Kyo’s blood turned to ice.

  He didn’t wait.

  Kyo spun toward the sound, magic sparking violently across his arms.

  “Broderick stay with Miles! Follow us at a safe distance. No one’s splitting up again, but I’m not risking him!”

  Broderick’s optics flashed amber. His tail swept around Miles and lifted him gently off the ground.

  “Acknowledged,” Broderick intoned. “Defensive escort protocol engaged.”

  “Wait, Uncle Kyo!” Miles reached for him, eyes wide.

  Kyo’s voice softened, even as he pushed forward.

  “I’ll bring her back. I promise!”

  Baxter was already moving beside him, heavy armor thundering in step with Kyo’s much lighter, much more frantic sprint. The mage looked like he could drop at any moment, but Baxter didn’t call him out on it, he just kept pace.

  “The girl,” Baxter said between breaths, “Ava, the one who went to the river? Ace should be with her.”

  Kyo shot him a sharp look. “You know him?”

  Baxter nodded, adjusting his grip on his hammer as another distant clang of steel echoed through the trees. “Yeah. He’s a hothead, but he won’t let anything happen to her.”

  They broke through a line of underbrush, the noise growing louder, sharper, closer. “Whatever’s there,” Baxter said grimly, “we hit it together.”

  Kyo nodded once, blue fire flaring outward from his hands, “Together.”

  The water was cold enough to bite, but it was the first clean thing Ava had felt in days. She’d stripped down to her bra, scrubbing mud and dried blood from her arms, watching the red rinse away in cloudy ripples. Her armor lay stacked nearby dented, and scorched and for once, she wasn’t thinking about war. She was thinking about Kyo last night. How close he was, how he saw her and not her damn red name.

  Then a branch cracked behind her.

  Her hand froze mid-motion.

  Another step, deliberate this time.

  She turned, slow, eyes narrowing as two men emerged from the treeline. Rough faces, scavenged armor, and the look of people who’d already decided what she was worth.

  “Look what we found,” one of them drawled, grinning. “Pink hair. Pretty thing like you shouldn’t be out here alone.”

  Ava straightened, dripping river water, and reached for the nearest thing she could use as a weapon, her axe, still half-buried in the mud by her armor pile.

  “You’ve got about five seconds to turn around,” she said, voice like broken glass. “Unless you came here to die.”

  The taller one laughed, drawing his blade. “Oh, she’s got a mouth on her. Think she knows there’s a bounty out for her?”

  Ava blinked. “Bounty? Who the hell would put a bounty on me?”

  “Big one. Some Syndicate’s paying double for the pink-haired girl with the Red Name.”

  “Girl? You mean woman”

  He lunged. She moved and crouched down grabbing a stone from the water chucking it at the one who was coming at her. Hitting him square in the face he yelled out recoiling giving her enough time to grab her axe as he continued to charge after her. Before she could swing an arrow slammed through the first man’s neck, dropping him like a marionette with cut strings She looked horrified looking around as blood splattered her face. The other yelled “ Charlie!” Then charged at her with his sword in hand.

  Steel met flesh and mud. The fight was fast and savage, no fancy forms, just raw, trained violence. Ava caught his wrist, slammed the edge of her elbow into his jaw, then drove her axe into his head ending the fight. She was breathing hard, wet hair clinging to her cheek, when she heard the whistle.

  Not a word, a whistle.

  Ava saw a man in dark combat leathers standing in the trees, calm and silent, bow still drawn. A timber wolf prowled at his side, eyes locked on her.

  “Great,” she hissed. “Who are you?! Are you with these perverts?! ”

  The man didn’t answer.

  His gaze flicked over her, the faint red shimmer of her name reflected in his visor, and his jaw tightened.

  “Drop the weapon,” he ordered. “You’re with them. Don’t make me put you down too.”

  Ava blinked, stunned, then exploded.

  “What the hell are you talking about?! Did yo- did you not just watch them try to kill me?!”

  “You’ve got a red name,” he snapped back. “I know every trick they pull. Don’t play dumb. Doesn’t suit someone who looks like you, sweetheart.”

  Ava barked a disbelieving laugh, “Oh, you are so dead, you perverted, overconfident, arrow-happy sack of shit. You’re a Red Hunter, aren’t you?!”

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  The man’s laugh was cold. “Well, someone’s gotta take out trash like you. How dare you act high and mighty when you’re out here kidnapping kids!”

  “What?!” Ava nearly choked. “What the HELL are you talking about?! Not all reds are bad people!”

  “I haven’t met a single one that wasn’t.” His voice dropped to a lethal edge, “Well… that’s when I give them the chance. Which isn’t often.”

  That did it. Ava charged.

  She zig-zagged across the riverbank as arrows hissed past her head, each one landing way too close for comfort.

  The wolf growled. A deep, chest-rattling warning.

  Ava’s eye twitched. “I never understood the cowardly class of hunters. Making a poor animal fight for you… Sorry, but you’re gonna have to go.”

  The wolf lunged.

  Ava rolled, mud spraying, and whipped her axe up toward its skull. An arrow slammed into her shoulder mid-swing.

  Pain detonated through her arm.

  “SABLE, RUN!” the man roared.

