Page 40 of My Unhinged Alphas
He stops a few feet from me, and his gaze flicks over my face, reading too much. “Saint Vale.” His voice is low, quiet enough that it doesn’t travel down the otherwise empty corridor. “You’re a long way from the others.”
“I needed air,” I say.
He nods once, not commenting.
The hallway around us is narrow, lined with steel support beams and exposed wiring humming faintly overhead. A cracked light near the far end buzzes unevenly, bathing the Shepherd’sface in alternating shadow and pale gold. The floor is stained in places where old work has been done—repairs, scars, remnants of past missions.
It’s a place for secrets, not for solace.
The Shepherd reaches into his coat and pulls out a small envelope—crisp, sealed with the Brotherhood’s mark. My stomach tightens. “This was recovered from the warehouse,” he says.
I take the envelope. A faint chemical smell rises from it—burnt plastic, maybe. And something metallic beneath. “What is it?” I ask.
“Evidence,” he replies, taking it back from me. “Circumstantial, but consistent.” He meets my eyes. “It’s better if you see it for yourself.”
The Shepherd lifts the envelope closer to the nearest buzzing light.
At first, I see nothing strange. Just plain paper. A little too crisp. A little too smooth.
Then he tilts it a few degrees, and a symbol rises from the fibers like ink bleeding through skin. Faint, almost invisible. But I know it.
A circle. Broken at the edges.
A thin diagonal slash, almost like a closed eye.
The Veiled Order.
My blood chills, the cold crawling across my back like something alive. The symbol is subtle, delicate—designed to remain hidden unless held at the right angle, under harsh light. A signature meant only for those who know how to look.
“Where did you find this?” My voice sounds tight even to me.
“Inside a vent shaft,” the Shepherd replies. “Folded behind a wire panel. Someone wanted it found, but not easily.”
Of course they did.
The Veiled Order.
A name no one in the Brotherhood speaks lightly, even among our kind.
The corridor seems to narrow around us, the shadows lengthening, the air growing heavier. Heat flares again beneath my ribs—not the kind from Lena’s body pressed against mine, but the kind I’ve been trained to listen to.
Threat. Disorder. The echo of an old enemy.
The Veiled Order never leaves anything by accident.
My fingers close around the envelope, the faint raised edges of the symbol pressing into my skin. A ghost of a brand. A warning. The signature of an enemy we haven’t faced in years.
And they were there. In the same place we found her.
“What’s inside?” I ask.
“We didn’t open it,” he says.
“Knox needs to see this,” I say.
The Shepherd nods. “Already flagged it for him. Can you give it to him?”
I nod. “Of course.”
