Elara's POV
Unit 304 was a rusted metal mouth set in a long, concrete throat of identical doors. The industrial storage sector was a cemetery of so many forgotten lives, silent under the hostile glow of buzzing security lights. The air was filled with the scent of diesel, rain, and dust. Lucian walked beside me not just as an ordinary man, but as an extension of the shadows themselves, his whole being listening, scenting the air for the slightest trace of ambush, of wrongness, of wolf.
I clenched my hands around the cold, simple key, trembling violently. The metal felt alien, a skeleton key to a past I'd spent years trying to outrun. Lucian's steadier, larger hand covered mine, holding it firmly, his warmth a shocking contrast. Finally, we were able to get it to turn…..the key in the stubborn padlock. The mechanism gave way with a final, heavy metallic clunk that echoed loudly enough to deafen the ear in the deserted lane.
He took the weight, lifting the heavy rolling door up. It screamed in protest on its tracks, a shriek that made me wince, revealing the smell of time—moth balls, old paper, and a specific, aching loss that was my parents and a rectangle of profound blackness.
I walked into the gloom, my boots shuffling on the tiled dusty floor. Lucian remained still at the threshold, a silent, broad-shouldered sentinel blocking the light from outside, giving me the opportunity to use this time privately.
It was a mosaic of an ended life. Different boxes labeled in my dad's architect's print: Christmas Ornaments. A bicycle, covered in thick heavy dust. Susan's Art Supplies.Tax Records '98-'05. A folded easel. But down the far corner of the sector was a small, gunmetal-gray safe covered by a paint splattered coat. It appeared modern, incongruous and severe amidst the gentle detritus. The kind of safe you do not fail to afford when the secret is much more valuable and important than any expensive jewel.
I knew the combination. My mother had made me memorize it when I became thirteen years of age, with a solemnity I'd attributed to quirky parental worry. "For true emergencies, my brilliant girl. Only you."
My birthday. 10-23. The dial turned open with soft, gentle, precise clicks in the tomblike quiet. The last number aligned. I took a breath, gripped the handle, and pulled. The heavy door without a sound swung open.
There were no piles of overflowing notes or boxes of moldering files. Just two objects. A sealed, buff-colored manila envelope. And beside it was a sleek, antiquated silver laptop that its surface was covered in dust. My name was on the front of the manila envelope in my mum's elegant, flowing script-the same hand that wrote birthday cards and grocery lists.
Elara.
My heart was a frantic drum, hammering against my ribs. This was her voice...her incredible, adorable, melodious voice, trapped in time and on paper.
"Elara?" Lucian's murmur, a very tender prompt from the doorway where he was.
"I found it Lucian," I breathed in deeply, my words barely audible in the sector. I pulled the envelope from where it was lying and lifted it up. It had a tangible weight, the kind of weight that had nothing to do with paper.
I gently carried it close to a sliver of light falling from the doorway and meticulously, carefully got the seal broken. My fingers felt clumsy and thick at the same time. The contents were sparse, devastating in their economy.
Photographs slid out first.
The first was a lab photo that contained the image of my mother, looking much younger with her smile as bright as the sky in the day, but her eyes were holding a focused intensity I haven't seemed to forget. She was in the midst of a group in white coats. My gaze then caught a very familiar, colder face among them. Hair thicker and looking younger, but his eyes were the same as always, fervent and calculative. Detective Marek. Not yet a detective, then what?. An assistant? A colleague?
The second photo snatched the air from my lungs and seized my breath. A man with jet-black hair that fell backward and a sharp-featured, handsome face, stood in a sun-dappled, dense forest. It wasn't Lucian. But the resemblance was in the body build, the arrogant set of shoulders, but the eyes… Lucian has got the most charming and adorable eye I have ever seen in my entire life. Lucian's eyes were a storm, they were divine. But this man's eyes were amber, flat, and hungry. They held an intelligent, restless malice. And by his side, a massive, dark-furred wolf with eyes that glowed with the same fierce, cunning light was sitting calmly.
Kael. The connection was not undeniable, a snapshot of his soul and a monster.
But it was the third item I found that caused my blood to stop running through my veins. A single sheet of high-quality paper it was. A letter.
My dearest Elara,
If you are reading this, then woefully I have failed. I have failed to outrun the truth, and I have failed to secure it from you. I uncovered a world hidden within our own, a shadow-line of ancient terrifying power and blood. I found a truth far more dangerous when I was hired to trace a genetic anomaly, a quirk in certain family lines.
There are two brothers. Lucian and Kael. Kael is a believer of fairy tales. A myth of a 'Source Alpha', a primordial wellspring of power that can be awakened and harnessed. He thinks it's a weapon to be wielded, a price to be won. But Lucian…..Lucian is a force of control, a king who believes his throne is a burden of protection.is a force of control, a king who believes his throne is a burden of protection.
But my research gave a totally different interpretation to his thoughts. They suggested it is not a prize. " The 'Source Alpha' is a lock. A psychic and biological dam holding back a torrent. And the key is a dormant genetic sequence that is specifically carried in a rare human bloodline. Our bloodline. And it must pass from mother to daughter throughout the generations".
He is searching for a woman born of a human, who carries this key. In the old texts, she is called the 'Oracle.' He believes that he will become a god by claiming her. By forcing a bond between them, he can be able to turn the key and unlock the dam. But he is completely wrong because the lock requires harmony, a true bond, not a theft. A forced turning would shatter the key and unleash the torrent uncontrollably.
I am so afraid. I am so scared he has identified me as a bearer. And I'm rest assured with a mothers certainty that one day, he will come after you.
Therefore my dear baby, get rid of this letter please. Burn it. Forget those words. Live a humble, happy, wonderful, ordinary life, which is all I have always wanted for you. I love you more than all the beautiful, terrible, destructive secrets in this world.
Mom.
The paper fluttered from my numb fingers, drifting to the dusty tiled floor. The world shattered and reassembled into a horrifying new shape. It didn't tilt. Everything felt weird and off to me all at the same time. The ground beneath me felt insubstantial. The strange connection, the whispers, even the way Lucian's wolf had come to know me, none was a romance or fate. It was all genetics. It was a target painted on my soul before I came to existence in this world.
It wasn't about revenge. Neither was it about a pack.
I lifted my face and looked up, my vision swimming with tears of undiluted, pure terror. Lucian already has started heading towards me, his face filled with a concern that deepened as he saw my expression. He'd heard the runaway, frantic stallion beat of my heart.
"Lucian," I whispered, the truth a vile, heavy stone on my tongue. I held up the photograph of Kael and his wolf, my hand shaking so badly the image blurred.
"He doesn't want to kill me."
My voice broke on the next words, the final, unbearable piece of the nightmare snapping into place.
"He wants to have me as his queen."