16. Silas’s – Finding Solution
1829 Words
I asked Mira to drop me off at Capitol Hill just as the afternoon light began to soften, Seattle slipping into that familiar, bruised-gold hour before dusk.
She didn’t question me. She rarely did when it came to matters of duty. But I felt the shift in her all the same—the way her fingers tightened briefly on the steering wheel, the way her smile gentled as she pulled up outside the club.
“Will I see you tonight?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered, kissing her cheek and meaning more than just the word.
As she drove away, red Beetle disappearing into traffic, I stood for a moment and let myself watch until she was gone. Then I turned toward the building before me.
From the outside, the jazz club was unassuming—brick, low-lit signage, a place humans came to forget their week and lose themselves in sound. Inside, it was something else entirely.
The moment I stepped through the doors, music wrapped around me like velvet. Deep bass. A saxophone crying softly in the corner, its notes curling through low conversation and clinking glasses. The lighting was warm and dim, amber bulbs casting shadows that moved as much as the people did. Polished wood floors. A bar that smelled of citrus peel and aged spirits. Tables were tucked close together, intimacy built into the bones of the room.
Cassian liked places where time slowed. Where humans stopped watching the clock and where supernaturals could breathe.
He stood near the bar, impeccably dressed as always, one hand resting loosely on a glass he hadn’t yet touched. His presence bent the room subtly—people leaned toward him without knowing why, laughter rising a notch when he smiled.
“Silas,” he said calmly, as if we were meeting for drinks rather than war council. “You’re early.”
“I didn’t come for the music,” I replied.
A faint smile curved his mouth. “You never do.”
He gestured toward the back. “Come.”
We passed through a narrow corridor that looked like storage to anyone not paying attention. Cassian pressed his palm against the wall at a precise angle, murmured a word in an old tongue—and the space shifted. A door revealed itself where there had been none.
The room beyond was quiet and sacred. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, filled with leather-bound tomes, scroll cases, metal boxes etched with wards, and digital screens humming softly beside centuries old parchments. Candles burned alongside the modern lights. The air smelled of ink, dust, ozone, and magic layered so thick it hummed against my skin.
Cassian’s private library. A living archive of supernatural history—Accord drafts, bloodline records, failed treaties, experimental notes salvaged from places that no longer existed.
“This,” Cassian said, spreading his hands slightly, “is why I haven’t burned the place down to collect insurance.”
I allowed myself a thin smile.
“We need to find a solution for John and more like him if any..” I said without preamble.
Cassian’s expression sobered instantly. “He’s stable for now., but je is very unpredictable. We cannot let him out yet. He is one of a kind – a werewolf by birth and vampire by turning.”
“Can it be undone?”
Cassian moved toward a table already set with documents. He slid one toward me—drawings, annotations, chemical symbols intertwined with runes.
“Lucien’s work is… layered,” he said carefully. “The transformation is not purely vampiric. It’s grafted. Fused with Witch magic and fairy corruption, threaded through werewolf biology.”
My jaw tightened. “So, no cure.”
Cassian met my gaze. “Not yet.”
The words landed like iron.
“But,” he continued, “there may be mitigation. Blood stabilizers. Magic dampeners. Methods to suppress the feral response without killing the host.”
“And if he loses control?” I asked.
Cassian’s voice softened. “Then we subdue him. Without silver, fire or oak wood.”
I nodded slowly. “That is no way of living. He is a victim.”
“Yes,” Cassian agreed. “Which is what makes this war so dangerous.”
I studied the diagrams again, anger curling low in my chest. Lucien hadn’t just created monsters—he’d forced innocent wolf into becoming weapons against their own kind.
“How do we fight them?” I asked.
Cassian tapped a page. “Sound frequencies disrupt the hybrid neural response. High-pitched resonance. And your blood—royal blood—can suppress the vampiric hunger temporarily if introduced carefully.”
I stilled. “You want me on the front line.”
“You were always going to be,” Cassian said gently with a smile.
I straightened, resolve settling into place. “Yes, we will protect and restrain them. Then we will study them to find a permanent solution.”
“And if Lucien is watching?” Cassian asked quietly.
I looked up, eyes cold. “Then he’ll see exactly what happens when you turn my people into pawns.”
The library seemed to darken around us, ancient wards humming in agreement.
As Cassian turned toward the back corridor, I felt it—the familiar pull in my chest that had nothing to do with magic or duty. I took my phone out before I could overthink it.
