He touched Leena’s cheek one final time.
The flesh beneath his fingers was cold.
Real.
Dead.
His mouth tightened, but he did not look away.
“I will find you,” he whispered.
The brothers heard him.
None attempted to answer.
Sule stepped back only when the stone lid began to lower. Its weight settled into place with a grinding finality that reverberated through the crypt and into the earth beneath them.
Leena’s body remained sealed beyond it.
The woman they had loved was gone, and no promise, title, or quantity of blood could change what lay inside that tomb.
Sule rested one palm against the stone.
“This is not where you end.”
Rhen’s gaze lifted sharply toward him.
Sule gave no explanation.
He took Norse from Mary and walked from the crypt without looking back.
The others followed gradually, leaving the lanterns burning beside Leena’s grave.
Rhen remained after every footstep had faded.
He stood before the sealed coffin until the last flame guttered and darkness claimed the crypt.
Then he left her body beneath the earth.
Later, the sound of fists striking punching bags rolled through the cavernous training center,
each impact ricocheting from steel and reinforced concrete until the air itself seemed to vibrate. Sweat and old leather hung heavily in the room, undercut by the antiseptic bite of disinfectant, as though the space had been scrubbed a thousand times and still refused to feel clean.
The brothers had gathered underground in a room built for one purpose: control. Reinforced concrete enclosed the space, while iron beams crossed overhead like the ribs of a cage. Heavy bags hung from chains, weapon racks lined one wall, and state-of-the-art equipment occupied the other.
It was less a gym than a place where violence could burn itself out before it reached the floors above.
Cole struck first.
He drove both fists into the bag in a punishing rhythm, each impact precise enough to be practiced and brutal enough to be honest. Strength had never been the problem. He possessed more of it than most creatures would survive encountering.
What he needed was somewhere to put the pressure that had nowhere else to go.
Leena was gone, yet the compound continued holding its breath around the shape she had left behind.
Cole did not know how to mourn quietly. He knew how to endure, and he knew how to keep moving until whatever lived inside his chest either burned away or hardened into something he could aim.
Malakai watched from beside the weapons rack.
