The apartment was a box.
Elena stood in the center of the studio, the single overhead light casting sharp shadows. One suitcase by the door, a duffel bag on the bare mattress the rental agency had provided. The air smelled of lemon-scented cleaner and dust. It was nothing. It was everything. It was hers.
A shiver crawled up her spine, sudden and sharp. She shrugged it off as adrenaline crash, the aftermath of walking away from three years of… whatever that had been. A transaction. A sentence served.
She unpacked mechanically: clothes in the narrow closet, toiletries in the bathroom, a single framed photo of her parents—a younger version of herself sandwiched between two smiling, fading strangers—placed on the cheap particleboard nightstand. Her movements were precise, a ritual to anchor herself in this new, empty reality.
The shiver returned, stronger this time, a wave of cold that locked her muscles for a second. Then, just as suddenly, it was replaced by a flush of heat that bloomed under her skin. She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. It came away damp.
Great. A stress-induced fever. Perfect.
She pushed through, forcing her body to obey. But as the minutes ticked by, the chill and the heat began to cycle faster, a war waging beneath her skin. Her head started to pound, a dull, insistent throb behind her eyes. The bare white walls of the apartment seemed to pulse in time with it.
She needed water. Aspirin. Something.
Stumbling to the kitchenette, she fumbled with the tap. The water looked wrong. Not in color, but in… texture. It seemed to swirl in the glass, catching the overhead light in a way that made tiny, shimmering patterns, like miniature galaxies spinning down the drain. She blinked hard. The patterns vanished.
Hallucinations. Fantastic.
The glass trembled in her hand. She set it down too hard on the counter, the sound unnaturally loud in the silent apartment. The silence itself felt thick, pressurized. As if the air was holding its breath.
Outside the single window, the night was clear. A sliver of moon hung high, sharp as a cuticle. She stared at it, and the throbbing in her skull synchronized with a sudden, painful tug behind her ribs. A longing so acute it stole her breath. She wanted to be out there. In the cold, under that pale light. She wanted—
A violent, dry heave doubled her over the sink. Nothing came up but a gasp. Her left hand, the one that had worn the ring, shot out to brace herself against the cool stainless steel.
The moment her palm made contact, a jolt, like static electricity magnified a hundred times, shot up her arm. The overhead light flickered wildly, then died with a pop, plunging the apartment into darkness save for the silver moonlight streaming through the window.
And in that moonlight, something impossible happened.
A faint, shimmering outline of light—the same color as moonlit ice—bloomed around her fingers where they touched the sink. It was beautiful and terrifying. It lasted only a heartbeat before fading, but in its wake, a network of hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the stainless-steel surface with a sound like grinding glass.
Elena snatched her hand back, staring at the ruined metal, then at her own, seemingly ordinary fingers. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum.
"What…?" The word was a breathless scrape in the dark.
The fever spiked, a furnace igniting in her core. Her vision swam. The moonlight through the window wasn't just light anymore; it felt like a physical substance, pouring in, pooling around her ankles, cold and heavy. It was trying to get in. She was trying to pull it in.
A deep, instinctual terror, older than reason, seized her. This wasn't a fever. This was…
The sound of the apartment door exploding inward was a cannon blast in the confined space.
Splintered wood and the shriek of torn metal hinges. Figures silhouetted in the hallway light—large, moving with a predator's speed. Elena stumbled back, a cry lodged in her throat.
The lead figure resolved into the living room. Kaelen.
He looked worse than he had hours ago. His face was a mask of stark angles and pallor, sweat gleaming on his temple. But his eyes burned. The gold rings in his irises were fully ignited, casting a faint, animal glow in the dark room. His left hand was clenched at his side, the sleeve of his jacket shoved up haphazardly. Even in the poor light, she could see the dark, vicious lines crawling up his forearm from his wrist.
He didn't look at the shattered door, the cracks in the sink. His gaze pinned her, hunted and hunting.
"You're sick," he stated, his voice ragged. It wasn't concern. It was diagnosis.
"Get out." The words were weak, swallowed by another wave of heat that made the room tilt. The moonlight on the floor seemed to brighten.
"You're coming with me." He took a step forward, and two more large men—Wolfe security, she recognized their bulk—moved to flank him.
Anger, hot and clean, cut through the fever haze. "You broke my door. Get. Out."
"You're having a reaction. A withdrawal." Another step. He was close enough now that she could see the strain around his mouth, the way he held his body stiffly, fighting his own pain. "The ring suppressed it. Your body doesn't know how to process the… change without it. It will get worse. A lot worse."
"I don't care!" she shouted, the sound too loud in her head. The pooling moonlight at her feet shimmered in response. "Whatever game you're playing, I'm done! Whatever that thing on your arm is, it's not my problem!"
