Chapter 3:
Rain lashed against the windshield like blades of steel, distorting the grotesque gargoyles of the mansion. Their open mouths spewed rust-stained water, as if the house itself were bleeding.
Sanathiel stepped out of the car, his navy-blue suit immaculate against the leaden sky. As his foot hit the ground, the puddle beneath reflected two figures: his own, and that of a wolf with amber eyes and a bloodstained muzzle.
His shadow flickered in the water. For an instant, it no longer had a human shape.
"Sir," the butler bowed, offering him an umbrella with a silver handle engraved with binding runes. "House Verona insisted you read this before your meeting with the Thirteen."
Sanathiel ignored it. The cold raindrops slid down the crescent-shaped scar on his face, igniting a burn that wasn't only physical. A memory wrapped around him with the same force as a storm centuries ago.
The air smelled of orange blossoms and iron. Flowers and blood. Beauty and death intertwined.
Zaira screamed his name while the Nevri pack hunted them. Among the trees, silver eyes glowed with restrained hunger.
But this wasn't a simple ambush.They had been waiting for him. Waiting for her.
Rain turned the earth into thick mud. Zaira slipped, breath caught in fear. Sanathiel could have caught her.But he didn't.
"You think your poison still affects me?" he muttered, breaking the green wax seal.
A sulfurous smoke slipped from the scroll, curling in the air until it formed a face. Aisha.
She was identical to Zaira. Even the mole on her neck. But she wasn't her.Or perhaps fate was mocking him — repeating Zaira's face in another woman... to offer him another chance.Or to condemn him again.
Sanathiel staggered back, as if the smoke had punched him in the chest. Zaira's memory didn't just haunt him — it bled him dry.
The last time he saw her, she was covered in mud and wounds, her black hair stuck to her forehead, her breath trembling.
"You're not going to die for me," she said, piercing him with those sky-blue eyes that still haunted him."You're going to live for both of us. Even if you hate me for it."
And he did hate her.Not for what she did.But for leaving before he had the courage to say he loved her... before the fire swallowed her.
Now fate placed before him a shadow of Zaira.A woman with the same strength. The same light.The same mole on her neck.
"What do you want from me, Moira?" he spat, eyes clouded. "To see if this time I have the courage to save her?Or watch her burn too?"
His claws scratched the edge of the table until it splintered.
If Aisha died, it would be his fault.And if she lived…That would be his fault too.
A scar broke the symmetry of his reflection — deep, carved by the white wolf.
In the library, the blue curtains danced like specters. Candle flames flickered as Sanathiel dropped the scroll on the ebony table.
When he brought the candle close, the fire didn't consume the parchment.Instead, Latin verses coiled around his wrist like living serpents.
Sanguis Zaïrae ligat te ad aeternum.(The blood of Zaira binds you forever.)
"Sanathiel!"Mica burst in, face tense, holding a pocket watch.
The tick-tock accelerated, pounding in his skull like a war drum.
"How many corpses will it take for you to realize you're alone?"
Mica dropped the watch on the table with a dry snap.
"You still pretend to be a king among corpses, Sanathiel." His voice was venomous, laced with mockery."But kings fall too. And your grave's already dug."
Sanathiel clenched his fist on the table. The wood groaned.The watch fell silent for an instant... as if it too was holding its breath.
In the mirror behind Mica, Sanathiel's reflection was no longer human.His nails became claws, his pupils burned like trapped fire in amber.
"Are you here to preach?" he whispered, tracing a circle on the table with his own blood."Or to confess that you sold my location to Falco?"
Mica gritted his teeth, still holding the watch's smoking fragments.
"Lionel... will have Aisha."
Sanathiel didn't move.His heart — if it still existed — froze.Not out of fear.But rage.
"She'll be given to him as a bride at dawn."
Silence fell like a tombstone.
The metal burned his hand, but he didn't release it.
"It's an edict from the Community of the Thirteen."
Mica's voice trembled with fury and despair.
"You can't break it. No one can."
The candle flickered. The air thickened like poisoned syrup, heavy with the weight of a thousand ancestral whispers. Sanathiel recognized it — the same scent of turned soil and dried tears that filled the air before every massacre.
Sanathiel turned. His lip split as his fangs emerged, drops of black blood trailing down his chin.
"Tell Lionel he's weaving his shroud with silver threads and sorrow," he growled, slamming the fragments of the watch into the table."When he comes for her, I'll remember how he screamed when his mother died."
Mica picked up the remains.Inside, a medallion with the symbol of the Thirteen pulsed faintly, as if it still had a heartbeat.
"When you fall... not even your curse will remember your name."
In the forest, stained glass shattered.Falco watched from the shadows, his silhouette barely visible among the trees.
In his hands, a diary opened by itself, its letters bleeding across the page.Zaira's portrait twisted, her eyes turning gold.
In the distance, three howls tore through the air.They weren't wolves.They were something worse.