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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CJ

It starts as a prickling sensation at the base of my skull.

I’m standing in my room, changing shirts after combat training, when it hits me. A presence. Wrong. Alien in this realm, yet familiar to me all the same.

“Shit,” I mutter, crossing to the open window to stare out. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

The scent of burnt metal and lightning drifts through the opening, tinged with the SilverGate ward scent of ozone and ancient magic. The unmistakable marker of a Hunter.

I grab my coat, pulling it on before I drop out of the window. The courtyard is crowded with students, oblivious to the foreign predator circling the academy’s edges. I scan faces as I move, searching for Isolde. She is supposed to meet me after her classes.

A twinge of worry prickles my spine. Between The Collectors’ imminent arrival and this new threat, the timing couldn’t be worse.

I push the thought aside. Focus. The Hunter first. Everything else can wait.

At the western edge of campus, the manicured lawns give way to wild forest. SilverGate’s boundaries aren’t marked by fences or walls but by magic, ancient wards embedded in the earth, designed to keep unwanted beings out and unruly students in.

I slip between the trees, following the invisible line of the boundary. The prickling at my neck intensifies with each step, guiding me like a compass. The Hunter is close, testing the wards, searching for weakness. There is only one. I can sense his asshole presence like a beacon in the dark.

Twenty yards in, I catch movement.

“Found you,” I whisper.

The Hunter’s head snaps in my direction.

I step into a small clearing, making no attempt to hide. “You’re trespassing.”

The Hunter smiles. He is human, just backed up by magic that doesn’t belong in human blood.

It makes them even more annoying. Using the one thing they hate to capture and kill the creatures they want to wipe off the face of the earth.

‘Assholes’ doesn’t quite cover it for these cunts.

“Constantine Aquila Junior. Knew I’d find you eventually.

The half-breed dragon prince. What a catch. ”

“It’s CJ,” I correct, circling slowly. “And how you did it, I don’t know, nor do I care. You won’t return to your brethren to tell them where to find me. You won’t survive the next minute.”

He moves in weapons drawn, those meant to incapacitate me. He throws an orb of golden light at me, and I duck and roll.

I come up snarling, my claws and fangs extended. The Hunter circles, looking for openings to fire more magic at me. I launch myself at the Hunter, catching him mid-turn. We roll across the forest floor, a tangle of claws and fangs, borrowed magic and rage.

The Hunter fights with desperation now, knowing what’s coming.

I pin him, one clawed hand at his throat, my other plunges into the Hunter’s chest. I feel his heart and close my fingers around it.

The Hunter’s eyes widen in shock, then understanding, then resignation.

I pull, tearing the heart free in a spray of blood which hits my lips and sizzles. Fucking Hunter scum. I spit and drop his heart on his chest as I rise. Using the power my father passed down to me, a red cloud erupts from my hand and burns the Hunter to ash at my feet.

“Well,” says a voice behind me. “That was illuminating.”

I whirl, already knowing who I’ll find. William stands at the edge of the clearing, his expression hard to read. How long he’s been watching, I can’t say, but long enough.

“How much did you see?” I ask, though the answer is obvious from his face.

“Enough to understand why you’ve been so reluctant to share certain details of your background.” He steps closer, examining me with clinical interest. “Dragon. Half dragon prince. I suspected something exotic, but this exceeds expectation.”

“You don’t say a word to anyone,” I spit out.

“Your business, not mine,” William shrugs, but his eyes gleam with new knowledge. “Though it does explain the dragon aspect of this Blood Crown ritual.” His gaze shifts to the scorched earth where the Hunter’s body had been. “Friend of yours?”

“Hunter,” I say flatly. “From my realm.”

He nods. “This realm of yours intrigues me.”

“It’s too sunny for you.”

“Sunny?”

“Sunny. That which kills vampires.”

“So I’ve heard,” he murmurs. “Any more coming?”

“Who knows? Guess we will find out.”

“How did they get here?”

“The old gods only know, but my dad warned me they might. I’m quite a catch.”

“So it appears.”

I study him, trying to read his intentions. “You’re taking the news of my being a mythical creature to you rather well.”

“What did you expect? Horror? Revulsion?” He laughs softly. “I’m a century-old ghost recently returned to flesh through sinister runes embedded in my spine that were steeped in Isolde’s blood. A dragon in our midst hardly registers as shocking, mythical or not.”

Put that way, it does seem somewhat mundane. Still, I don’t trust his calm acceptance. “What now?”

