Chapter Two: The Trap

They clashed.

Again. And again.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t pause. This was a hunt—not for survival, but for justice long denied.

Her blows were calculated, brutal. She ducked under his swipes, slammed her shoulder into his side, raked claws down his flank. Blood matted his fur. Ethan fought back—fangs snapping, claws slashing the air—but she danced around him like she'd trained for this moment a thousand times.

He barreled into her with full force, pinning her against the alley wall. For a second, he felt her ribs crack beneath his bulk. Her breath hitched—a sharp, wounded gasp. A second later, he was flying backward, thrown like a ragdoll. He hit a dumpster. Hard. Metal screamed, denting inward with the impact. A trash lid clattered to the ground. He staggered, dazed, stars bursting behind his eyes.

She was on him before he could rise. Her teeth snapped at his throat. He rolled away, barely avoiding her bite.

Ethan snarled, circling. His gold eyes locked onto her amber ones. No words. No names.

She leapt.

They hit the ground, a tangle of limbs and fury. She clawed into his shoulder. He headbutted her, dazing her, then slammed his paw into her snout. She staggered—but recovered with terrifying speed.

He lunged again, but she spun beneath him, grabbed his hind leg, and yanked. He hit the pavement with a growl.

He scrambled upright, only for her to slash across his face. Blood clouded his vision.

Instinct roared.

He charged her, knocking them both into the side wall. Bricks cracked. They rolled—she bit into his forearm; he howled and retaliated, his claws tearing through her side.

Still, she didn’t stop.

It was like she was made for this moment.

And then, with a feral roar, she surged upright, tackled him into the wall again, and brought a silver dagger hilt-deep into his thigh.

Agony. The world flared white.

He collapsed, panting, limbs heavy. The silver pulsed in his blood. He tried to move—couldn’t. The venom of it was spreading fast.

She didn’t wait. As his body writhed in agony, as his limbs spasmed and his vision darkened, she stepped forward and swung again—brutal, efficient. Her clawed hand slammed into the side of his skull. The world exploded in light and static.

Then, nothing.

When he came to, the world was still again—but different.

Concrete walls. Rusted beams. The stink of oil and mildew. A warehouse. Abandoned, forgotten. The hum of a flickering fluorescent light buzzed somewhere above. His arms were chained, heavy manacles bolted into the highest beams—ensuring it was impossible to break free from the chains. Silver-lined. Not enough to kill him—but enough to keep the beast asleep.

She stood over him, heaving. Blood streaked her chest. One eye swollen. Her breathing ragged, but her stance solid.

Only now—only after the war had been won—did she speak.

“You don’t remember me,” she growled, voice like gravel soaked in fire. “But I remember you.”

The words froze him. Recognition flickered just out of reach.

She leaned closer.

“Royce. Eight years ago. You defended him. Said there wasn’t enough evidence.”

The name hit like a hammer to the gut.

Images came unbidden: a courtroom’s sterile air, the echo of gavels, the shuffle of jurors leaning forward, his own voice threading reasonable doubt into their veins. A man crushed beneath steel on a job site. Inconclusive—the verdict had said. A victory on paper, a ghost in memory.

Ethan tried to swallow, but her stare pinned him like a cross-examination he couldn’t escape.

“My father,” she snarled, her fangs bared inches from his throat, “**died screaming under collapsed beams while Royce walked free and untouched. And you—” her voice cracked, but her fury didn’t—“you made the jury doubt their own eyes. Twisted the truth into a weapon.”

Her claws pressed into his chest, not piercing skin but promising they could. He felt the heat of her breath, the tremor in her body that wasn’t fear—it was barely caged violence.

“The audacity…” she hissed, every syllable trembling with rage. “To take what was clear as daylight and smear it in just enough shadow to blind them. You didn’t just defend a killer. You made a dead man take the blame for his own death.”

Her words cut deeper than claws could. Ethan’s jaw tightened. He wanted to argue—that was the system, the law, the burden of proof—but even in his silence, the truth echoed: he had done exactly that. Royce had walked. Her father hadn’t. And Ethan had called it justice.

