When Arina stepped outside, the mansion’s morning shadows still clinging to her boots, the training grounds stretched wide under a dull, pewter sky. The air held that metallic bite — summer not yet done, but already preparing to bleed into autumn. She caught sight of Jasper first. Leaning back lazily against the weapons rack like he’d been born to wait, he gave her a crooked grin and a mock salute when their eyes met. But her gaze drifted past him quickly, drawn to the others. Zoki stood near the center smug, arms folded across his broad chest as if he owned the dirt beneath his feet. His dark hair was slicked back too deliberately, his clothes spotless even for training. When his eyes found hers, they narrowed cold and laced with contempt. His whole posture screamed rivalry masked behind arrogance.
Beside him stood two other vampires a man and a woman both only familiar from patrol routes. The woman was tall, copper-skinned, her hair twisted into thick braids that framed a serious and quiet face. The man had sharp eyes and a scar across his throat. Neither looked openly hostile, but neither looked welcoming either. She walked forward, unhurried but unshaken.
Jasper was the first to break it. “Well,” he said cheerfully, “the gang’s all here. Or, y’know, the version of it we haven’t buried yet.”
Zoki’s eyes flicked to him, unimpressed. “Save the jokes for someone who finds you amusing.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking to you,” Jasper shot back, still smiling.
Arina stopped in front of them. “Let’s be clear,” she said calmly. “I’m not here to make friends.”
Her eyes met Zoki’s directly, locking. “And I’m sure as hell not here to clean up someone else’s mess. So if anyone’s got a problem with me leading, speak now.”
Zoki didn’t flinch. But his silence was telling. She turned to the rest of the squad“I’ll earn your trust or I won’t. That’s your call. But what happened last time won’t happen again.”
A flicker passed through the copper-skinned woman’s gaze close to respect, perhaps or at least interest. “Sura,” she said simply. She extended a hand. Arina hesitated only a breath before accepting it.
“Name’s Kade,” the man said in rasped voice. “I don’t talk much, but I listen. And I don’t care about past titles. Only moves that keep us alive.” He didn’t offer his hand — just nodded once at Arina.
Zoki scoffed faintly behind them, folding his arms tighter. “Touching,” he muttered, though not loud enough to pick a fight.
Arina’s eyes flicked toward him with a warning and looked back to Sura and Kade soon after. “Good. Then we start clean. But we train hard. I want to see what you’ve got, because I won’t lead from the back.”
Jasper gave a mock groan. “Here we go again. She’s going to break us before breakfast.” But even he couldn’t hide the glint of approval in his smile.
Sura smirked. Kade cracked his knuckles in silent readiness.
And Zoki turned away and muttered something under his breath. His shoulders were just a little tenser now.
Arina’s gaze slid toward Jasper. Her lips barely twitched, but the fire behind her eyes said enough.
Jasper tensed immediately. “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered under his breath, already bracing himself.
“Sura. Kade. You’re both up against Jasper.” Arina spoke ignoring Jasper’s remark.
Jasper’s head jerked toward her with wide eyes. “Both? Against me? What did I ever do to you?”
She didn’t answer, only arched a brow and that said more than words could.
Arina turned her head slightly, her gaze now landing on Zoki. “And you,” she added. “Let’s see if your tongue’s still sharper than your actual skills.”
The jab landed. Zoki shifted uncomfortably, a flicker of shame, anger, uncertainty cutting across his face. But the moment he caught the quiet snickers from Kade and Sura, Jasper’s exaggerated wince of anticipation, something inside him snapped. That bruised ego began to claw its way to the surface.
He straightened, stepped forward. Then came the smirk. “Oh yeah?” he sneered, loud enough for all to hear. “Speaking from your own experience?”
Arina’s gaze narrowed, the quiet around them sharpening.
“To please Togi, I’m sure your tongue’s very well-trained.” His voice was a drawl now. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? That’s how you earned this little promotion after all.”
Jasper stopped stretching. Sura’s smirk dropped. Kade’s brows knit slightly, though he didn’t move.
Zoki, emboldened by the echo of his words, tilted his head mockingly. “At least now we all understand why the oh-so-broken Arina is suddenly leading a squad. Sleeping with the son of coven leaders has its benefits.”
Arina’s gaze locked with Zoki’s laced in glacial stillness.
Jasper stepped back as though his body remembered the last time she moved like this.
And then—
She vanished.
Zoki barely had time to register the blur in his peripheral vision before the world tilted. His knees buckled beneath him and the weight of Arina pressed into his back before gravity even caught up. A sharpened stake gleamed at his throat, its tip grazing skin.
One breath.
Two.
