Carson Vale:
The glass of wine sat in front of me like a dare.
I didn't touch it.
I let the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable, until I could feel them leaning in, their curiosity turning restless. That's when I looked Cael Courtney in the eye and said, very evenly:
"I want what's mine."
He arched a brow. "And what's that, exactly?"
"Control."
A ripple moved through the room — not fear, not quite. More like the air before lightning hits. The candles nearest me flickered, just once, but enough to make three people glance toward the windows as if a draft had passed.
There was no draft.
Elera shifted slightly behind me, and I caught her expression in the glass reflection — sharp, alert. She'd felt it too.
Cael's smile didn't falter, but his gaze sharpened. "Control," he repeated. "Of what?"
I leaned back in my chair. "That depends on who's foolish enough to try keeping it from me."
Soft laughter from somewhere down the table. A red-haired boy with a signet ring tapped his glass. "Big words for someone who hasn't been tested."
I turned to him slowly. "Do you want to?"
He opened his mouth — and stopped. Just… stopped. His lips parted like he was about to speak, but no sound came. His hand froze mid-gesture, trembling slightly as if resisting something invisible.
I didn't move. I didn't need to. I just thought about him shutting up — and he did.
When I finally looked away, he let out a sharp breath like someone had been holding his lungs. The room had gone very, very quiet.
Cael's smile returned, faint and calculating. "Interesting."
He raised his glass again. "Welcome to the game, Carson Vale."
.....
Cael Courtney's POV:
I had seen storms before.
I had commanded them, bent them, buried them.
But Carson Vale… he wasn't a storm.
He was the stillness before it, the kind that made your skin crawl because you knew the sky was about to break open.
The way he looked at me across the table tonight not as an equal, not as an enemy, but as someone who knew I couldn't stop him when he decided to move, it made my teeth itch.
Good.
Men like that were dangerous. And men like that could be used.
I swirled my drink slowly, eyes on the reflection of his back as he left the dining hall with Elena trailing him like a blade at his side. Fierce little thing, that girl loyal too, almost unnaturally so. If she took orders only from him, then she was another lock to the door I wanted to open.
Carson didn't know the depth of his gift. Not yet. That made him… pliable.
But once he did, I'd have two options:
Chain him.
Or kill him.
A slow smile crept across my face. I preferred the first. The second was always such a waste of good talent.
I'd have to lure him in, offer him something big enough to spark ambition, but small enough to keep him blind to the leash.
Power. Influence. Maybe even blood.
Yes… blood.
Because the Courtney family didn't rise to the top of this city's shadows by shaking hands. We built our throne with deals written in crimson. And I had a feeling Carson Vale's signature would look beautiful in red.
.....
Carson Vale's POV:
Cael didn't call me directly.
He didn't have to.
When one of his men slid a folded note across the bar to me no name, just a time and a place I knew who it was from.
The courtyard behind the old admin block. Midnight.
Elena tried to follow me when I left the lounge, but I caught her wrist.
"Not this time," I said quietly. "Watch the hall. Don't move unless you hear me call."
Her eyes searched mine, that fire she carried always ready to flare. But she nodded. Because no matter how fierce she was, she obeyed only me.
The courtyard was colder than I expected. Moonlight draped the cracked pavement, silvering the weeds that had crawled between the stones.
Cael stepped out from the shadow of an archway, his coat a darker black than the night itself.
"Vale," he said, like we were old friends. "I think you and I can help each other."
I didn't answer right away. My senses were sharper now they had been since… well, since it started. Every shift in the air felt like a warning. Every sound echoed too clearly.
And right now, I could hear something behind the walls. Slow. Heavy. Wet.
Cael took a step closer, his voice low. "There's potential in you. Raw. Untamed. I can give it direction. I can give you more than you've ever dreamed."
The sound behind the wall grew louder. Closer. Like something dragging itself across stone.
I met his gaze. "If I need more, I'll take it myself."
That's when the wall buckled.
Brick dust rained between us. Something shoved against the stone from the other side, the mortar groaning like it was being torn apart.
Cael's smile didn't fade if anything, it deepened.
"I was hoping you'd say that," he murmured.
The wall exploded inward, and a shape huge, twisted, eyes burning with something older than hatred — lunged into the courtyard.
.....
It didn't move like an animal.
It moved like a nightmare wearing flesh.
Its limbs were wrong, too long, bent at angles that should've broken bones. Its jaw split wider than any human's, rows of teeth slick with something black that dripped onto the cracked pavement, hissing like acid where it landed.
For a second, I froze. Not from fear but from recognition.
I'd seen this before. In flashes, in dreams that didn't feel like dreams.
Cael didn't flinch.
"This is what hunts the unworthy," he said softly. "Let's see if you're worth keeping."
The thing roared a sound that rattled the air and made the lamppost lights flicker. It lunged for me.
I didn't think. My body moved on its own.
My palm slammed into its chest, and the impact cracked the ground beneath us. The creature flew back into the far wall, stone shattering around it.
For a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then I saw my hand.
