"What are these fledglings doing here?" Tharnis muttered, voice cold with disdain as he turned to Comet. They stood just outside the heavy double doors of the Chamber of the Inner Circle.
Only Marshalls and their Lieutenants were ever allowed within these walls.
Yet here were seven new Hydra recruits following Comet as if they belonged.
Though Tharnis recognized Kaelith, both of them being of the Night Dweller race, it did little to soothe the bitterness curling in his gut. He had despised Kaelith's predecessor. Their families had been rivals for centuries, locked in a power struggle that never truly ended.
"They've been invited," Comet replied nonchalantly, as if the decision didn't shake the very foundation of the Inner Circle's long-standing protocol. "By the Mistress."
"Why?" Orynna's voice cut sharp, disbelief lacing every syllable.
"They are the newest leaders with seats on the Velrathis High Council," Comet answered, calm and unbothered.
Rhaevenor turned to his niece, eyes etched with worry. "Nelly… wait here. Don't go inside," he said gently, trying to spare her from what he feared she would not come back from the same.
Naelira met his gaze with steel.
"Uncle, I've been invited by Mistress Luna as well."
There was no doubt in her tone. No hesitation. Only resolve.
Orynna's eyes narrowed.
She, like the rest of the Inner Circle, knew what these fledglings didn't. They saw the way some of them stood too tall, too proud, thinking they had earned something sacred.
But the truth?
They had no idea what they were stepping into.
For centuries, Hydra had remained buried in the shadows, operating in the silence behind thrones and banners. And in all those years, Mistress Luna had never, never, offered a seat in the Inner Circle lightly.
No.
Her invitations were never favors.
They were messages.
Sometimes warnings.
And most of the time… they were tests.
Poisoned flowers in gilded vases.
A seat on the High Council? A title passed down like heirlooms?
That meant nothing here.
The Inner Circle did not hand out favors. The seats offered by Luna rarely lasted long, except one.
Comet.
He was the only one who had endured.
The rest had bled. Or vanished.
"You understand," Lilavelle said now, turning to the group of fledglings, her tone deceptively soft, "that once you cross this threshold, you'll learn truths that cannot leave this room. Secrets that, if spoken aloud, require only one price."
She smiled.
"Death."
"We understand," replied Duric, the shapeshifter among them. His voice was steady. Brave.
Or just naive.
Ravella chuckled darkly. "Good. Then remember this, Master Tuf doesn't grant merciful deaths."
The silence that followed was tense and laced with warning.
Then Comet spoke.
"It seems all present Inner Circle members currently at the Lair are assembled. The others will join us mid-meeting."
With that, he pushed open the massive double doors.
The group stepped into a chamber unlike anything the fledglings had ever seen.
The long table that stretched through the center of the room. On one end, seated at a sleek ironbark desk unlike any other in Velrathis, was Tuf.
He didn't look up.
He was typing.
Focused.
The device in front of him hummed quietly, alive with forbidden magitech.
None of the fledglings had ever seen anything like it.
Even Naelira, who once thought herself closest to Tuf, his shadow, his confidante, stood frozen.
She had never seen that device.
She had never heard whispers of Hydra.
She had never known there was a Chamber of Inner Circle hidden in a palace on a private island.
Seated by the fireplace in a high-backed chair, wearing nothing but Tuf's oversized black shirt is Luna. Her skin still marked, still flushed. His scent was all over her. It clung to her like a second skin.
The room knew.
Everyone knew.
She has been claimed.
And Naelira's heart broke, not from jealousy alone, but from the crashing realization that she had never truly known him.
Not really.
She thought she had held a special place in his world.
But she'd been standing on a stage of illusion.
"Begin the meeting," Tuf said, not even glancing up. His voice was calm.
Comet nodded, motioning for everyone to take their seats.
But as the group settled, Tuf's eyes finally did lift.
And they landed on Kaelith.
The young vampire met Tuf's gaze, and froze.
Tuf didn't speak.
Didn't move.
But the cold fury behind his eyes was unmistakable.
A weak pulse of killing intent rippled through the room like a drop of poison in still water.
Kaelith knew.
He'd just been warned.
He swallowed hard and slowly sat down.
"The second phase of Project R will begin in a month," Comet announced, his voice steady and emotionless. "Our operatives, along with Master Tuf, will travel beyond the mist."
He stepped toward one side of the chamber, placing his palm on a section of the wall embedded with faintly glowing rune magic. With a hum of energy, the wall shimmered and transformed into a one-way mirror.
On the other side, they could see a wide chamber where male demi-humans of varying races were training faes and elves, women, on how to submit.
They knelt. Obeyed. Took orders in silence.
"One hundred elves and faes," Comet continued, his tone clinical. "All without mates. Isolated. Chosen specifically because no one will come for them. They will be transported to the human kingdoms..."
He turned slightly, face expressionless. "...and distributed to the pleasure houses under Hydra's jurisdiction. To serve humans."
A faint hum of images flickered to the right of the mirror, showing still profiles of the selected females, faces neutral, beautiful, detached from what awaited them.
"They have already agreed to this."
"Serve humans?" Varis, the demon seated across the table, leaned forward, his voice laced with fury. "You're telling us they're going to be sex slaves for that disgusting race?"
"We don't call them that," Comet replied without missing a beat. "We call them Guest Relations Officers. GROs, for short."
"And you think giving them a fancy title makes it less vile?" Varis snapped, rising from his seat. His aura flared, unstable.
"Sit down, fledgling," Tharnis barked across the table, scowling.
"No, you shut up!" Varis whirled toward the others at the long obsidian table, voice rising. "Now I understand why so few elves and faes are members of this so-called secret society! Because you're sacrificing them!"
