Morning sunlight streamed through the curtains of Elaina’s small apartment.
She stirred awake, a dull ache in her head like she'd been dreaming too hard. She blinked at the ceiling, confusion furrowing her brows. “What… happened last night?” She sat up slowly. Daisy left early. I walked. Then… Wolves. The image flashed in her mind. Silver eyes. Snarling teeth. A massive black blur. Her heart skipped. “No,” she whispered. “That couldn’t be real. Maybe just a dream.” She shook it off, went to the kitchen, trying to focus on her routine—coffee, toast, ignore the chill crawling up her spine. But then— She froze. Right by the front door, where her shoes had been tossed the night before… A large muddy paw print. Much too big for any dog. Her breath hitched. She knelt down, fingers hovering over the print. Still wet. Her heart pounded in her chest. “Not a dream…” she whispered. Something deep inside her stirred. Not fear—something else. Recognition. The hospital lights buzzed softly overhead as Elaina walked down the corridor, clutching her coat a little too tightly. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing since morning—not since she saw the pawprint. She found Daisy at the nurse’s station, sipping lukewarm coffee, eyes scanning patient files. “Elaina!” Daisy greeted her with a bright smile. “You okay? You look… pale.” “I didn’t sleep well,” Elaina muttered, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. She opened her mouth to say something—to tell her about the massive paw print by her door—but something stopped her. Fear? Doubt? She couldn’t be sure. Instead, she forced a smile. “Just weird dreams.” Daisy frowned but didn’t press. “Come on, we’ve got rounds.” …… Room after room blurred together, but Elaina kept feeling… off. The walls seemed to whisper. The air was heavy. Every now and then, her vision shimmered—and flickered. As she wrapped a patient’s hand in bandages, she suddenly froze. Blood. Not just on the bandage. Her vision twisted. A battlefield. Men howling under a blood-red moon. A crown shattered at her feet. Screams. Fire. And her—standing tall, in armor soaked with blood, holding a sword of light. “Elaina!” Daisy’s voice snapped her out of it. Her patient—a gaunt old man with deep gray eyes—was staring at her, lips trembling. “You…” he whispered. “Your Highness… You were supposed to be dead…” Elaina dropped the bandage. “What did you say?” she breathed. The man blinked, confused. “Did I say something, miss? I don’t remember.” Heart pounding, Elaina fled the room. ……. Later, in the break room, her hands trembled as she took a sip of water. Daisy entered, noticing her flushed face. “Elaina, what is going on?” She hesitated, then whispered, “I think I’m going crazy.” “What?” Daisy sat beside her. “I… I’m seeing things. Visions. I saw a battlefield today. A crown. And blood. And that man… he called me ‘Your Highness.’” Daisy stared at her, wide-eyed. “And this morning, I found a paw print in my apartment. Big. Fresh. I think something is wrong with me, Daisy.” For a moment, her friend was silent. Then Daisy reached out and squeezed her hand. “Elaina,” she said firmly. “What if you’re not going crazy? What if something is waking up in you?” “Waking up?” Daisy leaned closer, eyes gleaming with curiosity and awe. “You said it yourself—you’re seeing things, remembering things. Maybe it’s not madness. Maybe it’s… truth.” Elaina could only stare at her. “Follow the chaos,” Daisy whispered. “It might just lead you to who you really are."The night had grown strangely quiet.Not the peaceful kind of silence—but the unnerving, heavy stillness that pressed against the windows like a warning. Even the wind had stopped dancing with the trees, as if nature itself held its breath.Inside her dimly lit room, Elaina sat curled near the window, staring out into the moonlit forest beyond the estate walls. The stars were unusually bright tonight, piercing the velvet sky with shimmering clarity. But it wasn’t the stars that held her attention—it was something else.A sound.No, not a sound. A call.Soft. Wordless. More like a feeling brushing against her mind than a voice. It tugged at her—not physically, but spiritually. As if a part of her long buried beneath flesh and memory had heard something familiar.Her breath caught in her throat.Come.She blinked, pressing her palm to the cold glass. The forest, dark and wild, swayed gently in the moonlight. She had never ventured there. Valen had forbidden it. Lucien avoided the subjec
