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1295 Words
The warriors returned by nightfall. Empty-handed.
Its scent was gone. They said it vanished near the old sycamore, well into the human world.
I didn’t turn as they entered. Didn’t need to.
Their silence reeked of failure. They bowed low, heads down, their heartbeats betraying them, fast, uneven. I could smell the shame pouring off their skin.
I stood by the hearth, arms crossed over my chest, the fire cracked, casting shadows along the deep scars in the wooden floors. My gaze didn’t move. Not toward the warriors. Not toward the growing restlessness in the court. Not even toward the message that still hadn’t come.
Bjorn was late.
My Gamma never missed a report.
I sent him to track the source, follow the path, find what the Creeper was after.
My jaw ached from the clench.
My wolf paced beneath my skin, snarling, unsatisfied. Not at them. Not even at the Creeper. At that scent.
Her.
The smell of jasmine still burned in my mind, my wolf was growing more restless.
She wasn’t wolf
Human. She had to be.
And I, the strongest Lycan alive. The beast. The reaper. The monster mothers warned their cubs about.
Fated to a human?
No.
The Seers had sworn it. Your path is your own. No mate. No bond. No end to your line but death.
And I thanked them for it.
A mate was chains.
A leash.
A cage dressed in warm skin.
She shouldn’t exist.
But she did.
And she’d walked through my territory like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.
It gnawed at the edge of my control. My wolf fought for control. We wolf wanted to tear through the walls.
Wanted blood.
Wanted her.
I dragged a hand over my face, fingers twitching with the urge to claw at something, anything. The fire, the floor, the neck of the nearest warrior.
I turned from the hearth, the shadows lurching with the movement. My breath came low and slow, thick with heat.
The Seers would arrive by dawn.
And I would have my answers.
If they’d lied, if they’d known and said nothing…
I would burn their temple to ash.
I would break every vow I’d ever made to them.
Because betrayal from outside, I could survive.
But betrayal from within?
That would be war.
And if they’d been wrong.
Then the stars themselves had failed me.
And that was something not even the gods could afford.
—
I picked Alia up and drove like a madwoman, the night folding around me like a worn, familiar cloak.
I needed answers. I needed time.
I needed my daughter back.
She had promised me when Lilith was just a little girl that her witch doctor could help.
They’d assured me it was locked. Forever maybe.
Lilith had been only seven.
All baby teeth and wild dreams, her laughter bright and unknowing.
I was terrified then.
But Alia had said this was the only way.
I didn’t want to believe her, not when I was told that if I didn’t act before thirteen…
Gods, no.
I can’t think about that now.
It was happening again. And this time, I might be too late.
The old cottage appeared at the edge of the forest road, hunched and broken, like a sinner kneeling in the dust.
Its roof clawed at the sky, black against black, and its windows caked with grime that glinted like dead eyes.
It looked exactly the same as it had eleven years ago.
The air was syrupy with rot and old magic. Leaves, secrets, the perfume of broken oaths.
We hesitated at the threshold.
Somewhere deep inside me, a voice whispered: Turn back.
But our feet carried us forward anyway.
Alia walked beside me, tighter than my shadow. She loved Lilith like she was her own.
Inside, the world shrank to one room: dim, flickering, thick with the scent of herbs, smoke, and something older than gods or prayers.
A fire sputtered in the hearth. Shadows jumped along the warped wood.
And in the center of it all, she stood.
The witch.
Tall. Thin as a blade worn too long.
Her eyes were black and depthless, like they’d swallowed every sun they’d ever seen.
Her smile was a crack in something brittle. It made my skin crawl.
“Come forth, seekers of truth,” she crooned. Her voice sweet and low, like poison honey.
“You come burdened. You come lost. The winds whisper of change… yes, oh yes, they do.”
She drifted closer, a movement more mist than woman, trailing fingers along cluttered shelves filled with jars of things better unnamed, dried limbs, dark herbs.
“You seek to chain what cannot be bound,” she murmured, almost fondly. “You seek to cage what was never meant to be caged.”
Alia stepped forward first, her voice tight with fear.
“Our daughter,” she said. “She’s changing. We can’t protect her anymore. We need your help.”
The witch’s gaze glinted.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “I know. The blood calls. The old blood. The shift is near. The beasts stir in their skin awake.”
She plucked a small vial from the shelf, its contents shimmered like a bottled storm, violet and indigo twisting endlessly.
“This,” she said, “will still the hunger. For a time. A breath between heartbeats. Take it. Drink deep. Let them sleep a little longer.”
But even as she held it out, her voice slipped lower, turning strange:
“Unseen, unheard, the power shall wait; what you seek, you shall find, but know, this path is not kind.”
Her fingers long and sharp as crow bones offered the vial.
Alia reached for it. The witch’s head tilted.
“No,” she said softly, and looked at me.
I swallowed hard, then reached. Our hands brushed. Mine were shaking.
“If you take this,” she murmured, “the chains will hold. But the truth you bury will claw its way free. It always does.”
She stared into me like she could see it all. Lilith’s dreams, her blood, her future.
I hesitated.
But I took it.
The witch’s mouth twitched into something like a smile, though there was no joy in it.
Just inevitability.
As we turned to leave, her voice chased us through the smoke:
“Beware the truth. And beware of the price. All debts must be paid in full.”
Her words clung to me as we fled into the night, whispers threading through the trees, curling in our lungs like cold, damp smoke.
A promise.
A curse.
—
The city lights bled into the sky as we sped downtown, neon streaks cutting through the dark like veins.
Kaia clung to my waist, the wind tearing through our hair. She leaned in, shouting above the noise and wind.
“Place looks like a murder scene in technicolor!”
I grinned, nerves sparking under my skin.
“Perfect.”
The streets blurred past. The music from the open bars throbbed like a heartbeat, windows lit up like open mouths.
I turned onto a side street behind the club and figured we’d park and walk in the heat. But then—
Kaia tensed.
“Did you see that?” she whispered.
I slowed the bike, the engine growling low.
“What?”
She pointed.
A shadow detached itself from the alley wall. Wrong. Too tall. No sound. No breath.
Straight out of horror movie stuff
I didn’t know how to react, but I couldn’t look away.
It stood there, still like death, head c****d. Watching me. Not Kaia. Not the bike.
Me. It could see through me.
My breath hitched. I screamed, Kaia screamed.
Then
It lunged.
- Writer
