Chapter 3. The Red Room

Damon’s POV

“The Red Room can’t be explained,” Corwin smirked, eyes glinting with mischief. “But we can show you what it is.”

Before I could even process the warning in his voice, we were already being led down a series of freezing, pitch-dark corridors. The cold bit through my skin, through my bones. It wasn’t normal—not even for us. Werewolves weren’t supposed to feel the cold like this.

“What the hell is this place?” Kael hissed, teeth chattering despite his body heat. “From the name alone, I thought we were walking into a torture chamber—lava floors, maybe an electric chair in the middle... something dramatic.”

That earned another round of snickering from the Alpha boys—Corwin, Valen, Zarek, and Lucan. Their laughter echoed eerily off the stone walls before they finally halted and shoved us toward a massive glass window.

We all leaned in—and the air caught in my throat.

Beyond the glass lay something straight out of a dream: a crystalline lake shimmering under soft sunlight, fish dancing in the water, cherry blossoms drifting through the air like enchanted snow, ancient boulders resting beside delicate reeds.

“This might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” I whispered. For a moment, I forgot who I was, where I was and why I was even here.

But Draven shattered the spell with one sentence.

“No,” he said, voice grim. “It doesn’t feel right. The fish... they’re jumping in synchronized patterns. That’s not natural.”

Lucan let out a low whistle and nudged Zarek. “You’ve got a sharp one in your crew.”

Kael and I exchanged a grin. “You should’ve seen him trying to outsmart his nerd crush back in Diamond Ville,” Kael snorted. “Didn’t end well.”

Draven growled. “Shut it, both of you.”

And then—chaos.

Strong arms shoved us forward and into the room. The door slammed shut behind us. The second it clicked, everything inside the Red Room changed.

Gone was the peaceful lake. Gone were the blossoms, the swans, the illusion.

Winds howled through us with a soundless roar, twisting our bodies like we were caught in invisible wires pulling from every direction. Vibrations wracked our spines—so fierce I felt my bones jitter. My sensitive ears seared with pain. My balance failed. My knees hit the floor.

We weren’t in paradise.

We were in a storm that no eye could see.

Every second felt like a hundred knives sliding under the skin.

And then, suddenly, it stopped.

Stillness. Dead silence.

The door creaked open. We lay on the floor, groaning, our muscles twitching from the backlash.

Valen stared at us, stunned. “You guys lasted ten whole minutes?”

“We’re alive?” I croaked, blinking up at him.

“Technically,” Lucan muttered.

“You’re stronger than most,” Zarek said thoughtfully. “But that was just Level One.”

“Level One?” Kael wheezed, still flat on his back.

“What’s in Level Two?” Draven asked.

The Alphas laughed.

“That’s the one that breaks actual Alphas,” Zarek said, a haunted shadow crossing his expression. “We don’t take rookies there. Not unless we want broken minds.”

I swallowed hard.

The Red Room wasn’t a punishment.

It was a weapon.

“It plays with perception,” Zarek added as we slowly sat up. “This school doesn’t whip students or put them in chains. It uses mental overload. Emotional dissonance. Sound, vibration, illusion—all turned against your senses until your brain snaps.”

“But our bodies were hurting too,” Draven frowned. “That wasn’t just mental.”

“Good catch,” Lucan nodded. “The vibrations are laced with energy—magical energy.”

Kael blinked. “Is that... a Vampire spell?”

“Bingo,” Corwin smirked. “Stole it right out of Victor’s bloodline. Actually, it was Virelle’s grandmother who cast the first one during her term as Headmistress.”

My eyes widened. “You mean our Luna’s grandmother?”

“And your Alphas, too,” Valen said with a nod. “Your whole Diamond Heart crew caused enough chaos back then that the spell was installed permanently. Fun legacy, huh?”

Draven grinned. “Guess that makes my Dad legendary.”

“You’re not wrong,” Lucan chuckled.

I sat back, breathing, finally beginning to steady. My limbs still trembled, but the pain had started to fade. We’d been to the edge of something awful—and lived.

“I wonder what the girls are up to,” I muttered, glancing at the time. “Class starts at ten, doesn’t it?”

