Chapter 3: Tell them I’m coming

I wasn’t asleep when the door opened.

Not Mira. Step too heavy, deliberate, someone sneaking in because they don’t care about rules. I was on my feet before I realized, knife from under my pillow already in hand, held low, how Gareth taught me years back.

Don’t hold it high. High means you want to stab. Low means you’ve already decided.

Door swung open. Light slashed across the room.

Zevran.

Didn’t lower the knife.

He saw it, then me. Expression hidden in the shadows, but he’d changed out of ceremony clothes. Plain grey training gear. Eyes tired, not from the hour.

“Kaelis......”

“Don’t.”

He stopped.

“I’m not here to explain myself.”

“Then why are you here?”

He eyed the knife. “Will you put it down?”

“No.”

He sighed, stepped inside, closed the door, leaned back against it. Arms crossed. Kept plenty of space between us. Smart move.

“You have to leave,” he said. “Tonight. Before morning.”

I stared.

“I mean it,” he said. “I know how it sounds. I know you have every right......”

“No idea what rights I have.”

My voice was cold. Not yelling angry, rage had gone still and quiet, deeper. Gareth warned me once: that’s the dangerous part, when anger stops moving.

Zevran saw it too.

“They’ll hurt you if you stay,” he said. “I tried to stop it.... I tried to find a way, but there isn’t. I’m telling you now so you’ve got time.”

“You tried while you picked my cousin? While you said her name?”

“Yes.”

“With the whole pack watching?”

“Kaelis....”

“With my grandmother’s clasps in my hair.” My voice cracked. I hated it. Pressed my palm to my chest, shoved that feeling back down. “Five years. I gave this pack five years. I gave you......”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You have to go.” He dropped his voice. “I’m asking. Whatever you think of me, I’m asking.”

I watched him, his tired face, guilt etched into it, neutral on purpose. The look of someone living with a choice they already made.

Then something shifted.

Not an emotion. Physical, a heat at my right shoulder. No, more than heat. Deep, burning warmth, spreading out like a coal inside my skin. Down my shoulder blade, up my neck.

I made a sound, couldn’t help it.

Zevran’s expression sharpened. “What.....”

“Don’t move.”

The heat grew. I pressed my fingers to my shoulder, felt the warmth through the cloth, and underneath, a raised line, like a new scar.

The knife slipped to my side.

My legs wanted to buckle. I forced myself straight, turned to the mirror. Hard to see my back, but I caught the edge, a faint silver-gold glow pulsing under my sleeve, slow and steady like another heartbeat.

The room felt strange. Not just odd, wrong. Heavy, like air before lightning. Zevran caught it too, stood taller, nostrils flared.

“Kaelis.” His tone was very careful. “What is that?”

He wasn’t asking. He knew.

I faced him. Watched him try to stay neutral, fail. Saw recognition hit.

“You knew,” I said.

“I didn’t.....”

“Don’t lie.” The heat crept down my spine, pooling in my chest, sharper now, every nerve awake. Like being in a quiet room and suddenly flooding it with noise. “You knew what I was and left me there.”

“I was trying to protect you.....”

“You handed me to them.”

My voice was weird. Calm, but deeper, something new unfurling below.

The candle on my dresser flickered out.

Another on the window ledge. Third by the door. All snuffed, one after the other. Outside, clouds shifted dark around the moon, air moving even without wind.

Zevran watched me, uncertain, wary.

“Leave,” I said.

“Kaelis......”

“Get out.”

He left.

I stood there in the dark, just breathing for a minute. My shoulder felt like fire, and my hands shook, not only from fear this time, but from trying to keep myself together. Rage, grief, and this new heat churned through me, demanding space, like it owned the place.

I needed air.

So I jerked the window open, pressed my palms to the sill, and leaned out into the night. The pack grounds outside had gone quiet. The party moved into the hall, probably with Selene still surrounded by people, wearing that careful smile, graceful and grateful as always. Somewhere, three elders were probably deciding what to do with me. My stomach tightened. One way or another.

I pressed my fingers into my shoulder again, the mark, because I wasn’t pretending anymore. It burned under my touch, steady and deep.

Four hundred years.

I didn’t hear the person behind me. That was my first mistake. I was careless, half outside, door left unlocked after Zevran had gone, not even checking it. There was a sharp floorboard creak, and I started to turn, but not fast enough.

The blade drove into my left side, right under the ribs. Short, angled up. It was a professional’s move, meant for puncture.

First came the cold. That’s what nobody tells you about getting stabbed, the cold hits before the burn, racing through your body, like your blood’s trying to outrun the pain.

Then came the burn.

Nothing left in my lungs to scream with. I doubled over, their hand tight on the hilt, and I felt something wrong inside the cold, something more than the wound, spreading through me like dark water.

Poison.

I recognized it instantly. The crawling numbness in my left hand, the heaviness, the metallic taste creeping into my mouth. This was no accident.

The person yanked the blade free.

Pain slammed into me like a tidal wave.

I dropped hard on one knee, pressed my right hand into the floor, forced myself up, and spun. The room stayed pitch-black, but window light was enough to catch the shape, a dark figure, face masked, blade still wet, moving for the exit.

They wanted to escape.

My left side screamed at me. The poison spread in slow, cruel waves. My vision started to grey at the edges, the telltale creeping darkness. I had minutes. Maybe less.

The mark on my shoulder flared again. So hot I gasped.

I moved. Didn’t even think about it. Just the floor under my feet, the attacker’s back in front of me, my arm locking around the attackers throat, the other trapping the blade arm. The attacker was strong, stronger than I’d expected, elbow jabbing right into my wound. I saw white, felt my grip slipping,

But I didn’t let go.

I squeezed, let the person feel the burn coursing through my arms, something beyond skill, fueled by the mark. The struggles got frantic, then faded. The blade slipped to the floor.

I dropped them.

Still alive, barely. I knelt beside them, blood hot on my side, legs shaking, time running out. I reached down, tore the cloth from the face.

I didn’t recognize him.

Young man. No pack mark. Definitely not one of ours. Just some sent knife, a tool. Someone had been planning this long before tonight.

She’s leaving, one way or another.

I grabbed his jaw, forced him to meet my eyes.

“Tell whoever sent you,” I managed, voice rough and thin, fighting the poison. “Tell them I’m coming.”

His eyes went wide.

“Tell them I’m coming for all of it.”

The world tipped. I reached for the dresser, missed, grazed my arm, and hit the floor. Couldn’t stop the fall, not a scrap of strength left.

The last thing I felt before the darkness took over was the mark burning on my shoulder, steady and fierce, like a thing that had waited four centuries and was done waiting.