Chapter 22
Makari
Sundays at Ursa Arcane are usually quiet.
Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes the forest seem watchful, the hills listening, the entire compound holding its breath.
Most of the staff stay home; the tourists who come for luxury hunts leave Saturday night or arrive Monday morning; the shooting range stays locked.
It should feel peaceful. But it doesn’t.
The drizzle started before dawn—a thin, cold mist that clings to the pines and turns the trails to slick patches of mud.
By midmorning, the fog thickens along the ridgelines, swallowing sound and making every shape in the trees look like it could be a person.
Once, I used to love this atmosphere; back when I was the only thing in the woods to be feared.
Now, something settles under my ribs like a trapped bird.
I’m drinking coffee in my office when Jesse bursts in, soaked and carrying tension that means something has gone very wrong.
“They’re back,” he says. No preamble. No explanation. “Tracks. Prints. Sign of four men, maybe more.”
Everything inside me goes still. “Where?”
“Northwest passage. Past the old surveyor’s cabin.”
That’s deep. Too deep. Closer to our main routes than these ghosts should ever get, and there’s no way they’ve just stumbled upon that information.
I’m on my feet before he finishes speaking.
“Get the men. Only the most trustworthy ones.”
He nods once and is gone. Ursa Arcane employs several hundred people, fifty-two of whom are outdoorsmen; but only a handful of those are my boyeviki, warriors, carrying out the bloodiest orders ruthlessly. They’d kill themselves before they spoke a word about what goes on here.
In ten minutes, I’m suited up. Weatherproof jacket, tactical harness under it, boots laced tight, the familiar weight of a sidearm holstered at my ribs.
The old version of myself, the one I buried under paperwork, supply routes, and forced civility stirs awake like an animal blinking out of hibernation.
Back when Papa was alive, the old bear, it was me out on the trails and him in here running things.
But this world is mine now. And the forest, too. Whoever thinks they can trespass in it is about to learn that.
We head into the forest in a staggered line: Jesse to my left, Grigori and Vasil trailing behind, two more scouts up ahead. The drizzle sharpens into a fine, stinging rain. Mist curls low over the moss-covered ground, and the air tastes metallic, like the moment before lightning strikes.
The tracks are unmistakable once we reach them. Boot prints too deep for hikers, too deliberate for tourists. I crouch, touching the imprint of one tread.
“Military pattern,” I murmur. “New. Heavy. Coordinated movement.”
Jesse nods. “One of the guides saw lights last night near the ridge. We thought it was just poachers, but…”
“Scouts,” I say. “They’ve been watching us longer than we thought.”
We move deeper.
Hours bleed into each other. The rain soaks through collars and clings to eyelashes. Branches whip across my arms as we descend into ravines and climb back out, tracking signs of movement—broken twigs, disturbed underbrush, shallow mud prints that haven’t had time to fill with water.
The world narrows to instinct and threat. This is the man I was before—cold, alert, carved down to purpose. The version of myself who never hesitated.
And yet, in the back of my mind, something flickers unbidden: a small river cottage, yellow morning light, a child’s laughter. A woman I can’t seem to ignore, no matter how far into the wilderness I go.
I shove the thought away.
Focus.
By late afternoon, the light had thinned into the bruised purple of early evening. The fog thickens. Every sound feels sharp. Cracking branches, shifting gravel, the thrum of my heart in my ears. Too loud.
“They were here recently,” Jesse mutters, pointing to a patch of fresh tracks.
“Close,” I say. “Too close.” Something feels off, but I can’t place it.
We fan out along the ridge. The wind moves strangely, curling into pockets of cold that raise the hairs on my neck. The silence feels wrong, like the forest is holding its breath. My father used to tell me, When the birds go quiet, it means there’s a predator nearby.
Then Vasil calls out.
A short, strangled sound.
I turn instantly, gun raised, but it’s already too late.
The first body is slumped against a fallen tree, eyes glassy and wide. Blood streaks down his throat in a clean, efficient line. A single slice from ear to ear, so deep that they cut through the trachea. I can see the white gleam of it from here. Warm steam rises from the wound in the chilly rain.
