The Hunter's Mark
1141 Words
The rain drummed softly against the windows of Aeryn’s apartment, a rhythmic whisper that filled the silence with the night. The city beyond her glass panes was alive, neon lights flickering like distant stars, but inside, Aeryn was lost in the storm of her own thoughts.
Kieran Veymoor’s words haunted her.
“You can’t just walk into my world and expect to walk out unchanged.”
She wanted to dismiss it as arrogance, as the cryptic musings of a man too used to wielding power. But the way he had said it, the way his voice had darkened, the way the air had almost seemed to hum around him made her uneasy.
She had investigated dangerous men before. Corrupt politicians. Ruthless crime bosses. But Kieran wasn’t like them. He wasn’t just a man.
And that terrified her.
Aeryn exhaled sharply, pushing back from her desk where her research was sprawled out in organized chaos. Newspaper clippings. Old family records. A grainy, decades-old photograph of a man who looked eerily like Kieran, dated over a century ago.
It’s just a resemblance," she told herself, but the nagging doubt remained.
She needed answers, and she wasn’t going to find them by staring at old papers.
Grabbing her coat, she secured her knife in the hidden sheath at her thigh. She didn’t know what she was walking into, but she’d learned long ago never to enter the unknown unarmed.
Tonight, she was going back to the Veymoor estate.
The Veymoor estate was eerily silent when Aeryn slipped past the outer gates, keeping to the shadows. She had studied the security patterns earlier that day two guards patrolling the east and west wings, a long gap between their rounds.
Perfect.
Her heart pounded as she moved toward the mansion, sticking close to the wall. The moon was barely visible behind thick storm clouds, casting the world in deep grays and blacks. Every step was calculated, her breath shallow.
She reached the side entrance she had scoped out earlier, a door partially concealed by ivy, one that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.
She pressed against the wooden frame and pushed.
It creaked slightly before giving way.
Slipping inside, she found herself in a dimly lit corridor. The air was thick with age, dust swirling in the faint light of a distant chandelier. The smell of old books and something else something almost metallic, filled her nose.
She didn’t have a plan beyond that. She just knew she had to keep moving.
She padded forward, her fingers ghosting over the stone walls as she navigated the unfamiliar space. Every inch of her was on high alert. She was a hunter in a den of wolves, and one wrong step could mean the difference between discovery and survival.
Then she heard it.
A whisper.
Aeryn froze, her pulse hammering in her throat.
It came again, just barely audible, like a breeze slipping through the cracks of a door.
But this wasn’t the wind.
It was a voice.
She followed the sound, moving deeper into the mansion. The whispering grew stronger, forming words she couldn’t quite decipher, weaving through the darkness like silk.
And then she saw it.
A large wooden door stood slightly ajar at the end of the hallway, a sliver of warm candlelight spilling from within.
Aeryn inched closer, her breath held tight in her lungs. She peered through the gap.
Kieran was inside.
His back was to her, his broad shoulders tense beneath his shirt. He stood in front of an ornate mirror, its surface shifting like rippling water.
Aeryn’s breath hitched.
The reflection staring back at Kieran wasn’t his own.
It was something else.
A figure with glowing silver eyes.
Aeryn clamped a hand over her mouth.
This isn’t possible.
Kieran lifted his head slightly. "I know you're there."
Aeryn’s blood turned to ice.
She barely had time to react before Kieran moved.
In a blur, he was at the door, slamming it open. Aeryn stumbled backward, reaching for her knife, but before she could unsheathe it, he was on her gripping her wrist, pressing her back against the cold stone wall.
"You really don’t listen, do you?" Kieran murmured, his voice dangerously low.
Aeryn struggled, but his grip was unyielding, his strength unnatural.
"What the hell are you?" she hissed.
Kieran didn’t answer. Instead, he studied her his gaze burning into hers, searching for something.
And then, his grip loosened.
"You shouldn’t have come here."
Aeryn’s breath came fast, her mind racing. She should have been afraid. But she wasn’t.
She was angry.
"What were you talking to in that mirror?" she demanded.
Kieran’s jaw clenched. "You’re playing with fire, Aeryn."
"Then burn me."
His lips curled into a humorless smirk. "You don’t understand what you’re asking."
"Then make me understand."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, in a swift motion, Kieran pulled her away from the wall and started leading her down the corridor.
Aeryn resisted. "Where are you taking me?"
"You wanted the truth."
His grip tightened slightly.
"Let’s see if you can handle it."
The hallway twisted deeper into the heart of the estate, descending a stone staircase Aeryn hadn’t noticed before. The air grew colder, laced with something ancient, something alive.
Aeryn’s instincts screamed at her to turn back, but she had come too far.
At the bottom of the stairs, Kieran stopped before a massive iron door.
With a single touch, it groaned open.
Aeryn stepped inside.
The chamber was vast, lined with bookshelves stretching high into the darkness above. Strange symbols were etched into the stone floor, glowing faintly.
And at the center, a large wooden table was covered in old documents, maps, and sketches of creatures with glowing eyes, elongated fangs some resembling wolves, others… not.
Aeryn’s stomach tightened.
This wasn’t just a hidden study.
It was a war room.
She turned to Kieran. "What is this?"
Kieran exhaled, crossing his arms. "A history lesson."
Aeryn frowned. "History of what?"
Kieran looked at her, his silver eyes glinting.
"My kind."
Aeryn’s heart pounded. She stepped closer to the table, her eyes scanning the pages.
There were mentions of bloodlines, of a war long forgotten, of creatures that lived in the shadows, hidden among humans. And then, she saw her own name. Her blood ran cold.
"What the? " She grabbed the document, her hands shaking. It was an old record. A family tree.
Her name was scrawled at the bottom, connected to a lineage she didn’t recognize.
Her voice was barely a whisper. "What is this?" Kieran watched her carefully. "Your birthright."
Aeryn’s fingers tightened around the paper. "What does that mean?"
Kieran stepped closer. "It means you were never just a hunter, Aeryn." His voice dropped to a near growl. "You were meant to be one of us."
- Writer
