Episode 10
1599 Words
I didn’t plan the question.
It rose the way truth always seemed to now, quiet, steady, already formed before doubt could catch it.
“Can I meet your family?”
Adrien stopped walking.
Not abruptly. Not like someone startled. Like someone who had just heard a bell only he could hear.
“My family,” he repeated softly.
“Yes,” I said. “Not the court. Not the titles. The ones who made you… you.”
For a moment, the house grew very still.
Adrien didn’t look at the walls or the door at the end of the hall. His gaze turned inward instead, his breathing slowing, presence widening in a way I had felt before, only this time, it reached farther.
“You’re asking something sacred,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I replied. “And I’m okay if the answer is no.”
That mattered.
I felt it the moment he opened himself, not with ritual, not with force, but with trust.
The air shifted, subtle as a tide changing direction.
He didn’t speak aloud, but I heard him anyway, not words exactly, more like intention shaped into meaning.
I’m not alone, his presence carried outward.
I wish to bring her home. I ask permission.
The house hummed low, resonant, as if holding the channel steady.
Then, response.
Not a single voice.
Many.
Warmth brushed the edges of my awareness. Curiosity. Recognition. A ripple of quiet amusement.
She carries balance, came one presence, cool and steady as moonlight.
And choice, another answered, deep and grounding, like earth after rain.
No hunger, a third added, dry and amused.
No fear, said another, softer.
The warmth beneath the heart-shaped mark on my cheek stirred gently, not alarm, not warning.
Welcome.
Adrien’s shoulders eased.
“They’ve said yes,” he murmured aloud, his voice softer now. “All of them.”
“And that means…?” I asked.
His mouth curved with affection. “It calls them home.”
Only then did he move.
He led me to the narrow corridor and the carved door at the end, the one etched with symbols of passage and belonging. This time, when he reached for the handle, he didn’t hesitate.
He remembered.
When the door opened, we didn’t step into a corridor or a portal.
We stepped out.
Sunlight filtered through towering trees, warm and dappled, their leaves shimmering between green and silver. Stone rose around us, not cold or imposing, but ancient and lived-in. A castle, yes, but one grown into the land rather than imposed upon it.
Adrien exhaled.
“Home,” he said.
Footsteps approached, not rushing, not alarmed.
Responding.
A tall man emerged first, dark-haired, eyes deep and luminous like still water under moonlight. His gaze flicked from Adrien to me, and he smiled immediately.
“So,” he said lightly, “that was you on the mind-call.”
Adrien inclined his head. “You answered quickly.”
Lucien’s gaze warmed. “Of course we did.”
More presences gathered, not summoned, not ordered, but drawn. Each arrival felt like a choice reaffirmed.
A broad-shouldered man followed, wiping his hands as if he’d been interrupted mid-preparation.
Another leaned against a column, his shadow moving a half-step behind him.
Others filtered in—wolves, walkers, watchers, each different, each calm.
“This is Lucien,” Adrien said quietly. “My brother.”
Lucien smiled at me. “Vampire,” he added conversationally. “Though not the sort you’re thinking.”
I blinked. “You don’t…?”
“Drink blood?” He waved a hand dismissively. “Only the perverse prefer that.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
“We feed on energy,” Lucien continued. “Resonance. Emotion freely given. Blood was a corruption, fear does terrible things to stories.”
The healer stepped forward then, eyes kind, presence grounding.
“Herbs. Food. Touch,” he said simply. “What later centuries called witchcraft.”
“And burned,” Lucien added mildly.
The warmth in the hall dimmed, not with grief, but memory.
“There was a century,” the healer said quietly, “when they gathered us. Burned our libraries. Made nourishment suspect. Turned healing into heresy.”
“And so,” Adrien said, “our bloodlines went quiet.”
“Dormant,” Lucien corrected. “Not gone.”
I felt Adrien’s hand tighten around mine.
“And the wolves?” I asked softly.
Lucien smiled. “Ancient. Older than the word.”
