Chapter 3: Enter the Devil

No one sat at Raven Voss’s table.

It was an unspoken rule at Crestfall University: the long stone table near the center of the central courtyard, flanked by black iron benches and shaded by a dying willow tree, was his.

He never invited anyone. He never asked. He simply sat. Alone.

And everyone else stayed away.

Until now.

Pearl approached that table on a Monday, with a book tucked under one arm and a tray of tea and toast in the other. The air around the courtyard shifted as dozens of eyes turned to her. Conversations halted mid-sentence.

No one said a word. They just watched.

Like animals watching someone approach a sleeping predator.

Raven already sat at the far end, legs crossed, black-gloved fingers scrolling slowly through his phone. He didn’t look up. But she knew he knew.

Pearl sat.

She didn’t ask.

He didn’t tell her to leave.

Instead, he lowered the phone, eyes dragging over her face like cold silk.

“You’re brave,” he said finally.

“I’m bored.”

He smirked.

A minute passed in silence. Then another. Students began moving again, whispers trailing like mist.

“You’re enjoying this,” he said without looking at her.

“Which part?”

“The stares. The rumors. The fear.”

Pearl poured her tea. “I don’t need their fear. I already have yours.”

That made him look at her.

His gaze locked on hers—sharp, invasive, unrelenting. But Pearl held.

Unflinching. Unapologetic.

A slow smile curled at the corner of his lips.

“Careful,” he murmured. “If you keep flirting with devils, you’ll find yourself in hell.”

“I’m already there,” she whispered back. “I just came to meet the king.”

Across the courtyard, Andrea seethed.

“What the hell is she doing?” she hissed to Camille.

Camille stared. “She just… sat with him. Like she belongs there.”

“She doesn’t,” Andrea snapped. “She doesn’t know how this place works. She thinks she’s something special because she kissed him once.”

Camille was pale. “But he let her. And now he’s letting her stay.”

Andrea’s nails dug into her palm. “Then we remind her exactly who she’s playing with.”

By midweek, the tension on campus was unbearable.

Raven and Pearl had breakfast together again. Then lunch. Once, she handed him a pen before he asked for it. Another time, he walked into the library and she was already waiting—at his table.

No one dared interrupt.

And yet the silence was louder than ever.

It wasn’t about what was said between them.

It was about what wasn’t.

They didn’t touch.

They didn’t flirt—not like others expected.

There were no confessions, no smiles.

Just long silences. Questions asked without words. Games played without rules.

And the entire school was forced to watch.

Pearl kept her journal close now.

Not to write her thoughts.

But to record his.

His patterns. His tells. His behaviors.

The way his fingers always flexed before he said something cruel.

The way he watched people like he already knew what they’d say.

She had to learn him—piece by piece—because one day, she’d be the one to destroy him.

But… each piece she collected didn’t fit the puzzle she'd been promised.

Where was the monster?

Where was the sociopath who’d ordered her family’s ruin?

Instead, she saw control. Pain. A strange kind of loyalty.

A man shaped by violence… but not ruled by it.

That made him harder to hate.

That made him… dangerous.

Thursday, 6:45 PM. The Voss Lounge.

It was a private section of campus most students never saw. For elite students only. Custom-designed. Surveillance blind spots built into the architecture. Security guards at the perimeter.

Pearl had received an invitation.

No signature. Just a card slipped under her door with the time, place, and one line:

> You want to know the devil? Come where he dances.

She wore a dark navy dress. Modest. Fitted. Elegant. Her hair tied back with a single black pin.

Inside the lounge, the air was heavy with perfume, liquor, and tension. Students lounged in velvet chairs, laughing too loud, drinking too much. The elite of Crestfall—children of tech giants, oil moguls, political royalty.

But they weren’t the center of the room.

Raven was.

Black shirt. Silver chain. Eyes like still water.

When Pearl entered, the laughter dimmed.

He saw her instantly.

And smiled.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said as she reached him.

“I’m not afraid of shadows.”

“You should be,” he said. “Some of them bite.”

He offered her a drink.

She didn’t take it.

“Are you trying to impress me?” she asked.

“I don’t need to impress people,” he said simply. “I want to unmask them.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

His gaze lingered.

“You’re interesting. And I hate being bored.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He stepped closer, voice barely above a breath.

“You kissed me first, Pearl. That made you mine.”

She held his stare. “I’m no one’s.”

He didn’t argue. He just smiled like he knew something she didn’t.

Later that night, as she walked back alone, a note was slipped into her coat pocket by a gloved hand she never saw.

She opened it under a streetlamp.

> You’re playing with a viper, girl. One twist of his smile and he’ll bury fangs in your heart. Get out while you can.

No signature.

No address.

Pearl crumpled the note and tossed it into the wind.

Too late.

She was already in the serpent’s den.

And she wasn’t sure anymore who the real viper was.

Far above the campus, on the top floor of the Voss estate tower, Raven stood at a glass window watching the darkened campus below.

Dax entered quietly. “We got a ping on her records. Someone scrubbed her past.”

Raven didn’t look away. “How much?”

“No digital trail before she turned seventeen. No social, no financial. Transfer documents were created through a shell account. She’s not just a mystery—she’s a fabrication.”

Raven’s eyes narrowed.

“Good,” he said.

“Good?”

“She’s a liar,” he murmured. “Which means I can be honest with her.”

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