MOONLIT FANGS

Wraith Hollow University didn’t look like a place that hid monsters. From the gates, it passed for any other old, obscenely expensive campus—all towering grey stone and ivy that choked the walls like it was trying to claw its way over the roof. In the center of the courtyard sat a massive fountain. No one ever saw the groundskeepers clean it, yet the water never turned green. First-year students hurried past it every day, ignoring how the surface rippled even when the air was dead still. That was the unwritten rule of Wraith Hollow: you don't ask questions. You try to survive the answers. Rhys Calloway wasn’t a freshman. He was a junior, the youngest Alpha the Calloway pack had produced in fifty years, and right now he was standing dead center on the training turf with his arms locked over his chest. He was glaring daggers at the guy who had just embarrassed him in front of forty people."Run it back," Rhys snapped. Coach Danvers, a broad-shouldered wolf who’d been running combat trials since before Rhys could walk, just raised an eyebrow. "You've dropped four straight rounds, Calloway. "Then I'll drop a fifth one with better form." Behind him, Milo let out a choked sound—halfway between a laugh and a cough. Milo did that a lot. As the pack's beta, his actual job was to support Rhys’s executive decisions. In reality, it just meant he got a front-row seat to the circus."You're not going to beat him, man," Milo said, entirely too loud. "Nobody beats him. The guy isn’t even breaking a sweat."That was what made Rhys's blood scale. Sebastian Vale really wasn't trying. Sebastian stood twenty paces away on the opposite side of the line, uniform entirely unruffled, hair perfectly intact. He’d just slammed Rhys flat onto his back for the fourth time in a row, and he’d done it with the casual effort of someone swatting a fly. He had that impossibly pale, indoor skin, dark hair that fell across his forehead in a way Rhys found personally offensive, and eyes so light they looked like liquid silver under the overcast sky. Vampire. Werewolf. And according to a two-hundred-year-old truce signed by both their bloodlines, they were required to coexist peacefully on this campus. Peacefully was carrying an absolute mountain of lies in that sentence."Are you finished throwing a tantrum?" Sebastian asked. His voice was smooth, bored, and entirely infuriating. "Or should I ask the coach to get you a chair?" "I'm not throwing a tantrum." "You're growling, Rhys. I can hear it from over here." "That's just how I breathe." Milo snorted again. Rhys shot his beta a look that promised an absolute beating during private drills later. The truth was, Rhys’s hatred for Sebastian Vale went way deeper than a missed tackle on a Tuesday afternoon. The Vale family and the Calloway pack shared a history that was old, ugly, and buried in secrets. It was a centuries-old web of broken alliances and betrayals that older generations refused to speak about out loud—a grudge passed down like a cursed family heirloom. Rhys grew up watching his grandmother practically spit on the floor whenever the name Vale came up. So when Sebastian had rolled into Wraith Hollow three years ago—aloof, untouchable, and instantly sitting at the top of every single grading rubric—Rhys had clocked him within five minutes and decided to hate him forever. Three years later, the hatred hadn't budged. He just also happened to fixate on the guy every waking second of the day, which was a completely different, vastly more annoying problem. "Positions," Coach Danvers called. Rhys rolled his shoulders and dropped into a crouch. The shift simmered just under his skin—that familiar, heavy heat that settled in his chest whenever a fight was close. Being an Alpha meant his wolf stayed right at the surface, ready to snap. It made him strong, but it also made him impossible to embarrass quietly. Everyone on the turf could see exactly how pissed he was by the way his eyes flashed a hard, unnatural gold. Across the line, Sebastian didn’t bother crouching. He didn't need to. Vampires didn't fight like wolves. They didn't rely on raw muscle and instinct. They fought the way they did everything else: precise, patient, and a little cruel. "Try not to fall on your face this time," Sebastian said, his tone perfectly flat. "It's getting embarrassing for both of us." "Wow. Was that a joke? Did the ice finally crack?" "I don't joke." "Could've fooled me. You're hilarious, Vale. A real comedy legend." Coach Danvers blew the whistle before Rhys could drag the sarcasm out any further. The field went dead quiet, save for the grass tearing under Rhys’s boots. He came in low and fast—the exact entry he’d drilled for years. He aimed straight for Sebastian's legs, looking to take him down before the vampire could do that infuriating thing where he stepped half an inch to the side at the exact millisecond of impact. Rhys had replayed that specific dodge forty times in his head and still couldn't predict the