I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
Patréon.com/emperordragon
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Chapter 145: The Quiet Before
The first light of dawn crept slowly over the horizon, brushing the treetops of Beacon Hills with a pale gold glow. From the balcony of the Lockwood estate, Lucas stood motionless, hands resting on the cold iron railing, eyes fixed on the sprawling forest below. The air was heavy with dew, each leaf glistening faintly beneath the weak morning light. Mist drifted between the trunks like a living thing, coiling around the undergrowth, swallowing the forest's secrets whole. Every sound seemed softened—muted beneath the hush that followed a storm.
It was quiet now.
Lucas drew in a slow breath, letting the cool air fill his lungs. The faint scent of rain lingered—wet soil, pine, and the faint metallic trace of blood long washed away. The storm had passed, for now. But he knew better than to mistake silence for safety.
Edward's attack had been sudden, fast, and desperate—more fury than strategy. Yet despite the chaos, it had been contained. The hunters had to retreat, forced to regroup, and tend to their wounded. They'd need time to recover, time to whisper among themselves about what had gone wrong and how close they'd come to another bloodbath.
And Chris Argent—ever the pragmatist beneath his stubborn exterior—would seize this pause, however brief, to pull his fractured people back together. He'd have to. The balance that kept Beacon Hills from tearing itself apart was too fragile to risk another misstep.
Lucas exhaled softly, his voice barely above a whisper.
"A ceasefire, however temporary, is still peace."
The words hung in the air, fragile as glass.
Behind him, the mansion was still. The echo of violence had faded, replaced by the low hum of the house settling in the chill dawn. Malia slept down the hall, her body already knitting itself back together, the scent of healing herbs faint in the air. Isaac had gone home, limping slightly, his injuries that would fade by morning. Erica had texted him before midnight—a simple good night, plain and unassuming, yet somehow it lingered in his mind far longer than it should have.
He told himself things were stable for now. The pieces were finally falling into place.
Deaton was still at his lab, methodical as ever, analyzing the remains of the parasite. Once he proved that creature had been the true cause behind the killings, the Argents and their hunters would have no reason to continue this needless conflict. The stupid feud could finally end.
It all sounded perfect. Too perfect.
Because beneath the fragile veneer of calm, something shifted—subtle but unmistakable. A tremor beneath still waters. A whisper of dread that stirred deep in Lucas's chest, nameless and unrelenting.
He frowned, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes scanning the treeline as though expecting the forest to move. His instincts weren't pointing to anything tangible—no scent of danger, no hint of movement. Just that steady pulse of unease. The kind that came before everything fell apart.
He tried to breathe it away. To convince himself he was imagining it. But the feeling clung to him, stubborn and cold, like the mist curling around his feet.
Across town, the morning had yet to find Darren's apartment. The curtains were drawn tight, sealing the room in artificial night. A single desk lamp burned weakly, casting an amber halo across a cluttered desk strewn with notes, photos, and tangled cables.
Tony sat there, motionless. Darren's reflection stared back at him from the dark screen of the computer—same eyes, same shape of the jaw—but the stillness in that reflection was wrong. Too deliberate. Too controlled.
He had been watching the screen for hours. Studying. Learning.
He knew Erica's routine by heart now: the way she dragged her feet across the school parking lot, earbuds in, head tilted slightly as if half-listening to the world and half-lost in thought. The small café she always stopped by on her way home, where she'd order the same drink without ever needing to say it aloud. The friends she greeted with a smile she didn't quite mean.
He even knew the expression she wore when she texted someone she cared about—how her smile softened just enough to give her away.
That someone was Lucas.
And that knowledge—it was power.
Tony leaned back in the chair, the faint creak of wood echoing in the silence. His eyes, cold and calculating, glittered with something darker beneath. Lucas. The anomaly. The power that shouldn't exist in any werewolf—a perfect vessel, strong, pure, untouched by the corruption that had consumed the others before him.
Just the thought of it stirred something hungry inside Tony, something that didn't belong entirely to the man he wore like a disguise. But he was patient. He'd learned his lesson. Power taken too early slipped through the fingers like smoke. This time, he would wait. He would strike where Lucas was weakest.
He turned on the monitor. The screen flared to life, washing his face in a ghostly glow. A slideshow of images appeared—each one of Erica. At the café. At the library. Walking through sunlight, laughing, unaware.
Tony's lips curled into a faint, chilling smile.
"You'll do nicely," he murmured.
Back at the Lockwood estate, the morning had fully broken, though the light seemed muted, reluctant. Lucas sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, staring blankly at the floor. The house around him breathed softly—timbers creaking, wind whispering through old vents.
He told himself the heaviness in his chest was just fatigue, that the unease clawing at the edges of his thoughts was a phantom echo of the night's chaos. But deep within him, beneath muscle and bone and blood, something older stirred—a primal instinct that whispered in a language older than words.
This wasn't over.
Something unseen was still moving in the dark.
And as the quiet stretched on, heavy and unbroken, Lucas realized that the silence he'd longed for—the stillness he thought meant peace—wasn't safety at all.
It was warning.
The quiet was the most dangerous part.