Nightfall {An Azriel (ACOTAR) FanFic}

Chapter 23

Heart's house was the same serene scenery as it had been before. She frowned deeply when she opened the door and heard no noise inside.

"Shouldn't the students be here?" Az asked and she nodded.

The students could enter the house through the back door and have access to their classroom and the grand library but could not enter the rest of the house which was beyond a door with a heavy lock on it. Right now, the lock was nowhere to be found.

Heart rushed towards the door. She picked up the lock and inspected the chains keeping it in place. Azriel inspected them from over her shoulder and his eyes harden. "Someone smashed that."

Heart looked bewildered and dropped the lock before pushing the door open. There was only one girl standing in the room. As soon as she saw Heart, she backed up and bobbed her head.

Heart looked around the deserted classroom and asked, "Where is everyone else?"

The girl teared up, "Nobody wants to come after Sir William broke the lock. Everyone was too scared."

"What?" Her eyes almost popped out of the sockets. "Why did William-" she stopped and beckoned the girl forward, "It's okay. Tell me what happened and we can fix it."

The girl gingerly stepped forward and Azriel watched her steps carefully. He had been ready to kill William the last time they had met and he was more than ready now if he had hurt anyone.

Heart sat the girl down the living room and gave her some water. She calmly spoke, "What happened? What did Sir William do? Did he hit someone?"

She shook her head, "He came in a week ago while we were supposed to start studying and started trying to brake the lock. We tried to stop him but he didn't listen and looked very angry." Her voice shook, "He went up the stairs after that. By that time a lot of students had already left because they were too scared. He came back down and he had a lot of papers and.." She stopped but gathered herself. "All of the research. Everything. He took everything we had been working on for the last two years, along with your personal research. He said that you were never coming back and we should forget about your research. "

Heart smiled sadly, "Calm down. It's not anyone fault."

Azriel, on the other hand, saw red. Heart had just told him that this research was worth decades of her life. This was what she lived for.

Heart softly whispered to the shaken young woman, "You can go home. I will tell you all when I start the classes again. Hopefully, it will be very soon."

The girl nodded and started towards the door but Heart had more to add, "Oh, and tell everyone to start Volume Four of Theoretical Astrophysics. I will be asking questions. A messy lab doesn't mean I'm not going to ask questions."

The girl smiled faintly, "Yes, professor."

As soon as the girl was out of sight, Heart dashed upstairs and Azriel followed her. She threw the door open and stopped right at the door. Nothing in the room was in disarray on account of there being nothing in the room. Azriel immediately wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

"We can-" Azriel started but was interrupted by his mate.

"I'm going to kill him." She snapped before storming downstairs.

He followed her again, "We can do that too."

Heart furiously wiped her tears. "You know how much time I spent on that work? How much time my students spent?" At this point she was furiously pacing back and forth in the kitchen. "I remember when I published my first studies and all these men were being absolutely bitches about." He had never heard Heart curse before so Azriel got a good idea of how angry she was. " 'Oh, what does a woman know?' 'Where would she even learn all this? Women can barely read letters. She should learn to sew.'" She slammed her hand on a table. "I bet he was turning over in his sleep for years just to take credit for my research."