timing. Except this time, Sebastian didn't dodge. Instead, he caught Rhys by the wrist mid-lunge. He spun with the momentum rather than fighting it, using Rhys's own speed to yank him forward. He pulled him in so close that for one absurd, glitching second, Rhys's chest slammed flush against Sebastian's. His face was inches from that sharp, symmetrical jawline. Both of them froze mid-motion, the entire afternoon hitting an abrupt pause. Rhys's heart did something incredibly stupid and traitorous. Yield," Sebastian murmured. The word was meant only for him, his voice dropping its usual bored cadence. He actually sounded surprised. Never," Rhys breathed back. He refused to budge, refused to admit that his skin felt like it was catching fire everywhere Sebastian’s fingers dug in. For a fraction of a second, Sebastian's grip loosened. His eyes—that pale, stormy gray—dropped directly to Rhys's mouth. Something flickered across his face that Rhys had never seen there before. It wasn't mockery, and it definitely wasn't boredom. It was hunger. Then the mask snapped back into place. Sebastian shoved him away so hard Rhys hit the turf flat on his back for the fifth time that afternoon."Yield," Sebastian repeated, louder now. He was already turning his back, his tone resetting as if nothing had happened. "Since you apparently need to hear it twice." Rhys lay in the grass, staring blankly up at the overcast sky. His chest was heaving for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with losing a match. "You alive?" Milo appeared in his line of sight, looking down at him with a massive, unhelpful grin. I'm going to murder him." "Sure, man. Or," Milo said, offering a hand to haul him up, "and just hear me out on this—you could stop staring at his mouth every time he throws you into the dirt." "I wasn't staring at his mouth." "Buddy. Everyone saw it. Coach Danvers saw it. The guys on the bench saw it."Rhys grabbed his friend’s hand and yanked himself up, entirely ignoring the heat crawling up his neck. "I hate this school." "You love this school. You're just mad the hot vampire won't play nice." "He doesn't play anything; he just—" Rhys cut himself off before he could finish that thought, mostly because he had no clue where it was heading and he wasn't about to unpack it in public. Across the field, Sebastian Vale was pulling his uniform jacket back on, entirely unbothered, not casting a single glance back, which was exactly the problem. For three years, Rhys had been convinced Sebastian viewed him as nothing more than an annoying insect. He hadn't expected a small, terrifying voice in the back of his mind to suddenly ask: what if he doesn't hate you at all? He shoved the thought down into the deepest, darkest corner of his brain and stormed off the field before his face could give anything else away. Here is the thing no one tells you about being an Alpha werewolf: everyone assumes you're in total control of your life, your pack, and your own body. This is a complete myth invented by people who have never actually met Calloway. In reality, ever since "the incident"—which Rhys was now capitalizing in his head like a formal police report—his wolf had been entirely unhelpful. It kept fixating on one specific name. Not his packmates. Not his family.Vale."You're doing the face again," Milo noted over lunch three days later. He watched Rhys stab a piece of grilled chicken as if it had personally insulted his lineage. What face?" "The face where you're obsessing over him while trying to look like you're thinking about football." "I am thinking about how much I despise group projects," Rhys lied. Though technically, it was a half-truth. That morning, Professor Ashby had announced, with what Rhys considered actual malicious joy, that their final Interspecies Law grade would depend entirely on partner work. Partners assigned alphabetically by last name.Calloway. Vale."This is a targeted attack," Rhys muttered, glaring at the syllabus like he could rewrite the ink with sheer willpower. "The universe is punishing me. I want to know what I did in a past life."You were born with a C," Talia said, sliding into the seat opposite them with her tray. As one of the sharpest betas in the pack, she unfortunately found his misery highly entertaining. "Honestly, this is gold. You two have been trying to kill each other since first-year orientation."We don't hate each other," Rhys blurted out. He instantly winced at his own words. "I mean—I hate him. He probably doesn't feel anything because he's a robot with good bone structure. "Right," Talia smirked. "That's why you got kicked out of the library last semester for growling at him." "He was chewing loudly on purpose to get under my skin." "Vampires don't eat human food, Rhys. He wasn't chewing anything. You hallucinated the entire conflict." Rhys opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. She was right. He had literally fabricated a noise violation to justify his inability to stop looking at the