Three weeks passed in a blur of discovery.
Every day, I met them in the park. Every day, we talked—about their worlds, my heritage, the power growing inside me like a second heartbeat. Caspian taught me to shield my mind from intrusion, to feel the bond without being overwhelmed by it. Kael showed me how to ground myself, to draw strength from the earth, to listen to the whispers of my hybrid blood.
And every night, I dreamed of my mother.
She appeared in fragments—a smile here, a warning there, always fading before I could reach her. But each time, I felt her love like a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Each time, I woke stronger.
The pendant never stopped warming my chest.
"You're progressing faster than I expected," Caspian said one afternoon. We sat on our usual bench, Kael having gone to get coffee for me and... well, nothing for them. Vampires didn't drink coffee, and Kael claimed mine was "offensive" to his wolf palate.
"Is that good or bad?"
"Both." His red eyes studied me with that ancient intensity. "Fast progression means your power is immense. It also means you're a brighter target. Seraphine's network will have noticed by now."
The thought sent ice down my spine. "How long do we have?"
"I don't know. That's what concerns me."
Kael returned with my coffee—a perfect oat milk latte, because he'd somehow memorized my order after one mention—and sat on my other side. "What concerns you?"
"Seraphine's silence." Caspian's jaw tightened. "She should have moved by now. Sent assassins, probes, something. But there's been nothing. Not a whisper."
"Maybe she doesn't know where Lena is."
"Seraphine always knows. She's survived thousands of years by knowing everything." Caspian's gaze swept the park, searching shadows that only he could see. "The silence means she's planning. Waiting for the perfect moment. And when it comes—"
He stopped.
The air changed.
I felt it before I saw it—a wrongness, a pressure, a撕裂 in the fabric of reality. The pendant burned against my chest. My hybrid senses screamed warning.
"Get down!" Kael tackled me off the bench just as something huge and dark crashed through the space where I'd been sitting.
The bench exploded.
I hit the ground hard, Kael's body covering mine, and looked up to see—them. Wolves. Dozens of them, pouring from the treeline like a gray tide. Their eyes burned red, not gold. Not Kael's pack. Corrupted. Controlled.
"Seraphine's pets," Caspian hissed. He'd moved between us and the oncoming horde, his form flickering—vampire speed, vampire strength, vampire fury barely contained. "She's broken the treaty. She's sent them into neutral territory."
"Can you hold them?" Kael was already shifting, his body rippling, bones breaking and reforming. It should have been horrifying. Instead, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"For her? Always."
Then the wolves hit.
What followed was chaos.
Caspian moved like smoke and razors, tearing through the corrupted wolves with inhuman grace. Kael—fully shifted now, a massive black wolf with eyes like molten gold—fought at his side, their centuries of hatred forgotten in the shared need to protect me.
But there were too many.
For every wolf they dropped, two more appeared. They came from the trees, from the shadows, from the very earth—as if Seraphine had been breeding them for decades, waiting for this moment.
"Lena!" Kael's voice in my mind—wolf bond, hybrid connection, I didn't know how, but I heard him. "Run! Get to the library—neutral ground—GO!"
I ran.
My legs pumped, my heart raced, my hybrid senses screamed direction. I dodged through the chaos, felt claws graze my arm, heard Caspian roar with a fury that shook the sky. The library was six blocks away. Six blocks of open street, of potential ambush, of certain death.
I made it three.
They came from an alley—three wolves, bigger than the others, their eyes burning with intelligence as well as corruption. They'd been waiting. Planning. Herding me.
"Little hybrid," the largest one snarled, and it spoke. Actually spoke. "The Mistress sends her regards."
I backed against a wall. No escape. No weapons. Just me and the power I'd been too afraid to fully embrace.
Let go.
My mother's voice. Clear as day.
Let go, little one. Trust yourself.
The wolves lunged.
And something inside me broke.
I don't remember what happened next.
Not clearly.
