The clearing didn't feel like the same place anymore.
The broken tree where Orin had fallen was a splintered ruin. Churned soil, claw marks, shattered branches—everything bore the signature of a battle that had gone beyond human scale.
On one side, the Vrexus crouched low on four pillars of muscle, its spine ridged, its tail sweeping slow and heavy. Its eyes glowed with a hateful, practiced focus. This wasn't the wild lashing of an animal; this was a killer that knew what it was.
Opposite it, Orin stood.
Not as a boy. Not as a mercenary-in-training.
As something else.
A thick coat of black fur covered his arms, shoulders, and chest, broken only by thin rivers of orange light pulsing beneath, like faint embers tracing through his muscles. Horns curved back from his skull in jagged arcs. His hands had become heavy, clawed things meant for gripping and tearing. His lower body had thickened, built for explosive movement, every line of him made to close distance and end a fight.
Only his eyes stayed familiar.
Blue-silver. Sharp. Alive.But empty of recognition.
He breathed hard, each exhale leaving a faint haze in the air.
The Vrexus lowered itself until its belly brushed the ground.
Then it charged.
The beast's four legs powered it forward like a released catapult, claws tearing up sheets of dirt. It came in low, angling to slam its shoulder into Orin's midsection and drive him back into the broken tree.
Orin met it halfway.
There was no hesitation, no flinch. He stepped in and to the side, shoulder dropping just enough to absorb the collision. The impact cracked like thunder. For a heartbeat they were a single shape—dark fur and black hide colliding—then Orin twisted, using the Vrexus's momentum to hurl it past him.
The beast crashed into the ground, skidding and gouging deep trenches with its claws.
It rolled up faster than it had any right to.
Sonny stared, jaw clenched. "It's like they're built for the same job…"
Vince swallowed. "Yeah. Killing."
Vice's hand tightened on his blade. "He's matching a creature that outclassed all of us."
The Vrexus hissed, lips curling, then darted in again, this time angling for Orin's exposed flank. It darted left, then right, then surged in with a sudden burst of speed.
Orin didn't think; he simply moved.
He pivoted, one foot grinding furrows into the dirt, and brought his arm up. The Vrexus's claws raked across his forearm. Fur split. Blood streaked. The beast's strike would have shredded any of them—but Orin didn't stumble.
He answered with a backhand that hit like a hammer.
His claws carved a line along the Vrexus's jaw, snapping its head to the side. The beast staggered, hind legs scrambling for purchase.
Orin followed.
He blurred forward, closing the distance with a single, lunging step. One hand seized the Vrexus by the scruff of its neck; the other drove up under its ribs, claws digging into the thick muscle.
The Vrexus roared and twisted violently, using its whole body to throw him off. They tumbled, a knot of teeth and claws, each trying to find purchase.
The ground shook under their struggle.
Vice's breath hitched. "We can't even get close…"
"Don't," Sonny warned. "You jump into that, you die."
The Vrexus managed to slip free and darted away, circling with its head low, breath rasping in short bursts. Blood seeped from its side. Its tail lashed. It was wounded now, but not broken.
Orin moved at an angle to it, not chasing straight on. His movements were too economical, too precise for something that size—like a knife sheathed in a battering ram.
The Vrexus struck again, lunging forward with its head low and claws extended.
Orin dropped his weight.
They collided chest to chest.
This time, he didn't redirect the force.
He accepted it.
His feet dug deep, lines of orange pulsing beneath his fur like something had flared inside him. For a second, they were locked—four legs straining against two.
Then Orin pushed.
The Vrexus's front claws slipped. Its body lurched backward. Orin forced it down, both hands finding its throat as he drove it to the ground.
The beast thrashed, clawing trenches into the soil.
Orin's grip tightened.
He slammed the Vrexus's head against the earth—once, twice, a third time—each impact dull and heavy. The monster's resistance weakened, motions slowing.
Desperate, the Vrexus raked its hind claws up, scoring Orin's thigh and hip. Blood darkened the fur there.
Orin barely reacted.
He shifted his weight, straddled the beast's chest, and drove his claws down into the throat in a single, decisive motion.
The Vrexus spasmed beneath him.
Then went limp.
