The Watcher in the Shadows

Grimm's POV

I've walked this earth for a very long time.

Not in the way humans count time, with birthdays and wrinkles. No—I measure my existence in turning moons, broken pacts, and the slow, painful unraveling of truths best left buried.

Tonight, as I crouch silently on the branch of an old ash tree, watching the girl curled beneath ivy-strewn fur, I feel something old stir in me.

Something I thought long turned to ash.

She is not just a girl.

She is two souls stitched into one skin.

Therrin and Ari.

Two heartbeats that beat in tandem. Two minds, two hungers. One body caught between light and shadow. They think I serve them. That I was sent to help. But even I'm not certain what Nyx's endgame is. I only know one thing:

The moment they met their mate, everything changed.

I remember the first time I saw her.

Tiny. Screaming. Eyes blind but glowing with a violet haze. Most shifter-born children are loud when they're born—but Therrin? She was too loud. Not with sound, but with energy. Her very aura pulsed unnaturally.

I thought it was a mistake.

Until I sensed the second soul lying dormant beneath the surface, coiled like a sleeping serpent.

She was split—yet whole.

Nyx said she would be our last hope. Or maybe our greatest disaster. Depends on whether she could survive the war brewing inside her.

Ari woke too soon.

They never should have met him yet—the Fey prince, Dionysus. But fate is impatient, and the bond between the three of them… it's not ordinary. Shifter mates are bound by instinct. Fey mates by blood. But what Therrin and Ari share with Dion?

It feels… older. Woven. Pre-written.

Even I don't fully understand it.

But I've heard whispers in the Void. Old stories. Forbidden ones.

They speak of a soul so fractured it carried two halves of a divine being. Light and shadow. Goddess and beast. When such a soul finds a mate, the magic tethered to it does not choose one identity to bind.

It binds them both.

And that's the truth I'm afraid to tell her. Tell them. Because I don't know what happens when a mate marks a soul that's already split.

Tonight, I saw the aftermath. The way she clutched the blanket. The way Ari purred through her skin.

The tension—like a thread about to snap.

She doesn't even know what she's done yet.

Claimed him. Drank his blood. Marked him.

Without Therrin's consent.

I know what that means. I know what's coming.

When Therrin wakes and realizes her body has been bonded without her will… I fear the storm she'll unleash. On Ari. On Dion. On herself.

But I also fear something deeper:

That she'll lose the fight for her own soul.

I want to warn Dion, but he's not mine to protect. My duty is to Therrin. To the girl who cries in her dreams and calls herself a monster. She doesn't know the power she holds. The truth is, I'm not sure even Nyx does.

There are gaps in the prophecy. Places even I can't see.

Some nights I wonder if I was sent to guard her—or to end her if things go wrong.

I hate the thought.

But I've done it before.

Familiar to familiar, bonded to bonded. I once watched a girl burn down her whole world because her other soul couldn't be contained. That girl had no Grimm. No one to anchor her.

I won't fail this time.

So I keep watch.

From the shadows. In silence.

Waiting.

Because the longer Ari controls their body, the closer we move to something I'm not sure any of us are ready for.

And deep down, I can already feel it coming.

A reckoning.

Two souls. One mate.

And no one left to choose.