The Memory of Fire and Rain

 

In her dreams, it is always raining.

The sky above the Blue Ridge Mountains wasn't just dark that night; it was bruised, a violent purple-black that bled lightning. Her mother, Elara, had been driving with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, her breath hitching in time with the rhythmic thud-thud of the windshield wipers. In the backseat, wrapped in a bundle of enchanted silk to dampen her scent, five-month-old Anna hadn't been crying. Even then, she knew how to be still.

Then came the headlights. Twin yellow eyes in the rearview mirror;the Blackwood enforcers.

The car hadn't just slid; it had flown. A sickening lurch of gravity, the scream of metal on stone, and then the world turned upside down. They had careened over a steep embankment, crashing through the pines of the Pisgah Forest like a fallen star.

Her mother had crawled from the wreckage, blood masking half her face, clutching the infant to her chest. She didn't call for help. She whispered a spell of misting, blending their shadows into the storm, and disappeared into the outskirts of a nearby mountain town.

They got five years. Five beautiful, borrowed years of hiding in attics and basement apartments, living on the scraps of the human world.

Then, the scent of wet fur and old death had returned. Anna remembered her mother’s face;not as a victim, but as a queen of the arcane. She had pushed Anna into a crawlspace, her hands glowing with a terrifying, incandescent light.

"Don't look back, little wolf," she had whispered. "Become the shadow they can't catch."

The last thing Anna heard was the sound of the door splintering and the roar of a Warlock’s fire meeting a Wolf’s fury. She had run until her lungs burned, a five-year-old girl lost in the woods, carrying a bloodline that was never meant to survive.

Anna jolted awake on their cramped dorm sofa, her heart thundering against her ribs. Her skin was clammy, the phantom heat of her mother’s final spell still prickling her arms.

Beside her, Sophie was a heap of blonde hair and sequined elf fabric, snoring softly.

Anna let out a shaky breath, rubbing her temples. She had spent the last three hours maintaining a delicate Glamour of Memory on Sophie. It was an exhausting piece of mental weaving, making Sophie believe they had stayed at the Alpha Phi house until 2:00 …dancing, laughing, and blending in. In Sophie's mind, they were just two girls who had a "legendary" night and made it home safely.

But magic has its limits. It can rewrite a feeling, but it cannot erase a destiny.

Sophie groaned, her eyes fluttering open. She squinted at the morning light filtering through the North Carolina pines outside their window. "Ugh... Anna? Did I eat a bag of pennies? My mouth tastes like metal."

"Dehydration," Anna lied smoothly, handing her a glass of water. "You danced for four hours straight. I practically had to carry you home."

Sophie sat up, rubbing her head, a slow grin spreading across her face despite the hangover. "It was worth it. Tell me I didn't dream it. Tell me the hottest guy in the history of the South didn't invite us to a literal castle."

Anna froze. She had tried to suppress the specific detail of the invitation in Sophie's mind, to make it feel like a hazy "maybe." But as she looked at her friend, she saw the spark. The invite wasn't just a memory; it was a tether.

"It was a frat party invite, Soph. People say things they don't mean when they've had too much punch."

"No," Sophie said, her voice unusually clear. She reached into the folds of her elf skirt and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored card that hadn't been there before. It was embossed with a black wolf’s head, the edges gilded in silver. "He slipped this into my hand when you weren't looking. The Solstice Gala. December 21st. Blackwood Manor."

Anna stared at the card. It hummed with a low-frequency magic;a tracking ward. Killian hadn't just invited them; he had marked them.

"We aren't going," Anna said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

"Anna, look at us!" Sophie stood up, gesturing to their small, cluttered life. "We’re nobodies. This is our chance to be somebodies. Just one night. One night at the Manor and I’ll never ask for anything again. Please. I feel like... like I'm supposed to be there."

Anna felt a chill that had nothing to do with the mountain air. That wasn't Sophie speaking; that was the Pull. The Alphas used it on human mates to ensure they never ran away. The trap was already closing.

If she didn't go, Sophie would go alone and never come back. If she did go, Anna would be walking back into the fire that killed her mother.

"Fine," Anna whispered, her eyes turning a brief, involuntary blue. "We go. But we leave before the moon hits its peak."