually looked back at the ball his fist had made. The knuckles were completely unbruised. The pale skin was barely flushed despite the devastating, bone-breaking force of the impact. The Cyprian venom had truly made this stolen body an absolute weapon of mass destruction.
Devin stepped forward, towering over the bleeding royal.
"Don't ever," Devin whispered, his voice taking on Zain's raspy, lethal, dead-eyed tone, "grab my shoulder from behind again."
He didn't wait for Aiden to stammer a response. He didn't offer a hand to help him up.
Devin simply stepped right over his trembling, bleeding form, his dark eyes locking back onto the grand, sweeping staircase leading toward the Venom Research Department. He had a scheduled appointment with a true monster, and his patience for the living was rapidly running out.