The Villains Must Win

Lucian, by contrast, was the guy who punched through Salister's battalions before breakfast.

Selis's eye twitched.

Oh no. Oh no no no.

She was supposed to make the villain win . . . while accidentally being rescued by the hero of the world. She had glitched herself right into an epic contradiction.

"Fantastic," she whispered. "Just peachy. The literal hero of humanity is a scowling short king who murders vampires in five languages, and I—I—am stuck on Team Evil Emo Prince."

This would have been hilarious if it wasn't a cosmic disaster.

Lucian strode past her again, flicking vampire blood off his blade with a practiced snap of his wrist. His coat barely rustled. His boots didn't make a sound.

Selis followed behind him, slipping twice, nearly choking on the scent of iron, and definitely getting some undead goo on her cheek.

He didn't look back. Didn't offer a hand. Just said, without turning, "Keep up, or you're dead."

"Oh, I am so in love," she deadpanned to no one.

"What did you say?" Lucian snapped—right as he casually flung a dagger over his shoulder, embedding it in a vampire's skull without even turning around.

Selis's mouth dropped open. "D-did you even look before—?!"

The vampire crumpled behind them with a soft thud.

She clamped her mouth shut.

Does he have eyes everywhere? she thought, heart pounding. Is he part bat? Part hawk? Does he have echolocation? What the hell?!

"N-nothing," she stammered quickly, straightening. She tried to act cool, but her voice cracked like a broken recorder.

Lucian turned his head slightly, his amber eyes landing on her like a sniper scope.

Eyebrows crossing into a scowl.

The air turned colder.

His resting murder face said, 'I have dismembered people for less.'

His lips didn't move, but she swore they whispered, say something stupid. I dare you.

Selis took a respectful half-step back.

Lucian exhaled slowly, like he was trying to summon every ounce of patience the gods ever gave him. "You speak like someone who's trying very hard to die."

"What?" she squeaked.

He folded his arms, somehow making himself look taller through sheer judgmental energy.

"Rule one: Don't talk during combat. You'll eat a fang. Rule two: Stop announcing your panic like you're narrating your own doom. It's not inspiring confidence."

Selis opened her mouth.

He raised a hand.

"Rule three," Lucian said without looking at her, his tone hard. "Stop hesitating. If you freeze, you die."

"I wasn't freezing," Selis muttered, trying to keep pace.

"You were calculating. In the middle of a fight, that's as bad as standing still."

"I was thinking."

"That's the problem," he cut in. "Out here, instinct saves you. Thought gets you killed."

Selis swallowed. His words weren't meant to hurt—just facts laid out like orders. No warmth, no judgment, just the blunt weight of someone who'd seen too many corpses made from slow decisions.

He didn't wait for her response. "Next time, you don't move fast enough, I won't cover you."

"Understood," she said quietly.

He glanced over his shoulder once. "Make sure you do."

He was terrifying. Arrogant. Rude to the bone. But Selis couldn't deny it—Lucian cared.

Not in the warm, comforting way a hero in a story might. No. His version of care was brutal, sharp-edged, and loud enough to make you feel stupid for even breathing wrong.

But it was real.

She saw it in the way he threw himself between humans and danger without hesitation. The way he moved from one vampire to the next, cutting down threats with unrelenting precision—saving everyone he could.

Then, once the dust settled, he'd bark at the survivors, scolding them for standing still, for crying, for not fighting back hard enough.

It wasn't cruelty. It was desperation—like he was trying to force them to live by sheer will alone.

The hunters regrouped as the last of the vampire infiltrators were purged from the barracks. The red alert dimmed to a pulsing orange, and a squad leader barked for the medics to clean up the wounded.

Selis stood dazed in the middle of the carnage, blood on her boots, adrenaline still flooding her limbs.

Lucian wiped his blade on a fallen vampire's cloak and sheathed it with a soft click.

That was when it happened.

He turned to her, his eyes scanning her face for exactly one second before he said, "You're the transfer from Sector Eight."

She blinked. "Me?"

"No," he said flatly. "The wall behind you."

She looked back.

There was no wall.

"Right. Okay. Yes. That's me. Transfer. Big transfer energy."

Lucian's brow furrowed the tiniest bit. "You're not trained."

"I'm uniquely skilled in improvisation."

"You dropped your weapon three times."

"Only twice! The third was a—uh—tactical feint."

"You screamed and slipped on vampire bile."

"That was a very advanced evasion maneuver. I call it the 'Greased Lightning.'"

He stared at her.

She stared back.

If awkward silence were a monster, she'd have to holy-water it.

After a long beat, he said, "I will have you retrain."

Then turned and walked off like he hadn't just shattered her confidence and rebuilt it with duct tape and shame.

Selis watched him disappear into the command hall.

"Great," she muttered. "Humanity's last hope is a stone-faced, short-tempered perfectionist with trust issues and no sense of humor. And I'm supposed to betray him."

She looked up at the sky, as if the system interface might pop up and explain what the hell it was thinking.

Nothing.

No helpful tutorial. No pop-up. Not even a glitch.

She was on her own.

Again.

She trudged back to the barracks, flopping onto her cot like a sack of regret. The mattress creaked in protest.

Around her, the other hunters whispered about Lucian like he was a myth. A living legend. Some claimed he once slew an entire nest alone.

Others said he fought with a cursed blade forged from fallen angel bone. One guy even insisted Lucian could kill with a glare, but Selis didn't buy that. Probably.

Still, there was no denying it.

Lucian was more than just a soldier.

He was the Hero.

And she? She was here to lose to make him loose.