Chapter 80 Leo
I stepped into the realm’s communication chamber at the Bloodhounds’ headquarters just after dawn. The space was all concrete and steel, reinforced with protective sigils that glowed faint blue along the walls. Edward stood over a projection table, his face illuminated by shifting energy lines that mapped the veil between our world and the other realm.
He didn’t look up when I entered, which meant whatever he’d found was bad.
“We’ve got movement,” Edward said without preamble. His finger traced one of the energy lines, and the projection zoomed in on a specific region. “Orryx is building something.”
I moved closer, studying the readings. Energy signatures pulsed in violent red clusters, concentrated in an area that had been dormant for months.
“What kind of something?” I asked, though I already knew the answer wouldn’t be good.
“That’s the problem. It’s not a weapon we recognize. Not a gate. Something else entirely.” Edward pulled up another screen, this one showing historical data for comparison. “Whatever it is, it’s pulling power on a scale we’ve never recorded. These spikes here…” He pointed to several jagged peaks in the graph. “That’s more energy than it took to open the last three major breaches combined.”
My jaw tightened as I studied the data. Orryx the Black wasn’t known for subtlety, but he was known for devastation. If he was building something that required this much power, it meant he was planning something catastrophic.
“We need eyes on it,” I said. “Real intelligence, not just sensor readings.”
Edward turned to look at me, and I could see the concern in his expression. “That’s dangerous, Leo. Sending someone into the other realm right now, with Orryx this active? We’d be lucky to get them back.”
“So is waiting.” I met his gaze steadily. “If we don’t know what he’s building, we can’t prepare for it. And if this thing comes online before we’re ready…”
I didn’t need to finish the sentence. Edward knew as well as I did what happened when Orryx caught us unprepared. The last time, we’d lost twelve good people and barely managed to close the breach before it swallowed half the city.
Edward nodded slowly, understanding written across his face. “I’ll start putting together a reconnaissance team. But Leo, this is going to be high risk. Whoever goes in might not come back.”
“I know.” I turned back to the projection, studying the pulsing red clusters. “Just get me the intel as soon as you have it. We’re running out of time.”
I left the communication chamber with the weight of that knowledge pressing down on my shoulders. Orryx building something unknown. The Scepter sitting in our vault like a loaded gun. And Kristen, caught in the middle of all of it whether she knew it or not.
The ride back to the house was cold, the winter air cutting through my jacket as I pushed the bike harder than necessary. By the time I pulled into the driveway, evening had settled over the neighborhood in shades of gray and purple.
Inside, I found Patricia in the kitchen making tea. She looked up when I entered, and something soft crossed her face.
“Leo. Good, you’re back.” She poured a second cup without asking and gestured to the table. “Sit. Please.”
I didn’t particularly want tea or conversation, but Patricia had that look on her face that said she needed to say something. So I sat, accepting the cup she slid across to me.
“I never thanked you properly,” she said softly, settling into the chair across from me. “For taking care of her. Before I came back. I know it couldn’t have been easy, with everything else you had going on.”
I wrapped my hands around the warm cup and shrugged. “It was my job. I promised her father.”
“It was more than a job.” Patricia’s voice was gentle but firm. “You didn’t have to take her in. You didn’t have to watch over her the way you did. Most people would have just made sure she had a roof over her head and called it done.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. What could I tell her? That watching over Kristen had become the most complicated thing I’d ever done? That every day was a battle between duty and desire, between the promise I’d made to a dead man and the way his daughter looked at me like she wanted to burn that promise to ash?
Movement caught my eye. Kevin stood in the doorway to the living room, silent as a shadow. I hadn’t heard him approach, which immediately set me on edge. The man moved too quietly, watched too carefully. He’d been in the house for less than a day, and already my instincts were screaming that something was wrong.
I met his eyes across the room. Something cold passed between us, a mutual assessment that felt more like a threat than a greeting. He was Patricia’s family, Kristen’s great-uncle, but that didn’t mean I trusted him. Unknown territory was dangerous territory, and Kevin was very much unknown.
“Kevin,” Patricia called, noticing him in the doorway. “Come have some tea.”
“No thank you.” His voice was smooth, cultured. “I was just heading upstairs. Long day.”
