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1517 Words
The scent of gasoline clung to the wind like a plague—harsh, unnatural, crawling up through the moss and rot of the earth. It mixed with smoke, blood, and the wet iron tang of the coming storm. The trees held their breath, and even the moon above seemed to shrink back behind its veil of clouds.
Thorne stood at the edge of his hut, bare feet buried in the ash-covered soil where grass refused to grow. His eyes, dim but pulsing with that ancient gold beneath, scanned the tree line with all the patience of a predator stalking prey. Every muscle in his body was tight, wound like steel cable, his breath shallow and silent.
They were close.
Tires crunched gravel somewhere beyond the trees. Their engine hummed like a dying thing. Headlights sliced through the fog, beams flickering like the last light before a throat is cut. A car. Just one small vehicle, too slow for a raid. Too small for respect.
Humans...
The filth of the world.
They’d brought their noise again. Their fumes. Their pathetic hope. He could already smell the arrogance on them—the reek of cologne, caffeine, oil, and cold steel. Their scent was like acid on the skin. They always stank of fear and ego, because they never understood the old ways, only what they could hold, shoot, or burn.
They thought they were safe in their little machines.
They’d forgotten what real monsters looked like.
Thorne didn’t forget, he never forgot...
He remembered everything.
He remembered the burning of his first village, the smell of his mother’s flesh crackling as her wolf screamed and twisted beneath her skin. He remembered silver bullets embedded in the bones of his brothers. The screaming of his kind. The cages. The collars. The blood. The experiments.
He remembered the cities built on broken packs.
Humans called it progress. Wolves called it g******e.
And now they wanted his help?
His fingers twitched at his side, nails lengthening into blackened claws. It would take one word. Just one. His warriors, crouched in the darkness behind him, would descend like shadows with teeth. They wouldn’t stop until the engines died and the screaming started.
But not yet.
A rustle of movement. A whisper of breath.
Behind him, the warriors gathered—half-naked, scarred, painted in ash and blood. Some wore old armor. Others wore bone. None wore mercy. Their eyes were wild things—red-rimmed, slit-pupiled, restless. They weren’t men. Not anymore.
These were wolves who had lived too long without chains.
Too long outside the false civility of cities.
They had returned to the wild… and the wild had made them gods of death.
At the front stepped Daas, his bulk blocking the firelight behind him. The old warrior bore marks of a hundred battles, his long greying braids bound in rawhide, his body marked in runes and claw-scars. A necklace of teeth swung at his chest—some human, some not.
“Mgrra,” Daas rumbled. (Pack Master.)
Another movement—quick, submissive.
A younger wolf dropped to his knees at Daas’ side, still soaked in the sweat of his transformation. His eyes darted, his body trembling from the tail end of his Shift. Blood smeared his chin—he had fed, recently. Perhaps on game. Perhaps not.
He held something out in shaking hands. A letter. Creased. Stained. Ink already smudged with heat and fear.
Thorne didn’t move.
“Who touched this?” His voice was calm. Cold. Lethal. No title. No softness.
The pup flinched, swallowing hard. “A man. Said… said his name was Aaron. He said he was the girl’s father.”
The girl.
Thorne finally stepped forward. Each movement carried weight, like the world shifted beneath him. He took the letter, not with reverence, but disdain—like one might accept a gift wrapped in rot.
The paper crinkled beneath his claws.
He read in silence, eyes narrowing with each line. The fire behind him hissed as a log collapsed, throwing embers into the dark.
Thorne,
There is no time.
I believe my daughter is the one the old blood speaks of—the Fey Queen reborn.
She does not know what she is. She has not been prepared.
The signs have begun. The veil is thinning.
They will come for her.
I am begging you—protect her.
Help her awaken before they find her.
Only your kind can keep her alive.
Please.
—Aaron
Thorne scoffed, a sound like a blade catching on bone.
Of course, they came crawling.
They always did.
When it was convenient. When the High Elves turned their backs. When the human armies failed. When the Fae whispered through the trees and the veil cracked open, something old began to stir. Then, and only then, did they come—begging the wolf-king for help. Begging the savage. The warlord. The monster.
But never to honor the Old Ways. Never to fight beside the pack. Never to bleed.
He spat into the dirt, the sound sharp against the quiet.
“They claim the girl’s the Queen,” he said aloud.
Daas grunted. “They always do.”
And that was the truth.
This wasn’t the first time someone had crawled to their border claiming to hold the key to the prophecy. Thorne had lost count of how many had tried—daughters of seers, cursed priestesses, golden-haired daughters of dying bloodlines. All liars. All desperate.
Each one had claimed to be the Fey Queen.
Each one had failed.
Some went mad from the shift. Others died in the blood rites. A few simply vanished into the woods, never to be seen again—swallowed whole by the power they could not command.
And each time, Thorne had hoped.
Each time, he had believed.
He had gone soft once. Opened his soul. Read the stars. Trusted the signs.
And each time, the hope had turned to rot.
He folded the letter slowly, his claws slicing through the paper.
“I’ve been made a fool too many times,” he said coldly. “They think naming her ‘Queen’ will stir something in me. That prophecy will bind me again.”
Daas didn’t speak. He knew better.
But Thorne could feel the weight of the past, pressing against his ribs. The words of the old shamaness burned in his skull, etched like iron on bone.
When moonlight weeps and blood is crowned,
The Queen once lost shall rise, unbound.
From war-torn ash her mate shall wake,
A beast reborn for kingdom’s sake.
That part always stayed.
The mate.
The Queen.
And him—the war-born, death-marked, the cursed son of a ruined bloodline.
“She’s mine,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Daas looked up slowly. “You believe it?”
“I don’t want to,” Thorne said. “But my beast…” He touched the center of his chest, where the scarred rune of the Moon lay over his heart, raw and blackened. “My beast stirs.”
Silence fell between them like a sword.
Thorne turned from the trees and strode back into the den, past the fire pits, past the rusted cages, past the trophies nailed to the wall—fangs, antlers, skulls of things not meant to live. The interior of the den was carved into the mountainside, winding chambers filled with smoke and flickering runes. Animal hides covered the floor. Bones hung from the ceiling like chimes, whispering to the wind.
His room sat at the back of the cave—walls blackened with old blood, a fire roaring in a pit carved from obsidian. Maps lined one wall, stained with blood and ash. The other was marked with names—etched in claw, each one crossed out.
Past queens. Past mistakes.
Thorne stood there for a long moment, staring at the wall of names.
Then he whispered, “If this girl is like the rest, I’ll kill her myself.”
Footsteps approached from behind. Daas.
“What if she’s not?” the warrior asked.
Thorne closed his eyes. Images rose unbidden—flashes of fire, the sound of a girl’s scream, a forest shaking beneath moonlight. A scent he couldn’t name, but couldn’t forget.
“If she’s not,” Thorne said, opening his eyes to the firelight, “then they’ve just delivered my mate.”
He turned, cloak flaring like smoke around him. The firelight danced along his back, revealing the scars carved into his flesh—ancient runes, names of the fallen, curses in the old tongue.
Each one a memory.
Each one a promise.
“Bgraga Daas,” he said darkly. (Bring her.)
Daas nodded once and vanished into the fog. The other warriors followed, howling low as they descended toward the road.
And Thorne stood alone in the silence of his den, blood humming beneath his skin.
War was coming.
The High Elves would come. The humans would lie. The girl would scream.
But if she was truly his…
Then the Queen belonged to the Beast.
And he would burn the world for her.
- Writer