“Now,” William says, turning back toward SilverGate, “you should probably clean up, then tell the fallen one. It’s time to put all our cards on the table, don’t you think? We face The Collectors and Damadere soon, potentially your Hunters as well. Secrets seem rather pointless at this juncture.”

He’s right, though I’m loath to admit it. “And Isolde?”

“We found something. Something significant. But that’s her story to tell.”

Before I can demand clarification, William turns and strides back toward the academy. “One hour,” he calls over his shoulder. “Isolde’s room. Bring Cassiel.”

I stand in the scorched clearing, watching him go. The encounter has left me not worried exactly, but wary. My secret, the one I’ve guarded so carefully since arriving at SilverGate, is out. At least to William.

And soon, to Cassiel as well.

I look down at my hands, still stained with the Hunter’s blood. It burns my skin as it’s designed to do, and I turn towards the stream, my vampire hearing has picked up a few hundred feet from here.

I scrub the blood from my hands in the clear stream, feeling the burn recede with the cool water. When my skin is clean again, I head back to SilverGate. It’s time to face whatever this revelation means for all of us.

Finding Cassiel proves easier than expected. The fallen angel is in the library’s eastern archive, exactly where he spends most of his time these days. His wings are half-manifested, feathers rustling softly as he turns pages of an ancient text.

He looks up as I approach, silver eyes instantly alert. “You smell of ash and conflict,” he observes mildly. “And something else... elemental.”

“We need to talk,” I say. “All of us. Isolde’s room. Now.”

Cassiel studies me, those unsettling eyes seeing more than they should. “The time for secrets has passed, then?”

“Apparently.” I shift uncomfortably under his gaze. “How long have you known?”

A small smile touches his lips. “Known what?”

“Don’t play games, Cassiel. About me. What I am.”

“Since I saw you exchange a loaded look with Isolde earlier. She knows.”

I should be surprised, but somehow, I’m not. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“We all have our burdens to bear,” he says simply. “Our secrets to keep. It wasn’t my place to force yours into the open.”

His acceptance, like William’s, is unexpected. But welcome. “Well, it’s coming out now. William saw me kill a Hunter from my realm.”

Cassiel’s wings snap fully open in alarm. “A Hunter?”

“Looking for me. There are likely more coming. If one found a way, others will as well.”

“The timing is problematic.”

“You think? Collectors from one direction, Hunters from another realm. And us in the middle with Isolde.”

“Then we adapt,” Cassiel says, closing his book with a decisive snap. “We strategise. We fight.” He stands, wings folding away into nothingness. “I assume that’s the purpose of this meeting?”

“Among other things. We should go.”

Together, we make our way through SilverGate’s corridors to Issy’s room.

William opens the door before we knock, as if he’s been waiting impatiently. “Good, you’re here.” He steps aside to let us enter.

Isolde looks up from her reading. “Everyone knows now?”

I nod.

“Good. So, William and I found something called the Sanctuary beneath the Bell Tower. A place of power. My blood opened the way.”

“The Sanctuary?” Cassiel asks before I can.

“It contained records, images of the first Sanguinarchs. Of Damadere. Of the Blood Crown ritual. And it did something to me. Changed me. Accelerated what was already happening, I think. I can feel everything now. Every drop of blood around me. Every pulse of power.”

“The Sanctuary recognised her,” William explains. “Prepared her for what’s coming.”

“What exactly is coming?” I ask, a sense of foreboding growing within me.

Isolde meets my gaze directly. “The Collectors, to have me lead them. Damadere, to kill me so I can’t take her place.”

“Okay, the situation just got more complicated,” I say, blowing out a breath. “How many more idiots do we have to fight here?”

“I think that’s it,” Issy says with a small smile. “I hope. My parents knew,” she adds, her voice hardening. “They made a deal with Blackridge. Protection in exchange for me.”

“Blackridge is meant to be protecting you?”

“That’s the part we still don’t know,” William admits. “Blackridge’s endgame remains unclear. But he’s been positioning pieces on this board for decades. Including all of us.”

“So, we have The Collectors and Damadere arriving at some point,” Cassiel summarises. “Potentially other-realm Hunters as well. And Blackridge’s mysterious agenda to contend with.”

Isolde looks around at all of us, her expression resolute despite the overwhelming odds. Then she sighs heavily. “Does anyone else wish they’d just come already?”

“You have no fucking idea,” I mutter.