Semua Bab They Both Wanted Me: Bab 1 - Bab 10

I didn't sleep.That's not entirely true. I tried to sleep. I lay in my bed for hours, staring at the water stain on my ceiling that looked vaguely like a map of South America, replaying every second of that alley in my mind until the images blurred together into something that felt less like memory and more like hallucination.Wolves that turned into men. A vampire with eyes like dying embers. The cold press of his fingers against my skin.By 4 AM, I gave up.My apartment was small—one bedroom, a kitchen the size of a closet, a living room that doubled as a dining room because I couldn't afford a dining room. I'd lived here for three years, ever since I aged out of the foster system with a garbage bag full of clothes and exactly zero people to call family. It wasn't much, but it was mine.I made coffee I didn't want and sat at my tiny kitchen table, watching the sky turn from black to gray through the window. My arm throbbed where the wolf had scratched me. I'd cleaned it last night—

I dreamed of fire.Not destructive fire—something older. The kind of flame that lived in candles and hearths and the hearts of stars. It burned behind my eyes, warm and golden, and in its center stood the woman from before. The Moon Priestess. Kael's mother.She looked different this time. Less ethereal, more real. I could see the lines around her eyes, the silver in her hair, the way her hands bore the scars of a life fully lived. She smiled at me like a mother welcoming a child home.You're fighting it, she said. The awakening. I can feel you pushing it away."I don't know what that means."Yes, you do. You feel it stirring—that warmth in your chest, that pull toward the moon, that hunger that isn't quite hunger. You've felt it your whole life and called it something else. Intuition. Luck. That strange sense that you didn't quite belong in your own skin.I wanted to deny it. But she was right. I'd always felt... wrong. Too sensitive to crowds, too aware of emotions that weren't mine

Midnight approached like a held breath.I'd spent the entire day cleaning my apartment—not because I cared what they thought, but because I needed something to do with my hands. Something to distract from the churning in my stomach and the weight of what was about to happen.Elinor seemed to sense my nerves. She'd taken up residence on the back of the couch, watching the door with the intensity of a tiny, judgmental sentinel.At 11:47, I felt him first.Caspian. A cold brush against my consciousness, a whisper of presence just outside my window. I turned, and there he was—perched on my fire escape like some kind of gothic gargoyle, red eyes gleaming in the darkness."The door was unlocked," he said through the glass."It's always unlocked for you, apparently."He almost smiled. It was becoming a thing between us, those almost-smiles. I didn't hate it.He slipped inside with that impossible grace, landing silently on my thrift store rug. He'd dressed differently tonight—still black, bu

Three weeks dissolved into a whirlwind of discovery.Every day, I met them in the park. We talked—about their worlds, my heritage, the power blossoming within me like a second heartbeat. Caspian taught me to fortify my mind against intrusion, to feel the bond without being consumed by it. Kael showed me how to ground myself, to draw strength from the earth, to heed the whispers of my hybrid blood.And every night, I dreamed of my mother.She appeared in fragments—a smile here, a warning there, always fading before I could reach her. But each time, I felt her love like a comforting embrace. Each time, I woke stronger.The pendant never ceased to warm my chest."You're progressing faster than anticipated," Caspian observed one afternoon. We sat on our usual bench, Kael having gone to get coffee for me and... well, nothing for them. Vampires didn't drink coffee, and Kael claimed mine was "offensive" to his wolf palate."Is that good or bad?""Both." His red eyes studied me with that anci

The Carpathian Mountains rose against the night sky like the teeth of some ancient beast.I stood at the edge of the forest, wrapped in shadows and the warmth of my pendant, and stared at the fortress that held my grandmother. It was everything Caspian had described—massive, ancient, carved from the mountain itself, its towers piercing the clouds like accusations."Two thousand years," I whispered. "She's been here for two thousand years.""And she'll be here for two thousand more if we don't stop her." Kael's hand found mine, squeezed once. "You ready?""No. But I'm going anyway."Beside me, Caspian was utterly still—the stillness of a predator, of centuries of patience, of a man about to face his greatest fear. "The passage is east, hidden in the cliff face. We'll have to climb.""I'm a librarian," I pointed out. "I climb ladders. Sometimes stools. This is different."Kael grinned despite everything. "Good thing you have two supernatural idiots to catch you if you fall.""That's...