The fluorescent lights of OmniCorp felt abrasive in the morning. Chase sat at his desk, staring at a cross-reference sheet between the Khazarian Lattice and the Elysian High-Rites, but the text was a blur. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the broken look on Kaelen's face and the jagged, burning horizon she had described.
He wasn't just tired; he was on high alert. If Vincent—a man capable of felling lesser gods—was truly in the city, the office was no longer a safe haven. It was a target.
"You've been staring at that same paragraph for twenty minutes, Chase."
He didn't need to look up to know who it was. Lilith was standing at the entrance to his cubicle, her arms crossed. She wasn't wearing her usual 'CEO mask.' Her head was tilted, her pupils slightly dilated as she sampled the air around him.
"I'm fine, Lilith. Just a late night with the roommates," Chase replied, finally blinking and forcing his focus back to the screen.
"Liar," she purred, though there was a sharp edge to it. She stepped into the small space, effectively cornering him. "Your Essence is stable, but your scent is... frantic. It's bitter. Like old smoke and iron. You haven't looked at me once since I walked in."
She reached down, her fingers catching his chin and forcing him to look up at her. Her red eyes searched his, searching for the submissive warmth she had grown accustomed to since their Friday night. Instead, she found the cold, steel-grey focus of the Commander.
"Something is coming," Lilith whispered, her grip tightening slightly. "I can feel your essence vibrating through the building. And you're at the center of the ripple. Is it the vampire? Did Seraphina try something?"
"No," Chase said, gently but firmly removing her hand. "It's not Seraphina. It's a ghost from a war you weren't part of."
Lilith's expression shifted from concern to a flash of intense, territorial jealousy. She hated when Chase retreated into the parts of his past she couldn't touch. She stepped closer, her hip brushing against his desk, her Alpha aura flaring just enough to make the nearby monitors flicker.
"I am the Alpha of this territory, Chase. Your contract—our arrangement—means your ghosts are my business. If someone is hunting in my city, I want to know who."
"You don't want to know this one, Lilith," Chase said, standing up to meet her eye-to-eye. He was nearly a head taller, but she didn't flinch. "He's a man who doesn't care about corporate hierarchy or Alpha status. He's a man who has spent two hundred years refining the art of ending things. If he comes here, it won't be for a meeting."
Lilith's tail flicked behind her, a predatory sign. "Then we deal with him. Together. I didn't submit to a man who hides in his office."
"This isn't about submission!" Chase snapped, his voice a low growl that made the Lore team in the next row go silent. "This is about a man named Vincent. He's an Ancient, like me. And he thinks my guest room is harboring the person who murdered his family."
Lilith paused, her eyes widening as she processed the gravity of the name. She had heard whispers of the "Legion-Slayer" in the old archives, but she had assumed he was a myth—a campfire story demons told to keep their children in line.
"The husband," she breathed, her jealousy momentarily eclipsed by the strategic threat.
"Kaelen's husband is here?"
"Vee thinks so. And if Vee thinks so, it's already too late to hide."
Before Lilith could respond, the office's heavy security doors hissed open. The air in the room suddenly dropped ten degrees. The hum of the computers changed to a low, mournful drone.
At the reception desk stood a man in a worn, ash-grey trench coat. He wasn't particularly large, but he possessed a gravity that seemed to pull the light toward him. He carried a long, rectangular case wrapped in tattered leather, slung over his shoulder.
He didn't look at the receptionist. He looked straight through the glass partitions, his eyes locking onto Chase.
Lilith felt the hair on her arms stand up. She realized then that Chase hadn't been being dramatic. The man at the door didn't smell like a demon, a vampire, or a god.
He smelled like a Conclusion.
"Lilith," Chase said, his voice dropping into the calm, hollow tone of a soldier preparing for a breach. "Get back to your office. Lock the internal seals. Do not interfere."
"Chase, I can—"
"Go!" he commanded, the force of his Essence hitting her like a physical blow.
For the first time since their night on the desk, Lilith felt a different kind of fear—not the thrill of submission, but the terror of losing the man she had claimed. She retreated, her eyes fixed on the stranger as he began to walk toward them, his boots thudding with the weight of two centuries of momentum.