Page 15

KAIA

T he lock clicks like a gunshot in the dark.

I slip through the door and shut it behind me, heart pounding like I’m back on my first solo recon.

I’ve trained to infiltrate vampire dens, breach shifter hideouts, and slice through skin with surgical precision.

But nothing, not even standing face-to-face with that hybrid monster, Elias—feels as dangerous as this.

Breaking into my parents’ quarters.

I’m not sure if it’s the betrayal or the fear that hits harder. Probably both. Because if I’m right—if what I feel is right—then they’ve been lying to me my entire life.

Not just little white lies.

Big, soul-reshaping ones.

The room is tidy. Predictably sterile. Like it’s been cleaned by someone who doesn’t believe in comfort.

Two twin beds on opposite sides of the room—how poetic.

My father’s side is razor-neat, all hard lines and military precision.

My mother’s softer. A framed photo of me at ten, scraped and grinning from a training win, sits crooked by her bedside.

She probably doesn’t even realize it’s tilted.

I start with the desk.

Nothing useful. Reports, encrypted logs, a few half-burned holos of old missions. I crack a drawer, rifle through the contents. Mostly outdated Order intel chips and an old combat medallion—my dad’s. There’s a faint smear of blood on the back. Not his.

The air’s getting heavier. My stomach’s twisting with something cold and low, like grief laced with guilt. My mother’s voice echoes in my head— not here, Kaia… please, not here.

But I don’t stop.

I can’t.

Because if I don’t find something soon, I’ll lose my fucking mind.

It’s not until I stand in front of the closet that something shifts.

Something in my chest.

Not physical. Not even emotional. It’s deeper than instinct. Like something dormant in me is leaning forward —urging me. Go there.

The floorboards.

I kneel, fingers brushing over the grain, and without thinking, I press on a knot in the wood.

Click.

The false panel lifts.

Inside, wrapped in faded black cloth and tied with fraying twine, is an old leather-bound journal. The thing looks ancient, the cover cracked and worn with time. It smells like earth and wind and something faintly metallic.

Blood. Old, magic-touched blood.

My breath catches in my throat.

This… this isn’t my mother’s.

It’s older. Maybe here before The Order made this their home.

I untie the cloth with shaking hands, fingers clumsy from adrenaline. A photograph falls out first—creased, faded, the edges curled from age.

A woman stands in a garden I don’t recognize. Tall, poised, with starlight in her eyes and silver threaded through pitch-black hair. Beside her, a girl about six or seven—dark curls, sharp chin, that same quiet watchfulness in her eyes.

It’s my mother.

I flip the journal open.

And my world begins to tilt.

“To my dearest Mira, may the bindings hold and keep her hidden long enough to choose her own fate…”

The script is elegant. Flowing. Like someone wrote not just with ink but with intention. The entries speak of exile. Of the Order’s growing reach. Of hiding what should never have been hidden. Of Fae bloodline .

My bloodline.

I clutch the journal so tightly the leather creaks.

This woman, this mystery grandmother—she was Fae.

And if she’s Fae… then so is my mother.

Which means…

I stumble back from the panel like it bit me.

“Oh my god.”

Everything shifts. The way my skin itches before something bad happens. The power I felt crackle under my bones during training. The dreams .

And Elias.

That pull between us wasn’t just lust or adrenaline or some cursed coincidence.

It was something ancient. Something written. Maybe even some of the prophecies we have been forced to destroy for their threat on the world.

They hid this from me.

She hid this from me.

My mother, who taught me to kill supernaturals—who watched me be shaped into a weapon—she knew.

She fucking knew .

And she said nothing.

I slide to the floor, legs folding underneath me, journal pressed to my chest like it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

Because now?

I don’t know who I am.

But I sure as hell know who I’m not.

I’m not just human.

And I’m not their pawn anymore.