From that day on, Eliana attended every class without fail. She felt numb and detached, her emotions dulled to nothing. At night, she didn't sleep—only passed out when her body finally gave in. Each morning, when the doors unlocked, she dragged herself to fitness training. Damon's taunts no longer reached her. She ran until she vomited.
In the strategy, medical, and seduction classes, she took diligent notes like a model student. During combat, she ignored everything that had happened with Keith and let him beat her up. In their free time, he helped her train, never once mentioning the strange kiss they'd shared. She forced herself to eat but often threw up the food again. Slowly, she was wasting away, going through each day like a ghost.
---
Dane walked through the quiet halls toward the head office—Isaak's office. The past days had been dedicated to evaluating the new recruits. A few showed potential, but most wouldn't survive training, let alone their first mission.
By their third year, each recruit was sent on a mission. An experienced assassin shadows them from the dark. If the recruit failed, they were eliminated—too dangerous to let live with the academy's secrets. For centuries, the existence of the assassin's guild had remained top secret. Clients never interacted directly with the assassins. Instead, middlemen handled communication, and those intermediaries were always disposed of once the deal was done—replaceable people, unlikely to be missed.
Everything was planned to the smallest detail, from operations to the secrecy of the academy's location.
Dane hated this place.
He remembered his own hellish time as a recruit. He'd once believed it would get better but it never did. Now, he and the others—he wouldn't call them friends, more like reluctant allies—were stuck here. Instructors, imprisoned within the academy, their punishment for defying the system. They had once been Lucifer's best assassins. Now, they were shackled teachers.
Lucifer. That's what the man at the top called himself—like the devil. He ruled the guild like a god.
Dane stopped in front of Isaak's office and entered without knocking. The others were already gathered.
"Good, now that Dane has finally joined us, we can begin," Isaak said from behind his desk, pulling out a folder—Eliana's file.
"You're late," Cobra said flatly, clearly annoyed.
Dane met the Cobra's eyes who is built like a giant. Cobra might be bigger but in a fight Dane would still not go down easily and in the end it's about technic and not the strength. "One of your recruits came to the infirmary bloodied and barely conscious after your combat session. They needed immediate treatment. So forgive me if I don't give a damn about your schedule."
Cobra didn't reply and didn't look even slightly apologetic.
"I still don't get why you bother healing them," Damon said with a laugh, drawing a line of blood on his own neck with the knife he always played with. "If they're weak, they deserve to die."
Dane's jaw clenched. He crossed the room in a flash, shoving Damon down and pinning him.
"If it were up to you, we'd kill them all. That's exactly the kind of thinking that got us locked up here, remember?" Dane growled. Since he talked with Eliana he feels so easily irritated and that annoys him. Normally he is the calm one between them. Why did those girls words affect him so much??
Damon's grin disappeared, replaced by a snarl as he pushed back.
Before things could escalate, Theo stepped between them with a sigh and a chuckle. "Come on, boys. Let's finish the paperwork first, then you can slit each other's throats."
He pushed Damon back onto the couch and he didn't fight back even is he wanted to. They were all equally strong. A fight between them would only end in death.
Dane backed off and sat down. Isaak cleared his throat.
"Now that that's over—let's talk about the final recruit. Eliana Demi. What's your assessment?"
"She's useless," Damon said, tossing his knife into the air and catching it again. "Two months in and she still can't run half an hour without throwing up."
"I like her," Theo countered with a smirk. "She's terrible at seduction, but she's got the kind of innocent look that would make any man trust her. Easy to lure someone into a hotel room and slit his throat. Plus, she's hot now—thanks to the adjustments."
Isaak rolled his eyes. "We're not keeping her just because you want to screw her, Theo. Cobra? Dane?"
"She's still weak in combat," Cobra said in his usual monotone tone. "She's improved a little with guns and blades, but it's not enough."
All eyes turned to Dane.
He felt their stares and hesitated. He looked at each of them—these people who were once the best of the best.
"I think she's the one we've been waiting for," Dane said finally. "We need to keep her. Prepare her."
The room went still.
Eliana Demi. Could she really be the salvation they'd been hoping for all this time? The one who might finally set them free?