Elena’s POV.
Our eyes met across the lecture hall.
For a short second, everything else disappeared. The students, the noise, the bright lights all of it faded. I waited for some sign of recognition, a small smirk or a raised eyebrow, anything that showed he acknowledged me.
Nothing.
Viktor looked at me the same way he looked at every other student in the room. Calm and completely professional. Then he turned his attention back to the front and began the lecture as if I was just another face in the crowd.
My chest tightened. I sat frozen in my seat, staring at him while he spoke. His voice was clear and the same deep tone I had heard so many times inside the mansion. Yet here he stood in front of dozens of students, teaching like it was the most normal thing in the world.
A strange th
