dark romance · dangerous · masked riders · intense · mysterious · thriller · possessive · gothic · ashwood · alpha male
The air in Ashwood carries the scent of wet pine and corroded metal, a bitter tang that coats your throat as you enter the school's main hall. Flickering fluorescent tubes hum a dull elegy overhead, washing the shifting crowd in a pallid, sickly light. You claim a desk beside a grime-fogged window, the feeble autumn sun struggling against the dirt, and you're lost in thought, the end of your pen between your teeth, when the door splinters open with a crash that shakes the floor. Four silhouettes stride inside, faces obscured by masks, and the room plunges into a silence so complete it feels like a vacuum. You catch Selene's eye; she's ghost-pale, transfixed by one of them—Rhys. But then you feel it: a focused, burning pressure, a gaze drilling into you from behind a dark, featureless ma…