He disappeared up the stairs without another word, and I listened to his footsteps retreat down the hallway. Patricia seemed oblivious to the tension, continuing to talk about Kristen’s progress at Phoenix Academy, but my attention was split.
Something about Kevin didn’t sit right. The way he moved. The way he watched. The way he’d shown up out of nowhere with convenient timing just when things were escalating with Orryx and the breaches.
I made appropriate responses to Patricia’s conversation, but my mind was already working through the problem. I needed to run a background check on Kevin. Needed to find out where he’d been all these years and why he’d chosen now to reconnect with family.
Later, after Patricia had gone to bed, I found myself pausing outside the guest room Kevin was using. The door was closed. No light showed underneath. I heard nothing from inside, which should have been normal but somehow wasn’t.
Too closed. Too quiet.
My hand moved to the door handle, then stopped. I couldn’t just barge into a guest’s room in the middle of the night without cause. But my instincts hummed with warning, that sixth sense that had kept me alive through countless fights telling me that Kevin represented a threat I couldn’t quite define yet.
We can’t take chances. Not with Kristen’s safety on the line.
I made a mental note to call Edward in the morning, have him dig into Kevin’s history. For now, I’d watch and wait. But I wouldn’t let my guard down.
I headed to my own room, exhausted from the long day and the tension that seemed to follow me everywhere now. I just wanted to sleep, to shut my brain off for a few hours and not think about breaches or Orryx or dangerous great-uncles who appeared from nowhere.
I pulled back the sheets on my bed, and something slid onto the mattress with a soft whisper of paper on fabric.
A Polaroid.
I picked it up, and my entire body went rigid.
Kristen.
The photo showed her stretched across what looked like her bed at the Academy, completely bare. Every curve, every line of her body was on display without shame or hesitation. Her dark hair spread across white pillows. Her skin looked impossibly soft in the warm light. And her eyes looked straight into the camera, straight at whoever would see this photo, with an expression that was part challenge and part invitation.
She was unclothed. Unapologetic. Beautiful in a way that made my mouth go dry and my cock instantly hard.
I flipped the photo over with shaking hands. On the back, in her familiar handwriting, were five words:
Do what you want with it.
Heat flooded through me, followed immediately by anger, then desire so sharp it felt like a physical pain. My pulse spiked, thundering in my ears. She’d snuck into my room. Left this here for me to find. Wanted me to see her like this, to imagine her spread out and waiting.
“She’s playing with fire,” I muttered, staring at the photo.
This was escalation. Pure, deliberate escalation. Kristen had been pushing boundaries since the moment she’d figured out the effect she had on me, but this was different. This was her laying down a gauntlet, daring me to pick it up.
I sat on the edge of my bed, turning the photo over in my hands. My cock strained against my jeans, and I was already imagining what I could do with this image. How many times I could stroke myself to the sight of her. How many nights I could torture myself with what I couldn’t have.
She wants risk. Wants control. Wants to push me until I break.
But two could play at escalation. If Kristen thought she could manipulate me with provocative photos and midnight kitchen encounters, she was about to learn that I’d spent a lifetime mastering control. And when I chose to give it up, when I chose to push back, she’d find out exactly what she’d been asking for.
A slow, dangerous calm settled over me as I stared at the Polaroid. The anger faded, replaced by something colder. More calculated.
“If she wants to play risky,” I said quietly to the empty room, “we can be risky together.”
I set the photo on the nightstand, angling it so I could see it from the bed. My eyes traced over her body one more time, memorizing every detail. She looked confident in the photo, like she knew exactly what power she held.
But confidence could be broken. Control could be taken. And if Kristen wanted to start a game of escalation, I’d show her exactly what happened when you pushed a predator too far.
“I’ll teach her exactly what that means.” The words were a promise, dark and heavy in the quiet room.
I turned off the light and lay back against the pillows, the Polaroid still visible in the faint moonlight coming through the window. My cock was still hard, still demanding attention, but I ignored it. This wasn’t about quick relief anymore. This was about strategy. About teaching Kristen that every action had consequences.
She’d made her move. Now it was my turn.
The Polaroid lay beside my bed, invitation and warning both. I stared at it in the darkness, letting my mind work through possibilities. How far was I willing to go? How much was I willing to risk?
Everything, apparently. Because looking at that photo, at the challenge in Kristen’s eyes, and I knew.
I knew I was already past the point of no return.