As Kael strutted into the cssroom, a sharp voice immediately cut through the noise.

  "Kael, te again."

  It wasn’t a question, just a resigned statement, as if the teacher had long given up on expecting anything else.

  I turned my head toward the teacher, a woman standing near the front of the css. She looked to be in her forties, with green scales on her otherwise pale skin, that sometimes shifted colors, almost like a chameleon blending in with its surroundings.

  Her slit-pupiled eyes narrowed at Kael, the tension in her expression making it clear this wasn’t the first time this had happened.

  Kael just scratched the back of her head, completely unfazed. “C’mon, Teach, I was busy being helpful!”

  The teacher’s lips pressed into a thin line. Your definition of 'helpful' is often more trouble than it's worth."

  Then, her gaze nded on me. The moment our eyes met, the tightness in her face loosened, her sharp features softening just a little.

  For a second, she just observed me. Taking in every detail, as if committing me to memory.

  Then, her expression eased.

  "You must be Markus."

  I swallowed. "Yes, ma’am."

  She nodded, seeming satisfied. "Welcome to our css." Then she turned her attention back to the room, her golden eyes sweeping over the students.

  "Everyone," she continued, voice firm but not unkind, "we have a new transfer student. Introduce yourself."

  I cleared my throat, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of their stares. My palms felt damp, my heartbeat annoyingly loud in my ears.

  The expectant silence stretched, pressing down on me like a heavy fog. My fingers curled slightly at my sides.

  "Hello… I’m Markus," I started, my voice coming out quieter than I wanted. I had to force myself to speak up. "I just moved here recently." A pause, then a slight shift on my feet. "I hope to work well with you all."

  It was curt, simple, and gave them nothing. Just how it should be.

  For a moment, the css was silent, as if they were waiting for me to add something else. But I didn’t. I just stood there, feeling my nerves crawl under my skin.

  The teacher, thankfully, didn’t press further. She simply nodded in approval, her expression unreadable. "Good. You can take a seat next to Kael. She’s a chatterbox so she’d be willing to help you out."

  I was about to move when someone spoke up.

  "Hey, what species are you?"

  The words cut through the room. Slowly, I turned to the voice. A boy leaned zily against his desk, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at his lips. His dark, tousled hair barely covered the sharp glint in his eyes, and behind him, a tail flicked idly, its spade-shaped tip curling and uncurling with ease.

  An incubus. Probably. Then I took a moment, just looking at everyone.

  I could feel the eyes lingering on me. Watching, analyzing. Everyone here had an obvious mark of what they were, horns, wings, tails, extra limbs, animal features, sometimes even something as subtle as unnatural-colored eyes or elongated fangs.

  But me? I was just an enigma to them.

  I hesitated.

  "Does it matter?" I said finally, forcing my voice to stay even.

  That earned a reaction. A ripple of murmurs spread across the cssroom, some curious, others amused. The incubus boy raised an eyebrow at me, his smirk widening just slightly. "That’s not an answer."

  I stared at him, unblinking. "It wasn’t a question either."

  A few chuckles sounded in the background, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of him. My pulse hammered in my throat.

  The teacher sighed, but instead of letting it go, she leveled me with a firm stare. "Markus, it's polite to share your species with your cssmates. It helps everyone understand each other better and fosters a sense of belonging. You wouldn’t want to start fighting on your very first day, would you?"

  I swallowed, hoping the same lie would fly this time.

  "...Half-incubus, half-vampire," I muttered.

  That got a reaction. A few students murmured, their interest suddenly piqued. The incubus boy let out a low snicker, eyes gleaming with newfound amusement. "Oh? That’s a rare mix."

  "How interesting," the teacher remarked, nodding as if making a mental note. "Well, now that that’s settled, take your seat."

  I obeyed immediately, shoulders tense. The teacher, too busy to notice, went back to readying her material, leaving the students to their own devices.

