Chapter one - Echoes of blood

Rain hammered against the broken windows of the abandoned warehouse, steady as a heartbeat,

relentless as the memories Nova tried to bury. The place stank of rust, mildew, and something sour

that clung to the air no matter how wide she cracked the door. It wasn’t safe, not truly, but at least

the walls muffled the city and the Hunters who would slit her throat if they ever found her.

She paced the length of the cracked concrete floor, boots scuffing softly, dagger sheathed at her

hip. Every sound made her twitch: the drip of water from a corroded pipe, the scrape of a rat across

broken glass. Shadows leapt with each flicker of lightning, twisting into monstrous shapes that

teased her with reminders of what she had fought and what she had lost.

But it wasn’t the monsters that unsettled her most. It was the silence that followed.

Nova stopped near the gaping hole in the roof, tilting her head back. Rain slid down through the

jagged opening, glimmering like shards of glass as they fell. She let a drop hit her cheek, cold as

steel, grounding her in the present. But even the storm couldn’t drown out the memory of the last

hunt.

She could still see it—flashes burned into the back of her eyelids.

The alley had smelled of iron and smoke, the air so thick with blood that it coated her tongue. She

had cornered one of them, a wolf separated from its pack, panting and half-shifted, eyes gleaming

with fear. Hunters circled, blades flashing silver. It should have been simple. It should have been

clean.

But then she had seen the creature’s face shift—just for a second, its snarl cracked, and she saw not

a monster but a boy, no older than she had been when she first held a blade. He had begged. Not in

words, but in the way his body sagged, the way his gaze clung to her as if she had the power to

decide whether he lived or died.

And she had hesitated.

“Nova!” Ezra’s voice had snapped like a whip, dragging her back. He had shoved her aside and

driven his blade home. Blood sprayed, hot and sickly sweet, and the boy crumpled. Ezra had looked

at her then, not with understanding, but with fury.

“Don’t you dare falter again.

”

The memory twisted her stomach. She braced her palms against the cold wall, pressing until her

knuckles ached. She had been raised to be efficient, merciless. Yet something inside her had shifted

that night. The boy’s eyes still followed her in dreams, accusing, unrelenting.

And behind it all was the other presence she couldn’t escape. Him.

Kilian.

Even now, alone in the warehouse, she felt the weight of his gaze, as if he lingered somewhere just

beyond the shadows. That cursed bond—whatever it was—tugged at her with invisible threads.

She hated the warmth that sparked in her veins when she thought of him. Hated the pull that made

her restless, as though her very skin no longer belonged to her.

She pressed her fists against her temples, whispering into the dark.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want

”

you.

The storm swallowed her words, but her pulse betrayed her. It raced every time her mind touched

on him. Alpha. Predator. Protector. She didn’t know what he was to her, only that he was too close.

Always too close.

A sound broke her reverie: footsteps outside.

Nova froze, dagger in hand, before she had fully thought it through. Her heartbeat thundered

louder than the rain as she crept toward the doorway. She could make out the crunch of gravel

under heavy boots, slow, deliberate. Hunters?

She held her breath.

The steps stopped. Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring. Then, faint but undeniable, the scent

drifted through the open crack—pine smoke and iron.

Her stomach twisted.

Not Hunters. Him.

She staggered back, chest tight. The scent faded as quickly as it had come, leaving only damp air

and the rattle of rain. She told herself it was her imagination. That she was conjuring him from

fear, from longing. But deep down, she knew better.

Kilian was out there. Watching. Waiting.

And no matter how hard she tried to run, the bond would always drag her back.