“Our great-great-grandfather’s line,” Adrien said. “Guardians. Threshold keepers. The ones who stayed visible long enough to be hunted.”
“And you?” I asked him. “What are you here?”
Adrien looked around the hall, at stone and forest, at his family gathered not by command but by consent.
“I am the one who remembers how to step forward again,” he said.
Lucien’s gaze flicked to my cheek.
The heart-shaped mark warmed.
“Oh,” he said softly. “So that’s how the line wakes.”
The healer smiled at me like someone seeing hope return to a long-quiet room.
“Welcome,” he said simply. “You’re safe here.”
And I realized then—
This wasn’t a pack.
It was the heart of the truest lineage, the true, pure love of a family that had chosen one another across centuries, across fear, across fire and forgetting. Not bound by species or blood alone, but by care, consent, and the quiet decision to endure together.
A lineage that survived not through dominance, but through devotion.
And I hadn’t been brought here as an answer.
I had been brought here as a continuation.
Dinner was not formal.
Which surprised me, considering the castle, the lineage, and the centuries of quiet power humming through the stone.
The long table was set simply, linen, candles, plates that felt handmade and familiar. Food appeared in a way that suggested cooperation rather than command. Someone passed bread still warm from the oven. Someone else poured wine with an absentminded ease that spoke of repetition, not ceremony.
“This smells incredible,” I said, taking my seat.
The healer smiled. “Food remembers love better than magic ever has.”
Lucien snorted. “That’s because magic gets ideas.”
Adrien took the seat beside me, close enough that our knees brushed under the table.
Conversation flowed easily.
Stories emerged the way they always do in families, not announced, not ordered, just remembered.
“You should tell her about the winter you tried to lead without us,” Lucien said, sipping his wine.
Adrien groaned softly. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, yes,” the healer said cheerfully. “You were so serious. So convinced you could hold everything alone.”
“And then,” Lucien added, eyes gleaming, “he collapsed for three days.”
I covered my mouth, laughing. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Adrien leaned closer. “I was very young.”
“You were two hundred,” Lucien said.
“I was young,” Adrien insisted.
The woman with starlit eyes smiled at me across the table. “He forgets that leadership is not endurance. It’s return.”
I felt that settle somewhere deep in my chest.
The conversation shifted, stories of old forests, of times when healing herbs were traded quietly across borders, of centuries when they hid in plain sight as bakers, apothecaries, innkeepers. Of how the burning century didn’t erase them, only scattered them long enough to survive.
“And now,” the healer said, raising his glass slightly toward me, “the line remembers how to gather again.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I smiled and accepted the warmth for what it was.
Later, as candles burned low and laughter softened into contented quiet, Adrien stood.
“We’ll stay tonight,” he said simply.
No one questioned it.
Lucien smiled knowingly. “Rooms are prepared.”
I followed Adrien down a quieter corridor, our footsteps muffled by thick rugs. He opened a door near the inner wing.
Inside was a suite that felt less like a bedroom and more like a refuge.
A sitting room with a low fire already lit. Two separate bedrooms branching off from it, each with heavy curtains and deep beds. A shared bathroom between them, tiled in pale stone that caught the light like moonwater.
“It’s like a very fancy hotel,” I said softly.
Adrien smiled. “That was Lucien’s influence.”
“I like it,” I added quickly.
He laughed quietly, the sound warm and unguarded.
“You’ll take the room on the left,” he said. “If you’re comfortable.”
“I am,” I replied.
We stood there for a moment, the day settling into stillness around us. The mark beneath my cheekbone warmed faintly, not demanding, just present.
“Thank you,” I said. “For bringing me here.”
Adrien’s gaze softened. “Thank you for asking.”
He paused, then added gently, “If you need anything tonight—”
“I know,” I said. “You’re right there.”
His mouth curved with affection.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
We parted at the doorway between the rooms.
As I lay in the quiet, listening to the distant murmur of the castle settling into night, I realized something with calm certainty.
This wasn’t just where Adrien came from.
It was where love had been kept.
And tonight, I was allowed to rest inside it.
- Writer
