The air around it buzzed, electric, alive. Moonlight spilled across ancient stone, painting silver traits across along shattered marble.
Eleanor stepped through the crumbling archway. Her breath caught.
"This was your home?"
Jedrek didn't answer right away.
He stared at the ruined hall, his jaw clenched.
"This was my kingdom," he said finally. "Before Kael burned it. Before he turned my pack against me."
He walked ahead, kneeling beside a charred banner.
Eleanor watched him, something heavy and unfamiliar building in her chest.
It wasn't pity.
It was something far more dangerous.
"You shouldn't care for me," Jedrek said suddenly as if reading her thoughts. "Not like this."
"Too late," she whispered.
He stood, turning to face her. "You don't understand what I am, Eleanor."
"I don't care."
"I've killed. I've lost control. I've tasted blood I never wanted."
"I don't care." She stepped closer, her voice soft but sharp. "You're not a monster, Jedrek…You're just a man with too many scars."
A beat of silence passed.
Then he stepped towards her too, eyes locked on hers, every line of his body trembling with restraint.
"Eleanor…"
She reached up, her hand brushing his cheeks.
"I'm not afraid of your darkness," she whispered. "Because somehow, it makes me feel…seen."
He didn't just kiss her.
He devoured the space between them- his lips claiming hers like it was the only truth in a world built on lies. His kiss was fire, desperate and slow, and she melted into it with the same hunger.
But just as fast, he pulled away, breath ragged.
"I can't lose you," he said.
"You won't."
But even as she said it, the wind howled_ and from the forest, horns blew.
Three.
Sharp.
Final.
Jedrek froze. "They've found us."
"No," Eleanor said, stepping beside him. "They found a war."
She pulled the dagger from her boot. The one that had pierced the bloodfang's throat.
The bond between them hummed_ alive, furious, protective.
Jedrek shifted_ half-wolf, half-warrior.
And behind them, the ruins began to glow.
Old magic.
Awakened.
_Far from the ruins, beyond rivers of ash and thorn-choked woods, stood the Citadel of Stoneblack – a fortress carved into the jagged face of the Crimson Mountains. There was no warmth in its halls. Only cold steel and colder silence.
And it's heart, seated on the throne of twisted bones and scorched obsidian, was Kael.
The Alpha King.
His eyes were the color of the molten gold- unblinking, inhuman, eternal. He sat motionless, the flickering torchlight casting monstrous shadows along his scarred face. A deep gash marked his cheek, healed without mercy, a trophy from a war refused to forget.
In his hand, he twirled a silver ring-the ring of the last Alpha he'd personally gutted.
The silence broke.
They've fled to the ruins, my lord," a bloodfang scout reported kneeling before him. "The girl is with the prince."
Kael didn't speak for a long time. Instead, he smiled-a slow, venomous curl of his lips.
"The ruins…" he muttered. "Fitting. He returns to rot with the ghosts of his ancestors."
The room stirred as soldiers shifted, uneasy.
"She is marked," the scout added. "The bond has begun."
That made Kael rise.
The torches seem to flicker away from him as he stood to full height, shadows gathering like cloaks around his shoulders. His voice echoed as if laced with iron.
"Then the moon had chosen its key."
He descended the throne with the slow certainty of a predator who had already decided where the first strike would land.
"Send the legion," he ordered. "All of them."
A gasp rippled through the room. The Legion hadn't been called for over decades.
"But, Sire…"
Kael's eyes snapped to the voice. One look. One breath.
The soldier burst into flame.
The screen echoed once-and there was silence again.
Kael spoke, unshaken. "Burn the forest. Leave no tree standing. I want them crawling through smoke and blood when they beg me for mercy."
A Blood Seer stepped forward. Her voice was ancient and brittle. "Sire…if you kill the girl before the bond is complete, the power will reject you."
Kael grinned, feral and full of madness. "Then we make her complete it…just before I rip it out of her."
He turned, cape sweeping behind him like night itself. "Let the drums beat. Let the blood moon rise. Let the realm remember who Kael is."
From deep into the mountains, war drums began to pound-slow, thunderous, like the heartbeat of something ancient and furious.
Doom. Doom. Doom.
The citadel shuddered with each beat.
Outside, thousands of Lycans howled in unison.
Kael raised his arm and the howling became a war cry.
The hunt had begun.
The ruins had never known peace.
But in that stolen hour before the blood moon rose again' with torches unlit and wind whispering through the shattered stone, Eleanor and Jedrek found it- fragile, fleeting peace.
She sat on a ledge overlooking the dead courtyard, the sky above painted in bruised twilight. The stars refused to shine tonight. As if they too, held their breath… anticipating.
Jedrek approached silently, his body marked with old scars and tension. But when he looked at her, locked eyes with her…it wasn't as a prince. Not a warrior. Not a beast.
Just…Jedrek.
"You should not be this calm," he said softly.
Eleanor gave a soft, tired smile. "Maybe I'm loosing my mind."
"Maybe," he murmured, sitting beside her. "But you're not alone in it."
They sat in silence for a long moment, the air heavy with unsaid statements.
Then she asked, "Do you feel it too?"
Jedrek turned his head, searching her eyes. "Feel what?"
"This…" She gestured between them. "It's more than the bond. Isn't it?"
He exhaled, slow and shaky. "Yes, it started as an instinct. As fate. But now…"
His fingers brushed hers- accidentally at first. But neither of them pulled away.
"Now, I'd choose you even without the bond," he said.
The words settled over her like the slow bloom of fire. Not the wild devouring kind. But something warmer. Real. Steady.