"It is your problem!" The roar tore from him, raw and desperate. The gold in his eyes flared. "It is everyone's problem if you burn this city block down from the inside out! Now, come quietly."
He lunged for her arm.
Panic exploded. Elena threw her hands up, not to hit him, just to ward him off, to push him away.
The moonlight gathered at her feet surged.
It wasn't a beam or a blast. It was a concussive wave of cold, silvery light, erupting from her in a silent, expanding ring. It hit Kaelen first, throwing him back into one of his men with a grunt of impact. It hit the windows next.
Every pane of glass in the apartment—the window, the framed picture on the nightstand, the light fixture remnants—shattered simultaneously.
The sound was a deafening, crystalline scream. Shards rained down, glittering like vicious diamonds in the sudden influx of night air and streetlight.
Silence, again, but for the tinkling of falling glass and the ragged breathing of the men on the floor.
Elena stared at her hands. They looked normal. She felt empty, scoured out. The fever was gone, replaced by a deep, trembling cold and a hollow ache in her bones. The longing for the moonlight was a dull echo.
Kaelen shoved the dazed guard off him and stood, glass crunching under his polished shoes. A thin line of blood traced his cheek from a flying shard. His eyes were wide, not with pain, but with a horrified, vindicated awe. "You see?" he breathed, the word shaking. "You see what you are?"
Before he could take another step, a new voice cut through the ruined apartment, smooth as aged bourbon and just as intoxicating.
"I do believe the lady asked you to leave, Wolfe. And she was remarkably polite about it, considering the state of her door."
A man leaned casually against the splintered doorframe, as if he'd been invited for cocktails. He was tall, impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit that cost more than the building, his features so classically handsome they bordered on severe. His hair was dark as a raven's wing, his eyes a deep, impossible crimson that seemed to drink the ambient light. He held a slender, antique case of polished ebony in one hand.
Kaelen whirled, his body coiling into a defensive crouch. A low, warning growl rumbled in his chest, a sound no human throat should make. "Nightingale."
"Wolfe." The vampire—Soren Nightingale—inclined his head, a mocking parody of courtesy. His gaze slid past the Alpha, past the guards, and settled on Elena. It was a assessing look, clinical and fascinated, like a scientist finding a new, volatile element. "Ms. Sterling. My apologies for the dramatic entrance. Your… energy signature just now was quite the beacon. The Conclave's sensors lit up like a solstice tree."
"This is none of the Conclave's business," Kaelen snarled. "This is a Wolfe family matter."
"Is it?" Soren pushed off the doorframe and took a few graceful steps into the apartment, ignoring the glass as if it weren't there. His eyes never left Elena. "When the 'Wolfe family matter' involves an unregistered Celestial bloodline manifesting uncontrolled power in a residential zone? I'm afraid it becomes everyone's business. Particularly the business of those tasked with keeping the Veil intact." He set his case on the cracked kitchen counter and clicked it open. Inside, nestled in black velvet, lay a series of vials and a sleek, modern syringe with a crystal tip.
Elena found her voice, thin and frayed. "What are you doing?"
"Taking a sample, my dear," Soren said, his tone soothing, almost gentle, as he fitted a vial into the syringe. "Before the resonance fades. The data will be invaluable. For your own protection, of course."
"Don't you touch her." Kaelen moved, a blur of motion, placing himself between Soren and Elena. The two Wolfe guards recovered, moving to flank their Alpha, their postures aggressive.
Soren sighed, a sound of profound boredom. "The heroic stance is admirable, if tragically outdated. You're in no state to stop me, Kaelen. The Mark is already past your elbow. You're fighting on two fronts, and losing on both." His crimson eyes flicked to the dark lines on Kaelen's arm. "How long do you think you have? A week? Less?"
The truth of it hung in the air, cold and final.
Elena looked from Kaelen's pale, pained face to the vampire's elegant, detached curiosity. A specimen. A problem to be contained. A key to a lock.
The hollow ache in her bones flared into a new kind of pain. Betrayal. Fear. A terrifying, dawning understanding.
Soren took another step, the syringe glinting. "Now, be a good wolf and stand aside. This doesn't have to be… messy."
Kaelen didn't move. A tremor ran through him, but his feet remained planted. "Over my dead body."
"A distinct possibility," Soren murmured.
The standoff crackled in the glass-strewn ruin of the apartment. Elena, caught between them, felt the last of her strength draining away. The world began to soften at the edges, the voices fading into a distant buzz.
The final thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her was Kaelen's face, turned toward her, his wolf-bright eyes holding hers—not with demand, not with calculation, but with a stark, unvarnished plea.
Then, nothing.