CHAPTER 3
634 Words
“Veyne.”
VEYNE
He hadn’t shifted in days.
Not since her.
The woods beyond the Roth estate were thick with fog, just like the night he met Ivy. His claws itched beneath his skin, but he would not let the wolf out. Not yet. Not when the scent of her still clung to his skin like a curse.
She had not screamed when he bit her. She had not run when she saw his eyes change in the dark. Instead, she would kiss him harder. That terrified him more than anything.
“You marked her,” Luca said behind him.
Veyne didn’t turn. “Not fully.”
“But enough to bind her. You felt it. So did she.”
“She’s not like us. She’s human.”
“Was human,” Luca corrected. “That bite rewrote her blood.”
Veyne finally faced him. “I didn’t mean to. I lost control.”
“You always lose control when you think you’re alone.” Luca’s tone was not angry; it was tired. This was not just s*x. You know what happens when we touch a true mate. You saw what happened to Kiera.”
Veyne’s jaw clenched. Kiera. His first mate. Dead before she could fully change. Killed by the bond meant to save her. That guilt still sat in his chest like rusted chains.
“She’s stronger than Kiera. "I felt it,” he murmured. “But I had to walk away.”
“You think walking away undoes the bond?” Luca scoffed. “You have cursed her now.”
IVY
That night, Ivy dreamed again.
Only this time, it was not the forest.
She stood in a circle of stone ruins lit by moonlight. A figure waited at the center, a woman with white hair and violet eyes, wrapped in a cloak of fur.
“You carry the blood of the old ones,” the woman said. Your grandmother bound herself to the wild once. Now it calls to you.”
“I don’t understand,” Ivy whispered.
“You will. But not without pain.”
A howl shattered the silence. Ivy spun, searching for the source.
When she turned back, the woman was gone.
And in her place, a silver wolf stood watching her with haunted eyes.
VEYNE
He did not mean to go to her apartment. But his wolf had other ideas.
He stood across the street, cloaked by shadow, watching her through her window. She was painting something abstract, angry and raw. Her shoulders tensed, her eyes distant.
She was changing.
He could smell it from here. Her scent was sharper now. Wilder. The shift had begun.
“You should not be here,” Selene’s voice cut through the night behind him.
Veyne turned. His sister stepped out of the alley, boots crunching gravel, eyes glowing faintly gold. She had not been back in a year, not since she left the pack after what happened to Kiera.
“You are too late to stop it,” she said softly.
“I am not here to claim her.”
Selene tilted her head. “No. You are here to watch her suffer from your silence. How noble.”
Veyne did not reply to her.
She sighed. “There are whispers, Veyne. The Duskfangs are on the move again. They are sniffing around humans with power in their blood. "If Ivy’s even half what I think she is… she’s in danger.”
His hands clenched.
“If you won’t protect her,” Selene warned, “someone else will. And it won’t be you she calls for.”
IVY
The next morning, Ivy woke with blood beneath her fingernails and mud on her feet.
And she wasn’t afraid.
She was hungry.
Not for food. Not for answers. For him.
- Writer
