Chapter One: First Blood

I should have turned back the moment the wind changed.

It wasn’t a breeze. Not really. It was the kind of shift that makes the trees hush, makes birds forget their songs. A stillness that slid down my spine and whispered: You are not meant to be here.

But I’d come too far. And there was nothing left waiting for me beyond the tree line.

The ruins had no name—at least none the guidebooks dared print. Just a speck on an old map, nestled between mountain ridges that never melted, buried under mist no sun could burn off. There were stories, of course. The kind told in wine-soaked whispers. Sealed doors. Blood-wrought curses. Women who entered and never returned.

They didn’t mention how beautiful it would be.

The stone was black. Not gray. Not aged. Black like the sky right before a thunderstorm, veined with gold that shimmered when I touched it. Vines crawled across the archways but didn’t choke them. Flowers bloomed in the dark—silver-edged petals that pulsed faintly in time with my breath.

And deep inside the mountain… there was the altar.

It wasn’t marked. No runes, no language I could read. Just a low, half-circle slab carved directly into the rock. The air was warmer there. Too warm. My skin itched as I approached.

I shouldn’t have touched it.

But the compulsion came anyway. A pulse behind my eyes. A scent like honey and ash. A thought that wasn’t mine, curled in the back of my skull: closer.

I reached out. My fingers trembled. The edge of the altar caught the heel of my palm—sharp as a blade.

Blood spilled.

It struck the stone in a single, wet splash. Red against black. The ground groaned beneath me. The walls shook. Dust fell from nowhere. Then came the sound—low, ancient, impossible.

Click.

I stepped back, breath ragged, but the floor tilted. No—the room was sinking. Sliding. No light. No sound but stone grinding on stone.

When the movement stopped, I was alone.

But the altar was gone.

And in its place… a door.

Ten feet tall. Sealed with sigils that glowed with my blood. And before I could scream—before I could even move—they opened.

The air inside was wrong. Too full. Too hungry.

I turned to run—but the way I came had vanished.

The doors slammed shut behind me with the finality of a tomb.

I stood there, frozen. My heartbeat felt too loud, too bright in the silence. The walls pulsed faintly, like the stone itself was breathing.

I took a step forward. Then another. The corridor beyond was carved into the mountain, but too perfect—polished smooth, with veins of light that pulsed in the corners like veins under skin.

Shapes stirred in the dark. A breath that wasn’t mine shifted the air.

"Hello?" My voice sounded too small. Swallowed whole.

No answer.

Another step. I reached the first chamber—circular, with tall columns that stretched up into nothing. There was no ceiling, only blackness above, like the sky had collapsed inward.

Then I blinked.

And I was against the wall.

A hand wrapped around my throat.

Fangs tore into my neck.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

My mind snapped into panic, searching for something—anything—that could explain the impossible. This was a trick. A fever dream. My body’s last act of rebellion before death. But then the fire hit. A split second of blinding, searing pain that flared outward from the puncture and rolled through every nerve.

I tried to scream. All that came out was a rasp.

The cold of his skin shocked me. Not corpse-cold—stone-cold. Unyielding. His body pressed tight to mine, not in passion, not in control, but with the weight of a creature barely restrained. Every breath he took raked through my hair, his chest rising and falling in jagged, starving rhythm.

I kicked. Scratched. My heels scrambled for purchase. But his hand tightened just enough to keep me pinned, to remind me he didn’t need strength to overpower me—he was strength. Pure, desperate, endless.

"No," I choked. No, no—this isn’t—this can’t—

But the pain didn’t stop.

And the blood was real. Hot and wet as it slid down my collarbone, soaking into my shirt, mixing with the sweat already chilling on my skin.

A sound rose from him—low, ragged, half-growl, half-moan—as if he were in agony. Or ecstasy. A starving prayer muttered into my flesh.

He was drinking me.

There was no pause. No hesitation. He didn’t stop to speak, didn’t let me fall—he just kept feeding. His mouth moved lower, dragging blood down into his throat in slow, desperate gulps.

His breath rasped against my neck, warm and wet. His body shook—not with restraint, but with unraveling. Like every part of him was fraying at once, held together only by the taste of me. I felt the pull of it—deep, marrow-deep—his mouth coaxing something loose from inside me, something more than blood.

I couldn’t breathe. The room had no air. No floor. Only teeth and heat and the slow, inevitable drift toward blackness.

“Please,” I whispered. It came out like a breath I didn’t know I had left. “Stop.”

He didn’t.

My arms fell limp at my sides. My heartbeat stuttered. My vision fractured into light and dark, pulses of gold behind my eyes. And still he drank.

