The rain lashed against the windshield like blades of steel, distorting the grotesque gargoyles of the mansion. Their open mouths vomited rust-stained water, as if the house itself were bleeding.
Sanathiel stepped out of the car, his navy-blue suit pristine, contrasting with the leaden sky. As his foot hit the ground, the puddle beneath reflected two shapes—his, and that of a wolf with amber eyes and a bloodstained snout.
His shadow flickered in the water. For an instant, he was no longer human.
"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 the item. The icy droplets slid across the crescent-shaped scar on his face, reigniting a burn that wasn't just physical. A memory wrapped around him with the same force as the storm from centuries past.
The air had smelled of orange blossoms and iron. Flowers and blood. Beauty and death intertwined.
Zaira had screamed his name as the Nevri pack stalked them. Eyes of liquid silver blinked between the trees, gleaming with restrained hunger.
But this hadn't been a random attack.
They were waiting for him. For her.
The rain turned the earth to thick mud. Zaira slipped, her breath caught by fear. Sanathiel could've caught her.But he didn't.
"Do you think your poison can still touch me?" he murmured, breaking the seal of green wax.
Sulfurous smoke escaped the scroll, writhing through the air until it shaped into a face. Aisha.
She was identical to Zaira. Even the birthmark on her neck. But it wasn't her.
A scar broke the symmetry of her reflection. A deep mark, left by the white wolf.
In the library, the blue curtains swayed like dancing specters. Candle flames trembled when Sanathiel let the scroll fall onto the ebony table.
As he brought the flame close, the parchment did not burn. Instead, Latin verses curled up his wrist like living serpents.
"Sanguis Zaïrae ligat te ad aeternum."(The blood of Zaira binds you forever.)
"Sanathiel!" Mica burst into the room, face tense, holding a pocket watch.
The tick-tock accelerated, pounding in his skull like a death drum.
"How many more corpses do you need to understand you're alone?"
Mica dropped the watch onto the table with a dry clack.
"You keep pretending you're a king among corpses," he hissed with poisonous sarcasm. "But kings fall too. And your grave has already been dug."
Sanathiel clenched his fist on the table. The wood groaned.The ticking stopped, as if the watch itself held its breath.
In the mirror behind Mica, Sanathiel's reflection wasn't human. His nails turned to claws, pupils gleaming like fire trapped in amber.
"Are you here to preach?" he whispered, drawing a circle on the table with his own blood. "Or to confess you sold my location to Falco?"
Mica clenched his jaw, still gripping the smoldering pieces of the watch.
"Lionel... will have Aisha."
Silence fell like a tombstone.
The metal scorched his skin, but he didn't let go.
"They'll wed her by dawn."
Sanathiel didn't move, the storm now roaring through his veins.
"It's a decree from the Thirteen."
Mica looked up, eyes flaring with desperation.
"You can't stop it. No one can."
The candle flickered. The air thickened, poisoned with ancestral whispers. Sanathiel knew that scent—upturned earth and dry tears. The same omen before every massacre.
He turned. His lip split as fangs emerged, black blood trailing to his chin.
"Tell Lionel to weave his shroud with threads of silver and sorrow," he growled, slamming the fragments of the watch into the table. "When he comes for her, I'll remember how he screamed watching his mother die."
Mica picked up the pieces. Inside, a medallion bearing the symbol of the Thirteen pulsed like a living heart.
"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 on its own, the letters bleeding across the page.
Zaira's portrait warped—her eyes turning gold.
In the distance, three howls tore through the air.
They weren't wolves.
They were something worse.