The misery did not end with dinner. They were escorted to a smaller adjoining chamber for drinks, a room so oppressively formal it felt more like an interrogation than hospitality. Meredith talked. Velora smiled her brittle smile.
Ashbane generals also joined the conversation.
Riven launched straight into boasting about troop numbers so inflated they required their own hot air supply.
Jax stared into his cup like he was contemplating the blissful serenity of drowning in it.
Fin stood beside him, posture impeccable, expression composed, the picture of diplomacy fighting for its life.
Both he and Jax remained painfully polite.
Shadowclaw dignity held.
If only barely.
Jax mindlinked, the words a groan in Fin's skull.
Jax: If he inflates those numbers any higher, they'll float away.
Fin: Let them. With luck, he goes with them.
And that's when he caught it again. A flicker. A wisp. Gone before he could place it.
Fin had been half-listening to the talk of border raids and weak supply lines, when something slid between the scents of sweat, blood, and smoke: vanilla and the forest after rain.
He turned slightly, eyes scanning the room, but saw nothing out of place. Just nobles in gold-threaded robes, guards too young to have scars, and Meredith Ashbane pretending not to stare at him from across the room.
After enduring far more conversation than any sane wolf should tolerate, Fin rose with a stiffness that was entirely dignity and not at all desperation. A guard stepped forward to escort him back to his temporary chambers. Jax right behind him.
The corridor was colder than the hall, a long spine of stone and shadows. They walked in silence… until it struck him.
That scent.
Vanilla and moonlight. Soft, aching sweetness. Sharp enough to slice straight through him.
His entire body went rigid.
Every muscle pulled taut, like a bowstring drawn too far.
Every instinct surged awake at once.
His wolf lunged forward so violently the world tilted, a snarl of recognition ripping through Fin's mind loud enough to rattle him.
This time he knew he had not imagined it. He inhaled once. Again—gods—more.
He needed more of it.
Wanted it with a hunger that made no sense and too much sense all at once.
Fin stopped so abruptly the guard ahead nearly walked straight into his back. The man caught himself with a startled grunt, but Fin didn't even register him.
Jax halted beside him, eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring once—twice. His posture changed instantly. His wolf rose under his skin like a tide, restless, prowling, teeth bared at something neither of them could see.
Jax turned his head slowly toward Fin, studying him with the intensity of a man confirming a shared hallucination.
"Do you smell that too?" he asked, voice low. He sounded relief-stricken and mildly deranged, as though he'd been waiting hours for someone to confirm the castle wasn't gaslighting him.
Fin exhaled a single word. "Yes."
It landed like truth and confession at once.
A slow breath, barely controlled, left him. "Thank the gods. For a moment I thought I was losing my mind alone."
Jax let out a shaky laugh, not entirely sane. "Right. Wonderful. Shared madness is much more comforting."
Fin didn't answer. He inhaled again instead—sharp, hungry, involuntary.
And the scent hit him deeper.
Vanilla. Moonlight.
A sweetness that wrapped around his ribs and pulled.
They stood in the corridor for a long, brittle moment, the cold air unmoving around them. The echo of that sweetness still teased the back of Fin's throat—vanilla, moonlight, something older than instinct and far too intoxicating to ignore.
And then it was gone.
Snuffed out as quickly as it had struck them.
His wolf let out a low, furious growl that vibrated through his ribs.
Xeon: Find it.
But there was nothing left to follow.
Only stone. Cold air.
And a hunger he did not have a name for yet.
Fin forced his legs to move, each step an act of will rather than choice. Jax followed beside him, unusually quiet, the tension in both their bodies drawn tight as wire.
The scent was gone.
But the ache it left behind lingered—quiet, corrosive, curling deep into his chest. A pull he did not understand.
A hunger he did not yet have a name for.
And gods help him… it already felt familiar.
_________________________________________________________________________
That night, he dreamed of a goddess standing in a silent field.
Her hair was the color of moonlight: blonde, almost white, glowing with a silver shimmer. It curled down past her waist in thick loose curls. Her skin was light-olive and it also glowed softly beneath the bleeding moon above them. Her green eyes lifted to his. A gaze that was striking.
