Alistair was in his room drunk.

The bottle was half empty.

Alistair didn’t remember opening it. Didn’t remember pouring the first glass. Or the second. Or the third. He just remembered sitting down in the worn leather chair by the window, the cold glass in his hand, and the silence pressing in from all sides.

His quarters were small. Smaller than most senior hunters received. He’d never asked for more. Never wanted it. A bed. A desk. A closet. A window that faced the training yard. That was enough.

Tonight, the training yard was empty. The floodlights were off. Only the moon and the distant glow of the city lit the space. Shadows stretched long across the grass, and the wind moved through the equipment like fingers through dead leaves.

Alistair drank.

The whisky burned. Good. He wanted to feel something other than the cold knot in his chest.

Voss’s face kept appearing behind his closed eyes. Not the way she looked now—older, harder, her silver hand gleaming under the interrogation lights. The way she used to look. Young. Laughing. Her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, her cheeks flushed from training, her eyes bright with something that wasn’t ambition or greed.

Love, maybe. He’d thought it was love.

He took another drink.

---

The memory came whether he wanted it or not.

Seven years ago.

The old base was smaller than the Keep. A converted warehouse on the edge of the city. Grey walls, but not cold. Not then. Pictures on the desks. Empty coffee cups. Jackets thrown over chairs. It had felt like home.

His team was five people then. Himself. Voss. Marcus Webb—the old Grey Hunter who’d found him as a scared orphan. Lena, the scout with the sharp tongue and sharper eyes. Harold, the heavy weapons specialist who couldn’t cook but pretended he could. Sven, the medic who always carried extra bandages and bad jokes.

And Voss. Always Voss.

She was sitting on his desk, swinging her legs, reading a mission report upside down.

"You’re going to spill coffee on that," Alistair said, not looking up from his own paperwork.

"I never spill anything."

"You spilled last week."

"That was different. That was Sven’s fault."

Sven looked up from across the room. "How is you being clumsy my fault?"

"You distracted me with your ugly face."

Harold laughed, a deep rumbling sound that shook the walls. Marcus shook his head, but he was smiling. Lena rolled her eyes and went back to sharpening her knife.

Alistair felt something warm in his chest. Not the whisky. Something else. Something he hadn’t felt in years.

Family.

That was what this was. Not blood. Something stronger.

Voss hopped off the desk and walked behind him, draping her arms over his shoulders. She smelled like gunpowder and something floral. Perfume, maybe. She’d never admit to wearing it.

"You work too hard," she murmured in his ear.

"Someone has to."

"Let Marcus do it. He’s old. He doesn’t need sleep."

"I heard that," Marcus said, not looking up from his newspaper.

"You were meant to."

Alistair felt her smile against his neck. He closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment, and let himself feel it. The warmth. The belonging. The certainty that this would last forever.

It didn’t.

---

The mission was simple. Too simple.

That should have been the first warning.

A demon nest on the outskirts of the city. Low rank. Clean-up duty. In and out before dawn.

They’d done it a hundred times.

But Voss had been different that night. Quiet. Distant. When Alistair asked what was wrong, she’d said nothing. Just smiled and kissed him and told him she loved him.

He believed her.

He still believed her.

The nest was empty when they arrived. No demons. No bodies. Just silence and the smell of old blood.

"Something’s wrong," Lena said.

Alistair agreed. "Pull back. Regroup outside."

That was when the trap sprung.

Demons poured from hidden passages. Not low rank. High rank. Too many. They’d walked into an ambush, and someone had known exactly where they would be.

Alistair fought. They all fought.

Harold went down first. A demon claw through his chest. He didn’t scream. Didn’t have time.

Sven tried to reach him. A second demon took his arm. Then his head.

Lena lasted longer. She was fast. Clever. She killed three before a fourth caught her from behind.

Alistair saw her fall. Heard her neck snap.

He wanted to run to her. But Voss was screaming his name, and Marcus was dragging him toward the exit, and the demons were everywhere, and there was no time, no time, no time.

They escaped. The three of them.

Marcus died on the way back. A wound he’d hidden, too deep to heal, too proud to mention. He died in Alistair’s arms, whispering, "Don’t let this break you."

It did.

Voss was gone the next morning. No note. No explanation. Just an empty bunk and a missing equipment report.

Alistair found out weeks later. She’d sold them out. The demon nest. The ambush. All of it. She’d traded their lives for something—money, power, freedom from the Ashen Guard.

He never learned what.

He never wanted to.

---

The bottle was empty now.

Alistair stared at it, his reflection wavering in the dark glass. He looked old. Tired. Broken.

Voss was right. That day had changed him. Had turned him into something cold and rigid and afraid.

He wasn’t afraid of dying.

He was afraid of trusting again.

He set the bottle down and stood. The room swayed for a moment, then steadied. He walked to the window and looked out at the training yard, empty and silent.

Tomorrow, he would train Ashen Dawn. He would watch Lucian fight and pretend he didn’t see the power hiding beneath the surface. He would keep his distance and protect himself.

But tonight, he would remember.

He would remember Lena’s laugh. Harold’s terrible cooking. Sven’s bad jokes. Marcus’s steady presence.

And he would remember Voss.

The woman he loved.

The woman who destroyed everything.

He closed his eyes.

Somewhere in the Keep, a clock struck midnight.

The shadows grew teeth.