He turned sharply, locking eyes with one of the elders. "And you, Rhaevenor, you're an elder elf! Some of the women in your family were tortured by humans before the Great Human War. And you allow this?"
"You have no right to question my decisions, demon," Rhaevenor replied, voice calm but laced with steel. "I suggest you sit down and throw your tantrum after the meeting. You're in the presence of two children of the Demon Lord."
Varis sneered. "And you think I care about them? They are an abomination to our kind. They pollute the blood of the Demon Lord. Pretenders. In public, they act like mortal enemies, yet in secret, they're fucking each other."
"Varis, shut up!" Kaelith snapped, his voice filled with panic more than anger.
But Varis only laughed bitterly and leaned toward him, mocking. "Still hoping you have a chance with that woman, Kaelith? You'd be better off falling for a common whore. At least she'd have more dignity than that abomination."
A sharp gasp escaped from several senior members at the table.
But before anyone could fully process what Varis had just said, a hand burst clean through his chest from behind.
Time seemed to freeze.
Varis's mouth fell open in shock, eyes still wide with defiance.
No one had even noticed Tuf move from his seat.
Now, he stood behind the demon, his arm buried through Varis's back, his clawed fingers clutching the still-beating black heart of the demon in his hand.
"Stupid fledgling," Lilavelle muttered, shaking her head.
With unhurried grace, Tuf pulled his hand back, blood splattering silently onto the cold stone floor. The heart pulsed weakly in his grip.
Varis's body stood upright, somehow still holding itself together. His eyes followed Tuf, unblinking, uncomprehending, like his mind hadn't yet registered the death that had just arrived.
Tuf walked slowly to the head of the table, his presence suffocating. All eyes followed him, silence stretching like a noose.
"You know…" he began casually, like a professor in the middle of a lecture, "when a heart stops beating, the brain can still function for roughly ten seconds."
He dropped the heart on the table with a wet thud. Blood splattered across the glossy black surface.
Comet, unfazed, handed Tuf a clean handkerchief.
Tuf wiped his hands clean of Varis's black blood, movements slow, precise, and almost bored. Then he looked up, smiling.
A devil's smile.
"You're in time suspension now," he told the lifeless demon standing across the room. "You're already dead, that's a fact. But your brain?" He tapped his own temple mockingly. "Still active. Still capable of witnessing everything that's about to happen in this chamber until the meeting ends."
His eyes narrowed, the smile never fading.
"So you'll get to regret every word that left your filthy mouth."
Then, he turned his gaze toward Comet.
"How many times do I have to remind you," he said in a deceptively calm tone, "that when there are new members joining a meeting, especially when the agenda is already midway through execution, you need to at least give them context. Information, Comet. That way, we can avoid unnecessary death… or, at the very least, interruptions to the meeting."
Comet bowed slightly, his expression stoic. "I am sorry, Master Tuf. I will keep that in mind."
Tuf gave a slight nod. "Sit down. I'll take over from here."
He turned to face the newer members of the inner circle, his voice cold but steady, the weight of his words undeniable.
"Project R stands for Reclamation," he began. "Hydra will be reclaiming the lands that were once rightfully ours, territories stolen by humans generations ago."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the room.
"Demi-humans can only procreate with their mate. And even with a mate, many never conceive. At most, some produce two or three children in their entire lifetime. Humans, on the other hand, multiply like rats. And that is why, one thousand years ago, we, the superior race, fell to them."
A heavy silence settled over the room.
"What I'm about to share," Tuf continued, "is known only to the senior Hydra members. Most of you wouldn't have noticed, because demi-humans live long lives. But the truth is this: for the last one hundred fifty years, not a single demi-human has been born. There are deaths, yes… but no births. Every house in Velrathis is on its final bloodline. We are, quietly, dying out."
Even now, Tuf's jaw clenched as he recalled Luna's voice when she first told him that fact. He hadn't noticed it either. Not until she told him. One hundred fifty years of silence.
"And that," he said slowly, "is why we are sending elves and fae women beyond the mist. Because during Hydra's four hundred years of existence, we've discovered something critical, elves and faes can conceive with humans… even without a matebond."
Gasps echoed from the newer members. Some in disbelief. Others in silent horror.
"These women," Tuf went on, "are not being discarded. They're playing a crucial role, to get pregnant and add numbers to our dwindling race. You see sacrifice. I see strategy. They understand their role. They agreed to it. They are doing it for something far greater than themselves."
He let that hang for a moment, then added coolly, "And before you ask, why not just wipe the humans out? The answer is simple. We can't afford to. If we annihilate them, we lose the only viable method of expanding our bloodlines. Some of our kind can't conceive even when mated. But with humans… there's hope."
His voice lowered, darker now. "They are the first batch. Others will follow."
"But if that's the purpose, if they agreed to this," Duric interrupted, eyes narrowing, "then why are they being trained to be submissive? And why do they look like they're being drugged?"
Tuf looked at him without blinking. "Because they are."
Silence fell again.
"Elves and faes hate humans. Rightfully so. After what their kind suffered before the Great Human War… hatred is the only natural response. But hatred interferes with the mission."
He steepled his fingers.
"They agreed to their purpose. But to ensure compliance, to stop them from remembering the horrors done to their kin, we sedate them."
"And as for the submission training," he added, voice sharp, "humans crave control. They crave the illusion of power. So we give it to them. The women are trained to act weak, to feed into human delusions."
He smirked faintly.
"It's a distraction. While they play king in their brothels, they don't realize they're being used. They don't know they're helping us conquer them from within."
His voice turned cold.
"That's how you play chess. You use your pawns. You sacrifice them. And you make every single move count, until you win the game."