Claimed By The King(s) Of Kings

Malric

The bare-knuckle combat ring in the Year Three arena was slick with sweat and red dust.

Malric ducked beneath a sweeping right hook, his footwork shifting with terrifying speed. Before Vance could reset his guard, Malric drove a brutal left jab straight into his brother’s ribs, following up with a heavy, roundhouse elbow that cracked hard against Vance’s jaw.

Vance stumbled back, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the dark mat, but he threw a wild counter-punch that grazed Malric’s cheek. Enraged, Malric closed the distance in a blur. He caught Vance by the shoulder, slammed his knee violently into his stomach, and executed a sweeping leg-take-down that sent Vance crashing flat onto his back with a bone-rattling THUD.

Silence fell over the arena.~

Breathing heavily, his bare chest heaving with sweat, Malric loomed over his brother. Deep down, the hot, volcanic rage that had been brewing in his gut since yesterday was still burning bright. Every strike he threw was fueled by the sheer, soul-crushing humiliation of that little rat—Travis—slapping him in the dining hall. The only reason he hadn’t tracked the boy down and torn his limb from limb yet was because simple violence was too easy. The revenge had to be calculated. It had to be as publicly embarrassing and psychologically scarring as the insult he had endured.

Malric extended a calloused, heavy hand down to his brother.

Vance groaned, reaching up to take it, scrambling to his feet while clutching his bruised ribs. "Goddess above, Malric," Vance wheezed, wiping blood from his lip. "Are you using me as a personal punching bag just to vent about getting bitch-slapped by a freshman?"

Malric’s eyes narrowed. "Shut your mouth, Vance."

"I’m just saying," Vance smirked, rubbing his jaw, his eyes gleaming with his usual insufferable, teasing flair. "He hit you twice. Twice, brother. I think his little hand left a permanent mark on your royal ego—"

BAM!

Malric’s fist slammed straight into the side of Vance’s face, dropping him right back onto the dark mat. "I said, shut up."

Before Vance could even curse him out from the floor, the heavy iron doors of the arena were thrown open. A terrified junior—one of the lower-ranking pack boys who acted as a runner for the princes—came sprinting across the mats, panting heavily.

"My Lords! My Lords, I have news!" the junior gasped out, stopping a safe ten feet away from Malric. "Rumors are spreading everywhere! Princess Molly... she... she’s dating Travis Whitelock!" Vance sat up from the floor, a bloody grin breaking across his face. "Oh! The guy that slapped you?"

Malric stood entirely frozen, his amber eyes dilating with pure disbelief. "That’s impossible. What nonsense are you talking about?"

Theo pushed off the stone wall he had been leaning against, his thick-framed tinted glasses catching the dim torchlight. He tapped his phone screen, stepping forward to turn the glowing display toward Malric. "It’s not nonsense. Look at the academy group chat. It’s blowing up. They were just spotted together in the infirmary."

Malric grabbed the phone out of Theo’s hand, his eyes scanning the endless flood of messages, photos, and wild headlines taking over the screen.

[PRINCESS MOLLY CONFIRMS FRESHMAN TRAVIS WHITELOCK IS HER BOYFRIEND IN THE INFIRMARY!]

A dark, terrifying vein bulged on Malric’s forehead. Without saying a word, he reared his arm back and hurled Theo’s phone with all his strength directly into the stone wall. The device shattered into a hundred metallic pieces, raining down onto the floor. The entire combat class gasped, ducking back.

Theo stared at the pile of debris, deadpan. "Man. That was my phone."

Malric ignored him entirely, wiping the sweat from his brow and turning toward the exit. "We need to go teach our idiot sister not to date idiots."

He stormed toward the grand arches of the arena, not even glancing back. The Year Three combat professor opened his mouth to protest the sudden disruption, but as Malric brushed past him with a murderous aura, the instructor wisely shut his mouth and stepped back. Theo and Vance fell in line right behind their eldest brother, leaving the entire class staring in stunned silence.

As the three princes marched down the main corridors toward the campus hospital wing, the crowded hallways cleared out instantly. Students scattered like sheep before wolves, parting like the Red Sea. Some lower-years literally trembled against the stone walls, lowering their heads in terror, while a few brave noble girls whispered in admiration at how terrifyingly handsome the royal brothers looked when enraged.

They reached the grand double doors of the infirmary quadrant. Malric reached out, his hand wrapping around the polished brass door handle, ready to rip it off its hinges.