The chain binding his wrists clinked when he shifted, but the sound was hollow, pitiful. He met her gaze instead. “You think I did it for him?” His voice was hoarse, low, a scrape against stone. “You think I cared about Royce?”

Anna’s eyes narrowed, golden light flaring in the dark. “You cared about winning.”

She shoved him back against the chair, and the metal bit into his shoulders. The beast in him stirred, restless, straining at the insult. But he held it, if only barely.

“You turned the courtroom into a slaughterhouse,” she went on, her tone lower now, more dangerous than when she screamed. “Every witness you shredded, every truth you bent—it wasn’t about evidence. It was about power. About you proving you could bury the truth deeper than any grave.”

Ethan let out a harsh laugh, the sound more bitter than defiant. “And you chained me here to do what? Lecture me on morality? You think vengeance is purer than the law?”

Her claws dug harder, sharp enough now to break skin. His breath hitched as warmth trickled beneath his shirt.

“Vengeance,” she whispered, her lips curling back to reveal fangs slick with moonlight, “is the only verdict left when the law fails.”

Her face was so close now he could see the tiny crack of grief beneath the fury—the shimmer in her eyes that wasn’t rage alone. For a heartbeat, he thought he might see her falter. But then her grip tightened, iron and intent.

He met her gaze steadily, blood and memory mingling in his chest. “Then give me my sentence.”

Her expression flickered—conflict, hunger, hate. And something else. Something she hadn’t expected to feel for the monster in her grasp.

The chains rattled as he leaned forward, straining against her hold, not with violence but with the weight of truth. “But if you’re going to kill me, Anna, you’d better make damn sure you don’t look me in the eyes when you do it. Because once you do…” His lips curved, not a smile but the shadow of one. “…you’ll never forget what you see there.”

For the first time, she hesitated.

The silence between them wasn’t empty—it was charged, thick with the pulse of two hearts at war. One beating for vengeance. The other, for survival. And somewhere in the crossfire, something darker began to take root.

She looked like she might tear his throat out right then and there. Every inch of her radiated hate—righteous, unchecked, wild. Her muscles were coiled, jaw trembling, breath ragged.

“I should kill you,” she whispered. “Right now. And I’d be doing the world a favor.””

He wanted to speak, but she was already moving.

A sharp jab in his neck. Cold flooded his veins.

The world tipped sideways.

And went black.

Time became a void. There were no dreams. No sounds. Only the lingering chill of her words echoing in his subconscious, like a blade dragged through ice.

He floated in that darkness for what felt like days. Or hours. Or minutes. It was impossible to tell. All he could feel was the pressure of pain waiting for him at the edge.

When sensation returned, it did so in pieces.

First, the dull throb behind his eyes. Then the weight of his limbs—immense, as if gravity had been rewritten solely to crush him. The air was thick, damp. It tasted of rust and old metal.

A slow creak above him. The sound of a chain shifting under tension. Then another. And another.

Ethan groaned.

He opened his eyes, blinking against the low industrial light that swung overhead. It cast slow, dizzying shadows across a cavernous space—concrete walls pockmarked with mold and decay. Rows of rusted lockers lined one edge. Broken crates were stacked in a corner like forgotten graves. And somewhere, water dripped rhythmically from a cracked pipe.

He tried to move. Couldn’t.

His arms were stretched above him, chained high into iron beams, his feet barely touching the ground. The cuffs were thick. Reinforced. Etched with something that smelled faintly of silver and burnt ozone.

It wasn’t just imprisonment.

It was containment.

A faint breath behind him. Movement.

He twisted his head—and there she was.

Anna.

Sitting on a crate in the shadows, legs crossed, elbows on her knees. Her posture loose, but her eyes—those eyes—were anything but relaxed. They blazed with quiet calculation.

He remembered everything. 

The fight. The blade. 

Her words. Her hate.