“Tell me, Zoki,” Arina said coldly. “Could you move like that?”
He froze from the sudden understanding of how close to death he sat.
Across the field, Sura and Kade stood rigid, stunned into silence. They had heard the whispers that Arina, though a turned vampire, was unlike any other. Now they watched the truth written in the way Zoki’s pride bled out beneath the stake.
Arina held the stake a heartbeat longer weighing the value of silence, of mercy, of warning. Then, without a word, she released him.
Zoki gasped as the pressure vanished. He scrambled back like a man who’d seen death’s eyes up close and found no warmth in them.
Arina stood straightening with the same cold poise. “Two vampires died under your command,” she said. “Because you were too arrogant to listen. Too slow to adapt. And too blind to lead.”
Zoki’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak.
“You think whispering about who I sleep with somehow matters more than the blood you let spill?” she continued. “We lost two women because of your idiocy.” She paused, letting the weight of those words settle on him. “And that,” she finished, “tells me everything I need to know about how qualified you are.”
A pause.
“Let’s begin,” she called over her shoulder, voice returning to something more businesslike though the edge still lingered. “Sura, Kade — you’re still up. Show me what you’ve got.”
And just like that, the training resumed. But the dynamic had shifted.
The squad may have started the morning with doubts —
Now they knew exactly who led them.
Arina folded her arms across her chest. The early morning sun cut low through the trees lining the training grounds, casting jagged shadows across the dirt. Her stance was still, but her eyes followed every twitch of muscle, every misstep, every blink of hesitation.
Jasper rolled his shoulders once, cracked his neck, and gave a crooked grin that could have belonged to a man walking into a club. But Arina saw it — the slight lowering of his stance, the way his gaze flicked from Sura to Kade and back, measuring.
The first strike came from Sura — fast, but too high. Jasper ducked under, using the momentum to pivot and catch Kade’s wrist before his own blow could land. Kade twisted free, but it cost him — Jasper was already repositioning, slipping between them.
Arina’s expression didn’t change, but deep down, a subtle nod echoed in her thoughts.
Sura staggered back, panting. Kade leaned on his knees. Jasper wiped a smear of blood from his lip, grinning.
Arina stepped forward.
Her voice cut across the recovering silence. “Not bad,” she said. “But not enough.”
Sura straightened, pride bristling beneath her exhaustion. Kade didn’t look up yet.
“You both move well,” Arina continued. “But you’re not watching each other. You’re not syncing. In a real fight, that disconnect gets you killed.”
She glanced at Jasper and then looked back at the new ones. “Jasper’s not just here to train with you. He’s your mirror. You learn to fight beside him, you learn to live through a mission. That’s why he’s second under me, whether it’s written down or not.”
Jasper raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. His smirk said plenty.
Arina’s eyes narrowed. “Again.”
And as they moved back into position, she returned to her silence.
***
The air still shimmered faintly with heat from the morning drills. The squad had begun the slow walk back to the mansion with low laughter until Arina’s steps froze. Her eyes locked ahead at the figures standing just beyond mansion ‘s sun-splashed threshold.
Erika. That wasn’t surprising. But the tall figure beside her turned Arina’s blood to ice. Aleksei.
Zoki noticed the shift in her stance, in her breath. His voice slithered in low behind her shoulder.
“So… your brother’s out now?” he asked with calculated casualness. “Guess blood ties buy you an early release.”
Arina didn’t look at him. “Leave. Now!”
The coldness in her tone left no space to argue. Even Jasper didn’t linger. With a glance between Zoki and Arina, he nudged the others and moved on. Zoki hesitated — then followed, though his scowl carved deeper into his face.
Arina was already moving as well. By the time she reached Erika and Aleksei, the fury was already leaking through every inch of her frame. “What the fuck is he doing out!?” she snapped at Erika.
Aleksei’s eyes flicked toward her and for a second something unspoken passed there. Something that burned and ached and hadn’t yet healed.
“You told me he’d stay until we knew. Until we fixed this.”
Erika remained still, but not passive. Her hands were calm at her sides, but her stance was firm.
“I said he needed time,” Erika replied evenly. “I didn’t say it would be forever.”
“You should’ve told me,” Arina hissed.
“I tried,” Erika said. “You were too busy spilling blood in the streets.”
The silence that followed was louder than shouting. Even Aleksei flinched slightly at Erika’s words though whether it was from guilt, regret, or something else, Arina couldn’t tell.
Arina’s fists clenched, knuckles pale with fury. Her breath came sharp and ragged around the edges until her gaze snapped to Aleksei. “You’ve been out,” she hissed, voice brittle, trembling beneath the weight of too many unspoken things, “and you didn’t even—” A pause. Her lips curled into something bitter and sad and sharp. “No. No, of course not.” She turned back to Erika. “Next time someone opens a door I’m not ready for… make sure I’m not the last to know.”