  As I get to my seat, Kael let out a sharp whistle, leaning back in her chair with an amused grin. “Damn, Markus, you’ve got guts.”

  I blinked, confused. “What?”

  She jerked her head towards the front of the cssroom, where Kelvin had taken his seat with an air of smugness, one arm draped zily over his desk like he had all the time in the world. “You just went and picked a fight with that guy.”

  I furrowed my brows. “I didn’t pick a fight.”

  Kael snorted, crossing her arms. “Trust me, in Kelvin’s eyes, you did. Talking back to him, even a little, means you’re picking a fight. He won’t show it, but he hates that.”

  I exhaled slowly, already regretting opening my mouth earlier.

  Kael’s voice dropped to a hush as she leaned in. “You really don’t know who you just picked a fight with, do you?”

  She leans in closer, excitedly informing of all juicy bits. “Kelvin’s got a reputation. He’s a devil in disguise, literally.” She tapped her finger against her temple. “People call him all sorts of things. The Incubus Prince. The Bck Rose. The Heart Collector-”

  She kept listing names, most of which sounded like something out of a bad novel. I scoffed. “Dramatic.”

  Kael’s tail flicked against the floor. “Yeah, well, he’s got the looks, the charm, the family name. But people don’t talk about what happens when you get on his bad side.” She shot me a pointed look. “Which, congrats, you just did.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Just my luck. First day in, and I already had some self-absorbed school idol breathing down my neck.

  Kael grinned at my silence. “Oh, and since you’re the same species, that’s probably gonna make him consider you as competition too.”

  I raised a brow at her. “You sure know a lot about him. What, are you a fan or something?”

  Kael’s ears shifted, and she scoffed, but there was just that little twitch in her eyes that gave it away. “Hah? No way.”

  Then I gave her a slow, skeptical look. One which screamt ‘are you being for real’.

  She groaned, ears fttening slightly as she averted her gaze. “…Okay, fine. I used to have a crush on him. Past tense. That was before I figured out he’s a total bitch.”

  I snorted. “Wow. Real smooth transition from admiration to hatred.”

  “It wasn’t that smooth,” she muttered. “Took me a while to get over it. His whole ‘mysterious and charming’ act used to get to me, but once you see past it, you realize he’s just an insufferable, self-absorbed prick.” She sighed dramatically, shaking her head. “A shame, really.”

  I smirked. “And these names people call him… ‘Silver-Tongued Terror’? ‘Heart Collector’? They sound made up.”

  “They’re not!” she said, scandalized, then hesitated. “…Okay, maybe, like, half of them are.”

  I shook my head, smirking. “You’re such a clown.” A soft ugh escaped me.

  “Hey,” she said, a slow grin spreading across her face. “Was that a ugh?”

  I blinked, then frowned. “What? No.”

  “You so ughed!” she pressed, tail flicking behind her. “I totally heard it.”

  My expression shifted, something spilling out of me which shouldn’t.

  “I guess… I guess you did.”

  Kael let out a quiet but triumphant “Yes!” as she pumped a fist in the air. “Got a ugh out of the weirdly haired new guy on his first day. That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

  I rolled my eyes, but there was no real bite behind it. “Sure, if that’s what gets you through the day.”

  “Damn right it is.” She grinned before leaning back against her chair, still looking way too pleased with herself.

  Letting the moment settle, I shifted in my seat and gnced around the room. The chatter in the css was starting to pick up again now that introductions were over. My fingers drummed against my desk. “So,” I started, “what’s the deal with this pce? What’s the css like?”

  At that, Kael’s ears perked up. “Oh, you wanna know the gossip?”

  “…I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”

  “Same thing,” she replied easily, before unching into it. And by it, I meant a full-blown lecture, most of it revolving around one person in particur.

  “...and Kelvin’s at the top of the food chain around here,” she said, making a face. “I already told you he’s from some rich family, but he’s also been in Tera forever. People either wanna be him, date him, or… well, stay the hell out of his way.”

  I exhaled through my nose. “So, the usual.”

