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DANTE

I ’ve been through hell.

Literal and metaphorical.

I’ve been hunted, betrayed, broken. I’ve watched people I loved get buried before their time, and I’ve killed things that don’t stay dead.

But this?

This fucking nothingness inside me? It’s worse than any of that.

I sit in the corner of the loft, shirt off, sweat clinging to my back like guilt. The place is too quiet. My body’s still—more or less—but my brain?

It’s a goddamn war zone.

I feel like I’ve been blackout drunk for days and can’t remember what I lost. I know something’s missing. Someone.

Every instinct I’ve got is clawing at the inside of my chest, telling me I forgot her. That I let someone slip through my fingers and now I’ll never get her back. But I don’t have a name. A face. A thread to pull on. Just this ache. This itch under my skin that won’t quit.

I’ve tried every tracker’s trick I know—scent, psychic tether, ritual, blood trace. Nothing. And that’s not normal. Not for someone like me.

The last of a bloodline that got wiped off the map before most people knew it existed. Guardians. Old magic. Ancient protectors of the Veil—created when the world first split into layers. Not angels. Not demons. Just… balance. Fangs and claws and fury sharpened into a promise.

We kept things from spilling over. We kept things from breaking. Kept things hidden and the balance of powers in check. Now, with the Veil cracked, we aren’t needed. We’re outdated. And almost extinct.

I dig out the box from under the floorboards.

It smells like cedar and stale air. I haven’t opened it in years—not since the pack banished me. Not since I walked away from the only family I had left and swore I’d never look back.

Inside: an old leather-bound journal. My father’s. A bone pendant—cracked, faded, still warm to the touch. And a piece of fur from the ceremonial cloak they burned when they cast me out.

I thumb through the journal. Most of it is spells and oaths, lines written in a dialect that’s half-lost to time. But I find the page I’m looking for.

The bloodline markings.

My family’s crest: a twisted circle of teeth and stars. Under it, a phrase in Guardian tongue:

"We keep the Veil closed not for ourselves, but for those who would never survive it open."

I close my eyes, breathing deep.

We were never meant to rule. We were meant to guard. I remember the last time I saw them.

The council had gathered—not the supernatural council, but ours . The Keepers. What was left of them, anyway.

They stood in judgment, cloaked in white and gold, their eyes sharp as glass. And I stood bloody. Covered in ash. My pack behind me, already grieving. Because I’d made a choice. One life over the many.

My brother. My little brother.

A wolf barely grown into his skin, marked by shadow magic and doomed from the second he touched it. They told me I had to end it. That he was a threat to the balance. That it was my duty as his blood and as a Guardian.

But I didn’t. I let him run. I took the fall. And that was it.

Exile.

Erased from the lineage. My name cut out of the ancestral text. Cloak burned. Pendant cracked. But I’d do it again. Because protecting one person— choosing them—sometimes matters more than an oath written in blood.

I sit back on the floor, heart pounding. Because I’m starting to think I made that same choice again. But this time I don’t even remember who I chose.

I flip to the back of the journal.

There’s a section I’ve never read. Not closely.

Drawings. Maps. Guardian prophecies. Theories about the Veil and what lies beyond it.

But one passage catches my eye.

"The bond between a Guardian and a fae, especially a dark fae of the cursed line is forbidden. Not because it weakens him—but because it unlocks the oldest part of what he is. The primal force behind the balance. The creature made not just to guard the gates… but to close them forever."

My blood runs cold.

A fae of the cursed line ? That phrase lights something in me. I see violet. Hair like shadow and stars. Runes curling over skin. A mouth that tasted like goodbye.

Gods.

Was she fae? Was she what I lost?

I scramble to my feet, breathing hard. I don't know her name. But my soul remembers . And if she’s tied to this prophecy then I need to find her.

Because she didn’t just unlock something in me.

She’s the key.