Silence washed over the clearing, broken only by Orin's harsh breathing.
He stayed there for a heartbeat, claws buried, chest heaving.
Then he tore his hands free and leaned down.
His jaws opened.
He sank his teeth into the Vrexus's shoulder and ripped free a heavy chunk of flesh. Muscle and hide tore loose with a wet sound. He swallowed it in two quick, brutal bites, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Vince's voice came out thin. "…He's eating it."Vice's grip tightened on his weapon. "Blood Hunters don't do that, Sonny. That's not… that's not us."
"No," Sonny said quietly. "It isn't."
Orin lifted his head from the corpse.
Blue-silver eyes glowed in the dim light, sharper now, more alive—and far less human.
He turned toward them.Lisa had been watching from where she clutched her earlier wound, knees unsteady but locked. Her face was pale, lips pressed tight to hold back the pain.
She saw the way he moved his head; saw the way his gaze swept over them. That wasn't recognition. That wasn't relief.
That was a predator taking stock.
"Orin," she called, voice raw. "It's us. It's over. You did it. You can stop now."
He stepped toward them.
Slow. Intentional.
Each footfall left a clear imprint in the dirt.
"Orin," she tried again. "Listen to me. We're your family. It's Lisa. Look at me."
He did look at her.
But not like she wanted.
His eyes tracked her the way the Vrexus had tracked him.
Lisa swallowed, but she didn't step back. She took a single, shaky step forward instead, lifting a hand as if she could reach him.
"Easy…" Sonny warned quietly.
Orin's claws flexed.
He moved.
One moment he stood ten paces away.
The next, he was on her.
He slammed into Lisa with his full weight, a blur of fur and muscle. Claws swept across her side, tearing through leather and flesh. The blow picked her up and sent her crashing into a half-splintered trunk. The impact knocked the air from her lungs; her head snapped against rough bark.
The world swayed. Sound tunneled.
She slid to the ground in a heap, the left side of her body blazing with pain. Her vision narrowed, edges fading to black.
"LISA!" Vince shouted.
She tried to move, but her limbs wouldn't answer.
Her fingers twitched. Her breath hitched.
Consciousness slipped like water through her grasp.
Her last sight before it went dark was Orin turning back toward her, claws dripping, eyes burning.
Then everything went out.Orin started toward where she'd fallen.
Vince surged forward. "NO—!"
He didn't make it far.
Orin's head snapped toward him. The beast pivoted and lunged, covering the distance in a heartbeat. Vince barely got his guard up.
The first hit knocked him aside.
A heavy backhand across the chest sent him skidding across the dirt, air punched from his lungs. He rolled twice before coming to a stop, coughing, struggling to get his breath back.
Vice darted in from the opposite angle, blade flashing for Orin's leg.
He meant to hamstring, not kill.
Orin twisted. The blade grazed fur. His hand shot out, claws catching Vice by the front of his vest. He lifted the smaller man off his feet with terrifying ease and hurled him backward.
Vice crashed into a rock, pain exploding across his back. He slid down to the ground, struggling to stand.
"Stay down!" Sonny barked, moving forward, flames erupting along both arms. "You'll only get yourselves killed."
Orin returned his full attention to Lisa's crumpled body.
He started forward again, shoulders rolling like a slow tide.
Sonny moved.
He sprinted into Orin's path, fire swirling around his fists. "You want her," he growled, planting himself between them, "you go through me."
Orin stopped.
For half a breath, they stared at each other—man and beast, inches apart.
"Come on, kid," Sonny said, voice low, the way he used to talk to Orin when the boy woke shaking from dreams. "You're tougher than this. You don't let it carry you. You carry it. You hear me?"
Orin's eyes didn't soften.
They narrowed.
He struck.
His clawed hand lashed out in a downward arc. Sonny threw up his left arm. Fire coiled around his forearm like a bracer, catching the blow. The impact slammed him to one knee, dirt exploding under his boot.
He grunted, pushing back. "There you go… you hit harder, sure… but I've taken worse—"
Orin didn't give him time to finish.
The next strike came from the side, a brutal hook to the ribs. Sonny tried to block, but the sheer force of it ripped through his guard. Something cracked inside his chest. He lost his breath in a rush of pain and hot air.
