The morning light in the study was too bright. It was a sterile, unforgiving white that cut across the polished mahogany of Stephen's desk, illuminating dust motes that danced like fragments of a shattered world. To anyone else, it was a quiet morning in the valley. To Stephen, it was a countdown.
Alina sat at the smaller desk near the bay window, her profile etched in gold. She was focused, her fingers moving with a rhythmic, soft click against the keyboard as she organized the territory files he had dumped on her desk that morning. She worked with a stillness that was unnatural, a focused calm that seemed to act as a vacuum, sucking the frantic energy out of the room.
Stephen watched her from over the top of his monitor, his eyes hooded. He wasn't reading the reports on his screen. He was listening to the silence she radiated. It was a physical sensation, a cool balm against the white noise of the curse that usually screamed in his blood. But beneath that peace, the Alpha Spark was restless. It was a caged animal sensing a change in the wind, pacing behind his ribs and scraping against his resolve.
He looked at her, and for a fleeting, dangerous second, he wanted to walk across the room and simply stand in her orbit.
The sharp vibration of his phone shattered the quiet.
Stephen stiffened, his hand darting to the device as if it were a weapon. He glanced at the encrypted caller ID and felt his jaw lock. A dark, jagged anxiety flickered across his face. He stood abruptly, the heavy chair skittering back against the floorboards with a violent screech.
"I will be back," he said, his voice a clipped, low rasp.
He didn't wait for her to respond. He needed to be away from her stillness; he needed to hear the noise again so he could remember why he was afraid. He moved toward the door, his gait stiff and predatory, leaving Alina staring after him with a look of startled confusion.
Outside, the air in the manor garden was biting. The frost had not yet retreated from the shadows of the stone walls, and the wind carried the scent of wet earth and ancient pine. Stephen paced the gravel path, his boots crunching with a frantic, uneven rhythm. He dragged in a slow, deep breath, trying to steady the pressure building in his skull, but the call had already cracked the seal on his memories.
The phone vibrated again in his palm. He answered it, his voice barely a whisper. "I told you not to call me here."
"The time for discretion has passed, Stephen."
Prophet Elara's voice was as cold as the mountain runoff. It was a voice that didn't just carry information; it carried fate.
"The Fruit of Azura is no longer dormant," she continued, her words slicing through the air. "The curse has tasted the change in the land. You are twenty nine, Stephen. The moon is counting your heartbeats. If you do not find the anchor if you do not find your Luna the beast will not just claim your mind. It will burn the Blackwood lineage to the ground."
Stephen closed his eyes, leaning his head against a stone pillar. A wave of white hot pain tore through him, dragging him back to that night in the forest fifteen years ago. He remembered the smell of his own burning flesh. He remembered the terrifying strength of the Alpha Spark as it first ignited, and the way the world had turned into a landscape of red and silver.
"I am managing it," Stephen hissed, his teeth grinding together.
"You are suppressing it," Elara corrected sharply. "And the more you push it down, the more violent the eruption will be. The Fruit's child is near, Stephen. I can feel the resonance. Fate is moving, and you are running out of seconds."
The call went dead.
Stephen stood in the garden, his chest heaving. The sunlight felt cold now, replaced by an internal shadow that seemed to stretch from his very bones. The curse was awake. He could feel it stirring, a feral, clawed thing scratching at the underside of his skin, demanding to be let out. He looked at his hands and saw the faint, silver glow beneath his fingernails.
"Stephen?"
He spun around, his eyes flashing a brilliant, dangerous silver before he could reign them in.
Alina was standing a few yards away on the gravel path. She looked small against the backdrop of the massive manor, her expression etched with a raw, genuine concern. The sight of her sent a wave of calm through him so sudden it was almost painful. The beast in his chest went quiet, curling up like a dog at a hearth.
That stillness frightened him more than the Prophet's warning ever could.
"I am fine," he said, his voice too loud, too defensive.
Alina didn't move. She didn't flinch. She watched him with those perceptive, clear eyes that seemed to see right through the Alpha mask. "You are not," she said softly. "The air... it feels like it is about to break around you. Something is wrong."
The restraint he had spent a decade building began to fray. He felt exposed, naked under her gaze. He needed her gone before he reached for her. He needed her to stay away so he could remain the monster he was meant to be.
"You should go back inside," he said, his tone turning ice cold. "I do not pay you to follow me into the garden. Leave me alone, Alina."
The words were sharp, intended to wound. He saw her flinch, a flash of hurt crossing her face before it was replaced by a spark of that farm girl defiance he was beginning to recognize.
"Fine," she snapped, her voice trembling with a mixture of anger and disappointment. "If you want to drown in your own shadows, do not let me stop you."
She turned on her heel and walked back toward the manor, her shoulders tense and her stride brisk. Stephen watched her go, a tight, suffocating knot forming in his throat. He wanted to call her back. He wanted to apologize. But the voice of Frank the ghost of Stevie whispered in the back of his mind, reminding him that everything he touched eventually turned to ash.
He stood in the garden until the sun began to dip behind the peaks, the shadows lengthening like grasping fingers. His phone buzzed one last time. A text message from Elara, four words long: The key is blood.
Stephen turned sharply and headed for the library. He didn't go to the main shelves. He went to the restricted section, a place where the air felt thick with the weight of forbidden history. He moved with a feverish purpose, scanning the ancient, leather bound spines until he found what he was looking for.
The Fruit of Azura.
The book felt heavy, as if the secrets within it had a physical mass. He carried it to the center table, the moonlight from the high windows catching the silver gilt on the cover. He flipped through the pages, his eyes darting over diagrams of lunar cycles and blood rituals.
Then, he saw it. A marginal note, written in a cramped, archaic script.
The key lies with the outcast. The blood that was hidden shall be the blood that binds.
Stephen's grip tightened on the vellum. Outcast. The word echoed in his mind, conjuring images of a girl with no past, found wandering the woods, raised by a farmer who asked no questions. Alina.
He sensed her before he heard her. The air in the library shifted, becoming cool and still. He turned, the book still open in his hands, and found her standing in the archway. She had changed into a darker dress, her hair loose, her eyes reflecting the silver of the moon.
"Looking for secrets?" she asked quietly.
Stephen's pulse jumped. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to put the book away, to lie, to push her out of the room. But as she stepped closer, the pendant at her throat began to glow.
It was a soft, rhythmic silver light, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
Alina looked down, her hand rising to touch the metal. "It... it has never done that before," she whispered, her voice laced with a sudden, dawning terror.
Stephen felt the Alpha Spark surge within him, not with aggression, but with an absolute, terrifying recognition. The static in his head died. The world narrowed down to the girl and the glow.
Mine.
The thought was absolute. It was a sentence of life and a sentence of death all at once. Stephen realized with a chilling certainty that the Prophet was right. Fate was no longer moving; it had arrived.
"What are you?" he whispered, his voice a ghost of itself.
Alina looked up, her eyes wide and reflecting the silver light of her pendant. "I don't know," she breathed.
In the silence of the library, the shadows seemed to lean in, waiting for the first drop of blood to fall.