Rain slicked the streets of Elaris, turning every reflection into a smear of crimson and silver. Neon signs blinked over puddles that looked like melted rubies, their colors deepened by the Blood Moon that hung too low over the skyline. The city was quiet too quiet for a Friday night.
Melody Ardent pulled the collar of her leather coat higher and tightened her grip on her camera. The call had come through an hour earlier: another body found, spine ripped open, no blood left on scene. Her editor at The Elaris Chronicle had warned her not to go. But Melody wasn't good at listening to warnings.
The old district of Verrin Row was a forgotten maze of cobblestone alleys and abandoned theaters. The police tape flapped in the wind like yellow ribbons of warning. When she ducked under it, the scent hit her first iron, wet fur, and something older, something wrong.
The corpse lay between two rusted dumpsters. Male, mid-thirties, eyes glassy and wide. The chest cavity looked torn by claws, not knives. But the strangest thing was the ground: no footprints, no trail of blood. Just concentric circles of ash burnt into the bricks, like a ritual marking.
She knelt to snap a photo, and the camera's flash briefly illuminated a mark on the victim's wrist a crescent moon carved into the flesh.
"Back away from him."
The voice was deep, steady, carrying the calm of someone who had seen worse. Melody spun around.
He was standing at the alley's mouth, framed by the red light spilling from a streetlamp. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Hair black as midnight and eyes no, not just silver. They shimmered like molten mercury, catching the moonlight in a way that made her breath hitch.
He wore a long coat, dark and unbuttoned, glistening from the rain. And though his clothes were immaculate, his hands were stained with something darker than water.
"Detective?" she guessed, though he didn't look like any law enforcement officer she knew.
"Something like that." His gaze lingered on her camera. "You shouldn't be here, Miss Ardent."
She straightened, pushing down the tremor that crept up her spine. "Press pass. Freedom of information."
"Freedom of death," he murmured, stepping closer. "This isn't a story you want to chase."
There was something off about him an energy in the air that made the hairs on her arms rise. Her instincts whispered that she was standing before the cause, not the witness, of the scene.
"What happened to him?" she asked.
He didn't answer. Instead, he crouched beside the corpse, fingers tracing the burned rings on the ground. His touch seemed to pull faint smoke from the symbols, like they recognized him.
Melody raised the camera again, but he looked up too fast his pupils narrow, glinting with the faintest flash of gold.
She lowered the lens, heart thudding. "Who are you?"
"Someone trying to keep your kind alive."
Before she could respond, a low growl rumbled through the alley deep, animal, coming from the shadows behind her. She turned sharply. Nothing but the rain.
"Behind you," he warned.
A shape leapt from the darkness,massive, fur matted with rain, eyes glowing faint amber. Melody barely ducked before claws slashed where her face had been. The creature hit the ground between them, snarling.
It wasn't a wolf not fully. Its hind legs bent wrong, its hands half-human, its teeth too long for either species.
Lucien moved faster than she could blink. One hand caught the beast's throat mid-lunge; the other drove a blade of pure moonlight into its chest. The creature convulsed, shrieked, and burst into ash that swirled away on the wind.
Silence again, except for the sound of Melody's heartbeat and the whisper of rain.
She stared at him, the alley stinking of ozone and blood. "What was that?"
He looked at her for a long moment, eyes dimming back to silver. "A warning," he said. "And the beginning of something you're not ready to believe."
The ashes drifted like black snow. They scattered across the puddles, leaving behind only silence. Melody's camera dangled uselessly in her trembling hands; she had just watched a man kill a creature that should not exist.
Lucien wiped the blade against his sleeve, and to her horror, the light in it faded as though it had never been steel only raw moonfire taking shape.
"W-what was that thing?" she stammered.
He didn't answer immediately. His gaze swept the rooftops, the alley mouth, and then the body. "A stray," he said at last. "One who broke the old vow."
"The old vow?"
"You ask too many questions for a woman standing in blood."
That should have scared her, but instead she took a shaky step forward, snapping a picture of him before she could stop herself. "If you're going to threaten me, at least let me get your good side."
A faint smile ghosted across his lips, gone almost instantly. "You think this is a game. Elaris has forgotten what it's built on. You shouldn't wake things that remember."
He turned away, coat flaring with the motion, and started toward the street.
"Wait!" Melody called. "Who are you really?"
Lucien paused. The wind carried a low growl that wasn't quite human it came from him. Then he spoke without looking back.
"Lucien Vareon."
The name felt heavy, ancient, as if it had been whispered under a thousand full moons.
Then he was gone, swallowed by the mist at the end of the alley.
By the time Melody returned to her car, the rain had stopped. The clouds thinned enough for the moon to pierce through a blood-red disc, pulsing like a heartbeat. Her hands still shook when she set the camera down on the passenger seat.
She replayed the footage on the small screen: the corpse, the markings, and nothing. The part where Lucien had stood was missing. There was a blank static ripple, then black.
Her pulse kicked up. He wasn't in the film.
When she reached her apartment later, the clock had just struck midnight. The wind whined against the windows like a hungry animal. She poured herself a glass of whiskey and sat on the couch, scrolling through the photos. Every image of the body remained crystal clear except for one.
The last photo, the one she'd taken of Lucien. His face was gone. Blurred out completely, like the lens had refused to remember him.
Melody leaned back, heart pounding. "What are you?" she whispered to the empty room.
A knock answered. Three slow raps at the door.
She froze.
No one visited her this late. The air felt thick, charged, the way it had in the alley. She grabbed her camera, inching closer.
"Miss Ardent." The voice outside was calm, almost gentle. "You shouldn't be alone tonight."
Lucien.
She hesitated, hand trembling on the doorknob. "You followed me?"
"Something followed you," he said. "And I'm here to make sure it doesn't finish what it started."
Every instinct screamed to slam the door, but curiosity stupid, relentless won. She cracked it. Lucien stood there, rain dripping from his hair, eyes reflecting the faint glow of the moon.
Behind him, down the hallway, shadows shifted like living smoke.
"Move," he ordered, stepping inside. His presence filled the room, cold and wild, the scent of pine and iron clinging to him. He walked straight to the window, scanning the darkness outside.
"What are you protecting me from?" she asked.
He turned, the silver in his eyes flickering faintly gold again. "Yourself," he said softly. "You looked at the moon tonight, didn't you?"
Melody blinked. "What does that have to do with the moon?"she asked.
"Then it saw you."
The words hit like a chill through her bones.
Lucien's hand brushed the side of her neck, fingers pausing over her pulse. For an instant, something flared beneath her skin a faint mark glowing like moonlight caught beneath flesh. A crescent.
He drew back, gaze hardening. "It's begun."
Before she could demand what that meant, a sound rose outside the distant echo of howls, too many to be human.
Lucien's expression darkened. "They've found you."
She looked past him to the window. Through the rain-streaked glass, she saw movement shadows darting between streetlights, eyes burning amber in the dark.
"What are they?" she whispered.
He turned toward her, voice low and final. "Wolves that forgot the moon."
Thunder cracked overhead, and the lights went out.