Episode 3: When the Blood Binds
1396 Words
Episode 3: When the Blood Binds
The rooftop glowed with a sickly red light.
Wind howled as power surged from the cloaked figure’s outstretched hand, shattering the concrete beneath Lucan and Eris. Glass from a nearby window spiraled in the air like a glittering swarm. The Seether’s eyes pulsed silver, reflecting madness and something older—resentment born in a forgotten age.
Lucan was changing.
Bones snapped, lengthened. Fur began to ripple across his arms. His jaw unhinged slightly, fangs emerging—not fully transformed, but close.
Eris stood at his side, hand raised, eyes burning crimson. She fed off the chaos, her senses lit with the tang of Lucan’s fear, her own dread, and the ancient fury boiling off their enemy. It was almost too much.
But she held it together.
Barely.
“Stay behind me,” Lucan growled, his voice distorted through shifting vocal cords.
“No,” Eris said, her voice calm and strange. “You need me. Let me amplify you.”
“What does that mean?”
She stepped closer, her palm resting lightly on his back.
“I feel the emotion,” she whispered, “and give it shape.”
Before he could question it, the Seether lunged forward, releasing a wave of crushing force. It blasted toward them—pure will meant to flatten, twist, erase.
Lucan roared.
The sound that erupted from him wasn’t just a wolf’s growl. It was a hybrid scream—rage, protection, memory. Eris drew it in, amplified it, pushed it outward like a shockwave.
The energy shattered mid-air.
The Seether was flung backward, crashing into a rooftop turbine.
Lucan stumbled to one knee. “What—what was that?”
Eris steadied him. “Your fear. Your anger. I gave it form.”
“You fed on me?”
“No,” she said, eyes soft. “You gave it freely.”
Lucan breathed heavily. He didn’t understand what just happened—but for the first time, his emotions didn’t feel like weights. They felt like fuel.
The Seether stood, his cloak torn, his face cracked like old porcelain. Beneath the skin, something inhuman pulsed—veins glowing black.
“You’ve been touched by the Vein,” Eris murmured. “Corrupted.”
“You think you’re chosen?” the Seether hissed. “The Vein doesn’t choose. It suffers.”
Lucan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”
“I want silence,” he snapped. “I want the end of your bonds, your instincts, your feelings. You don’t deserve the Vein.”
Eris shook her head. “Then why did it call me?”
The Seether sneered. “Because you’re its last scream.”
He vanished in a blink—leaving behind only a pulse of air and a fading echo of laughter.
---
Lucan sat on the edge of the rooftop, body cooling, muscles still sore from the partial shift.
Eris leaned against a pipe nearby, her heart still racing.
They said nothing for several minutes.
“He was right about one thing,” Lucan finally said. “I don’t deserve the Vein.”
Eris turned to him. “Why?”
“I broke every connection I ever had,” he said flatly. “My pack. My bond. My own instincts. I buried them. And I felt nothing.”
She stepped closer. “But you felt something tonight.”
Lucan looked up at her, the glow of the city casting shadows across his face.
“Yes,” he said. “Because of you.”
Eris sat beside him.
“I’ve never fed like that before,” she said softly. “Not on something willingly given. I didn’t lose control. I didn’t feel overwhelmed.”
“Was it enough?”
She smiled faintly. “It was more than enough.”
Lucan studied her. “Does it hurt?”
“What?”
“Feeling everything all the time.”
She nodded. “Yes. But not with you.”
He looked away. “Why?”
“Because I don’t have to drown in it. I can just… be.”
Lucan ran a hand through his hair. His fingers trembled slightly.
“I’m starting to feel cracks again,” he admitted. “Little things. It’s not much, but it’s there. You’re doing something to me.”
Eris’s expression darkened, but not with fear—with wonder.
“I think we’re doing something to each other.”
---
The following day, Eris returned to the Empath enclave.
The towering spires of House Vale shimmered against the morning mist, nestled in a forgotten corner of the city—hidden in plain sight, masked from human eyes.
Helena was waiting in the main hall, arms crossed.
“You disappeared,” she said. “After the summit.”
“I was attacked,” Eris said. “By a Seether.”
Helena’s lips thinned. “You brought one of them here?”
“No,” Eris said. “He found me. He found us.”
Helena’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
Eris recounted the events on the rooftop—the Vein’s scream, the Seether’s assault, Lucan’s transformation, the shared power they’d conjured together.
“You shared energy with a werewolf?” Helena hissed. “You used the Vein with a cursed beast?”
Eris stood tall. “Yes. And I survived. We won.”
Helena’s face twisted with something between disgust and fear.
“You’ve endangered us all. You’ve breached the Vein’s balance.”
“No,” Eris said. “I think I’m starting to understand it.”
Helena turned away. “You’re unstable, Eris. You always have been. And now you’ve bonded with a creature of rage.”
Eris’s voice lowered. “He’s not rage. He’s silence. And that silence is teaching me how to live.”
Helena rounded on her. “Then you are no longer welcome here.”
Eris froze.
“What?”
“You’ve crossed a line,” Helena said coldly. “House Vale will not shelter an empath who feeds on forbidden threads.”
“I didn’t feed,” Eris whispered. “I shared.”
“Even worse,” Helena snapped. “Get out.”
---
Lucan met her at the city outskirts later that night.
He saw the way she stood—rigid, guarded. Her eyes were dim.
“They cast you out,” he guessed.
She nodded. “I’m not safe for them anymore.”
He offered no pity. Just presence. That was enough.
“I need to show you something,” he said.
She followed him through the dark to an old warehouse surrounded by thick pines. Inside, candles lined the walls. Symbols were etched in salt on the floor.
“What is this?” Eris asked.
Lucan inhaled deeply. “The place where it happened. Where I lost my pack.”
He walked to the center of the circle.
“I didn’t mean to kill my alpha,” he said. “He wanted to burn the witches, violate the Vein. I challenged him. It was tradition. But I didn’t hold back. I snapped his spine.”
Eris listened, heart heavy.
“A seer cursed me after,” he continued. “Said I was too dangerous to feel. That I would destroy everything I loved. So she took it away.”
Eris stepped into the circle beside him. “That’s not a curse. That’s cruelty.”
“She said I’d thank her someday.”
“Do you?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore.”
Eris reached up, her fingers brushing his jaw.
“I think we can fix each other,” she said.
Lucan met her gaze. “You’re not afraid I’ll hurt you?”
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll leave before I find out how to love you.”
The air stilled.
Lucan took her hand and placed it over his heart.
There was a beat.
And for the first time in years—
She felt warmth.
Not fire.
Not rage.
Just warmth.
---
Deep beneath the city, in the Deepline, the Vein pulsed.
Two broken souls had begun to thread a bond.
One of silence.
One of sound.
Together, they stitched the start of something new.
But in the shadows, the Seether watched. Smiling.
“You may feel again, werewolf,” he whispered, “but I’ll make sure it ends in blood.”
---
- Writer
