“You know she has to die, David.” Sophie’s voice rang out over the clamorous charity gala as her champagne glass glinted in the light. “The Council will not wait very long.”"Not here." David's jaw clenched as he glanced around the room, an expensive suit not enough to disguise the tension in his shoulders. “We do have half the city’s elite watching us.”I froze behind the marble column, my heart throbbing in my ribs. They hadn’t seen me yet — my own husband and his supposed best friend, discussing my murder over champagne. The anniversary gift nestled in my clutch weighed a ton.“She’s getting suspicious,” Sophie said, turning her red lips into a smile as she waved to a passing senator. “Yesterday she asked about where her family’s foundation’s missing money went.”“Because you got careless about the transfers.” David’s tone stayed polite, but I could hear the peril. “Two hundred million doesn’t just vanish without questions.My hands shook when I took out my phone, opening the banki
My father’s estate was always intimidating, but tonight it seemed like a fortress. The mile-long driveway was lined with ancient oaks, whose branches jutted at odd angles and hung over us like wrinkled fingers. Walking up to the wrought-iron gates, they slid open without a sound — no security code required. They'd been expecting me.The change still coursed under my skin, sharpening every sensation. I could smell the rain coming, hear small crows darting away from my car, feel the ancient power thrumming in the estate’s foundations. The gas-station pregnancy test I had taken lay positive on the passenger seat, confirming Sophie’s cruel revelation.My phone had been buzzing nonstop since I’d left David bleeding in the library. I checked it one last time:David: You have no idea what you’re getting into. Come home. Let me explain.The Council is convening. They’re voting whether to hunt you down. You're safer with us.Unknown: The kid alters the whole conversation. Caution is necessary,
I was standing in the torn-open living room of my parents’ house, blood dripping from my bloodied hands, as unconscious wolves lay all around me. David had left — he'd bolted the moment I'd willed the ancient sigils into being, dragging a wounded Sophie with him. The look of astonishment on his face had been nearly worth all the other things.“Well,” my father said, adjusting his tie as he took in the destruction, “I guess that answers the question of whether your powers have awakened.”"James." Mom’s warning tone was sharper than I had ever heard it. She stepped carefully through the wreckage to touch my shoulder. "Sweetheart, you're shaking."I was. The energy that had coursed through me was now gone, replaced with fatigue. My legs gave way, and before I could hit the ground, I was caught by solid arms."I've got you."The voice tingled in my veins — unlike the raw power I’d just wielded. This was warmer, familiar in a way that made my heart stutter. I gazed upwards into eyes I had
The world still spun with golden light when she broke our kiss, but the howls outside were too near. The fires on the hills threw writhing shadows across the windows and I could feel the baby reacting to the surge of power, moving restlessly in my arms.“We have to go,” Maxwell said hoarsely. “They’re going to be coming to get you with the bond awakening.”"The bond...” I touched my lips, tingling still from his kiss. New memories were rushing back — stolen moments in the treehouse, whispered promises beneath moonlight, the gut-wrenching agony when he’d vanished. "You knew all along. Even when I married David...""I wanted to stop you." His jaw clenched. “But if Id interfered, it would have all come out early. You didn’t know what your power even was back then. That shock could have killed you.”"So you watched." The words came out bitter. “While he was abusing me, while he — ”“While he attempted to subvert what was meant to be ours. (Maxwell’s eyes flashed dangerously.) “He knew how
The battlefield was silent. The panting of wolves, the taste of blood between her teeth, the low growls echoing off the walls of the night — was it enough to remind her the fight wasn’t over? My muscles buzzed from the change, and my skin tingled where the last remnants of power coursed through me just moments before. But now, the rush was gone, leaving in its wake something more profound, something chillier — reality.David was gone. Disappeared into the night the second he knew he was outgunned. His pack had blown apart like rats, those who survived, anyway. But his absence had not offered relief. If anything, it left an emptiness, a sickening pit in my stomach, because I knew this wasn’t over. He would return. Stronger. Angrier. More prepared.Maxwell transformed first, the black wolf vanishing into the man in front of me. His breathing was shallow, his chest rising and falling fitfully. He was bleeding — a gash along his ribs, claw marks streaking his arms — but his eyes were on m
It was so suffocating, the drive to the sanctuary.Each mile between the estate added another layer of unsaid words and suffocating tension, another hell to the jungle. My fingers sunk into the leather seat of Maxwell’s car, knuckles turned white, stomach roiling with anxiety. My father had handed us coordinates – no address, no map, just a string of numbers that pointed us to a spot I could not remember being in, a spot that would allegedly remake me.Or break me.Maxwell hadn’t said anything since we’d left. His knuckles were white driving the steering wheel, jaw clenched, and there was tension in his muscles under his shirt. Moonlight slashed across his face, angular stripes that fell shadowy and stark in the fight he held within himself. He hated this. Loathed that I was walking into something he couldn’t control.But he wasn’t the only one.In truth, I wasn’t prepared. Not for this. Not for the weight of who I was becoming, what I was carrying. But good form had left the building