Faint, dark-red lines pulsed under the skin, glowing like molten metal. The air around me shimmered — not heat, something heavier. Thicker.
The monster clawed its way upright, growling.
I stepped toward it. My footsteps sounded… wrong. Echoes that didn't match the rhythm. Shadows stretched toward me even though the light was behind my back.
"Carson!"
I turned, Elena was in the archway, eyes wide. She'd ignored my order. But I couldn't blame her. She looked between me, the monster, and Cael, confusion and… something else… twisting her expression.
The creature lunged again.
I caught it by the throat this time. My fingers sank in not through flesh, but into something deeper, like I was gripping its soul.
It screamed. The sound wasn't just in the air it tore through my head, dragging up memories that weren't mine. Deserts on fire. Oceans of black water. Cities burning under a red sky.
Cael stepped closer, watching like a scientist observing an experiment.
"Beautiful," he whispered.
I clenched my hand. The monster convulsed then collapsed, its body crumbling to ash that scattered on the wind.
When I looked up, both Cael and Elena were staring at me.
One with hunger.
The other with fear.
And I couldn't tell which one I should be more worried about.
.....
The ash still swirled in the air when Cael finally spoke.
"You've been walking around all this time… like you're just a man."
I didn't answer. My chest was tight, my skin still humming with the aftershock of whatever I'd just done.
Cael smiled slow, deliberate. "Do you even know what you are, Carson?"
Elena's voice was sharp. "Stop." She stepped between us, her chin up like she could block him from me. "He doesn't need—"
Cael cut her off with a glance. "You're not here to protect him, Elena. You're here to serve him… until he doesn't need you anymore."
Her jaw clenched, but she didn't move.
I took a step toward Cael. "If you know something, say it."
His grin widened. "Say it? No. I'd rather show you."
Without warning, his hand lashed out faster than my eyes could track gripping my throat. Not squeezing. Just holding. Testing.
"Feel that?" he murmured. "That pressure in your bones, that itch under your skin? That's the leash. You've been carrying it since the day you were born. But me…" His voice dropped to a purr. "I know how to break it."
A dark pulse rippled through me something deep, something dangerous and for a second I felt my vision narrow, my blood run hotter. I almost wanted to let it out.
Cael leaned closer. "The thing you killed tonight? Just a message. The real ones… are coming. And when they do, you'll either stand with me…" His gaze flicked to Elena. "…or I'll make sure she watches you fall."
The air seemed heavier, pressing in from every side. My heart pounded once hard like a drum before war.
Then I heard it.
Not from outside. From inside.
A voice.
"Break the leash."
.....
The voice in my head wasn't Cael's. It was older. Colder.
It felt like it had been waiting for me.
"Break the leash."
My fingers twitched. The urge to grab Cael and rip him apart was so strong it nearly drowned out my own thoughts. I could see flashes his body hitting the ground, my hands drenched in something dark and steaming.
But then… Elena's hand brushed my wrist.
A small touch, but enough to snap the image.
Her eyes locked on mine. "Not here," she whispered. It wasn't a plea it was a command, the kind you use to pull someone back from a cliff.
Cael must have seen it, because he let go of my throat and stepped back. His smirk stayed, but there was something sharper in his gaze now. Calculation.
"You'll thank me one day, Carson," he said. "When you're done pretending you're just another human in a college jacket."
He turned to leave, but stopped at the door.
"Oh… and lock your windows tonight."
The way he said it wasn't advice. It was a promise.
That night, I couldn't sleep. The wind rattled the glass, and every shadow in my room felt like it was breathing.
Somewhere past midnight, the voice returned.
"They've found you."
And then three knocks.
Slow. Deliberate.
Right on my window.
.....
The knocks didn't come again.
But I could still feel them as if the glass held the echo like a bruise.
"Elena," I whispered.
She was on the couch across the room, pretending to be asleep. She didn't move, but I knew she was awake. I could tell by the way her breathing paused for a fraction too long.
A shadow shifted outside my window.
Not walking.
Not human.
It slid.
I reached for the baseball bat under my bed, but Elena's voice cut the air like a knife.
"Don't. It'll smell your fear."
"What the hell is 'it'?"
She stood slowly, her silhouette almost glowing in the moonlight. "Something Cael's father keeps in the dark. The Journs Courtney use it when they want someone to… disappear."
The shadow moved again closer this time.
Its shape was wrong. Too long. Too thin.
And then… it smiled.
Not with lips.
With the glass.
The reflection bent until it formed a grin.
The voice in my head came back, sharper this time.
"Let me out. I'll make it stop smiling."
Elena's eyes snapped to me.
"Carson… your pupils—"
Before she could finish, the window shattered inward.
A cold hand, bone-white and clawed, reached for my chest. I didn't think I stared right into whatever passed for its eyes.
And it stopped.
Frozen.
Like stone.
Elena's face went pale. "You… you just—"
The thing crumbled into black ash at my feet.
But before I could catch my breath, something moved in the corner of the room.
A tall, lean figure stepped into the light.
Cael.
And he was clapping.