The moon hung heavy over Valen’s estate, silver and silent, casting long shadows that crawled across the mansion’s marbled halls. Inside, the air was thick with quiet tension—Elaina had already retired to her room, her thoughts clouded with dreams, fragments, and the unsettling comfort of a home that wasn’t truly hers.Downstairs, Kade grabbed his cloak from the coat rack by the door, stretching with a dramatic sigh.“She’s asleep,” he murmured to himself, brushing his fingers through his unruly hair. “Time to go play assistant to the brooding wolf king.”He glanced once more at the grand staircase, then opened the door to the cool night air.As he stepped outside, the breeze tugged at his coat, and he rolled his eyes. “Lucien’s gonna miss me. Again.”.......At Lucien’s office, the scent of cedar and old parchment lingered in the air. Dim light spilled from the windows, casting golden rectangles across the stone path.But as Kade approached, he noticed a tall figure in motion—Valen,
In the forgotten heart of the Deadwood Forest, where no sun dared to shine and no animal dared to rest, the air was thick with old magic—bitter and ancient, a pulse of darkness that trembled through the skeletal trees.Beneath the arch of a twisted oak, cloaked in robes darker than shadow itself, the figure stood unmoving.Its presence bent the air around it, a storm of silence and dread. The moon above it was veiled, as if even the heavens refused to witness its ritual.A deep breath, slow and measured.It raised one hand, fingers long and skeletal, lined with silver markings that shimmered faintly.With a flick, it whispered something in a language not spoken for a thousand years—“Invoco noctem corvus.”A gust of cold wind cut through the woods, scattering leaves in spirals. Then came the sound—a fluttering, slow at first, then loud and rhythmic, like thunder in disguise.From the shadowed sky descended a crow, its feathers a sheen of obsidian and ink, eyes burning with something
Rain lashed against the tall windows of Lucien’s private office—an icy rhythm that echoed through the silence of the room. The fire in the hearth crackled, but it did little to warm the chill that crept into the air as Valen stepped inside, drenched, eyes burning with a rage that was centuries old.Lucien looked up from the parchment on his desk, his silver eyes narrowing.“You shouldn’t be here,” Lucien said calmly, but his muscles tensed beneath his tailored black shirt. “Especially not unannounced.”Valen didn’t sit. He didn’t smile. He moved forward like a storm on legs, each step heavy with purpose.“You went to see her,” Valen said, voice low but seething. “You were told not to.”Lucien rose slowly. “She’s not your prisoner, Valen.”“No,” Valen snarled. “She’s not yours either.”Their gazes locked like clashing swords. The storm outside was nothing compared to the storm inside this room.“She doesn’t belong to you,” Valen said, each word sharp and deliberate. “Not this time. Not
The sky outside had turned a soft lavender as dusk fell, and the mansion stood quiet—too quiet. Valen had gone out on urgent business, leaving Kade alone in the grand estate when Elaina arrived from the hospital. Her steps were hesitant as she walked through the grand corridor, fingertips grazing along the marble banister, heart strangely unsettled.Kade was lounging on one of the leather couches in the drawing room, flipping through a dusty book with disinterest. He looked up the moment Elaina entered.“Well, look who survived another round of hospital drama,” he said with his usual crooked smirk.Elaina gave a weak smile and dropped onto the couch opposite him, pulling her legs up beneath her. “You’re always so casual about everything. Even when the world is… falling apart.”“It’s my charm,” Kade replied, shutting the book with a dramatic sigh. “Besides, if I start acting serious, everyone panics.”Elaina stared into the fire, its flames reflecting in her eyes like dancing ghosts. A
Sunlight poured through the tall glass windows of Valen’s private library like liquid gold, casting a warm glow over the shelves stacked to the ceiling with forgotten tomes and ancient scrolls. Dust danced lazily in the air, disturbed only by the frantic flipping of pages.Elaina sat cross-legged on the marble floor, her arms buried elbow-deep in a thick grimoire bound in cracked leather. Across from her, Kade had somehow managed to wedge himself precariously between two high shelves, holding a glowing text above his head like it might start speaking.“This one has a list of fire-based incantations, a love spell that smells like burnt toast, and—wait for it—a recipe for ‘Moonlight Soup.’” Kade peeked over the edge of the book, grinning. “Do you think the Moon Queen was secretly a chef?”Elaina gave him a look. “If she was, her menu probably started with betrayal and ended in blood.”Kade made a mock-shiver sound. “Spicy.”She groaned, thumping the book shut. “We’re getting nowhere. Ev