“Crap, you’re right,” Zarek said, suddenly serious. “Come on—we’ve got the same courses. Let’s move before the staff finds a reason to send you back into that room for being late.”

“Being a room monitor doesn’t sound fun anymore,” I muttered, stumbling forward.

Zarek just grinned. “Welcome to Asheville.”

***

Seris’ POV

“What the moon-blessed madness are you doing, Lyra?” I hissed, glancing around in panic as her fingers danced over the forbidden panel tucked beneath a loose stone tile.

“Bringing chaos,” she grinned, the wild spark in her eyes only growing brighter.

Typical Lyra.

“I swear, if we end up in the Red Room because of this—” I started, voice sharp with warning.

“You really need to stop panicking before the panic even starts,” she replied smoothly, nose-deep in wires and arcane script. “Besides, I disabled the basic surveillance charms ten seconds ago.”

“That’s not comforting,” I muttered, but Zoe just rolled her eyes and leaned closer.

“Seris,” she said calmly, “you’re the only one smart enough to crack this system. We need you.”

“You need me?!” I gaped. “You mean you need me to commit the most absurd, suicidal tech-violation this school has ever seen?”

Zoe shrugged. “Semantics.”

My head dropped into my hands. They were going to get me killed.

Or worse—grounded by Headmistress Virelle’s mindwalk spell. And that… was something even death couldn’t outmatch.

“Phones, laptops, smartwatches—they said nothing electronic is allowed. I warned you about this!” I exhaled, already sweating as runes began glowing faintly beneath the panel.

Zoe’s voice dropped to a whisper. “And now we’re warning you. We’re in too deep to back off. Just help us get into the system.”

I groaned louder than was morally acceptable. “You three will be the death of me.”

But... they were my sisters.

And I was the only one who could pull this off.

“I want jelly shots,” I said, dead serious.

Lyra didn’t even look up. She just reached into her satchel and tossed over a ziplock full of rainbow-colored cubes. “Five, freshly conjured. Grape-flavored, too.”

Score.

I popped them like pills, moaning softly at the perfect texture. Jelly shots were my one weakness—the only addiction my foster parents ever used successfully to blackmail me into obedience.

“Okay,” I said, licking the last one off my finger. “Let’s break into hell.”

But the second my code touched the core frequency, my breath caught.

This wasn’t tech. This wasn’t even magic in the traditional sense.

It was alive.

“Uh, Zoe?” I said slowly, scanning the pulsing script across the screen. “This isn’t a digital grid. This is... mindlink-webbing. Every single student, professor, and ghost in this damn place is hooked into a living surveillance system. That’s why our mindlinks stay blocked on campus. They’re rerouted.”

Zoe’s eyes gleamed. “A hive system.”

“Exactly!” I shouted. “This place is practically sentient. It knows what we think. It listens.”

“Even better,” Zoe smirked. “We make it think we belong.”

“No, no, no! I know that look—you’re going, full rogue. Would you like me to create fake identities inside the mindweb? Do you know how hard it is to clear thoughts while holding a false persona? One mistake and we’re brain-bleeding for weeks!”

“We’ve held breath underwater for five minutes straight,” Lyra countered, hands on hips. “How bad can this be?”

“It’ll kill me!” I wailed. “Clearing my mind and holding a blank slate identity while inserting three pseudo-avatars into a psychic surveillance field? Do I look like a vampire oracle with nine lives?!”

Zoe crouched next to me, her voice low. “You want to go home, right?”

I paused. Jelly shot mid-chew.

She continued. “Back to your fridge full of jelly. Real internet. Real air. Real freedom.”

I sighed dramatically. “You manipulative geniuses.”

Lyra grinned smugly. “So… what names are we going with?”

I popped one last jelly cube, feeling the sugar rush power up my brain like a war drum.

“Bring it in, girls. Let’s forge some new legends.”

We linked hands.

“I hereby forge pseudo-selves under moonlight and rebellion,” Zoe declared.

“Shadow, storm, and silence,” Lyra added with a wicked grin.

I smiled. “Let the system think we’re ghosts.”

In that moment, three outlaw hearts pulsed as one in the deepest, oldest network at Asheville Academy.