The Villains Must Win

Who is this guy?

Selis thought, eyes narrowing as she watched him move like a living blade through the chaos.

His every motion was sharp, purposeful, lethal—like violence had been stitched into his muscle memory.

It wasn't just the way he fought, though that alone was enough to raise questions. It was how the others looked at him. They gave him space without being told.

Recruits stopped mid-swing just to clear his path. Even the seasoned hunters kept their distance, nodding in that mix of fear and respect that was never given lightly on the battlefield.

No one dared speak over him. No one questioned his orders.

That wasn't normal.

He's not just another vampire hunter. That much was obvious.

Maybe a higher rank? A squad commander? Or something even more dangerous?

The way he carried himself—it wasn't discipline. It was dominance. Like he didn't just survive battles; he owned them.

There was a coldness to him, too. A kind of quiet fury that never quite broke the surface. Like the war had carved something out of him and left a weapon behind.

Selis swallowed hard. Great. Just her luck.

Dropped straight into a hellzone, barely surviving her first real skirmish—and now she had to keep up with Mr. Murder-in-Motion over here.

Still, she couldn't look away.

And worse?

Part of her didn't want to.

Because deep down . . . she knew.

She recognized those amber eyes—sharp, burning, never at rest. Eyes that had once looked at her with a kind of trust she didn't think she deserved. Eyes that could belong to only one person.

The same man who had been her partner through thick and thin in the last worlds.

The one who was beside her until the end, through every betrayal, battle, and bitter twist. He wasn't just a name or a face. He had been her constant. Her lover. Sometimes, her only tether to sanity.

And now?

Now he didn't know her.

He's living in another body in this world.

But she knew what was coming. She knew how the story twisted.

Eventually, the system would force her to choose. Between him . . . and the villain.

Between loyalty and purpose. Between the person who once saved her, and the one she was now meant to save.

Just like with Lyander and Henry.

At first, it had been a game to her. A mission. A challenge she could outwit, outmaneuver. Just another storyline to break and rebuild in her favor.

But right now?

She wasn't so sure anymore.

The last time she chose the villain, she ended up watching someone she cared about fall—Lyander.

She told herself it didn't matter. That it was just a game. That feelings didn't count when the mission was bigger than the people in it.

But watching Lucian fight, seeing that familiar intensity, that same unrelenting fire—Selis felt something twist painfully in her chest.

Could she really do it again?

Could she chose the villain again, like she did Lyander?

Selis took a deep breath, forcing the emotion back down where it belonged.

No.

She'd cross that bridge when she got there. Right now, she had a job to do.

Her priority was clear—make the villains win, no matter what. That was the mission the system gave her.

The world would fall a different way this time. And if she had to bury her own heart to make it happen, then so be it.

Her feelings were always secondary.

They had to be.

Even if, deep inside, a part of her whispered that this time . . . it might hurt more than she was ready for.

That question had been bouncing in Selis's head since the moment Lucian threw a silver-blessed dagger straight through a vampire's eye socket without even glancing at it.

Most of the hunters had scrambled into formation when the alarm blared. Not him. No panic, no wasted movement. Just raw, surgical destruction.

She'd heard whispers between grunts of battle.

"Is that him—?"

"Lucian—he's here?!"

"Back already? I thought he was deployed to the Wailing Marsh—"

"Shut up and don't get in his way!"

Lucian.

The name hit differently. Like a punch with a surname. The kind of name that people said with awe or a little PTSD in their eyes.

Selis didn't know what she expected from humanity's strongest soldier—probably someone tall, muscled, and yelling something heroic like "FOR GLORY!"

Instead, she got . . . a short man with the resting expression of a furious spreadsheet. His sharp, black hair looked like he'd hacked it off with a blessed knife.

His eyes were amber and unblinking, as if he hadn't slept since the beginning of time. And his jawline could probably split atoms.

Lucian, she repeated internally, letting the name settle like a boot to the neck. The strongest vampire hunter in the history of mankind. The living weapon. The Hero of the Crimson Frontier.

And he had just saved her butt. Twice.

"Great," Selis muttered under her breath. "Just great."

She wasn't intimidated. She was terrified and also maybe 15% flustered. He was like someone jammed Lyander's killer charisma into a pocket-sized body, shaved off the smirk, and replaced it with pure trauma.

Cold, emotionless, deadly—and built like a compact tank.

The worst part?

He didn't move like a human. He glided, like he was half-shadow and half-nightmare, like physics had personally signed a waiver to let him break the rules.

She watched him cleave through another vampire with the ease of someone slicing bread. Blood sprayed. Screams echoed. And Lucian didn't even flinch.

Selis, on the other hand, flinched for him. "Is . . . is that a spinal cord on my boot? Ew—yep, it is. That's fine. Everything's fine."

Then it hit her.

Wait.

Lucian was humanity's strongest warrior. The monster-killing poster boy. The man that every hunter dreamed of becoming and every vampire probably had nightmares about.

And he was also Salister's mortal enemy.

The name Salister echoed in her head like a cursed tune. The villain of this world. The dark prince of the vampire court. The one the system told her—no, commanded her—to help.

She was here to make him win.