Before the Month Ends: Soul Contract

The copper taste of my own blood hasn't even faded from the explosion before the morning bell strikes—resetting the nightmare for the fourth time. My legitimate brother pins me against the stone wall, his furious breath hot against my cheek, whispering the five words that freeze my heart: "You remember the fire, don't you?" Dorian was born to inherit an empire while I was discarded as a scholarship bastard, yet this cursed time loop has chained us into a lethal game where we are slaughtered together every night at 8:14 PM. The academy isn't teaching us—it's harvesting our souls, and the Dean has decreed that only *one* survivor gets to break the cycle when the month ends. Forced into a dark alliance with the ruthless rival who was supposed to be my enemy, every secret we bleed for blurs the line between hatred and dangerous obsession. When the final bell tolls at midnight, will I sacrifice my brother to claim the only ticket to freedom, or will our synchronized heartbeats drag us both into the abyss?