A quiet kill is a practiced one. My vision sharpens to a razor point.
Jesse curses under his breath. “Boss.”
I’m already moving, sprinting toward the second shout deeper in the clearing.
One of my boyeviki is on the ground, hands pressed to his stomach, blood leaking between his fingers in a dark, spreading pool. His breaths are short and wet, each one a desperate, drowning effort.
“No. No, stay with me,” I order, sliding into the mud beside him.
His eyes find mine, unfocused but pleading. Rain slicks his hair to his forehead. His lips move around a word that never fully forms.
I press my hand over the wound, but it’s useless. The blade went deep. Too deep to save.
“Shef…” he gasps.
“I’m here,” I say.
He tries to lift a hand, weakly brushing my arm. His fingers curl into the fabric of my jacket as if anchoring himself. Then they loosen, and his head drops back. The forest swallows the last sound of his breath.
Rage hits me so violently I have to close my eyes for a moment just to contain it. The rain falls harder, drumming against leaves and armor, a relentless percussion that only feeds my fury.
“Tracks,” Jesse says, voice shaking with controlled anger. “Boss, they doubled back. They circled around us.”
I stand. Cold. Focused. A blade honed to one lethal edge.
“Where are they now?”
He points northwest. “Moving fast. Four of them. Armed.”
“Go,” I say.
We chase them; shadows through rain, boots pounding through slick earth.
I catch a glimpse of them as the last of the daylight bleeds out of the sky: four men dressed in dark tactical gear, faces covered, rifles slung across their backs.
They’re too clean to be from around here; my men blend in with the forest, but these stand out in all black and glinting metal.
They look back once.
They know exactly who we are, and they’re not afraid.
They disappear into the trees before we can close the distance. The darkness swallows them whole. For a long moment, the only sound is the rain and my own pulse, roaring like something alive.
This was planned.
Someone sent these men to my land, to my forest, to kill my people. A message? A warning? Or an opening move?
I stand over the bodies long after the others, letting the anger settle like iron in my blood.
Two dead. Two families who depended on me. Two debts I now owe in blood.
The old version of myself: the cold, ruthless, unstoppable one pushes to the surface like a shadow reclaiming its shape.
By the time we return to the estate, the sky is a pale, washed-out gray, the kind that comes just before dawn. My clothes are soaked and heavy. My hands are stiff from dried blood. Some theirs, some mine, none of it washed away by the rain.
I push through the side entrance, not expecting anyone awake at this hour.
But she’s there already. It must be later than I realized.
Roxanne is walking down the hallway, hair falling over her shoulders, a wrap dress cinched at her curvy waist. Something in my chest cracks open, vulnerable, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from going to her and begging for relief or forgiveness or the oblivion of sleep.
To forget the blood on my hands and the gasp of last breaths.
She stops when she sees me; absolutely frozen, eyes widening as she takes in the state I’m in.
“Mak…” Her voice breaks on the syllable. “Oh, my God! Are you…are you hurt?”
“No.” I shake my head once. “Not my blood.”
She steps closer, reaching for me on instinct, then pulls her hand back as if unsure whether she’s allowed to touch this version of me. Her eyes search mine, worried, confused, trying to understand what she’s seeing.
“What happened?” she whispers.
I look at her—really look at her. The softness of her skin, the warmth in her face, the vulnerability she doesn’t try to hide. Everything about her feels like a different world entirely.
A world I stepped out of. A world I can’t take into the one I’m walking toward now.
I straighten, wrestling to gain control once more.
“I lost two men tonight,” I say. “Before the week is over, I’ll take four more in their place.”
She flinches at the calm certainty of my words, but she doesn’t look away.
I step past her, pausing only long enough to meet her gaze.
“It isn’t my blood,” I repeat. “But I’m about to spill a lot more. Go home, Roxanne. Go to Andi.”
Then I leave her in the hallway, the scent of rain and iron lingering in the air behind me, and I walk toward the war that has already begun.