What Hunts the Blood
1107 Words
Chapter Five: What Hunts the Blood
Eva’s POV
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I stood frozen in the doorway.
My sister, Rowan looked like she’d run through hell to get here—barefoot, shivering, streaked in mud and panic. The last time I saw her, we were screaming at each other in a hospital parking lot. Now, she was here… in this world.
“How did you find me?” I asked, barely able to breathe.
She stumbled forward and clutched my arms like I was her anchor in a storm. “There’s no time, Eva. You need to come home.”
“What do you mean—Mom’s missing?”
Rowan’s voice cracked. “Gone. Disappeared last night. No signs. No note. Just… vanished.”
Kael was already at my side, tense, guarded. His presence filled the room with a kind of fierce energy. Protective. Territorial.
“Who else knows?” he asked.
“Everyone,” Rowan snapped. “The cops. Neighbors. Aunt Lila. They’re searching, but—” She broke off, looking at me. “They think it’s because of you.”
The room tilted slightly.
“Because of me?” My voice was hoarse.
Rowan nodded. “They found her bedroom torn apart. Scratches on the walls. Symbols—weird ones. Stuff you used to draw in your journals when you thought no one was watching.”
My legs gave out. I sank into the nearest chair.
Kael moved quickly, grabbing a blanket and draping it over Rowan’s shoulders. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“I had to come,” Rowan said through clenched teeth. “Because she left something behind. A message. Just two words. Written in blood.”
I flinched. “What words?”
Rowan looked between us. Her lips trembled as she spoke.
“*He’s awake.*”
---
I couldn’t breathe.
The fire crackled in the hearth, but the heat didn’t reach me. The lodge felt too small. Too quiet. Too full of secrets.
Kael swore under his breath and turned away, running both hands through his hair. “It’s too soon.”
“What’s too soon?” I snapped. “You keep saying I’m part of something—what, Kael? What the hell is happening to me? To my family?”
He faced me, eyes stormy. “I thought we had time. I was wrong.”
“You think he took her?”
Kael didn’t answer right away. Then—
“I think someone’s trying to draw you out. And using your mother to do it.”
The ground felt unsteady beneath me.
“I have to go,” I said. “I have to.”
Kael was beside me in a blink. “If you walk back into the human world without understanding what’s hunting you, you’ll be walking into a trap.”
My voice cracked. “It’s my mother, Kael.”
“I know. And we’ll find her. But going in blind will only get you both killed.”
“Then tell me what I need to know.” I was shaking. “No more riddles. No more warnings. Tell me what’s waking up.”
Rowan looked between us, confused and terrified. “Eva, what is this place? Who is he? Why do I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a nightmare?”
Kael’s voice was low, grim. “Because you are.”
---
We left Rowan in the safe room beneath the lodge, protected by Kael’s wards. She was reluctant—furious, even—but eventually gave in after I swore I’d come back.
Kael and I walked deep into the woods. Past the clearing. Past the boundary stones carved with symbols that hummed when I passed. The same ones Rowan said were in Mom’s room.
“I didn’t know she’d ever seen my sketches,” I murmured.
“She didn’t,” Kael said. “But the marks in your blood are ancient. They speak through you when you’re not looking.”
“What am I?” I whispered.
Kael stopped in front of a stone circle half-buried in moss. The air felt thicker here. More ancient. Alive.
“You’re descended from something old. Something forgotten by your world—but feared in mine.”
I stared at the stones. They pulsed faintly beneath the surface, like a heartbeat.
Kael looked at me with a strange kind of reverence. “We thought they were extinct. The bloodlines. But then I met you. And everything changed.”
“What am I?”
“You’re not just bonded to me,” he said softly. “You were born for this.”
“For what, Kael?”
He turned, his silver eyes dark and shining. “To wake the Hollow King.”
---
I stumbled back. “What the hell does that mean?”
Kael caught me. “The Hollow King was sealed centuries ago. Not killed but sealed. His power was too great. And the only ones who could channel him were women of a specific lineage. Carriers of old magic. Like you.”
“You think I’m supposed to set him free?”
“I think your mother disappeared because someone thinks you already have.”
My skin crawled. “But I haven’t. I don’t even know how.”
“That’s not stopping them it’s Elira and the ones she serves. They want the Hollow King freed—and controlled.”
I pressed my palms to my eyes. “This is insane.”
“I know.” His voice gentled. “But it’s real. And you’re the thread holding all of it together.”
“I’m just a girl who got dragged into a bond she didn’t ask for.”
“No,” Kael said. “You’re the reason the bond exists. I didn’t choose you by accident. The bond was the world’s way of pulling us into position before everything broke.”
I swallowed hard. “Then what do we do?”
Before he could answer, the air around us shifted. Cold. Still. Wrong.
Kael’s head snapped up. “Stay behind me.”
Shadows thickened between the trees. And then—
A scream.
Not an animal.
Rowan.
Kael bolted. I was right behind him.
We crashed back into the lodge, hearts racing.
The safe room was open.
Rowan was gone.
But she left something behind—
On the floor.
A small charm.
Wooden. Carved.
Marked with the same symbol that had appeared on my arms the night Kael touched me.
I knelt, picking it up with trembling fingers.
And on the wall, written in what looked too much like blood—
“She bleeds the key.”
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- Writer
