Chapter 4 Four

Chapter 4

Decades Ago

The sky was quiet that night, and peaceful as it was every night.

Moonlight poured like silver water over the canopy above our coven.

Inside, the halls of Noctora were alive with laughter and happy chatter.

We were celebrating the winter solstice.

My mother had just fixed the scarf around my neck, her hands gentle and soft and her eyes warm.

My father meanwhile, stood tall and proud near the balcony, raising a toast with the elders.

I remember that warmth that filled the room, the world felt just too perfect for a young vampire like me.

Then… came the howls.

They were low and guttural, but more alarming, is that they were closer than they should’ve been.

They were beyond the borders!!

I heard the crash of the gates first, the sound thundering in my ears.

And at that moment, I felt my world explode.

It was soon followed by loud screams from just outside the room, and then the sickening crunch of bone.

I moved to the window instinctively, peeking through a small crack.

I saw as the beasts that came through the gates, they weren’t just ordinary werewolves. They looked like monsters.

They had large claws and fangs and their eyes like molten fire.

They tore through everything in their path mercilessly.

Blood.

There was so much blood.

I stood frozen to the spot in shock.

My little sister Miren was the first to dash out of the room in panic, too quick for me to stop her.

But she was snatched mid-run, I heard feint her screams echoing down the hall as her small form disappeared.

My mother tried to follow her but, then I heard a louder voice breaking my attention.

My father’s voice broke through the chaos. “Cassien! Hide!” He grabbed my shoulders, shoved me backward toward the east wing. “Don’t you come out, no matter what. Do you hear me?”

I didn’t speak, my lips trembling in fear and terror.

I just turned away and ran.

I didn't remember how far I ran, only that the air was thick with smoke, and my legs didn’t stop moving until I found an incompleted building that served as a servant quarters.

It was just made up of broken stones and scattered timber.

I squeezed beneath a collapsed wall, curling into the smallest version of myself I could become.

And then I watched through a narrow crack in the rubble and watched as my once perfect world burned.

I caught a glimpse of my mother.

She was bleeding, crawling toward the nursery.

My heart shook on sight of her.

“NO. Mum!!” I yelled, my tone was frantic.

Her eyes were wild with desperation as she crawled, but she never made it.

A werewolf leapt out of nowhere and crushed her spine beneath its weight.

Her body went limp in an instant.

I couldn’t scream again. My throat had closed. My nails dug into my palms until they bled.

Then came the fire.

They lit up our tapestries, our scrolls, our library, everything that was ours. It was as if they wanted us erased.

The great hall of our coven fell down to rubbles, taking lives of other vampires with it.

Vampires I knew and loved.

Then, my eyes landed on my father once more.

He was limping, as he gritted his teeth. His eyes were filled with resilience.

As the leader of his coven, he wasn't going to down unless they made him.

Before he could regain a full vertical basis, a very large werewolf lunged at him and sank its fangs into his throat.

Father, struggled, sinking his own sharp fangs into the werewolves thighs.

But the Werewolf didn't relent on his hold, and soon the blood as so much.

Very soon, father's body went still.

That was it.

Dad and Mom were both dead…

The silence that followed after this was even worse than the screams.

I stayed buried in that rubble for hours… maybe days.

I stayed there trembling until the fire died and I was sure all the werewolves left.

And when I finally emerged, the world around me was gray and dead.

My clothes were stiff with blood. My hands raw. My heart… gone.

I was ten.

And I’ve never stopped hearing their screams.

PRESENT DAY

The throne room was covered in shadows… just how I preferred it.

The only light came from the bluish orbs floating midair, drifting like spirits trapped between realms.

The walls around me were carved with the victories of my ancestors, immortalized in stone…

I sat motionless on the obsidian throne, my posture as always, firm and erect.

To most, I was unreadable and untouchable. On the outside, I was a statue of power. But inside?

Inside, I wasn’t here at all.

My mind was burning again, thoughts of that night coming back.

The night that changed my life as it was forever.

The night that made me the cold, feared and heartless ruler of House Noctora.

But more importantly, the night I swore to not rest until I discovered the pack of werewolves that were behind the raid.

The sound of heavy doors creaking open pulled me back from my thoughts.

A scout entered, kneeling low with the discipline we had beaten into all who served House Noctora.

He kept his eyes to the floor.

“My Lord. We found something… at the border.”

I arched a brow. “Something?”

“Yes my lord. We found a werewolf, bloodied, broken and alone.

She’s either dead… or very close.”

The word echoed in me like a blade drawn from the sheath.

A werewolf.

I leaned forward, interest rising like smoke in my chest. “Alone?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

A werewolf alone. That was rare.

Wolves almost never wandered without a pack… unless they’d been exiled.

I wanted to order them to chop off her head and burn her body, but, something tugged at me, something I couldn’t quite explain.

“Bring her to me,” I said.

The silence in the room fractured instantly. Even without turning, I could feel the eyes of the court fixed on me.

Some where in confusion, some disgust and maybe fear.

I wouldn't blame them, all they knew the stories of the Werewolf unprovoked raid that night, some like me even loved it.

But right now, I didn’t care what they thought or felt.

This was my court, my house and my law.

And something was pulling me toward her.

But even I, didn't know what it was.

After a few minutes, they carried her in.

She looked like a corpse, maybe she was.

She was limp, pale, smeared in dirt and blood.

From the marks and bruises, she was attacked by her own kind.

How heartbreaking. But honestly, I wouldn't expect less from those sick werewolves.

But, I could tell from the moment they placed her before me: there was more to her than met the eye, but I didn't know what it was.

Her scent struck me like a punch to the chest.

It scented familiar, but in the same way foreign.

I rose from the throne and descended the steps slowly, silent as death.

The moment I knelt beside her, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

My fingers hovered near her skin.

What are you?

Her chest barely moved, but there was something… alive inside her, like it was trapped and caged.

I stood up, my voice like iron.

“We will use the forbidden rite.”

The gasp that swept through the court was audible, their tone was filled with surprise, and with good reason too.

Black magic had not been used in over a century. And never ever for a werewolf.

“We will awaken her with the rites of the ancients,” I continued, raising my voice over theirs. “I want her alive. I want her to speak.”

“Lord Cassien,” one of the advisors choked, “that magic is forbidden. Even our own do not return from it unchanged. You would use it… on her?”

“She is not just a werewolf,” I growled, turning to face them all.

“Her scent and her magic. It’s not right. I’ve felt it before, that I am sure of.”

“Defiling sacred halls to resurrect a creature of the moon—”

“I will uncover the truth,” I snapped, cutting the voice off.

“Even if it means defiling the heavens.”

No one spoke again.

They wouldn’t dare.

I descended into the lower vaults myself. The doors hadn’t been opened in decades, maybe even centuries.

Dust clung to the air like fog.

And at the far end, sealed in glass and iron, was the Black Grimoire, the key to everything.

I placed my hand on it.

It was cold and heavy, almost like it was alive.

Behind me, they laid her on the altar. Her skin had taken on a strange pallor, it looked like she was neither dead nor alive.

Like she was somewhere in between infact.

But even now, I could feel it.

Something old stirred in her.

Something that wasn’t vampire and yet not werewolf.

And I would wake it, one way or another.

Even if it cost me everything…