Page 51

??The Justice We Deliver

Ember

It had been weeks, maybe months, since we closed the Veil and slaughtered the monsters who tried to pry it open.

And somehow, I was still here.

Alive. Mated. Marked. Changed.

I trained every day with Vaelith, the Seer-turned-savage.

Her fighting style was brutal, more fangs than finesse, but she’s the best at teaching me how to disappear.

How to move through the city without leaving a whisper of evidence.

How to rewrite memories with a flick of my fingers and a well-placed lie.

And it’s working. I felt stronger. Faster. Deadlier. My blood wasn’t just mine anymore, it carried the Watchers, the prophecy, the spark of something ancient and terrifying.

But some nights, when the moon’s too quiet and Dorian was away prepping a case, I still ached for the hum of a mic. For the old version of me.

For Dead Wrong.

Tonight, I flipped the switch. Just once. A soft hum filled the studio room Dorian carved out for me in his mansion.

“This is Dead Wrong, ” I murmured into the mic. “And no, you’re not dreaming.” I let the silence hang before my voice sharpened. “I’m back. And you better believe the monsters I’m tracking now are a hell of a lot more real.”

Two days later, I was lacing up my boots beside Dorian, my leather jacket zipped, a stake hidden in the lining, and three sigils burned into the underside of my skin.

He had that look, sharp suit, deadly smile, fresh off the courtroom stage.

“Client walk?” I asked.

“Acquitted on a technicality,” he replied, slipping on gloves. “She trafficked children. Said she was saving them. Claimed it was to protect them from the world. The jury called it ‘misguided compassion.’ I call it what it is, evil.”

“Let me guess,” I snorted, stepping closer, “you charmed them?”

“Just did my job.” He kisses my temple. “Now I’m going to do my real job, with my Little Thief by my side.”

I rolled my eyes. “You really going to keep calling me that?”

He smirked. “Would you prefer ‘my beloved bringer of wrath’?”

I bit my lip. “Honestly… kinda hot.”

For eight days, we stalked her through back alleys and underground auctions, always one step behind. Children’s shoes left behind like breadcrumbs. Blood-smeared charms hidden in cellar walls.

Roxane Marris was clever, sickeningly so. She trafficked innocence and called it salvation, whispering to the broken that she was their healer, their escape. But she was just a butcher wrapped in silk.

Now, her sanctuary lay exposed, a crumbling house at the city’s edge, veiled in illusion and rot. The hunt had led us here. No more shadows. No more waiting.

The house was tucked between ruins like a secret no one wanted to remember. Ivy grew like veins across the walls, pulsing faintly with her twisted magic. The air stank of rot masked by lavender.

Dorian moved first, quiet as sin.

I followed, every step heavy with the weight of what we’d come to do. Power thrummed in my blood. Purpose hardened in my bones.

The door creaked open before we could knock.

Roxane stood there barefoot, lips curled in a crooked smile, her pupils blown wide from too much dark magic and not enough conscience. “Oh,” she purred, her gaze dragging over me. “You brought a friend.”

“I brought my wife,” Dorian said, his voice pure ice. “Hope that’s not a problem.”

“Wife?” Her lip curled like spoiled milk. “You’re desperate.”

“No.” His hand ghosted toward his blade. “I’m done with monsters like you.”

I cracked my knuckles and stepped forward, a smile twitching on my lips. “He’s being polite. I’m the one you should be afraid of.”

Roxane’s eyes flashed black, her smile stretching too wide. “Then come in, child,” she cooed. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”

The fight wasn’t easy.

She was fast, faster than anything human. Strong, too. And she bled black fire that hissed where it touched the ground, searing through stone like acid.

I took a hit to the ribs that nearly cracked bone, sent me skidding into a wall smeared with old blood. Dorian shattered a sigil shield with nothing but a word and a flick of his wrist, raw power bleeding from his fingertips like smoke.

We drove her back, inch by inch, into the dining room, a chamber of horrors where bones hung from red twine like party décor. Skulls grinned from the chandelier. Runes were carved into the floor in languages no one had spoken for centuries.

She snarled, her glamour cracking like glass. Her skin melted into ash, revealing her true form, a demon-child hybrid with jagged horns, razor teeth, and elongated limbs that twitched with unnatural grace. Her eyes were voids, hungry and endless.

“You’ll never stop it,” she hissed, veins pulsing with shadow. “The hunger. The Gate—”

“I am not the Gate,” I snarled, stepping into the sigil’s burning edge. My veins glowed silver, my irises flashing white-hot. “I am the Watcher of the Veil.”

Power erupted from my chest, wild and divine, slamming into her like a storm made of starlight and wrath. She flew back, screeching as my magic clawed into her. Her body twisted, limbs splintering, smoke pouring from her eyes.

Dorian appeared behind her like death itself, pressing a blazing sigil into the base of her spine. Her scream split the walls, then was swallowed whole by the inferno that burst from within.

I drove my blood-slicked blade into her chest as she writhed, twisting it deep until the magic in her veins turned to dust.

She crumbled. Ash and bone and nothing more.

Ash rained like snow. And the silence that followed was holy.

Later, in the car, I stared out the window.

“You okay?” Dorian asked.

“No,” I said. “But I will be. Once the next one burns, too.”

He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Welcome to the other side, Little Thief.”

“Flirt with me again, and I’ll burn your tie,” I smirked.

His voice was dark velvet. “Only if you do it while wearing it.”

And suddenly, I was grinning.

Because for once, the darkness didn’t feel so lonely.

Not with him beside me.