Chapter 22, Mira
I sit at the brink of the bed, tightening the leather belt on my black pants. My hoodie comes next, slipping over my head as I stand and move to the single armchair stationed across the room. Mira is still on the bed, moving with that same maddening grace, pulling her shirt on clearly unaware of the way she is wrecking me.
I sink into the chair, spreading my legs and my arms along the worn armrests. I am claiming a throne with my phone in hand, thumb tapping out a message with a smirk tugging at my mouth.
I hit send, imagining Lucian’s expression. Let him stew. Let him try. I dare him.
The Initiation.
Every soul recruited by the Order must undergo the ritual—our grim passage from hunted to hunter. We call it The Judgment of Masks. Archaic, maybe. Brutal, absolutely. But tradition bleeds for a reason.
Lucian will slice Mira’s palm himself, right through the center as she will stand in the eye of the storm: seventeen masked members circling her like wild dogs dressed in black.
One by one, they will approach. One by one, they will press a finger to her open wound, take a single drop of her blood to their tongues, and seal her fate as one of us.
It is not just a ceremony, it’s a rite. And when it is done, she will receive her mask. Her oath. Her purpose.
Then—finally—her training will begin. She will be assigned to missions with me, and I don’t know what I am looking forward to more: watching her ascend like some sexy divine force in combat… or looking at every fool who so much as glances her way falls beneath my blade.
Either way, it is going to be a beautiful bloodbath.
As for me, I never had an initiation. No consecration. No circle. No blood-spattered welcome into the fold. I was dragged in, dropped at the doorstep like a stray, and thrown straight into work. No vows. Just orders.
However, I have watched them all since. Every single one. Year after year, I stood in that same shadowed circle, eyes sharp beneath my mask, witnessing the rebirth of the chosen few. Some trembled. Some screamed. Some smiled like they were finally home.
I did none of those things.
When I was younger, it used to gnaw at me—being the exception, the forgotten one. I would watch their blood-soaked theatrics and wonder why I was not deemed worthy of the same sacred sacrament.
But not anymore.
I have carved my worth in flesh and shadow, earned my place in silence and scars. I do not need some vampiric pageantry to remind me who the hell I am.
I am the ceremony they should’ve feared.
Somewhere between my thoughts and the slow ticking of the hour, I realize Mira has already fallen asleep.
She is sprawled across the bed without a blanket, surrendered to exhaustion—a warrior collapsing after battle. No armor. No pretense. Just raw, beautiful fatigue.
How could I blame her?
Julian’s ghost still clings to her skin. The Order’s burden now presses on her chest. And there is me—an entirely different kind of maelstrom she never asked for.
But damn, she wears it all like art.
I feel the weight in my eyes deepen, as if they alone have been tasked with carrying the pressure of this night all at once. The urge to resist sleep claws at me, but I know better. I will need what little rest I can steal if I am to be at my sharpest for her initiation—my beloved’s first step into the dark heart of the Order.
So, I take the chair. Drag it back and plant it firmly, spine to the door. If anyone wants to come in, they will have to go through me.
Literally.
Good luck.