Midnight Crown

Ash slicked the soles of her boots. Eirwen stumbled through the smoke-thick metro tunnel, one hand pressed tight against the burn on her ribs, the other gripping a cracked phone. The screen pulsed with emergency alerts and static, the reception fractured—just enough to load a single headline: INDUSTRIAL FIRE KILLS 43 — SUSPECT UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE. Below it, a blurred image: her. Caught mid-run, face half-shielded by a trembling hand, hair soaked and clinging to her cheek. Someone had filmed her fleeing the warehouse, and someone else had uploaded it before the explosion hit. She killed the screen with a hiss and ducked into a collapsed maintenance alcove. The air reeked of melted copper and scorched circuits. Rainwater from the surface sluiced down cracked concrete, dripping steadily from exposed pipes above. Eirwen knelt, unzipping her jacket just far enough to assess the wound — raw, angry skin along her left side. Not deep, but enough to slow her. She tore a strip of fa

The air changed five stories beneath the Tower. It wasn’t colder. Just quieter. Eirwen followed Domenik past the final retinal scanner, through a vault door made of matte black steel—no handles, no keypad, just the hiss of ancient hydraulics. Behind them, the seal re-engaged with a sound like bone grinding into place. The silence down here wasn’t digital. It was ritual. She felt it press against her skin. “You’re not showing me this to intimidate me,” she said, voice low. “No,” Domenik replied. “I’m showing you what happens if you think intimidation works.” The corridor narrowed as they walked. The walls were bare stone, not steel. Lines of gold wiring snaked overhead like veins. Eirwen could feel her own pulse in her throat. Then the doors opened into a chamber lit only by firelight. And he was waiting. The figure seated at the far end of the room wore black robes and a hood stitched with silver thread—sigils, runes, unreadable unless you’d bled for them. The fire flickered

Red lights carved the silence into pieces. The emergency sirens pulsed like a second heartbeat through the Tower, their rhythm syncing with the ragged edges of gunfire echoing up from the lower levels. Domenik moved fast, one hand wrapped tight around Eirwen’s wrist, dragging her through black halls now streaked with blood. “You stay behind me,” he said without looking back, “or you don’t stay at all.” Eirwen didn’t argue. Not because she agreed. But because she couldn’t breathe. Every corridor shimmered like heatstroke. Security doors slammed closed behind them, one by one, sealing with brutal finality. Somewhere above, glass shattered. Somewhere below, the Wards were dying. And Marsel’s voice came through the wall speakers, filtered through distortion: “You trained me too well.” Domenik didn’t react. But Eirwen felt his grip tighten—just enough to bruise. They rounded a corner and— Ash went down. The Ward crumpled mid-stride. A sniper round, silent and perfect. Blood s

The wolves have breached the Vault. Eirwen and Domenik stand side by side for the first time—not as enemies, not as lovers, but as something else entirely: coiled predators, forged in silence, ready to spill blood together.🖋️ Blood Doesn’t KnockRed lights fractured like veins across the ceiling.Steel howled.The Vault doors groaned open with a sound that didn’t belong to any machine. It was organic—like a rib cage breaking.Domenik moved first.He shoved Eirwen behind a pillar of burnished obsidian just as the breach cracked wide and the first of them came through.Várgr.Not masked.Not stealth.Armored in matte black, faces painted with bone-white streaks, eyes wild behind mirrored lenses. Two in front, three behind, formation precise—until the leader spotted Domenik.Then precision bled into rage.“LAEV!” the wolf snarled, raising his weapon.But Eirwen was faster.She pivoted around the pillar, aimed for the gap in his chest plate—and fired.The first shot hit shoulder. The s

🖋️ Loyalty in Pieces The strategist never bleeds in public. Alec Vance stood in the war room, hands folded behind his back, suit pressed sharp as a razor, the lion ring heavy on his finger. Monitors flickered—schematics, kill-lists, the Tower’s dying heartbeat pulsing in red. He didn’t look up when Domenik entered. Didn’t have to. The air shifted with him, every shadow drawn tighter. Eirwen slid in at Domenik’s side, gun hidden beneath her new coat, eyes dark as old wounds. “Alec,” Domenik said. No title. No warmth. Alec smiled, wolfish. “You found my present in the vault, I take it?” “You betrayed your oath,” Domenik said. Alec’s smile widened, hungry. “You broke it first. The day you let her in.” His gaze cut to Eirwen. “You let a ghost in your house and wonder why the dead keep walking.” Eirwen spoke before Domenik could. “Your war’s over, Vance. You’re just waiting to see who cleans up the bodies.” Alec’s eyes lingered on her, cold and clinical. “And what are y