THE PRICE OF CHOOSING HER
795 Words
The assassination attempt came at dusk.
Not dramatic. Not loud.
Efficient.
Lena felt it before she saw it—the sudden silence of the woods, the way the wind died as if the world itself was holding its breath. Her skin prickled, power stirring beneath her ribs like a warning pulse.
“Stop,” she whispered.
Eli halted instantly, hand already on the blade at his side. “We’re not alone.”
The arrow came out of nowhere.
Eli shoved Lena hard, throwing her to the ground as the arrow embedded itself in the tree where her head had been a second earlier. It vibrated, humming with something unnatural.
Poisoned. Enchanted. Meant to kill her fast.
“Down,” Eli growled.
The air split.
A figure stepped out of the shadows as if the forest had exhaled him. Tall. Broad. Calm. His presence bent the space around him—predatory, controlled, terrifying.
Hunter.
Not like Eli.
Stronger.
Older.
“Guardian Eli,” the man said pleasantly. “Or should I say Fallen.”
Eli’s body went rigid. “Cassian.”
Lena pushed herself up, heart pounding. “Who is that?”
Eli didn’t look away from the man. “The one they send when mercy is no longer an option.”
Cassian’s gaze slid to Lena, assessing, cold. “So this is the Sovereign. Smaller than I expected.”
He moved.
Too fast.
Eli met him head-on, blades flashing. The impact was brutal—metal ringing, bodies colliding with bone-shattering force. Eli was strong, lethal—but Cassian was something else entirely.
Cassian disarmed him in seconds.
Eli hit the ground hard, breath knocked from his lungs.
Lena screamed his name.
Cassian turned toward her, lifting the blade coated in black venom. “This ends now.”
Something inside Lena broke open.
The forest responded.
The ground trembled violently. Trees groaned. Shadows surged—not attacking her, but flowing through her, into her veins, into her breath.
“No,” Eli rasped, struggling to rise. “Lena—don’t—”
She stepped forward anyway.
The arrow in the tree disintegrated.
Cassian hesitated.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Lena lifted her hand.
And the shadows obeyed.
They wrapped around Cassian like chains, slamming him to his knees. He snarled, fighting, but for the first time—he struggled.
Eli stared at her in horror and awe. “You’re pulling directly from the boundary.”
“I know,” she said, voice steady, eyes glowing faintly silver. “And I’m done being hunted.”
Cassian laughed, even restrained. “You think power makes you untouchable?”
“No,” Lena said softly. “Choice does.”
She turned to Eli.
He was bleeding. Hurt. And still trying to stand.
“Stop,” she said, rushing to him. Her hands pressed to his chest instinctively—and the moment she touched him, power surged between them. Heat. Light. Something dangerous and intimate.
Eli gasped.
“Lena,” he whispered. “This bond—it’s accelerating.”
“I don’t care.”
Cassian watched, realization dawning. “You’re sharing power.”
Eli grabbed Lena’s wrist. “This will change you. Permanently.”
She leaned close, forehead touching his. “Then let it.”
The shadows tightened around Cassian. He grunted, finally forced still.
Eli looked at her—really looked at her—like a man standing on the edge of everything he’d ever known.
“They will never stop,” he said quietly. “If I stay with you, I lose what little protection I have left. I lose my kind.”
Lena cupped his face, fierce and unafraid. “I’m not asking you to protect me.”
“What are you asking?”
“Fight with me.”
Something hardened in Eli’s eyes.
He turned to Cassian, lifting his blade again despite the pain. “Then hear this,” he said coldly. “You touch her again, and I will burn this order to the ground.”
Cassian smiled through blood. “Then you truly are lost.”
“No,” Eli said. “I’m chosen.”
Lena felt it then—the shift. The point of no return.
The power didn’t frighten her anymore.
It answered her.
As Cassian vanished back into the shadows, retreating but not defeated, the forest fell silent again.
Eli sank to his knees, exhausted.
Lena held him, arms tight, heart racing—not with fear.
With resolve.
“This was just the beginning,” he said against her shoulder.
“I know,” she replied.
And for the first time, she wasn’t afraid of what she was becoming.
Because the town had sent its strongest hunter.
And she had survived.
Not as prey.
But as a force.
- Writer
