Page 17 of Ghost Ribbon

The thought made my stomach twist with self-loathing. I almost gagged. How could I think that? How could I let those words form in my head about the devil who had carved himself into my nightmares?

I forced my gaze up for one second, just one, and immediately dropped it again. The boy in the glass looked like he might shatter if anyone breathed too hard in his direction. That was me. Marco Bellini, scholarship recipient, professional ghost, expert at mapping hallways to avoid the Void Kings. Especially him.

Alexei Morozov.

I had learned his name within days. The rumors traveled fast in Bloodburn’s corridors: one of the three untouchable Void Kings, the coldest. There were three of them, each more terrifying than the last, but Alexei… he was the one whose stare had followed me into every dream.

I turned the faucet on full blast and splashed icy water on my face, hoping it would wash away the memory. It never did.

For three hundred and sixty-five days I had expected him to come for me. Every morning I woke up surprised to still be breathing. Every night I jolted awake convinced the door was opening. I mapped new routes between classes. I kept my head down. My notebook, filled with frantic sketches of stars and blood and green eyes I could never quite capture, and poems I would never let anyone read, stayed clutched to my chest.

I was easy to overlook. Or at least I prayed I was.

But the universe delighted in tormenting the weak.

I had noticed him watching. Always from a distance. A flicker at the edge of morning assembly. A tall silhouette pausing at the end of a hallway just long enough for my pulse to spike. It felt deliberate. Like he was feeding on the fear, waiting for the moment my guard finally shattered so he could finish what that stare had started.

Today would be no different, I told myself as I forced my eyes away from the mirror and grabbed my backpack. Just another day of surviving.

I kept my head down, notebook pressed tight to my chest, and tried to disappear into the flow of students. Portraits of long-dead founders lined the walls, their painted eyes following me with judgment.

I took the long way around the east wing to avoid the usual spot where the Void Kings sometimes lingered. My heart hammered anyway.

I didn’t see him until collision was inevitable.

The impact jarred through my entire body. My sneakers slipped on the polished floor and I went down hard, notebook flying from my hands before slapping against the marble several feet away.

“I’m sorry, I—” The apology died in my throat.

I looked up.

Alexei Morozov towered above me.

Raven-black hair fell in careless tousles over his forehead. Pale skin. Broad shoulders. Tattoos slithering up his neck. Piercing green eyes locked onto mine immediately, dissecting, pulling me in, stripping away every defense I had spent a year building. Up close they were devastating, and so beautiful. A faint scar traced his left temple, barely visible unless you were this close. I had never been this close.

Out of hundreds of students, it had to be him.

My heart exploded into a frantic gallop. My full lips parted in shock. Color drained from my face until I must have looked ghostly. Tremors raced through my limbs. I couldn’t speak. My mouth opened and closed uselessly.

He extended one large hand toward me. The gesture looked polite. It wasn’t.

“It was my fault,” his voice was hollow in a way that made the lie obvious. “I didn’t see where I was going.”

The hallway wasn’t narrow. There had been room.

He had stepped into my path on purpose.

I stared at his offered hand like it was a live grenade. Rumors said Alexei Morozov hated being touched. One careless brush in the cafeteria and the student had been found the next morning with his throat opened in one of the classrooms.

Touching the devil meant inviting death.

My thoughts fractured into screaming what-ifs. My body stayed frozen on the floor.

Before I could scramble back, Alexei leaned down. His face neared mine, close enough that I could see every detail of that scar, close enough to feel the cool brush of his breath, close enough that those eyes filled my entire world. His fingers closed around my wrist in an uninvited grasp. His thumb pressed lightly over my thundering pulse, counting the beats, savoring the rhythm of my terror.

He pulled me upright.

His palm swallowed mine completely. I stared at the contrast, unable to process anything beyond the burning point of contact. Heat flooded through me that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the sick, shameful awareness that he was touching me. That he had chosen to.