The cafeteria of Aurelian Academy was alive with noise. Golden chandeliers spilled light across glass walls and polished floors, the kind of luxury that reminded Aiden every day he didn't belong here.
He sat at the back table with his tray of food, mostly untouched, while Noah and Claire — the only two students who didn't treat him like dirt — tried to keep the conversation alive.
"Scholarship life, huh?" Noah joked, nudging Aiden with an elbow. "Eat, man. If you faint, I'm not carrying you to the nurse's office."
"I'm fine," Aiden muttered. He forced a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.
That was when it hit him.
The pain.
It wasn't normal — not stomach cramps, not stress. His chest flared as though someone had branded fire into his skin. He gasped, clutching his shirt, his fork clattering onto the tray.
Noah leaned forward, alarmed. "Aiden? You okay?"
Across the cafeteria, Selene Veyran stopped laughing at whatever her friends were saying. Her crimson-tinged eyes sharpened. For a moment, the world seemed to tilt.
There it was.
An aura — suffocating, ancient, and terrifyingly familiar — rolled through the air like a silent storm. Selene's breath caught. Her instincts screamed danger.
Her friends called her name, but she didn't respond. She rose abruptly, her chair scraping back. Without another word, she walked out, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor.
By evening, she was standing in the office of her mother, the Vampire Countess Lysandra. The Countess looked every inch the ruler of empires, her beauty cold as stone, her power hidden beneath tailored black silk.
"You're pale, Selene," she said, studying her daughter with narrowed eyes.
Selene swallowed hard. "Mother… I felt something today. At school. It wasn't human. It wasn't… anything I've ever known. It was dark. Heavy. If I stayed, I think it would have crushed me."
The Countess placed down her glass of wine, her eyes gleaming faintly. For the first time in decades, Selene saw her mother unsettled.
"So the whispers were true…" Lysandra murmured. "The child of the Unknown has awakened."
Selene blinked. "Child of what?"
But her mother only waved her off. "Leave it. This is not for your ears yet. Tell no one what you felt. Not your friends. Not even your father."
Selene hesitated, then bowed her head. But in her chest, her heart still pounded with fear — and something else. Curiosity.
Back at the school dormitories, Aiden sat on his bed, staring at his hand. The pain had faded, but a strange warmth lingered in his veins. He touched his chest where the burning mark was hidden beneath his shirt.
"What the hell's happening to me?" he whispered.
A knock came at the door — Noah again, laughing about homework, dragging him back into the normal rhythm of school life. But Aiden couldn't shake the truth.
Something had changed.
And though he didn't know it yet, his single heartbeat at lunch had been enough to shake Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.