"Humans," he said flatly. "I doubt one could participate in a Hunt."
Zhoren's silver eyes narrowed. "You are the one who warns against assumptions."
Makrath did not answer.
"I will learn more," Zhoren said. "If an arrangement is possible, I will make it. Until then, you are stood down from active duty."
The words landed harder than any reprimand.
Makrath felt the absence immediately—the loss of motion, of sanctioned violence, of purpose. He wanted to argue. Wanted to demand assignment. Wanted Zhoren to send him into something lethal enough to burn this pressure out of him.
He knew it would not be enough.
"This is your Hunt," Makrath said finally.
Zhoren scoffed softly at the audacity, but he did not rebuke him.
Makrath knew why.
"I will meet with the Marak," Zhoren said. "If a suitable female can be found, she will be Chosen."
He straightened. "You are dismissed."
Makrath inclined his head once and turned to leave.
The pressure in his chest did not ease.
Without the Hunt, he would descend.
He had known that longer than he cared to admit.
CHAPTER 3
The office had thinned to silence.
Most of the overhead lights were off, leaving only the strip above Serafina's desk humming faintly and casting her paperwork in a tired, yellowed glow. The bullpen beyond was empty—chairs tucked in, monitors dark, the night shift long since pulled to patrol or gone home.
She sat with her jacket draped over the back of her chair and her sleeves rolled to the forearm, pen moving steadily through forms no one would read closely unless they needed to find fault. Case number. Time of death. Narrative summary. The words sat flat on the page, stripped of everything they'd carried when they were fresh.
A convenience store on the corner of a quiet block. A robbery gone wrong.
The owner had been fifty-three. Married, two kids—one in high school, one just out of it. He'd worked the night shift himself because margins were tight and he trusted no one else with the register. The suspect had come in masked, camera angle bad, face never visible. Gun up too fast. Trigger pulled faster.
Serafina paused, pen hovering above the page.
She'd watched the footage twice already. Grainy, framed too wide—the kind of video that gave people hope right up until it didn't. No clean identifiers. No usable prints. No witnesses who'd seen anything but a blur and a gun.
She wanted to catch him anyway.
The wanting sat behind her ribs like a stone, tired and grinding, and it didn't move when she told it to. She'd seen enough of these cases to know how they ended. File closed. Suspect unknown. Family left with photographs and questions that never lined up into answers.
She finished the paragraph and moved on.
Her phone buzzed against the desk.
She glanced at it without thinking—and froze when she saw the name.
Aria.
