Page 1

KAIA

M y boots slap the cold cement of the training hall as I jog to briefing, sweat still clinging to my back from sparring drills.

The air stinks of metal and recycled fear—Order HQ always smells like this.

Like the sweat of ghosts and the sharp bite of blood on steel.

Clean, clinical. Controlled. Like everything they want us to be.

“Draven,” Commander Wells barks the second I cross the threshold. His voice is gravel and grit, matching the deep scars raked across his jaw like some monster tried to carve him open and gave up halfway.

I give him a curt nod, jaw tight. “Sir.”

He jerks his head toward the central holomap flickering with movement.

It shows the outline of a suburban neighborhood in Jersey, the streets crawling with red pings.

“Another nest,” he says, voice gruff. “Three vampires confirmed. Two possible shifters. We move in thirty. Orders are seek, neutralize, extract any intel, and burn the rest.”

The room is dim, lit only by the eerie blue glow of the map and the harsh buzz of overhead fluorescents. Everyone’s armored up, quiet, grim. I know all their faces. I trained with some. I’ve saved a few. Others I’ve watched bleed out.

None of them look surprised by the briefing. That’s what we do. Find the freaks. Eliminate the threat. Repeat.

I tuck my ebony curly hair beneath the black tactical hood, pull the zip of my armor up to my throat. My hands tremble slightly as I snap on my gloves. I tell myself it’s the adrenaline. Not doubt. Never that.

“You’re point with West and Mendez,” Wells continues. “Entry from the south. We sweep fast, tight formation. Draven, you’re clear to engage if they don’t submit.”

“Copy,” I say, even though my stomach knots. Not because I’ve never killed a vamp before—I have. It’s the easy part. It’s what happens before. The moment their eyes lock with yours and there’s something ancient and empty behind the hunger. Something that remembers when they were more than monsters.

But they’re monsters now. The Order made sure I never forget that.

We load up. The van hums with low whispers, last-minute checks, the rustle of gear. West is picking at his nails like he’s bored. Mendez keeps bouncing his knee, shotgun across his lap.

“You okay, Kaia?” West leans in a little too close. His breath smells like spearmint and arrogance.

“I’m breathing, aren’t I?”

He chuckles, but I don’t. I stare out the window as buildings blur past, and I can’t shake the tension crawling up my spine.

The Order always taught us that the Veil is a wound in reality, stitched together with ancient Fae magic and lies.

For centuries it held, hiding the monsters.

Vampires, werewolves, witches. Things from storybooks.

But when the world started watching everything—posting, recording, streaming—the Veil started to thin.

Now it bleeds. Sometimes in trickles. Sometimes in ruptures.

And we’re the ones mopping up.

But sometimes I wonder if the Order is too quick to call things monsters.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m one of them when all of the killing is said and done.

The thought lodges in my brain like a splinter I can’t dig out.

The house looks normal. Brick siding. Blue shutters. Plastic flamingos in the front yard. But there’s a wrongness to it that buzzes in my skull the second we cross the lawn. A static hum I can’t shake, like the moment before a storm cracks the sky open.

We breach silently. Mendez on the door, West on my six. The air inside is cold, wrong. Not just temperature-wise. It's off . Too quiet.

I step into the foyer, boots silent on old linoleum. I sweep left. Living room. Toys scattered. A crusty plate on the coffee table. Someone lived here.

Then the scent hits me.

Blood.

Iron and rot and something sweet beneath it, like flowers wilting under heat. My skin prickles. I move fast, silent. Down the hall.

Screaming from the bedroom.

We storm in.

Two vamps are hunched over a body—what’s left of it. West fires. One drops, disintegrating into dust before it hits the floor. The other one snarls, fast, faster than anything human. It lunges right at me.

I twist, duck, slam my blade up through its ribs. It hisses, claws at my face. I grit my teeth and drive the silver in deeper. Its body convulses.

Then something happens.

Something I can’t explain.

Its eyes lock with mine.

And at that moment, I felt it.

The hunger.

The agony.

The fear .

It’s like the creature’s emotions punch into my chest, raw and sharp. I choke, stumble back. My vision goes blurry around the edges, my head splitting open behind my eyes. It’s like something inside me wakes up and screams.

The vamp’s scream echoes it.

I don’t remember pulling the trigger, but I must have. Its body turns to ash at my feet.

Silence.

Mendez is shouting something. I can’t hear it. My knees hit the ground. The room spins. Blood thunders in my ears, my heart slamming against my ribs like it wants out.

I see light . Just for a second.

Blue-white and searing.

And a voice, not mine—whispering inside my skull.

Daughter of twilight, why do you sleep still?

Then it's gone.

“Kaia!”

Mendez grabs my shoulder. “Are you hit?”

I shake my head, but my mouth won’t work.

“Your nose is bleeding,” he says, his voice softer now. “You blacked out for a sec. What the hell was that?”

I don’t answer. I can’t.

Because I don’t know.