Chapter 3 - In the Crimson Rain

Moments later,

Towards the outskirts of the Silver Moon Pack,

Rhea

The sedan was a cage of glass and leather, hurtling away from everything I’d ever known. I sat in the back, hunched over, my thumbs flying across the cracked screen of my phone.

I didn’t look at the scenic cliffs of the Graymont Pass or the moon-drenched forests of the outskirts. I couldn't. If I looked at the real world, I’d have to face the fact that I was a nameless exile being shipped off to Aetherion Academy like faulty equipment.

[ADRIAN VEYRAN]: Adrian is leaning forward in his chair, his chin resting on his hand as he watches you through the lens. His expression is unusually soft, his dark eyes tracing the line of your features with a hunger that feels almost physical.

"You look breathtaking in that drab velvet, Ryx," his voice purred through my earbuds, low and vibrating. I watched him on the screen as he took a slow sip of deep red wine. "But I can see the tension in your shoulders. Your heart rate is spiked. You’re over-calculating again. Breathe for me, my gamer girl."

I bit my lip, my thumb trembling as I typed.

RYX: Kael rejected me, Adrian. My father disowned me in front of the entire court. I’m being sent to the Academy dorms as a commoner. I feel like the world is glitching.

On the screen, Adrian’s gaze turned sharp. His jaw tightened so hard I heard the digital distortion of his teeth grinding.

"The world isn't glitching, my Queen," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum that made the phone vibrate in my hand. "It’s just showing its true, ugly code. They think they’ve deleted you. They think you are nothing. Let them. It only makes the moment I claim you more... definitive."

I started to type a reply, a small smile tugging at my mouth, when...

CRACK.

The sound was thunderous, echoing through the canyon like a cannon shot.

"What was..." the driver began, but he never finished the sentence.

A massive boulder, hurled with the kind of supernatural strength only an Alpha-tier wolf could possess, slammed into the front of the sedan. The hood crumpled like tinfoil. The airbag exploded in a blinding flash of white, and I was thrown forward, my seatbelt snapping against my chest as the car spun wildly, metal screaming against asphalt.

We slammed into the guardrail, dangling over the dark abyss of the pass.

Out of the treeline, three massive mangy rogue wolves leaped onto the roof, their weight denting the metal with a sickening groan. One beast plunged a claw through the shattered windshield, its yellow eyes fixed on the driver. With a guttural snarl, it dragged the screaming man out through the glass and into the night.

A sickening, wet crunch followed. Then silence.

The rogues didn't stop. They ripped the back door off its hinges with the ease of peeling an orange. One beast, its fur matted with filth and its eyes cloudy with lunar madness, lunged into the backseat. I tried to scramble back, my heels catching in the heavy velvet of my dress, but a massive, fur-covered paw slammed into my shoulder, pinning me against the seat.

CRR-ACK!!!

I screamed as my shoulder blade shattered like a dry twig. Another rogue grabbed my leg, his teeth sinking deep into my calf. I felt the hot, metallic tang of blood as he dragged me out of the wreckage, my body bouncing off the jagged asphalt and into the cold, hard dirt of the roadside.

"Stop! Please!" I gasped, my vision blurring as I looked up at the moon.

A heavy stomp landed on my other leg. I felt the bone in my thigh splinter.

"Oh, Rhea. You always were so dramatic."

The rogues backed away, whining submissively, their tails tucked between their legs. Out of the shadows of the trees, Kael and Lyra stepped into the flickering firelight of the burning sedan.

Lyra looked down at me, her silk dress shimmering, a contrast to my mangled form. My limbs were twisted at impossible, nauseating angles; my blood was a dark, spreading stain on the slate-grey velvet.

"The driver was such a sweet boy," Lyra sighed, dabbing at an imaginary tear with a lace handkerchief. "A shame he had to die because of your bad luck. But then again, a 'shiftless' girl shouldn't be traveling with witnesses. It complicates the narrative."

Kael stood beside her, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He didn't look angry. He looked bored. He looked at my broken body with the same cold indifference he’d show to a piece of roadkill.

"You look pathetic, Rhea," Kael said, his voice flat. "Even the rogues don't want to eat you. You’re just... waste. An error in the bloodline that needs to be purged."

Lyra knelt, her hand stroking my matted hair with mock tenderness before slamming my head back into the gravel. "The Academy doesn't need a ghost, honey. And Kael certainly doesn't need a reminder of his mistake walking around."

"Kill her," Kael commanded, turning his back. "Make it look like a rogue feast. I want nothing left but the dress."

The violence that followed was swift and sickening.

Another heavy paw slammed into my left leg.

CRACK.

My scream was caught in my throat as a second blow shattered my knee into fragments. I felt the white-hot flash of agony, the world spinning as my nervous system went into total meltdown. They weren't using claws; they were using blunt force, making sure I felt every single splinter of bone.