  “Oh no, you don’t get it.” She wagged a finger. “There are rumors, man. Like, some people say he’s seeing the teacher.”

  That made me pause. My eyes flickered to the front of the cssroom, where the chameleon woman was flipping through some papers, her long tail swaying idly. Him? With her?

  I grimaced. “That’s… hard to imagine...”

  Kael snickered. “I know, right? But hey, I don’t make the rumors, I just spread them.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. Either way, I was done talking about Kelvin. “Okay, what about anyone else? Any other ‘notable’ people?”

  At that, Kael suddenly fell quiet. She tapped her fingers against the desk, thinking, then her expression shifted. She leaned in, her voice lowering to a whisper.

  “Actually… yeah.” Her tail flicked once, betraying a hint of nervousness. “There’s someone really weird in our css.”

  I raised a brow. “Define weird.”

  She wet her lips, hesitating for just a second before continuing, “We have a monster from Ferox in here.”

  That just made me all the more confused. I stared at her. “What?”

  Kael’s tail flicked anxiously as she leaned in, her ears twitching like she was about to let me in on some deep, forbidden knowledge.

  "I'm telling you, it's someone who was too much of a monster, even for Ferox. You know, where all the predator-y folks are," she whispered, her voice so hushed I could barely hear her over the cssroom chatter.

  I raised an eyebrow. "Too much? You mean like… dangerous?"

  She nodded quickly, her light blue hair bouncing. "Way too much. Like, they couldn't even handle her. So what did they do?" She spread her hands wide and then let them drop onto the desk with a soft thump. "They dumped her here. In Tera of all pces. And now she's our problem."

  I frowned, gncing around the cssroom as if expecting some untamed beast to jump out from behind a desk. "That sounds made up," I deadpanned.

  "It's not," she insisted, eyes wide with conviction. "I mean, I don’t know the full story, but think about it. Ferox is for the ones with real killer instincts, right? Like the real predator-types. If she was too much even for them, then what the hell is she doing here?"

  I doubted the credibility behind her words, still not sure whether she was blowing things out of proportion.

  "Who is she?" I asked, despite the uneasy feeling growing in my gut.

  Kael hesitated this time, her usual chatterbox energy dimming just a little. "You’ll know when-”

  The cssroom door smmed open with enough force that I almost jumped.

  The easy, chatty atmosphere from moments before vanished in an instant, sucked away like air from a vacuum. Every head turned toward the doorway, a thick silence falling over the room.

  She stood there, straight, powerful, and exuding an aura that screamed danger.

  Her wolf ears on her short raven hair twitched in agitation, the only thing betraying any movement as she surveyed the room. Her face held a scowl, an expression that banced between something sharp and something oddly… regal. Like a predator who knew she didn’t have to try. She just... was.

  Then her whole face shifted, revealing her fully.

  Blood-red hungering eyes as if she was looking at a bunch of prey, though one was paler, milkier. Her left eye was blinded, marred by a long, jagged scar running from her head to her cheek.

  Without a word, she turned on her heel and stalked toward the back of the css. Each step was forceful, as her whole body shifted with her momentum. It made the silence that stretched around her all the more suffocating.

  As she made her way to the back of the room, I felt something prick at the back of my neck. A pang, not physical, but heavy enough that my instincts screamed at me to notice.

  Her gaze.

  For the briefest moment, her blood-red eyes lingered on me. Or at least, it felt like they did. It was impossible to tell with how casually she looked past the rest of the css, like we were nothing more than background noise to her.

  Then, just as quickly as it happened, it was gone.

  She moved on without a word, making her way to the back. The silence stretched unbearably until she finally sat down. Even then, the air in the room felt heavier, like everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see if something would happen.

  I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to rex.

  That was when I felt a tug on my sleeve.

  Kael leaned in close, eyes wide with something between fascination and fear, and whispered, "That’s her! That’s Wryn!"

  Yeah, I could tell.