The air in the bedchamber smelled of expensive wine, stale sweat, and the metallic tang of impending death.
On the sprawling velvet bed, General Kaelen lay paralyzed, his chest heaving in a rhythm that was no longer his own. He stared up at the woman straddling him, his eyes glazed with a mixture of ecstasy and terror. To him, she was a goddess of pleasure, a silver-haired miracle in a world of ash. To Elara, he was nothing but a vessel. A container for a shard of her shattered soul.
"Don't... stop..." Kaelen rasped, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch a strand of her long, shimmering silver hair.
Elara didn't flinch, though her stomach churned with bile. She leaned down, her hair cascading like a curtain of moonlight around them, shielding the horror of what was about to happen. Her eyes, usually a soft grey, flashed with a sudden, predatory gold.
"Sleep, Kaelen," she whispered, her voice sounding like a funeral rite. "Your war is over."
She placed her palm flat against his heart. She didn't use a dagger. She didn't need one. She was the Silver Kyuubi, the Cursed Saintess. Her very skin was a weapon.
Pull.
She visualized the command in her mind. Deep within the General's chest, something jagged and luminous tore loose. Kaelen gasped, his back arching off the mattress in a silent scream. A stream of golden mist—Life Essence mixed with sin—flowed from his lips and into hers.
Elara gritted her teeth. The pain hit her instantly. It felt like swallowing a mouthful of broken glass. Absorbing a Soul Shard wasn't a power-up; it was a punishment. She felt Kaelen's greed, his lust, the screams of the villagers he had butchered—it all flooded into her veins, polluting her, burning her.
Endure it, she told herself, her nails digging into the bedsheets. This is life number one hundred. The last one. You cannot fail.
With a final, wet gasp, Kaelen slumped back. He wasn't dead, but he was hollowed out—a husk of a man who would never lift a sword again. Elara rolled off him, collapsing onto the cold stone floor. Her body shook violently as the shard settled into her core, stitching together a tiny piece of her fragmented existence. Behind her, for just a fleeting second, the shadow of one spectral fox tail flickered against the wall before vanishing.
"One down," she whispered to the darkness, wiping the corner of her mouth. "Six to go."
Bam.
The heavy oak doors of the chamber didn't just open; they exploded inward, hit by a wave of invisible force. Freezing wind rushed into the heated room, extinguishing the candles instantly. Elara scrambled back, clutching a silk sheet to her naked body, her heart hammering against her ribs. She knew that aura. She knew that scent of winter, gunpowder, and holy fire.
A figure stepped through the ruined doorway. He was tall, a shadow detaching itself from the night. He wore the black military uniform of the Northern Legion, silver epaulettes gleaming in the moonlight. A heavy fur cloak hung from his broad shoulders, making him look like a beast standing on two legs.
Draven Blackwood. The Warlord of the North. The High Priest of the Hunters. And the man whose ancestors had hunted her kind for a thousand years.
Draven didn't look at the unconscious General. His eyes—cold, blue, burning with a judgment sharper than any blade—locked onto Elara. He walked into the room, his boots clicking rhythmically on the marble floor. Every step felt like a countdown.
"I expected to find a battlefield," Draven said, his voice deep and smooth, like velvet wrapped around a razor. "Instead, I find a whore's den."
Elara lifted her chin. She was trembling, naked, and cornered, but the pride of the Silver Fox refused to let her cower. "I am simply doing what I must to survive, Lord Blackwood. We can't all be born with holy light in our veins."
Draven stopped right in front of her. The sheer size of him blocked out the moonlight. The pressure of his presence—the aura of a Hunter—was suffocating. "Survival?" He looked at the husk of the General on the bed, then back at her. "Is that what you call this? You drain men of their will, leaving them empty shells."
"He was a monster," Elara shot back, her voice shaking. "I took his power. I didn't take his life. That is more mercy than you usually grant."
Draven's eyes narrowed. The golden runes hidden beneath his uniform began to hum. For a second, Elara thought he would kill her. She braced herself for the burn of holy fire. Instead, he reached out. His gloved hand grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up at him. His grip was hard, possessive, dangerous.
Elara flinched, waiting for the pain. Usually, a Hunter's touch burned a Fox like acid. But... nothing happened. Where his fingers touched her jaw, there was no pain. Only a strange, cool sensation. A silence in the chaotic noise of her mind. The beast inside her, usually raging with hunger, suddenly went quiet. It was the only touch in a thousand years that felt... safe.
Draven froze too. His pupils dilated. Under his uniform, the rune over his heart flared with a searing heat, not of anger, but of recognition. A sharp pain pierced his chest, mirroring the agony Elara had felt just moments ago.
He pulled his hand back as if he had been burned, though Elara knew he hadn't. He rubbed his thumb against his fingers, staring at her silver hair with a new, intense suspicion.
"Get dressed," he ordered, his voice rougher than before. He turned his back to her, creating a wall of black wool and authority. "And get out of my city before sunrise. If I see you hunting in my territory again, Silver One... I won't just lecture you. I will end you."
Elara didn't wait to be told twice. She grabbed her dress, her fingers fumbling with the laces, and fled into the night, the stolen shard burning in her chest.
She didn't look back. She didn't see Draven standing there, clutching his own chest, his face pale as if he—not the General—had just been drained. And she didn't see the shadow in the corner move.
A black panther with a crescent moon mark on its forehead stepped out from behind the curtains. It looked at the door where Elara had fled, then at the Warlord gasping for breath. Its golden eyes gleamed with ancient knowledge. Run, little Fox, the beast thought. Run as far as you can. But you cannot run from the piece of your heart that beats inside him.