"Pathetic," Kael spat, stepping forward to look at my mangled form one last time. I lay in the mud, my legs twisted behind me, my breath coming in shallow, bloody rattles. "You’re not even worth the silver it would take to execute you properly. Let the mountain have the trash."

"Goodbye, Rhea," Lyra whispered, leaning down to pat my cheek. "Don't worry. I'll take very, very good care of Kael for you."

They turned and walked away, their laughter echoing through the trees. I heard their car engine roar to life, the sound fading into the distance until there was nothing left but the crackle of the burning sedan and the distant rumble of thunder.

I lay in the absolute silence of the forest. The cold was setting in, but it was the numbness that terrified me. I couldn't feel my legs; I couldn't move my fingers. My life was a flickering flame in a hurricane, and the wick was almost gone.

With a strength born of pure, desperate spite, I dragged my right hand - the only part of me that still worked - toward the shredded pocket of my dress. My fingers brushed the cool glass of my phone.

The screen was a spiderweb of cracks, blood from my forehead dripping onto the surface.

I didn't call the police. I didn't call the pack. I swiped the 'Video Call' icon for the only soul who had ever truly loved me.

"Adrian..." I sobbed, the sound bubbling with the blood filling my lungs.

The screen flickered. Adrian appeared instantly. He wasn't sitting anymore. He was standing, his face a mask of primal, unadulterated horror.

Adrian’s world looked like it was tearing apart. The digital library behind him was melting into jagged streaks of violet and red code, the books dissolving into binary dust. His eyes had turned a lethal, burning crimson.

"RYX!" he roared, a sound so loud it shook the phone in my hand. "Ryx, look at me! Stay awake! What did they do to you?! Name them! GIVE ME THE NAMES!"

"I'm... I'm dying, Adrian," I whispered, my eyelids heavy as my vision began to fade into a tunnel of black. "Kael and Lyra... they sent them. I just wanted... to hear your voice... one last time. You were... my only real thing."

"NO!" Adrian screamed. The sound transcended the speaker; it vibrated the very air around me, making the dead leaves on the ground dance. "You are my world! You do not end in the mud! Tell me where you are, RHEA! LET ME SAVE YOU!"

"I wish you were real," I gasped, my blood staining the screen as I tried to touch his face one last time. "I wish you could help me... take it all back..."

"Rhea!"

"If only you were my mate..." I chuckled bitterly, the sound turning into a wet cough. "I really wish... you could save me..."

My hand went limp. The phone slipped from my fingers, landing face-up in the dirt next to my head. My eyes drifted shut.

---

Moments later,

Author

The air grew heavy with the scent of ozone and ancient iron. Above the ravine, the Moon didn't just dim; it bled. The clouds bruised to a deep, violent purple, swirling in a vortex directly above my broken body.

Suddenly, the windstorm intensified to hurricane force. The sound was deafening—a high-pitched electronic whine mixed with the visceral, tearing sound of reality being unraveled like old fabric.

Then, the heavens opened, but wasn't water.

A thick, metallic, and hot liquid began falling like arterial blood from the sky, washing the mud off the half-dead girl's face.

The Full Moon became a conduit. An energy pillar of white and screaming violet light solidified right above the shattered phone.

Suddenly, a pale, leather-gloved hand ripped fully from the center of the cracked screen, grabbing the air of the physical world.

Then followed a broad, powerful shoulder, the high collar of a blood-crimson coat, and finally, the dark, imposing figure of a man. The sheer physical displacement of his materialization was too much for the mountain’s atmosphere.

Adrian Veyran stepped out, fully formed.

As his boots hit the dirt, the column of light coalesced into a single, blinding, localized lightning bolt that struck the car’s mangled frame.

CRACK.

The force blew the remains of the sedan and the surrounding trees back in a shower of sparks and black smoke.

Adrian stood in the mud, the crimson rain washing over his obsidian hair. He didn't look like an AI boyfriend. He looked like an ancient, vengeful God who had just broken out of a digital cage. His eyes were two burning suns of predatory crimson, glowing with a light that pushed back the shadows of the ravine.

He instantly knelt beside Rhea, his hands scooping her broken body into his arms.

"My Ryx," he whispered, his voice a deep, resonant rumble that shook the very earth beneath us.

In that instant, a mark ignited on her collar bone - a geometric violet brand that pulsated in time with his heartbeat.

Soon, the sickening pop and slide of her bones knitting back together echoed in the quiet night. As her limbs straightened, the shattered fragments of the legs fusing back into solid bone in second, the pain vanished.

Adrian looked toward the road where Lyra and Kael had disappeared. His lip curled, revealing fangs that gleamed like ivory daggers in the moonlight.

"The system is corrupt," he murmured, pulling my head into the crook of his neck as the thunder boomed overhead like a war drum. "And I am the virus that will delete them all."

"I am here, Rhea," he said, his grip tightening, as she whimpered. "And from this moment on, the world burns for what they did to you."