"Leave him alone, Malric."

A cool, commanding voice echoed down the stone archway.

The three princes froze, turning their heads. Walking slowly toward them was Headmaster Roiner, his pale vampire face entirely unreadable, his dark eyes fixed firmly on Malric. "You will not touch a single hair on that boy’s head," Roiner added smoothly. Vance let out a dry, disbelieving laugh, while Theo crossed his tattooed arms, a dark smirk playing on his lips.

"Have you lost your mind, Headmaster?" Malric barked out, taking a heavy step away from the door toward the ancient vampire. "Who the hell are you to tell us what we can and cannot do?"

"I am your Headmaster," Roiner replied, stopping a few feet away. "And while I have allowed you three to run rampant and do whatever you please in this academy, this boy is strictly off-limits. You cannot touch him."

Malric scoffed, a dark, dangerous laugh bubbling up from his chest as he closed the distance, looming over the older creature. "You cannot tell me what to do, vampire. If I want to walk through those doors right now and cave that little rat’s head into the wall, I will. And there is not a single thing you can do to stop me."

Roiner’s lips twitched into a faint, mocking smile. "Is that so? I wonder... how would your father feel about taking away your private suite privileges entirely? Perhaps moving all four of you into the general common dorms? Sleeping in bunk beds with commoners from the countryside who smell like livestock? I know how terribly sensitive your royal noses are to such unpleasant odors."

Malric’s lip quivered in pure, unadulterated fury. His nostrils flared, his hands clenching into tight, trembling fists. He wanted nothing more than to tear Roiner’s throat out, but the threat hit its mark perfectly.

"Fuck you," Malric growled out through gritted teeth.

He shoved past Roiner, deliberately striking his heavy shoulder against the Headmaster’s as he stormed off back down the corridor. Vance and Theo followed right behind him, each deliberately bumping their shoulders against Roiner in a show of petty defiance as they vanished around the corner, huffing and cursing loudly under their breaths.

The hallway fell dead silent once more.

Headmaster Roiner remained standing alone outside the heavy infirmary doors. He didn’t turn to watch the princes leave. Instead, his dark eyes remained firmly locked on the thick wood of the door, his chest tightening as the faint. Is it really you? Roiner thought quietly to himself, a heavy, centuries-old ache stirring deep within his heart. Is it really you whom I’ve waited decades to find.

Back at his dorm Malric paced up and down looking like a rabid with a second away from going feral.

"I am going to destroy him!" Malric roared, pacing the living room, in a fit of anger he threw a heavy crystal decanter across the room, watching it explode against the fireplace. "I’m not just going to beat him. I’m going to strip that little rat of every shred of dignity he possesses! By the time I’m done with Travis Whitelock, he will beg on his knees to leave Moonside!"

Vance slid onto the couch, carefully dabbing at his split lip with a silk napkin. "The Headmaster explicitly said he’s off-limits, Malric. If Roiner throws us into the common dorms with the scholarship farm boys, I will literally end my own life."

"Roiner said I couldn’t lay a hand on him," Malric sneered, a dark, sinister grin twisting his features as his mind churned with a vile blueprint. "He didn’t say the entire school couldn’t punish him for us, we could watch him drown in his own embarrassment. We don’t touch him directly, the school will."

Theo, currently holding a fresh ice pack to his knuckles while scrolling on a spare tablet, raised an eyebrow. "What are you planning, dear brother?"

"Move the Annual Iron Fang Bash," Malric demanded, turning to Vance with glowing amber eyes. "Do it now. Shift it from next month to this Friday night."

Vance blinked, dropping the napkin. "This Friday? That’s in two days!"

"I don’t give a damn! Get the word out to the whole campus!" Malric growled, his voice dropping into a chilling, venomous register. "Every pack leader’s child, every high-ranking noble’s child, every single student must be there. We throw the biggest, wildest party Moonside has ever seen, and we make sure my dear sister brings her brand-new boyfriend as her honored guest. We’ll ruin that rat at this party."

"Cruel. I love it," Theo smirked, setting his tablet down.

Malric wiped a hand over his face, his chest still heaving with unspent rage as his eyes darted around the room, suddenly noticing the missing piece of their quartet.

"And where the fuck is Keali?!" Malric bellowed.

Vance sighed heavily, rolling his eyes toward the balcony. "He wandered off two hours ago with a bottle of moon-wine and powder. He’s probably passed out cold on a stone bench in the courtyard somewhere."

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