The forest hissed with life.Figures streaked between the trees, their eyes glimmering like liquid gold in the darkness. Deep growls traveled the air, resonating, a cruel chorus of the chase. They weren’t just here to capture me — they were here to break me. To remind me that I was still their prey, no matter how much power coursed through my veins.But they had underestimated me.Maxwell rocketed forward, a streak of speed and rage, crashing into the first wolf as it leaped. Their bodies hit the ground with a resounding snap as they wrestled in a bloody tangle. Another wolf lunged for me, baring its fangs, and instinct kicked in.I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life. One moment, I was crouched next to the wreckage of the car; the next, I was twisting out of the way, my blade cleaving through muscle and fur. A tortured howl tore through the night, but there was no time to contemplate. More were coming.Maxwell fought like a force of nature, morphing between the human and wolf lik
The darkness enveloped me in gauze, dense and cloying. I was in an emptiness, weightless, where time folded in on itself. Whispers filled the void — familiar, some strange echoes of a past I didn’t recall. My limbs felt heavy, movable only in the realm of dreams, as if I were detached from the world.Then, pain.A sudden, searing pain shot through my body, pulling me back up to the surface. My lungs burned as I struggled to breathe; my perception returned in a rush. What I first felt was warmth — arms wrapped around me, strong and steady. A scent I knew. Safe. Familiar.Maxwell.“Lena.” His voice was gravelly, age raw with desperation. “Come back to me.”I attempted to get up, but my body was slow and weighted with fatigue and something more. Something wrong. My stomach roiled, and I pressed my hands on it as that deep, foreign emptiness began taking root in my gut.And then I remembered.The baby. The power. David’s spell sliced through me like a blade.No, I whispered, my voice so l
For the first time in my life, I felt powerless.The heartbeat beneath the earth had grown faster, stronger, until the ground vibrated constantly, as though the land itself were straining against invisible chains. Around us, the sanctuary’s wards pulsed weakly, flickering like candle flames caught in a hurricane. Every instinct in my body screamed that the Harbinger’s arrival wasn’t the end of the nightmare—it was the beginning.Maxwell stood beside me, staring into the darkness beyond the tents. His face was a perfect mask, but I knew him too well. I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders, the fear he would never voice unless forced.“We’re not ready for this,” Barin muttered, pacing back and forth. “We built defenses against armies, assassins, the Council’s damn enforcers—but this?” He shook his head violently. “We can’t fight myths, Lena.”“We’re not fighting myths,” I said, my voice hoarse but certain. “We’re fighting the consequences of lies too old to be forgotten.”I
For a long time, no one moved.Lior’s body lay unnaturally still, the black veins receding slowly as if whatever force had animated him had finally burned itself out. The silence pressed into my ears like a physical weight, and all I could hear was the wild hammering of my own heart.Maxwell knelt cautiously, checking Lior’s pulse even though we all knew there would be none. “He’s gone,” he said grimly, standing and wiping his hands on his trousers like he could scrub away what he had just witnessed.I stepped closer to Lior’s body, forcing my legs to obey even as every part of me screamed to turn away. My fingers itched to summon my magic, to scan deeper, but something in my gut warned me against it. Whatever had been buried in Lior, whatever had just been unleashed, it had been old. Purposeful. A ticking time bomb planted within him long before he ever set foot inside our sanctuary.Barin's voice broke the suffocating quiet. “First Door?” he said, his tone raw, full of confusion and
The Seal wasn’t just breaking.It was opening.I could feel it deep inside my chest, pulsing to a rhythm I hadn’t known was mine until now—a calling that wasn’t spoken in words, but written into my bones.Maxwell gripped my arm. “Lena. Talk to me. What’s happening?”I struggled to find my voice. “The Seal... It’s not just a lock. It’s a beacon. It’s been waiting for me. Not to keep it closed—” my throat tightened, “—but to complete it.”Barin burst into the tent, panting hard. “The eastern sentries just reported—cracks. In the ley lines. They’re... bleeding magic. Wild magic.”Bleeding.The word hit harder than it should have. As if something sacred was hemorrhaging, and I could feel every drop slipping away.Maxwell swore under his breath, pacing. “We don’t have time. You have to decide. Now.”But how could I decide?If I answered the call, if I embraced the destiny written into my blood, I risked becoming something else—something not entirely human. Not entirely mine. But if I refus
