The First Victim

Menar watched her, uneasy. Something in Samantha’s tone made her blood run cold. “Remember what I told you—magic like this leaves traces. There’s always a price.”

Samantha’s eyes glimmered darkly. “Then I’ll pay it. Whatever it takes.”

Menar almost spoke again, but the words caught in her throat. She could feel something stirring in the air—something ancient and wrong, as if the potion itself had awakened something best left buried.

When Samantha left the house that night, clutching the vial close to her chest, the moon was already sinking below the hills.

And for the first time in a long while, the wolves of Dam-Nighade Pack howled not in mourning, but in warning.

When Samantha returned to the Alpha’s estate, the night was quiet, the moon hidden behind dark clouds that moved lazily across the sky. She slipped in unnoticed through the servant’s passage, her heart still pounding from the excitement of the night’s encounter.

Her first step was to hide the vial. Clutching it tightly unde