BLOODLINE
1296 Words
Rhea couldn’t breathe.
The room felt smaller, like the walls were leaning in—watching her, pressing close with invisible claws. Her legs backed her up until she hit the dresser, hands gripping the edge to stay upright. She couldn’t look away from him.
Callum.
The stranger with glowing eyes, etched in scars and ancient silence. He stood in the doorway like he belonged there, like he’d never left.
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
That was the first thing he said. Not Who are you? Not Why are you here?
But You shouldn’t have come back.
Her pulse roared in her ears. She forced her voice up through her throat, dry and cracked.
“Why do you say that?”
Callum took a slow step inside. His bare feet didn’t make a sound against the wood. He moved like smoke. Like a shadow that didn’t want to be noticed until it was too late.
“Because they’ll come for you now,” he said. “You lit the signal the moment you opened the gate.”
“I didn’t light anything.”
He nodded toward the silver key in her hand. “That key hasn’t turned in twenty years. The moment it did, they felt it.”
“They who?”
A pause.
His eyes narrowed just slightly. “The old ones. The fallen alphas. The corrupted bloodlines.”
She swallowed hard. “You’re insane.”
“No,” he said. “You just don’t remember what sanity looks like in a world ruled by magic.”
The air shifted. It was thicker in here, alive with something that buzzed just under the surface of her skin. Rhea hadn’t noticed it before, but now she couldn’t ignore it. Her body felt too tight, like her bones were growing restless inside her.
She wanted to leave. Run. But her feet didn’t move. The truth held her like chains.
“You said I’m cursed,” she said.
Callum’s jaw flexed. “All Blackwoods are. You’re the last.”
“Cursed with what?”
“Power.”
The word hit harder than it should’ve.
“That’s not a curse,” she whispered.
“It is when it’s stolen from the gods.”
Callum moved to the window, pulling aside the heavy curtain. Moonlight spilled into the room, silvery and soft, painting his skin in pale light. Rhea noticed then—his reflection wasn’t in the mirror beside the dresser.
Or maybe it was, but… twisted.
She looked back down.
The letter Vivienne had left her was still in her hands, the edges crinkled where her fingers had clenched around it.
Find the heartstone. Before they do.
“Who was Vivienne to you?” she asked, voice quieter.
Callum didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on the moon, far away.
“She was my alpha.”
“And my mother?”
He nodded once.
“And you were… what? Her right-hand man?”
“I was her Bloodsworn.”
That word sent a chill down her spine.
“What does that mean?”
His gaze met hers again, burning.
“It means I was bound to her. By oath, magic, and blood. I protected her. Killed for her. Died for her.”
“…Died?”
He looked away again.
And for the first time, she noticed the scars on his back—long, deep, clawed scars like something had torn into him and tried to rip out his soul.
Rhea sat down on the edge of the bed. It creaked under her weight, dust swirling up like memories from the past. She stared at her hands.
“I don’t feel like anything special,” she said.
“You don’t have to feel it. It’s in you.”
She looked up sharply. “So you’re saying I’m going to turn into a monster?”
Callum’s face was unreadable. “Not a monster. A wolf.”
“Same difference.”
“No,” he said. “Wolves have honor. They don’t kill without reason. They don’t lie. They don’t betray.”
“Then why did my own mother abandon me?”
The words left her like a gunshot.
Callum flinched—barely—but she saw it.
“To keep you alive,” he said after a long silence. “You were born under the Crimson Moon. The last time that happened, an entire generation of alphas went feral. You were the first pup born since. They called you the Harbinger.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is. They feared you.”
She swallowed hard. “Did she fear me too?”
“She loved you. Enough to send you away.”
The fire crackled in the hearth. Shadows danced on the walls.
Rhea stood and walked toward the mirror.
The cloth that covered it was old. Moth-eaten. Heavy.
Something inside her told her not to lift it.
But curiosity was louder.
She pulled it off.
And saw herself—
—but not just herself.
Her eyes glowed golden. Her skin shimmered faintly. The shadows behind her twisted into the shape of a wolf, tall and silent, like it was standing behind her, watching.
She gasped.
The vision faded.
Callum was beside her in a second.
“You’re changing,” he said. “Faster than I thought.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You don’t get to decide when the moon calls you.”
He led her into the manor’s hidden wing that night.
A stone staircase behind a false wall. Torches that lit with a spark as he passed. A door with silver etchings that pulsed as she approached it.
He placed his hand over hers and guided it to the center of the door.
It opened like it had been waiting for her all her life.
The room inside was massive. Carved into stone. It felt older than the house above it. Like the Earth itself had been shaped to hold something.
At the center stood a stone pedestal.
On it—a crystal. Blood-red. Glowing.
“The Heartstone,” Callum whispered. “The soul of the Blackwood bloodline.”
Rhea stepped closer, drawn to it.
“Touch it,” he said.
She did.
And the moment her fingers brushed its surface—memories hit her like lightning.
She saw her mother.
Vivienne. Standing tall, robed in black and silver. A crown of bone on her head. Holding Rhea as a baby.
“She must be hidden,” a voice said. “They’ll never stop hunting her.”
She saw wolves in armor. Men with glowing eyes. Forests burning. A silver blade plunging into Vivienne’s side as she screamed.
She saw Callum, on his knees, blood pouring from his mouth, chains on his wrists. Runes burning into his skin. His howl echoing through a moonless sky.
Then—
She saw herself.
Older. Taller. Glowing from within, eyes burning like stars.
Surrounded by wolves.
And leading them.
Rhea fell back, gasping. The vision vanished.
Callum caught her before she hit the stone.
“You saw it?” he asked.
She nodded, trembling.
“That’s your future,” he said.
“No. That’s a war.”
He didn’t deny it.
“You have a choice,” he said quietly. “Run from what you are… or rise into it. Become the Alpha they fear.”
She looked up at him.
Her voice shook. “What if I don’t survive the shift?”
He knelt beside her.
“Then I die with you.”
High above, in the woods beyond Blackwood Hill, under the light of the rising full moon, a dozen eyes opened in the dark.
Silver claws flexed.
Breath steamed in the cold.
The hunt had begun.
And the last true heir had returned.
- Writer
