It was like staring into the eyes of a stranger.

Seth

I was itching for a fight. A real one. Not punching the fuck out of some idiot pure-blood. That didn’t cool the fire in my blood. I wanted a real fight.

“Are you going to sit down, or will you keep pacing until you burn a track in the hardwood floors?”

Unfortunately since I was in the Dean of the Covenant’s office, there would be no fighting.

Turning to where Marcus Andros sat behind a huge-ass mahogany desk, there was no missing the tall and forever silent Sentinel standing directly to his right.

Alexander.

The man Alex was named after. Her father. A badass Sentinel who even I didn’t screw with. He didn’t speak, because the asshole Council elder who was no more had cut his tongue out years back.

I folded my arms. “What are you doing about what’s happening here?”

“Nothing. I figured that was the best course of action,” he replied drolly. “Just let them kill each other.”

“That’s what it appears to me.” I kept a watchful eye on Alexander. “What happened today isn’t an isolated event. Since I showed up here, they’ve been at each other’s throats. The fighting—pures setting halfs on fire. Using compulsions?”

He rose from his seat. “I know what has been happening on my campus, Seth. Do you think I’m okay with that? That I haven’t been dedicating every extra resource we have to keeping things calm around here?” He stalked around the desk and stopped in front of me. Alexander moved in tandem with him. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have more than half of my Sentinels and Guards safe-guarding the Covenant against the possibility of shades or Titans. You know damn well that things have gone silent where they’re concerned, but that won’t last long.”

Of course I knew that. Shit kept me awake at night, but that wasn’t what was making me want to rip someone in two. “What about this Felecia girl? What is happening to the fuckers who did that to her?”

Marcus exhaled heavily as he turned his gaze to the window that overlooked the quad. “We don’t know who was responsible. She was under a compulsion. She has no recollection of who did it.”

“Then neuter all the damn pure-bloods on campus.”

His gaze shot to mine.

Alexander smirked, apparently approving of my suggestion.

“You think I don’t want to?” Marcus’s voice was low, deadly calm. “What was done to that girl was beyond reprehensible. And we are doing everything to track where she was and who could possibly have seen her. If anyone knows anything, they are not talking, either because they chose not to or because they themselves are frightened.”

My jaw worked. Today was the first I’d heard about the girl and what had happened to her, and I knew—fuck, I knew—she wasn’t the first and she wouldn’t be the last. It made me think of what was done to . . . to Alex when we’d been at the Council in the Catskills. Her drink had been drugged, and well, that had been a fucking mess I hadn’t exactly helped with.

Marcus turned around and picked up a mug. I imagined there was some hard liquor in that brown cup. “You could’ve killed that kid, Seth.”

I arched a brow, wondering if the expression on my face said I had zero fucks to give, because that was exactly how I felt about killing that prick.

He lowered the cup. “And I can tell you really don’t care.” Sighing, he placed the mug on the desk. “With everything that is going on right now, the last thing I need to worry about is you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

Alexander tilted his head to the side and raised his brows. Without saying anything, his entire expression screamed oh, really?

“It’s kind of hard not to worry about you, Seth.” Marcus sat behind his desk. “And you know damn well why.”

I laughed under my breath as I lowered my chin. To Marcus—hell, to everyone here—I was a loose cannon. They were just waiting for me to blow.

The door opened behind me, and a mini-army of Guards strolled in, keeping their distance as they made their way to where Marcus waited.

I didn’t need to be told it was time for me to leave. Marcus simply tolerated my ass, and what was going down here between the halfs and pures wasn’t something he wanted me involved in.

Didn’t mean I wouldn’t be involving myself if necessary.

I headed out of his office, out into the wide hall where Guards stood as sentries, then down the million steps I had to climb to get to his office. From there, I wasted time scoping out the walls surrounding the university. Night had fallen, and the outer walls were well-protected. For now. But shades had gotten through once before. They’d do it again.

My empty stomach grumbled. Missed dinner, but I wasn’t in the mood for real food. Thinking of the leftover birthday cake in Josie’s room, I headed in that direction. On my way back to the dorm, I nearly walked the same path Josie and I had earlier, bypassing going into the training facility but walking around it instead.

The spot where I’d laid the body was clean. Marble fucking spotless. No sign that anything had happened except for a single red rose that lay there.

A memorial.

One fucking rose.

Before I realized it, I’d stopped walking and was staring at the freshly cut rose. The thing would be dead in a few days, but would there be more flowers? Like mortals did at the scene of a death?

Damn pure-bloods. Anyone with two working brain cells knew there were going to be problems once the Breed Order was abolished, but this? This was. . . Yeah, there were no words. And what happened to that girl?