She was beautiful. But she was sad.
A single tear slid down her cheek. She looked at him with confusion, with fear, with a kind of wounded innocence that punched straight through his ribs.
Fin tried to speak to her, to ask what was wrong. His mouth moved—but no sound left him.
Only then did he realize he was not a man in this dream. He was in wolf form.
His paws moved forward, drawn to her, desperate to reach her before anything else could.
"Who are you?" she whispered. Her voice trembled, raw with a sadness that shattered something inside him.
His heart lurched. His wolf snarled with panic.
He tried to shift to human form. Commanded his body to move, to rise, to change. Nothing happened.
His paws dug into the cold ground, scraping forward in desperation.
And then he saw them.
Tendrils of shadow creeping across the field.
Dark smoke swelling around her ankles.
Thickening. Coiling. Reaching.
They wrapped around her wrists.
Heavy. Wrong.
A poison made of darkness itself.
Her breath hitched. The shadows tightened. They wrapped around her wrists. Heavy. Wrong
She let out a high-pitched scream of agony.
He tried to touch her, to shield her, to tear whatever threatened her apart with his teeth if he had to. His heart pounded so violently it felt as though it might break free of his ribs. Something was happening to her. Something was terribly, impossibly wrong.
He felt it in his bones.
But when he lunged forward, something stopped him.
A wall of darkness surged up around them—alive, roaring, swallowing the field in a heartbeat. Its force slammed against him like a storm. His claws gouged the earth as he fought it, but the shadow would not let him reach her.
Her scream cut off.
His wolf—black as midnight—blazed suddenly gold, light erupting beneath his fur like fire desperate to find her. It poured from him, furious, searching, refusing the dark's claim.
Everything went black.
Fin jolted awake, sitting up in the bed. He was breathing hard and sweat soaked his bare chest. His heart would not stop pounding.
"Just a dream." he whispered aloud to himself, dragging a hand down his face. This place was making him lose his mind clearly.
The room was still, but his heart was not. His wolf's voice spoke in his mind, ragged and anxious.
Xeon: Find her.
He tossed and turned for ten minutes, but the feeling gnawed at him—something was wrong. Terribly, impossibly wrong. The unease pressed against his ribs until he couldn't bear lying still another second.
Finric dragged a hand down his face. This dream didn't feel like a dream at all.
Xeon: You always have a choice. The trick is figuring out the right one.
There was no choice. He would find her.
He rose abruptly, pulling on his boots. His body moved before his mind caught up, carrying him to the door. No shirt. Just loose pants and boots. Instinct didn't care about dignity.
Out the door.
Down the stone hall.
Past silent guards who knew better than to question an Alpha on the hunt.
Fin moved with purpose, each step confident, almost rehearsed, though he had no idea where he was going. His mind didn't know the path, but his body did.
Then it hit him.
That scent again—vanilla, moonlight, something sweet and ancient curling through the air like a summons.
He inhaled sharply and followed without hesitation. The deeper he walked, the stronger it grew. His heart pounded, hard and urgent, like his chest could barely contain it.
He turned a corner—and stopped dead.
A narrow spiral staircase rose before him, winding upward into one of Ashbane's towers. Old stone. Cold air. A place meant to be forgotten, not used.
The scent slammed into him then, full force. Vanilla. Moonlight. Sweetness threaded with something ancient. It was real. It was up there.
Fin moved, swift and decisive, the urgency clawing through him. Every instinct screamed that if he delayed even a breath, something terrible would happen—something he could not explain.
Moonlight spilled through a high window as he climbed, illuminating the curve of the stairs in pale silver. Doors lined the tower at intervals, but he barely spared them a glance. The scent wasn't coming from any of those. It pulled him higher, demanding, insistent.
His wolf paced behind his ribs, restless, breathless, wild.
Fin's hand closed around the final door handle.
Locked.
Xeon: Kick it down.
Fin did not need the command. The instinct was already there, burning through him. He braced and drove his boot into the wood with Alpha force. The frame groaned but held.
Not enough.
He slammed his shoulder into it next, the impact jarring bone, but he didn't care. He hit it again—harder. The rusted lock screamed, cracked, and finally tore loose.
The door flew inward.