Chapter 3:
Rain battered the windshield like steel tears, distorting the grotesque gargoyles of the mansion. Their open mouths vomited rust-stained water, as if the house itself were bleeding.
Sanathiel stepped out of the car. His navy-blue suit stood in sharp contrast against the leaden sky. When his shoes struck the ground, the puddle reflected two figures: his own, and that of a wolf with amber eyes, its muzzle smeared with blood.The shadow flickered in the water. For an instant, he was no longer human.
—"Sir." The butler bowed, offering a silver-handled umbrella engraved with binding runes. "House Verona insisted you read this before your meeting with the Thirteen."
Sanathiel ignored the object. Cold raindrops slid down the crescent-shaped scar on his face, burning with a pain that was not only physical. A memory struck him with the same violence as that storm centuries ago.
The air had smelled of orange blossom and iron. Flowers and blood. Beauty and death entwined.Zaira had screamed his name while the Nevri pack closed in. Between the trees, silver eyes glimmered with restrained hunger.But that had not been an ambush.It had been a hunt. They had been waiting for him. Waiting for her.
Rain turned the ground into thick mud. Zaira slipped, her breath cut short by fear. Sanathiel could have caught her. He didn't.
Back in the present, his fingers tore open the green wax seal."Do you think their poison touches me?" he muttered.
Sulfurous smoke escaped the parchment, coiling into the air until it formed a face.Aisha.
She was identical to Zaira. Even the mole on her neck.But she was not her.Or… was fate mocking him, repeating that face to give him another chance?Or to damn him again?
Sanathiel staggered a step back, as if the smoke had struck his chest. The memory bled him dry. Zaira, her body covered in mud and wounds, black hair plastered to her forehead, her breath trembling.
"You will not die for me," she had said, those sky-colored eyes piercing him—"You will live for both of us. Even if you hate me for it."
And he did hate her.Not for what she had done.But because he had not had the courage to tell her he loved her before the fire consumed her.
Now fate placed another shadow of Zaira before him. A woman with the same courage. The same light. The same mark on her neck.
"What do you want from me, Moira?" he spat, eyes clouded. "To see if this time I have the strength to save her? Or to watch her burn as well?"
His claws raked the table's edge, splintering the wood.Because if Aisha died, it would be his fault.And if she lived… it would also be his fault.
In the library, blue curtains billowed like dancing specters. Candle flames trembled when Sanathiel let the parchment fall onto the ebony table.As the flame approached, the paper did not burn. Instead, verses in Latin coiled around his wrist like living serpents:
Sanguis Zaïrae ligat te ad aeternum.(The blood of Zaira binds you forever.)
"Sanathiel!" Mica burst in, his face tense, holding a pocket watch.
The ticking quickened, hammering against Sanathiel's skull like an execution drum.
"How many corpses will it take before you understand you are alone?"
The watch hit the table with a sharp crack.
"You still pretend to be a king among corpses," Mica whispered, his voice venomous. "But kings fall too. And your grave is already dug."
Sanathiel clenched his fist on the table. Wood groaned. The watch stopped, as if it too were holding its breath.
In the mirror behind Mica, his reflection was no longer human. Nails lengthened into claws, pupils burned like trapped amber fire.
"Did you come to preach?" he hissed, tracing a circle on the table with his own blood. "Or to confess how you sold my location to Falco?"
Mica's jaw tightened, still clutching the smoking fragments of the watch."Lionel… will have Aisha."
Sanathiel's heart—if he still possessed one—stilled.Not from fear.From fury.
"She will be given as a bride at dawn."
Silence fell like a slab of stone. Metal scorched his hand, but he did not release it.
"It is an edict of the Community of the Thirteen."
Mica raised his gaze, his voice caught between rage and despair."You cannot break it. No one can."
The candle guttered. The air thickened like poisoned molasses, heavy with the whispers of the dead. Sanathiel knew that stench: the same that always preceded massacres.
His fangs tore through his lip. Black blood dripped down his chin.
"Tell Lionel he weaves his shroud with threads of silver and lament," he roared, driving the shattered fragments of the watch into the table. "When he comes for her, I will remind him how his mother screamed as she died."
Mica gathered the pieces. Inside, a medallion bearing the mark of the Thirteen pulsed like a caged heart."When you fall," he muttered, "not even your curse will remember your name."
In the forest, a stained-glass window shattered.Falco watched from the darkness, a diary open in his hands. Ink bled across the page: Zaira's portrait twisting, her eyes turning golden.
In the distance, three howls tore through the night.Not wolves.The ones that howl when blood calls.