I stared at the silver hairpin in my hand for what felt like hours. It was cold now, dulled with ash, but the edges still shimmered faintly when moonlight touched it. Even after everything... it had survived. Just like me. Logan sat on a rock which was a getaway, watching the trees like he expected something to leap out at us. Maybe he was giving me space. Or maybe he just didn’t know what to say. Neither did I.The ruins of the Crimson Moon estate surrounded us—jagged stone, broken beams, scattered bones of a place that once made me feel small. Now it just looked tired. Like even the earth had exhaled after holding its breath too long. I closed my fingers around the hairpin. He left it for me. Kelvin. Why? Why now?"You okay?" Logan’s voice was low, careful. I didn’t answer. I just stood, slipping the pin into the pocket of my cloak and brushing ash off my sleeves. My body still ached from the power burst, and my ribs felt like glass, but I could move. I could breathe. That was enoug
It didn’t feel empty—not like sleep or silence. It felt thick, like smoke curling around my lungs, like drowning in fire. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe. Only float. Memories drifted by like ash in the wind. A child’s laugh. A cliff. Silver chains. Kelly’s smile—sweet and twisted. Mike’s voice, calm like poison. And the light. The light inside me that had turned everything to chaos.“When you wake, there will be nothing left of the girl.” “Only the Ghost.” I wanted to scream. To fight it. But there was nothing to fight. Only me.I gasped. Air tore into my lungs like I hadn’t breathed in days. My whole body arched on the surface I was lying on. I wasn’t in chains anymore. I wasn’t on a cold marble floor. It was—Soft fabric beneath me. Warmth. A flicker of firelight. My eyes blinked against the haze, shapes sharpening slowly. A small room. Stone walls. Candles. And someone was kneeling beside me.“Rachael.” Logan called out dryly. His voice broke when he mentioned m
Glancing at the city’s skyline which pierced the sky like jagged fangs, sharp and merciless against the storm-dark clouds above. My grip tightened around the leather strap across my shoulder as Logan and I emerged from the cover of trees into the outer edge of the hidden city. My steps were fast, also fueled by urgency—but every part of me knew something was off.Too quiet. Too still. Like the entire city was holding its breath against me, waiting for something to break. “We need to reach the High Council,” Logan muttered beside me. “If they knew what Christopher’s planning—”he paused.“They won’t believe us,” I cut in, scanning the rooftops, in every corner of the alley. “They never did.”My gut twisted in warning, and the Oracle’s words rang louder in my mind than ever before: ‘You are both judge and destroyer.’ “Let’s keep moving,” Logan said—but before the words even finished leaving his lips, the air shifted. The Steel hissed. Logan shoved me hard just as a blade sliced through
I could still hear that name ringing in my head like thunder.Azrael?I didn’t know where it had come from, or why it felt like a thread pulling at the core of my soul. But there was no time to unravel it. The wind howled through the shattered ruins, stirring the remnants of ash and dirt left behind by Christopher’s vanishing wolves.Logan pulled me by the wrist swiftly. “We need to move. Now.”“But that howl—” I said.“Exactly why we don’t want to stick around. We don’t know who or what it was.”We slipped out the side of the temple, sprinting through the trees, dodging roots and debris as the cold night pressed against our skin. My breath came in ragged gasps, but I kept moving.Until I couldn’t.I stumbled severely when my foot hit a low-hanging root. My palms touched the floor but before I could get up, I felt it.A pull in my chest.Like a wire had snapped loose and was now whipping wildly inside me.“Logan…” I croaked, trying to rise.He stopped mid-stride and turned back—but th
The cold night air bit into my skin as Logan and I emerged from the underground tunnels, our footsteps swallowed by the damp earth beneath us as we sprint for our dear lives. The sky was a heavy shade of gray, like it, too, was mourning something unseen. Or maybe it was just me and Logan.I didn’t look back.I couldn’t.The last thing I remembered was Kelvin’s eyes which were filled with emptiness, unreadable—and the storm he left inside me.We ran until my lungs burned, my legs trembling with every step. Logan led the way, silent and focused, as he kept guiding us deep into the ruins of what used to be an old Lycan temple, its jagged stones cloaked in moss and secrets. It stood like a forgotten god, broken but still imposing.“This will have to do for now,” Logan muttered, pushing aside a rotted wooden door and ushering me in.The moment I stepped inside, the weight of everything collapsed on me. My knees gave out. I crumpled to the ground, with my chest heaving, and tears stinging m
I screamed his name harder but he didn't turn back. I was annoyed and filled with rage.The cell was cold, and the silence was suffocating. I sat on the damp stone floor, with my knees pulled to my chest, my wrists aching from the silver chains locked on my arms. The walls around me seemed to close in, like it was trapping me not just physically, but mentally.Kelvin’s face flashed through my mind—his touch, his voice, the way he had sworn to protect me and how he had always been over protective of me.Had it all been a lie all this while?My fingers tightened into fists as I pondered over this, it was hard to believe. I wanted to believe he wasn’t capable of betraying me and he won't do that no matter the price. But the evidence… the crest… and what Logan said.I swallowed hard my gut.If Kelvin had truly been hiding something this massive from me, then had I ever really known him at all?My memories began surfacing, each one sharper than the last and now I was getting it clearer.I