guy. His phone buzzed on the table. An unknown number text:This is Sebastian. I pulled your number from the class roster. We need to coordinate the project. Tonight. East reading room, seven sharp. Don't be late. I don't wait. Rhys stared at the screen. Who is it?" Milo asked. "You look like you want to throw your phone through a brick wall." "It's him." "Oh, let me see." Talia leaned across the table to read it upside down. Her grin widened. "'I don't wait.' God, he’s bossy. You love it when people tell you what to do." "I do not love being bossy. I am the bossy one; there is a massive difference, and there is no world where I—" "You're already typing back," Milo pointed out. Rhys looked down. His thumbs had already moved without his brain’s permission: I'll be there. Try not to be insufferable for sixty minutes. He hit send before he could overthink it, immediately regretting every life choice that had brought him to this moment. The east library at seven o'clock was practically deserted. It was lit by low brass lamps that threw soft shadows across the woodwork—a fact Rhys found personally offensive because it made Sebastian Vale look like a museum exhibit. He was sitting at a corner table with a mountain of research already sorted, sleeves rolled up his forearms, looking entirely too put together."You're late," Sebastian said without looking up from a leather-bound book. I'm exactly on time." "You're four minutes late." "That's standard buffer time." "That's four minutes of my life I won't get back." "You're immortal," Rhys scoffed, dropping his bag onto the chair opposite him with unnecessary force. "You have infinite minutes. Give me four." For the first time that evening, Sebastian raised his eyes. A faint ghost of amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. It vanished almost instantly, but Rhys caught it. A strange, stupid warmth bloomed in his chest at the realization that he’d caused it. He hated that feeling at sight. "Fine," Sebastian said, sliding a folder across the dark wood. "Interspecies Law. Ashby wants a case study on a historical treaty violation. I already selected the subject." "Of course you did. Did you write the whole paper already too?" "I thought about it. But you would have complained about the lack of input." "I definitely would have." "So I waited." Sebastian leaned back, his gaze locking onto Rhys with a sudden, intense focus. "I chose the Calloway-Vale Accord of 1847." Rhys's stomach took a hard dive. Of all the documents in two centuries of supernatural history, he had to pick that specific disaster."You're kidding" "I told you, Rhys. I don't kid." "You want us to write an academic paper on the exact treaty our families tore to shreds? The entire reason our bloodlines want each other dead?" "I think," Sebastian said, his voice dropping slightly as he watched Rhys's expression, "it is the only topic in this entire building interesting enough to make me want to spend hours talking to you." Rhys had absolutely no idea what to do with a sentence like that. It felt like an insult wrapped inside a compliment, buried under something else he didn't want to name."You're unbelievable," he muttered, looking down at the paperwork to break eye contact. "So I've been told." They worked for two hours straight, and against every single expectation Rhys had walked in with, it wasn't a nightmare. Sebastian was infuriatingly intelligent, but he also possessed a dry, deadpan humor that caught Rhys entirely off guard. A sharp comment about how the original 1847 document was "clearly drafted by an illiterate human," delivered with a completely straight face, made Rhys bark out a laugh loud enough to rattle the desk lamp. Every time Rhys laughed, Sebastian watched him just a second too long. Rhys noticed. He just chose to ignore what it meant. At nine, the overhead lights flickered, signaling closing time. Rhys realized with a jolt that two hours had flown by and he hadn't felt the urge to strangle the guy once. "Same time Thursday?" Sebastian asked, stacking his notes with that same obsessive neatness. "Yeah. Fine. Whatever." Rhys stood up too quickly, his knee catching the edge of the heavy oak chair. It tilted dangerously, but Sebastian’s hand shot across the space, gripping the wood to steady it before it crashed. His fingers brushed against Rhys's knuckles for half a second. It was nothing—a ghost of a touch. Rhys felt it clear down to his teeth."Are you alright?" Sebastian asked. There was a low, careful note in his voice—something close to actual concern that Rhys had never heard from him before. "Fine," Rhys managed, ripping his hand away and stepping back. "I'm good. See you Thursday, Vale. Don't miss me too much." He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked out of the library so fast he nearly rattled the glass in the doors. It wasn't until he hit the cold night air, his lungs burning and his pulse racing, that he finally let himself admit the real problem. He hadn't wanted to leave.