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CHAPTER ONE
HUNTERS, THE - NOUN
Silent, ruthless enforcers who maintain the separation between the human world and the unseen by eliminating any threat to the veils—no questions, no mercy, and at any cost. Their existence is whispered, their methods absolute, and their motto: "The truth dies with the reckless."
~ Babylon Almanach
“...EON. GIDEON!”
A fist slams into the table in front of me, and I jolt upright like I’ve just been shot. The half-gnawed chicken bone in my hand slips, clatters against my plate, and disappears into my lap as thirty-five pairs of eyes lock onto me with varying degrees of boredom, irritation, and mild homicidal curiosity.
Right. Full clan meeting. Gray bunker walls. No windows. Easy-to-clean tiles for when things get messy—which they do, because Hunters don’t do civilized. The big round table gives us just enough space to pretend we won’t tear each other apart over something as stupid as eye contact. Five XXL bowls of spicy chicken wings sit within reach, a fragile peace treaty courtesy of Colton, our fearless leader, who learned the hard way that a room full of killers needs something to chew on that isn’t each other.
“Got your attention now, have I?” A voice slides against my ear—low, sharp, and entirely too close. I go very still.
Asha.
I stare at my plate and hold my breath. I do nothing that might encourage her to notice me more than she already has, because holy shit, that would be a terrible life choice. Up close, she’s even more intimidating—taller than me, all bronzed skin and barely contained violence, dark hair doing whatever the hell it wants, and a glare that could probably make a bear run. I’ve seen her walk out of stuff that should’ve killed her and look annoyed about the inconvenience.
I am in awe of her. I want to be her. Instead, I’m me. Gideon. Bottom of the food chain. Librarian with delusions of competence. And currently being stared at by every Hunter in the room because I spaced out during assignments. Fantastic.
“Eyes open, puppy,” Asha murmurs, her breath ghosting over my ear. “Dreaming’ll get you killed, and I’m not scraping you off the pavement.”
I nod quickly, because words feel like an advanced skill I don’t currently possess.
At the head of the table, Colton watches this whole exchange with the expression of a man reconsidering every life choice that led him here. He taps a rhythm against the stack of tablets in front of him. Fast, uneven, like his nerves are trying to escape through his fingers.
“Good,” he says, not sounding particularly convinced. “Now that I have everyone’s attention—again—we’ll continue.”
A low murmur ripples through the room as people shift, crack knuckles, reach for wings. Thirty-five Hunters, give or take, packed into one reinforced bunker like a box of live grenades. Men, women—some young enough to still get carded, others old enough to look like they should know better. No middle ground, because you either haven’t had time to die yet, or you’ve survived so much that death’s gotten bored with chasing you. Hunters don’t do friendships. We barely do tolerance. The Hunter’s Mark keeps us from killing each other outright, but it doesn’t make us like one another. It just means we glare instead of stab. Progress in my book.
“Six teams,” Colton continues, voice rising over the low-level hostility. “Four for major breaches of Contract on the West Coast, two for the East. Details are on your tablets. Pairings are—” He starts tossing the tablets out, one after another, and people catch them without looking. Oprah style, except instead of cars, we get probable death. ‘You get a mission! And you get a mission! Everybody gets—‘
A tablet skids across the table and stops right in front of me. I blink at it. Then at Colton. Then back at the tablet. “…me?” I ask, because apparently I’ve decided today is the day I question reality out loud.
A few heads turn. Someone snorts. Across the table, a guy I’m pretty sure tried to poison someone last month looks openly amused. Colton leans back slightly, folding his arms. “Yes, you. Try to keep up.”
I stare down at the screen like it might explode if I touch it. Which, to be fair, would be more exciting than most of my past assignments. I don’t get missions. I get guard duty. Escort jobs. Inventory. Dusting off books no one’s opened in decades while pretending I don’t hear the others gearing up for actual work. I’ve had the same training as everyone else—guns, blades, hand-to-hand, tactics, survival—but somehow I still ended up shelving knowledge in our library instead of using it. Six years of blood, pain, and being reshaped into something that isn’t quite human anymore—and I’m the guy who alphabetizes. So no, this doesn’t track.
“Congratulations,” Colton adds dryly. “Your first field mission.”
My brain trips over that sentence and falls flat on its face.
First.
Field.
Mission.
“…I’m sorry, what?”
A chair scrapes beside me. Asha moves, not away, unfortunately, but closer, circling behind me like she’s already decided I’m a problem. Her hand lands on the back of my chair, fingers drumming once. “I picked you,” she says.
That does not help at all. It makes the whole thing worse. I tilt my head just enough to look up at her, because apparently I’ve lost all survival instincts in the last thirty seconds. “You… what?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Try to keep up, puppy.”
Right. Of course. My bad. Let me just process the fact that the most dangerous woman in the room voluntarily chose me for a mission a little faster. I look back down at the tablet.