  He dropped from the tree like a falling star, boot slamming into Ava’s chest and kicking her away from the wolf. She tumbled across the mud, gasping more shocked than hurt, staring at the arrowhead buried in her shoulder.

  He growled, voice sharp enough to cut stone, “I’ll kill you for trying to hurt her.”

  Ava locked eyes with him, fury meeting fury.

  She grabbed the arrow tail, snapped it clean, and spat blood.

  “Bring it then.”

  He moved first.

  The man closed the distance with the speed of someone who’d lived his whole life in combat, low, efficient, eyes locked on her center mass. He ducked under her swing, rolled forward, and drove his shoulder into her stomach.

  Ava hit the ground hard. Mud splattered across her bare arms and stomach.

  Ava kicked the man's wrist as he went for his knife, sending the blade flying into the river.

  They rose at the same moment, close enough to feel each other’s breath and began trading strikes.

  Fast.

  Precise.

  Professional.

  Ava’s military conditioning surged up through adrenaline and muscle memory. The man’s special forces training, sharpened and hardened into Syndicate-hunter brutality met her move for move.

  No wasted motion. No mercy. Two predators circling with the wrong assumptions and a perfect match in skill.

  He caught her wrist and twisted, Ava snarled, slamming her knee into his thigh and using the recoil to spin, cracking him across the jaw with a sharp backfist.

  He grunted, countering with a short jab to her ribs that blasted the air from her lungs.

  For a heartbeat they froze chests heaving, eyes locked, two soldiers with the same instincts but fighting different wars.

  “What is your problem with me?!” Ava shouted, feinting left and throwing a wild elbow.

  “Because you’re one of them!” he snapped, blocking her strike and slamming his forearm hard across her collarbone.

  “Any red player deserves to die! Especially any red who works with the Ember Syndicate!”

  She caught his wrist, teeth bared. “How many times do I have to say I don’t even KNOW who that is?!”

  He shoved her back into a tree. Bark tore at her skin. The world spun and her shoulder screamed.

  Then pure, blazing rage.

  Ava drove her forehead forward.

  CRACK.

  His nose exploded in pain. He staggered back, swearing, blood streaking down his mouth.

  She didn’t waste the opening.

  A low sweep of her leg, he hit the mud with a brutal thud.

  She followed him down, knee pinning his chest, ripping the bow from his hand before he could reach it.

  “Let me make this real clear,” she hissed, breath ragged, hair dripping into her eyes.

  “I don’t know you. I don’t know your Syndicate. And if you or your wolf even LOOK at me wrong again, I’ll send you both to meet your maker.”

  The man stared up at her, chest rising and falling too fast, eyes narrowing through the blood.

  “You really don’t know who they are…?” he muttered, dazed.

  “I feel like I’ve said this a hundred times now!”

  Sable growled low, uncertain, torn between protecting her Alpha and obeying.

  The man raised his hand weakly. “Sable. Down.”

  The wolf backed off, hackles lowering, though its eyes stayed locked on Ava like she was a live grenade.

  Ava climbed off him, staggering back, hand pressed to her wounded shoulder. “Next time,” she snapped, “ask before you shoot.”

  The man wiped blood from his nose, staring like he was seeing her for the first time.

  “You’re… not Syndicate…”

  “No kidding.” She said retrieving her axe and resting it against her shoulder, still trembling with adrenaline. “And if you ever interrupt a woman’s bath again, I’ll make sure your next scar is somewhere NOT VISIBLE.”

  For once, the man didn’t have a comeback.

  He just sat there in the mud, covered in dirt and humiliation, watching the pink-haired, half-dressed warrior limp back toward the river bloodied, soaking wet, and somehow terrifying.

  Sable let out a soft whine beside him, nudging his shoulder. The man exhaled, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “…Hell of a right hook.”

  Ava glanced back and saw the archer still on the ground, blood streaking down his face. Annoyed but not cruel, she walked toward him, cautious, axe still in hand, then extended the other.

  He hesitated. Then he took it. She pulled him up with a grunt.

  He cleared his throat. “Name’s Ace. And… you fight like someone who’s been in the military.”

  Ava nodded, wiping mud from her cheek. “Ava. And if I had to guess, you were special forces. I was part of a covert military division known as Valkyrie Ops.”

  Ace blinked, impressed despite himself. “Well damn. Nice to meet a fellow soldier.”

  “Likewise.”

  She was still catching her breath when the earth behind her trembled.

  Sable’s ears shot up first. Then came the sound, heavy boots, two sets pounding through the forest at a dead sprint.

  Another rumble of thunder rolled through the trees faint, sharp, unmistakably magical.

  Ace’s head snapped toward it. “That has to be Baxter.”

  Ava tightened her grip on her axe, unsure what to expect. But something in her chest lit up, soft and familiar.

  Kyo.

  He was close.

  Before either of them could speak, a familiar voice tore through the clearing.

  “AVA!”

  She spun. “Kyo?”

  Two figures exploded from the tree line, Kyo's aura sparking again despite how drained he was, and a tall armored man with a massive hammer strapped to his back.

  Baxter.

  “STAY BACK, KYO!” Baxter roared the second he saw the blood on Ava, “ACE! I’M COMING!”

  “Baxter, WAIT!” Ace shouted, but Baxter was already moving.