But then she spun. Closed the distance in two steps and before anyone could react, her hand slammed against Aleksei’s throat, pinning him back against the outer wall.
Gasps rose behind her, someone stepped forward — Erika, maybe — but no one dared stop her yet. Her face was close now, inches from his. “You cause any trouble, I will fucking kill you myself.”
Aleksei didn’t move. He didn’t fight. He just stared at her. And then, low and hoarse, he said, “Then do it.”
Erika’s voice broke the silence. “Arina.”
And this time, Arina let go. Aleksei slid down the wall slightly, catching his breath, but his eyes never left hers.
Arina backed away, heart pounding in her ribs like a warning drum, her jaw clenched so tight it ached. Her breath came shallow, uneven, fury and fear tangled so tightly together, she could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. Because there were still cracks between them: cracks that bled; cracks that roared; cracks that no amount of blood could ever stitch shut.
She turned to Erika then. For a heartbeat, she stared at the woman she once trusted. The one who had stood beside her in darker hours. But now? Now Arina wasn’t sure she saw a friend anymore. “You have no idea what kind of monster you’ve let out,” she said and turned on her heel, already walked past them both, into the mansion.
Arina didn’t stop at her room. Not at Togi’s either. She walked straight through the winding halls of the mansion until she reached Rylan’s office. She didn’t knock. The door slammed open against the wall as she burst inside. “Have you all lost your minds?!”
Inside, Rylan was mid-sentence, seated behind his desk, while Lysara stood beside him, and Togi paced near the window. All three froze.
“You talk about family,” Arina continued, voice rising with each word, “about trust, about unity—like they’re sacred truths this coven breathes by. But you couldn’t even discuss with me that you were releasing him?!” The last word came out like a curse.
Togi stepped forward, brows pinched with concern, but she lifted a hand. “You had me drag my pain through every room of this place. You watched me unravel piece by piece trying to live with what happened. And then you just— what? Decided behind a closed door that it was time to open his?” Her gaze shot between them all, settling on Rylan. “You made me face him when I was still bleeding,” she said, voice softer now. Silence stretched between them. “I trusted you.”
Her shoulders rose and fell, her breath ragged. She wasn’t just angry. She was hurt. Betrayed.
It was Rylan who moved first — slowly rising from his chair like a man stepping into a wildfire, knowing it might burn him anyway. “I won’t defend how it happened,” he said. “You’re right. We should have come to you first.”
Arina scoffed. “But you didn’t.”
“No,” he admitted. “We didn’t. And that’s on me.”
Lysara crossed her arms, but there was something like guilt flickering behind her cool eyes. “It wasn’t about going behind your back,” she said. “It was about balance. We had to decide quickly, and we didn’t think you were in a place—”
Arina’s voice sliced through hers. “Not in a place? You mean too broken? Too dangerous? Or too inconvenient?”
Togi stepped forward now, his hands slightly raised. “It wasn’t like that, Arina,” he said gently. “You know me. You know I would’ve told you if I had any say.”
“And did you?” she snapped, her gaze pinning him in place. “Did any of you even try to say, she deserves to be in the room where this decision is made?”
Togi faltered, and the silence was answer enough.
Arina’s jaw tightened. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides to hold herself together when everything inside her screamed to break.
Rylan exhaled deeply. “We didn’t trust that it would go well.”
Arina laughed sharply. “So instead, you trusted him. The one who shattered a bond that can never be put back the same.”
Lysara’s voice was quieter now, almost strained. “We didn’t release him for him. We released him because what’s coming will demand more from us than any grudge can afford. He’s powerful. And—”
“And I’m not?” Arina said, stepping closer. “I was ready to die for this place. I bled for this coven. And yet you didn’t think I was strong enough to handle a conversation?”
Togi met her gaze full of regret and unspoken pain flickering behind his eyes. “We didn’t want to lose you again, Arina.”
She scoffed. “Yeah? Well, look at this circus.” Her hand swept dismissively toward Lysara and Rylan. “Those two are as predictable as the setting sun. But you…” Her breath hitched, thick with bitterness and exhaustion. “At least now I know the rumors were true. To you, I’m nothing more than a night stand—convenient, replaceable, disposable. You don’t give a damn about anything else.”
Without another sound, without the slam of a door or the heat of a last glance, Arina turned on her heel and vanished into the stillness she’d carved from their fractured trust, leaving behind a room thick with regret and the dust of what they’d destroyed…
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