He stumbled back, coughing.
Orin stepped in, relentless.
Flames spiked along Sonny's fists. He drove one punch square into Orin's chest—a blow that would have caved in the sternum of most Monari.
Orin rocked back a half step.
That was all.
He recovered faster than Sonny could blink and sent a clawed fist into Sonny's midsection. The hit lifted him off his feet.
He hit the ground hard, rolled, and somehow forced himself up again, flames sputtering but still burning.
"Orin…" he rasped. "You… stubborn brat… You stop this… right now…"
Orin charged.
Sonny met him with a desperate, flaming uppercut.
It landed.
So did Orin's counter.
Sonny felt claws drive into his chest—deep enough that the fire around his arms flickered and went out. For a heartbeat, shock held him upright. He stared down at the hand buried in him, then up into those blue-silver eyes that didn't recognize him at all.
His knees buckled.
Orin pulled his hand back.
Sonny collapsed, dropping to the dirt with a dull thud.
"SONNY!" Vince's voice tore itself from his throat, raw and jagged.
Sonny tried to draw breath and got almost nothing. He turned his head slightly toward the sound, eyes half-lidded.
"Hey…" he managed, voice wet and thin. "Stop… shouting…"
Orin loomed above him, shoulders rising and falling.
Sonny's hand lifted, shaking, and tapped weakly against Orin's furred arm.
"Guess you… really… grew up, huh?" he whispered, a faint ghost of his usual grin there at the end. "Don't… waste it…"
His fingers slipped.
His arm dropped.
The light went out of his eyes.Something broke loose inside Vince.
He didn't roar like a warrior.
He screamed like someone who had just watched his father die.
"YOU—!"
He launched himself at Orin with every shred of strength and Blood Hunter power he had left, his body moving with the feral speed of his infused beast. His arms elongated, muscles bulging, veins standing out like cords. He struck with clawed hands and elbows, hammering blow after blow into Orin's chest and face.
Each impact sounded solid. Real.
Orin barely moved.
He took the hits, head snapping this way and that, fur matted with blood—but there was no real stagger, no backward step.
Then he grabbed Vince by the throat.
Vince's fingers clawed at the grip. His feet kicked uselessly as the ground fell away beneath him.
"Orin…" he choked. "This… isn't you…"
Orin slammed him into the nearest tree.
Bark shattered.
Vince dropped, body folding as he hit the ground. He tried to push himself up again—because that's what he always did—but his arm gave out.
Orin stepped forward and raked one clawed hand across his chest.
Not messy. Not slow.
A single, heavy stroke.
Vince's breath left him in a broken gasp. He slumped, eyes already distant.
"Vince!" Vice's voice cracked around the name. He staggered upright, body screaming in protest. His serpent-born bloodline pushed him forward, letting him move faster than his wounds should allow.
He darted behind Orin, blade arcing toward the back of the beast's neck.
Orin turned as if he'd known.
He caught Vice's wrist mid-swing.
The blade stopped inches from his fur.
Vice froze, face twisted with pain and fury. "If you can hear me in there…" he hissed, "…don't make me hate you for this."
Orin squeezed.
Vice's blade clattered to the dirt as pain lanced up his arm. Orin yanked him closer and drove a knee into his stomach. Vice folded with a strangled sound, air ripped from his lungs.
Orin let him drop.
Vice tried to crawl toward Vince, hand scraping through dirt.
Orin's shadow fell over him.
He lifted his head with effort, eyes glassy. "Orin… please… don't…"
The answer came in silence.
Orin's claws came down.
Vice stopped moving.For a few long seconds, nothing happened.
Orin stood in the wreckage, chest heaving, surrounded by the bodies of the only family he had ever known. Blood slicked his fur. His claws flexed and relaxed slowly, as if something inside him hadn't yet decided whether the killing was done.
Behind him, a faint sound broke the quiet.
A breath.
A whimper.
A name.
"…Orin…"
Lisa.
She was half-propped against the broken trunk he'd thrown her into, one hand pressed against her mangled side. Blood had soaked most of her clothes. Her head throbbed. Every breath felt like it might be the last.
