The sanctuary’s training room used to be a Cold War bunker.

Concrete walls.

Low ceilings.

Old drainage grates running across the floor beneath industrial lights that buzzed faintly overhead.

Someone had painted over the original military markings years ago, though faded warning symbols still showed through in places beneath newer coats of black paint.

Seraphina liked the room immediately.

It felt honest.

No stained glass pretending violence was holy.

No cathedral candles trying to romanticize blood.

Just weapons and exhaustion.

Cassian stood near the far wall drinking coffee while several younger vampires sparred nearby with wooden practice knives. The moment Seraphina entered carrying a silver training blade, every conversation in the room visibly slowed.

One vampire muttered:

“You brought the hunter into the armory?”

Cassian didn’t even look up from his coffee.

“She already knows where the sharp objects are. Relax.”

That did not appear especially reassuring to anyone involved.

Seraphina rolled one shoulder carefully beneath the fitted black training shirt someone from the sanctuary had lent her earlier. The bite wound still ached beneath fresh bandages, though less than before.

Lucien entered a moment later.

And apparently everyone else noticed the atmosphere shift too.

The room quieted instinctively.

Not fear exactly.

Attention.

Like gravity entering the room.

Lucien removed his coat slowly before setting it across a nearby bench. Black button-up sleeves rolled just past his forearms while old silver scars disappeared beneath pale skin and dark fabric.

Seraphina hated the fact that her brain noticed details like that now.

Cassian noticed her noticing.

Unfortunately.

“Oh, this is going to end terribly,” he sighed into his coffee.

Lucien ignored him.

Mostly.

“You wanted to test your shoulder,” he said to Seraphina.

“That sounds less stupid when you say it.”

“It remains stupid.”

She spun the silver blade once through her fingers before stepping onto the practice mat.

“You talk too much for someone centuries old.”

“And you provoke people recreationally.”

“That’s because it’s fun.”

A faint smile almost appeared again.

God.

Those tiny almost-smiles were becoming a legitimate problem.

The younger vampires nearby began pretending not to watch them with the kind of terrible subtlety unique to emotionally curious immortals.

Lucien stepped across from her onto the mat.

“No silver strikes to the throat,” he said calmly.

“You’re assuming I planned restraint.”

“You’re assuming I won’t retaliate.”

Cassian raised his coffee slightly toward the room.

“There’s the flirting.”

Seraphina threw a practice knife at him without looking.

Cassian caught it midair.

“See?” he sighed. “Chemistry.”

Lucien moved first.

Not aggressively.

Testing.

The silver blade in his hand flicked toward her shoulder in a clean controlled strike she blocked automatically before pivoting sideways into a counterattack aimed low toward his ribs.

Lucien avoided it by less than an inch.

Interesting.

“You hesitated,” he observed.

“You’re distracting.”

“That sounds like a skill issue.”

Seraphina attacked again immediately.

Faster this time.

Years of Blackthorn training snapped back into place through muscle memory as silver flashed sharply beneath bunker lights.

Lucien matched her perfectly.

Not overpowering.

Mirroring.

Every strike answered cleanly.

Every feint recognized almost before she committed to it.

The rhythm unsettled her immediately.

Because fighting him felt familiar.

Not easy.

Never easy.

But natural in ways combat absolutely should not feel.

Steel cracked softly against silver.

Footsteps echoed sharply across concrete floors.

Lucien sidestepped another strike and caught her wrist briefly before releasing it again the second she twisted free.

Always that restraint.

Always pulling back before the contact lasted too long.

Seraphina noticed.

Again.

And somehow noticing made her reckless.

She drove forward harder, blade flashing toward his throat before dropping suddenly into a lower sweep aimed at his knee.

Lucien reacted instantly.

Too instantly.

He caught the movement halfway through and pivoted behind her with impossible speed.

One cold hand landed lightly against the center of her back.

“Dead,” he murmured near her ear.

The word sent heat violently through her nervous system for reasons she refused to unpack.

Seraphina elbowed backward hard.

Lucien caught that too.

“Predictable.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet here you are.”

She twisted sharply from his grip before driving him backward across the mat with a rapid series of strikes designed less to win and more to force him into defensive movement.

Lucien’s eyes darkened slightly afterward.

Not hunger.

Focus.

The room around them faded strangely as the fight accelerated.

No hesitation anymore.

No testing.

Just instinct answering instinct.

Cassian lowered his coffee slowly.

“Oh,” he murmured. “That’s deeply concerning.”

Because they matched.

Perfectly.

Every movement Lucien anticipated from her, she adapted around before fully thinking.

Every adjustment he made, she mirrored instinctively.

Not trained synchronization.

Something worse.

Compatibility.

The realization hit both of them around the same time.

Seraphina saw it in the brief flicker across Lucien’s expression after he blocked another strike meant for his throat.

Recognition.

And underneath it—

something dangerously close to admiration.

Her pulse stumbled.

Mistake.

Lucien noticed instantly and disarmed her in one smooth movement.

The silver blade spun across the floor.

Several vampires nearby winced sympathetically.

Lucien stepped forward to finish the match—

and Seraphina used the momentum against him.

She caught his wrist, pivoted sharply beneath his balance point, and drove him backward hard enough that both of them crashed against the padded training wall.

The room went completely silent.

Because suddenly—

Seraphina stood pressed against Lucien’s chest with one silver blade held flat beneath his throat.

And Lucien wasn’t moving.

Not because he couldn’t.

Because he chose not to.

Breathing echoed softly through the bunker room.

Close.

Too close.

Seraphina became aware all at once of several deeply catastrophic details:

his hand still wrapped around her wrist from the counter-movement;

the heat of her own body trapped between them;

the way Lucien looked at her now like violence had accidentally become intimacy.

Nobody in the room spoke.

Cassian looked seconds away from either laughing or evacuating the building.

Lucien’s gaze lowered briefly toward the silver blade at his throat.

Then back to her eyes.

“You hesitated,” he said softly.

Seraphina swallowed once.

“You’re distracting.”

A slow smile finally appeared this time.

Small.

Real.

Absolutely unfair.

Around them, the bunker lights buzzed softly overhead while everyone else very professionally pretended not to witness whatever the hell this had become.

Lucien could’ve disarmed her instantly.

They both knew it.

Instead he stayed exactly where he was against the wall, silver pressed lightly beneath pale skin while Seraphina’s pulse beat violently against her ribs.

Then, quietly enough that only she heard it:

“You’re getting better at this.”