My skin buzzed. My bones hummed. The air changed—thickening, vibrating—as though the walls themselves were made of sound. The magic rose with the pain, sharp and slick and foreign, curling beneath my skin like it wanted out.

My blood was still on the floor. Still in his mouth. Still seeping into the stone.

And something wanted it. Something watched.

The pulse of the place quickened, echoing with mine, syncing with it, then dragging it forward. It was as if it had found me. Like it had been waiting.

He didn’t stop.      

Not until something ripped him away—violently.

One moment his mouth was still locked to my throat, still drinking like it was the only thing keeping him alive. The next, the world exploded in sound and motion. A roar. A crash. The sickening crunch of bodies colliding.

And then the fangs were gone.

The world spun sideways.

I collapsed, gasping, hands slipping on blood-slick stone. My throat burned—scorched raw from the inside out. My legs folded beneath me like they no longer belonged to my body.

The cold receded.

But it wasn’t warmth that came next—it was pain. Bright and sharp and crawling beneath my skin. My pulse thudded in my ears, thick and slow, like it was struggling to remember how to move blood through a body that had been drained too far.

I curled in on myself, pressing one trembling, bloodied hand to my throat. It was wet. Torn. And yet the bleeding had stopped. The wound sealed unnaturally fast, as if this place didn’t want to waste a drop.

My body wouldn’t stop shaking. My fingers, my jaw, even my lungs trembled as I forced shallow breaths past the echo of fangs.

He should have killed me.

Why didn’t he kill me?

And what had pulled him away?

The question barely had time to form before the air shifted again.

Heat crashed in like a wave—feral, blistering. It wasn’t just heat. It was presence.

A snarl split the silence—low, guttural, and angry. Not a warning. A promise.

Footsteps. Not human ones. Heavier. Paws? No—clawed feet pounding into the stone with the force of a battering ram. The sound shivered through my ribs.

Then a crash.

Stone cracked. Flesh met flesh with a sickening crunch. A snarl tore through the chamber, so deep it vibrated the air itself.

My attacker didn’t flee—he was ripped away.

I flinched, barely able to lift my head. I didn’t know which was worse—the monster who drank me, or the one who’d just thrown him into the wall like he weighed nothing.

My savior didn’t speak. He didn’t wait. He moved like instinct given form—fast, brutal, and terrifyingly sure.

By the time I blinked, my attacker was gone, and something larger loomed over me.

I blinked through the haze of blood and fear and found another shape crouched beside me. This one massive. Bare-chested. Half-man, half-wolf. Gold eyes glowing from a face split by fangs, and a body carved from muscle and heat.

He dropped to his knees beside me, massive hands splayed in the blood between us. Steam curled off his bare skin like the heat inside him couldn’t be contained. The air grew heavier, thick with musk and the scent of earth and something more—something feral.

His nose brushed my throat.

He inhaled.

Once. Twice.

The groan that followed wasn't human. It vibrated in his chest, a low, aching sound that wrapped around my spine like a shiver. Not pain. Not anger. Need.

I tried to move. My body screamed in protest. The floor spun. I could feel the breath from his nose against the open bite on my neck.

His hands flexed on the stone. Claws split his skin with a wet, audible pop. His breath came faster, shorter. The gold of his eyes thinned, swallowed by something darker.

“Don’t—” I whispered. It wasn’t brave. It wasn’t strong. It was just breath, and hope, and fear dressed as a word.

But he was already moving.

One hand slammed down beside my head. His other hovered, twitching like it wanted to grip me, hold me down. His body caged mine, every inch of him shaking from restraint—or the threat of its failure. A snarl rattled behind his bared fangs.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t bite. But his entire body trembled like a dam cracking under pressure. The sound he made next wasn’t rage—it was mourning. A strangled sound of something denied, starving, and furious about both.

Then he tore himself away with a roar that sounded like heartbreak. A sharp, pained cry ripped from his throat—almost a whimper—as he stumbled back, fists clenched, eyes wide with ruin. He turned and fled into the shadows, leaving the scent of heat and hunger hanging thick in the air.

I tried to lift my head. Tried to breathe. But everything was tilting—sideways, upward, inward. My limbs felt distant. Detached.

Something moved in the dark.

No footsteps. No breath. Just a hush. A presence.

Then I saw him.

Not clearly. Just a silhouette. A tall, massive figure emerging from the black—graceful where the others had been brutal, still where they had roared.

Eyes glowed faintly, too pale to be human. And behind them, two curved horns arched like a crown above his head, catching the faintest shimmer of light.

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t scream.

Blackness swallowed me before I even hit the floor.