Silas: Did you reach home safely, my Mogra?
Barely a minute passed before my screen lit up.
Mira: Yes, my King. I am safely in the pack house.
A pause. Then another message light up the screen.
Mira: Are you always this protective or am I getting special treatment?
The corner of my mouth lifted despite myself.
Silas: You are always special.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
Mira: Careful. Say things like that and I’ll start expecting good-morning texts too.
I exhaled softly, something warm loosening inside my chest.
Silas: That can be arranged.
Her reply came with a laughing emoji.
Mira: Don’t stay lost in the shadows too long, okay?
The teasing was light—but beneath it, I felt the care. The worry she hadn’t put into words.
Silas: I’ll come back to the light. I promise.
Mira: Good. Because I like you better there.
I stared at the screen for a moment longer than necessary.
For centuries, concern had been something I did not inspired in others— fear, obligation, caution yes. This was different. This was chosen.
I slipped the phone back into my coat just as Cassian glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifting knowingly.
“Sentimental,” he smirked.
“Grounded,” I corrected calmly.
And for the first time into a room full of ancient secrets and looming war, I did not feel alone.
Andreas joined me just after sunset, his presence announced by the familiar shift in the air—and by the fact that he immediately stole the chair I’d been using.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he said lightly. “I love watching you brood over ancient texts like a tragic philosopher.”
I didn’t look up. “If you’re here to be useless, at least be quiet.”
He grinned. “So hostile. You’ve definitely found nothing.” He wasn’t wrong.
Hours passed in Cassian’s library—scrolls, grimoires, encrypted files, half-burned journals recovered from places that no longer existed. We traced ritual after ritual, blood-binding after blood-binding. Nothing reversed the transformation, not cleanly or safely.
But we did find something else. “This,” Andreas said slowly, tapping a page written in a mix of Old Fae script and witch sigils, “is a stabilization magic.”
I leaned in. “Hybrid suppression?”
“Temporary. But repeatable.” He looked up. “But it requires balance—wolf blood, vampiric dominance, witchcraft and.. fairy charm.”
My jaw tightened.
“Which means,” Andreas continued, “a werewolf cannot be turned without fae and witch power woven together.”
I straightened. “Lucien either has a witch assisting him…”
“…or,” Andreas finished grimly, “the experiments done on him were far worse than we originally believed.”
The words settled like ash.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Contact the witches.”
“Already done,” Andreas said. “Sedona coven will fly tomorrow from Arizona. They are Neutral and Old bloodlines.”
“Send out our jet to pick them up. They are doing us a favour, this is the least we could do for them. Also, speak with Alpha Daniel and see if we can find accommodation for them in the pack grounds. I am sure they would appreciate to have their own space with some kitchen.”
Andreas nodded then got to arrange everything.
Suddenly in silence, it hit me. A pull – low and insistent. Like a need settling deep within my bones to go back to the pack house. Something was wrong or something wrong was going to happen.
“I need to go back to the pack house tonight,” I said suddenly.
Cassian blinked. “You what?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just—need to.”
Andreas and Cassian studied me carefully.
Then Andreas lips twitched. “Let me guess,” he said. “Is the need’s name Mira?”
“This is not just about Mira,” I said flatly.
Andreas leaned back, folding his arms. “Of course it isn’t. That’s why your aura just flared like a bonfire when you said ‘pack house.’”
I glared at him. “I have intuition.”
“You have a mate bond,” he corrected cheerfully. “And it’s screaming.”
Cassian snorted, then said seriously “You should not ignore your intuition. Your father also had intuitions that were correct 99% times.”
I nodded at him and grabbed my coat.
Andreas followed, still grinning. “You do realize you’re a five-hundred-year-old vampire king abandoning research to go loiter near your girlfriend’s bedroom?”
“She’s not my—” I stopped. Exhaled. “She’s my everything.”
“Adorable,” he said. “Truly. I’m framing this moment.”
As we walked out into the night, Andreas added, “For the record, if this turns out to be nothing, I will never let you forget it.”
“If it turns out to be something,” I replied evenly, “you’ll thank me.”
He shrugged. “Fair.”
We drove in companionable silence, the city slipping behind us, the forest welcoming us back. By the time we reached the pack house, it was just past 9:30 p.m.
The lights were on. Too many of them for my liking, Andreas noticed too. His teasing vanished instantly. “Silas…”
“I feel it,” I said quietly.
Whatever had tugged me back here hadn’t been imagination.
- Writer