The silence after the stranger’s departure was deafening.Everyone remained frozen, as if moving might crack the fragile shell of reality he had left behind. The air inside the tent was thick with confusion, suspicion, and fear. Real fear. Not the kind that came from facing enemies you could see, but the kind that crawled inside you when you realized the ground you stood on might not be solid at all.Maxwell was the first to move. He grabbed my elbow, steady but firm. “Lena, what did he mean? What oath? What time are we losing?”I shook my head, though the truth gnawed at the back of my mind like a starving animal. I knew something. Something long buried. But my waking memory refused to yield it.“I don’t know,” I said, though my voice lacked conviction.Lior was already pulling on his jacket, moving toward the entrance. “We need to track him. He can't have gotten far.”“No,” I said sharply, stopping him mid-step. “He didn’t come to hide. He came to make sure we heard him. If we chase
The words that hung in the air settled heavily. I looked at Lior, and then at the others in the tent. They were all waiting, no longer with mere curiosity but with the weight of their expectations. What would I do now? Would I continue to walk this fragile line alone, or would I listen?I exhaled sharply, feeling a mix of frustration and understanding in equal measure. He was right in some ways, but the urgency of the hour didn’t leave room for hesitation or second-guessing. Yet, this wasn’t just about me anymore. This was about all of us. About the future we were building—together, or not at all.“I never intended to be the only one making decisions,” I said, my voice more controlled now. “The sanctity of this place was never meant to be mine alone.”Lior raised an eyebrow. “Then why are we here? Why are we sitting here while you lay the foundation with the very hands that will one day destroy it?”“Because I was trying to protect us all,” I responded, my eyes flicking to the others
The word LIAR still smoldered on the earth.Not from magic, but from intention. The burn was too crude, too human. There was no sigil or mystical flair to hide behind. No illusion. Just a raw accusation, left like a scar on sacred ground.Someone hadn’t just defaced the stone—they’d made a statement. And they’d made it here, at the heart of everything we were trying to build.I stood over it for a long time. Too long. I could feel the others watching me—Barin, Maxwell, Elara, even some of the apprentices who had come to help reinforce the foundation wards. They waited for a command, a reaction, anything to show them what I would do now.I didn’t give it to them.Not yet.Because inside me, there was a storm I couldn't afford to unleash—not until I knew where the crack had started.Maxwell stepped closer, voice low. “You think it’s someone inside?”I didn’t look at him. “If it were an outsider, the outer wards would have flared.”He swore under his breath. “Then we’ve been infiltrated.
“You called me reckless,” I continued. “You sent dreams and threats and doppelgängers to test my integrity. And I passed. Not by your standards—but by surviving, intact, through the kind of grief most of you would’ve buried. I faced my worst self and didn’t break.”A pause.“Can any of you say the same?”Silence.Then Elias spoke again, quieter. “And what do you propose, then? A Council of one?”“No,” I said. “A new covenant. Shared authority. A seat at the table for those you’ve excluded. A place where power isn’t feared—but shaped, taught, and trusted.”He didn’t move. “You’re asking us to rewrite centuries.”“I’m telling you,” I said, “they’re already rewriting themselves. You can participate—or you can be left behind.”The room held its breath.Then Elias smiled.It was small. But real.“You’ve grown,” he said. “Far more than we expected.”“I’m just getting started.”The chamber stayed silent for a moment after I spoke those words, but it wasn’t the silence of resistance—it was th
We didn’t wait for permission.By the next morning, the word was already spreading—not as a rumor, but as a declaration. The sanctuary would rise.No more retreating. No more hiding our power behind broken seals and inherited shame. We would build a space tethered to the ley lines, reinforced with intention, rooted in the truth of who we were becoming. And more than that, anyone with power, hunted or not, would be welcome. Not just Guardians. Not just wolves.Everyone.The response was immediate.Some sent their support—ancient names I barely recognized, offering blood, stone, and spell to help raise the walls. Others sent silence. The kind that carried the weight of a thousand threats.But it was the Council that answered first.I had barely finished marking the boundary runes when a crow landed on the stone in front of me. No scroll, no flare of magic. Just a voice—projected, cold and clear—from the bird’s beak."Lena Weber. The Council calls you to stand before the Elders within th
The circle dimmed. The night resumed its breath.Maxwell appeared at the edge of the trees, his eyes wild with concern. He didn’t speak. Just waited.“I’m okay,” I said, voice hoarse.He walked up to me slowly. “You don’t look okay.”“No,” I said, leaning into his chest. “But I know what I’m doing now.”He held me for a long moment. Then asked, “And what’s that?”I looked toward the stars, toward the seal humming faintly in my chest.“I’m going to stop surviving,” I said. “And start building.”Maxwell didn't speak right away. He studied me like he was seeing something different—something unfamiliar but necessary. The kind of change you don't celebrate with cheers, but with silence, because you know it’s real.“Building what?” he asked finally.I let the question hang in the air for a moment. “Something that doesn’t depend on fear. On reaction. On waiting for the next attack. Something rooted in intention. In choice. We keep surviving crisis after crisis, and we forget to imagine what