There was light—golden light, pouring from my chest, my hands, my eyes. There was sound—a roar that was mine but not mine, ancient and terrible and free. There was power—more power than I'd ever imagined, flooding through me like a river breaking its dam.
When I came back to myself, the wolves were gone.
Not dead—I couldn't see bodies—just... gone. As if they'd never existed. The alley was empty except for me and the fading glow of my skin and a pendant that now burned so hot I expected it to scar.
I looked at my hands. They were normal. Human. Shaking.
"Lena!"
Kael. He was running toward me, still in wolf form, blood matting his fur. Behind him, Caspian moved with that impossible speed, his shirt torn, his face streaked with black—vampire blood, not his own.
They reached me at the same moment. Kael shifted back—naked, unashamed, pulling me into his arms. Caspian stood guard, red eyes scanning for threats, but his hand found mine and held.
"What happened?" Kael demanded. "We felt something—a surge—it knocked us both off our feet—"
"I don't know." I was shaking. Couldn't stop. "They cornered me, and I heard my mother, and then—" I looked at the empty alley. "Where did they go?"
Caspian's expression was strange. Awed. Terrified. "They didn't go anywhere, Lena. You... unmade them."
"What?"
"That power—hybrid power, full awakening. You didn't just kill them. You erased them. From existence." His eyes met mine, and I saw fear there. Real fear. "I've only seen that once before. From Seraphine herself."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"I'm like her," I whispered. "I'm becoming like her."
"No." Kael's arms tightened. "You're nothing like her. She uses power to destroy. You used it to survive. There's a difference."
"Is there? When the result is the same?"
Caspian knelt in front of me—actually knelt, bringing himself to my level. "Listen to me. Power is neutral. It's what you do with it that matters. You just defended yourself against assassins sent to kill you. That's not evil. That's survival."
"But I erased them. They're just... gone."
"They would have done worse to you. Would have delivered you to Seraphine, who would have tortured you, drained you, used your blood to strengthen herself. They chose their path. You simply ended it."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to accept his words as truth. But the memory of that power—that terrible, glorious power—still sang in my veins. And part of me, some deep part I didn't want to acknowledge, had liked it.
"What do we do now?" I asked.
Kael and Caspian exchanged a look. That look. The one that meant they were about to say something I didn't want to hear.
"You run," Caspian said quietly. "Tonight. Now. Seraphine knows where you are, and she'll send more. Stronger. We can hold them off, buy you time—"
"No." I pulled away from Kael, stood on shaking legs. "No. I'm done running. I'm done hiding. I'm done being the prize everyone fights over." I looked at them—these two impossible men who loved me. "She wants me? Fine. Let her come. But she's going to find a fight, not a victim."
"Lena—" Kael started.
"She killed my mother. She killed your mother. She tortured Caspian for fifty years. She's spent three decades hunting me like an animal. I'm done." Power stirred in my chest, responsive to my anger. "I'm going to find her. And I'm going to end this."
Caspian rose slowly. "You don't even know where she is."
"Then we find out." I met his eyes. "You know her. You know her lairs, her allies, her weaknesses. Kael has the pack's intelligence, their resources. Together, we can track her. Together, we can stop her."
"And if we can't?"
I thought of my mother's smile. The Moon Priestess's warning. The power that had flowed through me like I was born to wield it.
"Then we die trying. But at least we die fighting. Not hiding."
The silence stretched. The pendant warmed. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed—humans, responding to the chaos, too late to matter.
Finally, Kael spoke.
"I'm with you. Whatever you decide."
Caspian nodded slowly. "As am I. Though I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' if this goes badly."
Despite everything, I laughed. "Deal."
Kael pulled me close, and this time when he looked at me, there was no hesitation. No waiting. He kissed my forehead—just my forehead, gentle and warm—and whispered: "We're going to need a plan."
"We're going to need an army," Caspian corrected.
I looked at the two of them—vampire and wolf, enemies turned allies, bound by love for the same impossible woman.
"Then let's build one."