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Chapter 7 - Ch 7: Reyna Solis

Ages ago, when the marble pillars of Greece and Rome still groaned under the weight of tyranny, the world was cloaked in dread. It was the era of Caligula and Nero—emperors whose madness bled into the streets, whose whims turned cities to ash and laughter to screams. The empire, once a beacon of civilization, had become a grotesque theatre of cruelty. The gods had turned their faces away.

From the ruins of this decaying grandeur, something stirred.

Born not of divine will, but of mortal desperation, an organization emerged from the shadows—Umbrae Venatorum, the Hunters of Shadow. They did not wear laurels or command legions. They whispered through catacombs, moved beneath cloaks stitched with secrets, and carved their creed into the bones of the fallen.

Their mission was clear: to end the reign of madness, to protect the innocent from the iron grip of imperial depravity. But purity of purpose is a fragile thing.

As the years passed, Umbrae Venatorum grew stronger. Their blades found the throats of tyrants, their poisons silenced corrupt senators, and their spies turned brother against brother. The people hailed them as saviors. But salvation has a price.

To defeat monsters, they became monstrous.

They began to see threats in every shadow, dissent in every whisper. Villages that harbored resistance were spared; those that questioned the Hunters were erased. Their justice was swift, their mercy extinct. The line between protector and predator blurred until it vanished entirely.

By the time Nero's palace burned, Umbrae Venatorum had already become legend—feared, revered, and utterly unbound. They were no longer servants of the people. They were architects of silence, sculptors of fear.

And though the empire crumbled, the Hunters endured.

They still walk among us, cloaked in myth and blood, watching, waiting. For in every age, darkness finds its champions. And Umbrae Venatorum will always answer the call.

From the moment she could walk, the path had been laid out for her—rigid, shadowed, and inescapable. The Organization didn't ask; it indoctrinated. Her lullabies were whispered codes, her bedtime stories tales of silent missions and faceless enemies. She was to be one of them. A ghost in the system. A blade in the dark. Her parents were part of it. And she was to follow this twisted tradition of her bloodline. 

But as a child, she resisted. She clung to warmth, to empathy, to the flicker of humanity that pulsed beneath her skin. She didn't want to become a cold predator, a creature of calculation and cruelty. She swore she wouldn't.

Yet resistance has a cost.

In her fight against becoming the monster, she lost herself. Slowly, imperceptibly, the lines blurred. She learned to hide her feelings, to bury her softness beneath layers of steel. She adapted. She survived. And in doing so, she became everything she feared.

In short, she was the perfect agent of Umbrae Venatorum—flawless, unfeeling, lethal.

And somewhere deep inside, a whisper remained: This wasn't who I was meant to be.

Reyna Solis. The organization had found me—finally. I don't know how, or when, but they did. And just like that, I knew the chase was over. Weeks bled into each other, colorless and cold. I stopped counting. Stopped caring. The world moved, but I didn't.

Then I saw him again.

Connor Grace.

Blonde hair like sunlight through broken glass. Eyes too blue to be real. That grin—sharp, dangerous, the kind that could coax a snake into a lullaby. He was the kind of boy who made you forget the rules. The kind who never paid the price.

But today... he was alone.

No entourage. No laughter trailing behind him. Just Connor. And something in his face—tight, unreadable—made me pause.

Serious.

I almost laughed. Connor Grace, serious? That word didn't belong anywhere near him. He was chaos wrapped in charm, a walking contradiction. Always moving, always talking, always alive.

Sam wasn't like that.

Sam was silence. Stillness. The kind of quiet that made you listen harder. The kind of quiet that made you wonder what he wasn't saying.

Connor was the opposite. And maybe that's why seeing him like this—alone, subdued—felt wrong. Like watching a flame flicker in a room that had already gone dark.

But time changes people.

And once they're lost...

There's no bringing them back.

I learned that the hard way. I don't know what's coming. But this conversation can't be avoided anymore. I know Sam cares. But Connor-he deserves to know too. I'm telling them everything tonight. I don't know how they'll react but it's too late for that.

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