But her eyes were open.
And they were on him.
"Orin…" she whispered again.
The beast turned.
Blue-silver eyes locked onto her.
His claws flexed.
He took a step.
Lisa swallowed the pain and lifted her chin. "It's… me…" she breathed. "Lisa…"
He moved closer.
She didn't look away, even as his size blotted out the light.
"You're… not a monster," she whispered, voice trembling but sure. "You… hear me…? You're… family…"
Something flickered behind his eyes.
His shoulders hunched.
His breathing hitched.
The molten lines under his fur pulsed faster, then faltered.
Lisa's vision blurred, but she kept talking, forcing the words out through the iron band around her lungs. "You always… tried to protect us… That's… who you are…"
His claws trembled at his sides.
He took one more step—
Then stopped.
The roar inside him, the wordless pressure that had been driving every strike, wavered.
He bent forward slightly, as if something heavy had hooked into his spine and pulled down.
Lisa reached for him.
Her fingers brushed warm fur.
"Come back…" she breathed. "Please… Orin… come back…"
The world lurched.
Color drained.
Sound warped.
And then—like someone had cut a rope holding him up—Orin crashed back into himself.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Horns receded. Fur thinned and pulled back into skin. Claws shortened into fingers. The glowing lines beneath his hide dimmed and vanished. His posture shrank, broad shoulders pulling inward, legs reshaping.
Moments later, he was just Orin again. Seventeen. Human-shaped. Shirt torn, skin smeared with blood—his and everyone else's.
He staggered, disoriented, then dropped to his knees in front of her.
"Lisa…" he rasped.
His voice broke on the name.
He looked around—
—and finally saw.
Sonny, facedown in the dirt.Vince, slumped against a tree.Vice, sprawled where he'd fallen.
The world narrowed to a tunnel of horror.
"No…" Orin whispered. "No, no, no…"
His hands shook as he grabbed at his own hair, pressing his palms to his temples as if he could crush the memory before it fully formed.
"I didn't— I didn't mean— I didn't know—"
Lisa's hand fumbled for his wrist.
He grabbed it like it was the only thing holding him together.
"You… didn't mean it," she whispered, words coming slow now. "You weren't… in control…"
Tears blurred his vision. "That doesn't matter! I— I did it. My hands—" He looked down at his fingers, stained dark and shaking. "I killed them. I killed all of you."
"You're… Orin," she said, as if that settled something. "The kid who… always tried to carry more than he had to…" A faint, pained smile tugged at her lips. "The boy… who always wanted to come with us…"
He shook his head frantically. "I'm a monster."
"Then be…" Her eyelids fluttered. She forced them open again. "…be one that remembers."
He stared at her, throat tight.
"Remember us," she breathed. "Not… like this. Remember… the inn. The noise. The jokes. The fights." Her grip on his wrist weakened. "Don't let this… be the only thing… that defines you."
His shoulders shook.
"I'm sorry," he said. It came out broken, over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Lisa, I—I—"
Her fingers slipped a little in his grasp.
"You have… to live…" she murmured. "Live better… than this… Live so we… don't end… right here…"
Her breathing grew shallow.
"Lisa… please…" he begged. "Don't go. Please don't go. Take it back. Yell at me, hit me, tell me it's my fault but don't—"
She managed a tiny smirk, just for him. "Always… so dramatic…"
And then—
"Don't… lose yourself… Orin…"
Her hand went slack.
Her chest stopped moving.
The silence that followed felt heavier than any roar.
Orin bowed his head over her hand and shook, soundless at first, then with harsh, ragged sobs that ripped their way out of him. He clung to her fingers like he could anchor himself to the world through her alone.
But everything around him said different.
The clearing was still.The trees were quiet.The bodies of the Fangs lay where his claws had dropped them.
Orin pressed his forehead to the bloodstained ground and screamed—a raw, human sound that held nothing of the beast, only grief.
No one answered.
By the time his voice died out, the light had shifted in the trees, and the world felt wrong in a way he knew would never fully right itself again.
Orin Slain knelt alone among the dead, covered in the proof of what he was capable of.
And for the first time in his life, he wished they'd left that jade-wrapped baby in the forest to die.