Bloodbound to the Witch Heir: Claimed By Four

Azrael’s POV

*****

7:12 PM, Dean’s office.

"Yes, sir," Professor Amelia muttered into a phone, back facing the Dean’s desk. "I’ve checked in on the assigned observers watching Miss Bloodoak. They’ve withdrawn with Luna Queen Odessa around."

She got to the door, glancing back at the office one last time before flicking the light switch on the wall off. "I’m on my way outside now, sir."

As she stepped out and shut the door behind her, silence dropped in the office.

Just for a moment.

Then—shadows shifted, a small breeze blowing through the room despite the window being closed. The seat behind the Dean’s desk spun, darkness peeling away to reveal none other than Azrael.

"That wasn’t suspicious at all," he got on his feet.

He had slipped into this office a few minutes ago, after spending an hour keeping track of the Dean and his movements.

To most students, it might seem like all the man did all day was sit in his office and occasionally come out to punish the unruly ones.

That wasn’t the case at all.

Azrael had watched the man making calls in hushed tones, most times outside his office. During one of those calls, a name slipped past the witch’s lips.

Miss Benedicta.

Although Azrael couldn’t risk getting too close to the Dean, his millennia of expertise in hiding in the shadows helped him pull through. Enough to raise his suspicions.

Silently, he flipped the laptop open on the desk. "Hmm..." He hesitated, wondering if his prints or presence could be tracked.

A flick of his wrist and the subtle glow of his ring changed that worry, masking his scent. He then relied on telekinesis to operate the laptop.

Unfortunately, after a few minutes too long, all he found on the laptop were student files, admission statements and layout plans of the already concluded Blood Trials.

"Of course," he smirked. "Why would he leave anything incriminating here?"

Right now he needed two things.

One, proof that the Dean was somehow linked to Miss Benedicta’s death and her children’s disappearance. Two... Proof that he didn’t only know more about the mate bonds, but was also manipulating things from the shadows.

Sighing, he leaned back on the Dean’s leather chair. His hand rested on his chin, index finger tapping slowly.

There had to be something in this bloody machine.

For a moment, he considered reaching out to Amunira. She knew more about this era’s technology than he did.

But when the thought crossed his mind—he also thought about what Amunira would say to him once she pries and finds out why her assistance was needed.

"She won’t let me hear the end of it." He made a sound, bringing his eyes back to the laptop’s screen.

After half a minute of thinking, he controlled the mundane absurdity again. This time, he didn’t look through files. He searched through metadata.

Something Amunira once called the ’behind-the-scenes info’ in a computer file.

Soon, he came across things that brought him pause. "Well, I’ll be..."

The screen flickered with different calls. Encrypted calls, all routed through the Dean’s eagle shaped authorization seal. But the actual origin points?

Either scrambled or wiped.

"Mr Thorne," he straightened, squinting at the laptop. "Who was calling you and why did you keep it so hidden?"

Pfft.

The man definitely had skeletons to hide.

And Azrael was prepared to dig up all of them.

With a raise of his chin, he telekinetically skimmed through the timestamps attached to each call.

Last night. A week ago. Nine days ago...

"These..." Azrael arched a surprised brow. "These line up with just about every important mystery. The night of Miss Benedicta’s death. The appearance of her body. The Blood Trials..."

Coincidence?

Absolutely not.

Yet he couldn’t help himself from wondering as he gawked at the laptop.

Was the Dean so confident that he’d leave stuff like this without erasing them completely? Was he onto them perhaps—and was this a trap to lure him?

Why did it feel like he’d been intentionally thrown a breadcrumb?

’This should do for now.’ he thought, getting off the chair.

The laptop shut down in his wake, just the way he met it.

However, just when he was about to move toward the door—

—Footsteps.

And a scent he didn’t think would come back so soon.

"I believe," the door clicked before swinging open. Azrael slipped into a shadow, blending in perfectly as the Dean walked in, "Keeping the bonds away from her parents is best. For now."

Azrael watched the man snap his neck, lingering just close to the open door. He had a phone glued to his ear, voice hushed even though there wasn’t another soul in the building.

Except for an undead one.

"You think we can let her tell them if necessary?" Thorne huffed. "We’ve kept it hidden for so long. Shut down rumours from students and anything implicating Blood Eye. Now we..."

Suddenly, he paused. His neck moved gently to the shadow Azrael hid under.

The latter didn’t fret, staying still.

Neither a word nor a breath was let out by either for several seconds.

Eventually, "Forgive me, I thought I felt something," Dean Thorne rubbed his head. "You saw her outburst at the Hybrid trials. It’s only a matter of time before our theory comes to fruition."

He settled behind his seat, flipping back his robe. "I can only hope the Alpha King and Luna Queen are smart enough to keep their daughter’s nature secret once it’s no longer hidden from them."

At that point, the man raised his hand to telekinetically shut his door from here.

Azrael didn’t waste a second despite his desire to hear more. He whooshed out of the room narrowly, the door closing just a second later.

When he bent a corner and lingered under a shadow, he sighed. "Oh, that bastard is more guilty than the devil himself." His mouth shook with the ghost of a smile. "And even the devil got his reckoning."

But unlike the devil, Azrael suspected this one wasn’t planning to fall alone.