The First

I watched the road disappear behind the closed gates, the carriage carrying my granddaughter Maren to safety. I could not risk her witnessing what might happen next. Her time for the shift—the glorious, terrifying awakening of our blood—had not yet come. She wouldn't understand; she would only be afraid.

When I finally entered the royal chambers, I pulled the heavy oak doors shut, sealing the world outside. The King, Alexander, lay against the velvet pillows. Even from across the room, the scent of his fever was heavy, metallic, and fading. He looked at me, and a ghost of his famous smile touched his lips.

"I wondered when you would come, Talia," he managed, the words barely a breath.

It warmed the cold core of my ancient heart. His father, and his father before him, had known my truth. This awareness, this deep-seated trust, made my drastic offer less an act of shock and more a pact of necessity.

I placed my travel bags gently on the chair—they held things a queen, or a king, should never know about—and sat on the edge of the royal bed. Taking his hand, the life draining from him was a tangible thing. His pulse was a frail, fluttering moth beneath my fingertips; his heartbeat, a slowing drum.

"Alexander, listen to me closely," I instructed, keeping my voice steady. "I can make you whole. I can cleanse the sickness entirely. But there is a consequence, and you must swear an unbreakable vow."

His reaction was not fear, but quiet acceptance. He simply looked up at me, his eyes clouded but resolute. "I trust you, Talia. I know what you are, and if you can help me, I will agree to any condition. I have always ruled well. I am not ready to hand the kingdom over to one who would tear it apart."

His voice fell silent then, and his grip slackened completely. His hand slid from mine and lay lifelessly on the sheet. His breath was the shallowest whisper, his heart staggering. There was no time left for explanations, for promises, or for consent. The life of the King, and perhaps the stability of the entire kingdom, was about to slip through my fingers.

I had to act. Now.

I stood, shedding my heavy shawl. I climbed over his inert body, stretching my arms wide, pushing my silver-threaded hair back from my face. As I did, my ancient blood surged. My eyes flashed from their usual grey to a fierce, unnatural yellow-red. My canines extended, the bone-deep serum coating them, its metallic taste sharp on my tongue.

I tilted his noble head, seeking the softest, most vulnerable point where his neck met his shoulder. I bit down, injecting the powerful, life-altering essence. It was not enough to kill, but enough to change him forever—to trade his fleeting human mortality for a long, eternal reign. I, the first of the Lycans, over a thousand years old, had just given the King the blood of my ancestors.

The Wolf and the Vow

I pulled back, retracting the teeth. The tiny, perfect puncture wounds on his neck closed instantly. Alexander's breathing deepened, catching with harsh, rattling sounds. I scrambled off the bed, retreating to the chair to observe the agonizing process of rebirth.

The transformation of a human—it is rarely a kindness to watch. His skin, already pale, turned ghastly white, and beneath it, his veins swelled, tracing intricate, purple-black maps across his body. The human flesh began to slough away, replaced by a thick, new layer of brilliant fur. His face stretched and reformed into a muzzle, a sudden, heavy thud marking the growth of a tailbone.

When the pain finally subsided, a magnificent, panting Wolf lay where the King had been. He was a stark, royal white, his nose and ears tipped with black, and his eyes—a rare, clear grey—were filled not with agony, but with an immense, dizzying vitality.

He was healed, resurrected, magnificent. Now came the hard part: communication.

I knelt before his massive, newly-formed body and used the technique only the Purebloods mastered: I spoke directly into his mind. Alexander. You are safe. You are well.

His enormous wolf head whipped toward me, tilting curiously, his large eyes staring. The sheer absurdity of the moment made me release a short, startled chuckle.

After several attempts, he mastered the transition, becoming human once more, dressed only in the new, strong skin he now possessed. Naturally, he demanded to know the full cost of his cure.

"Here is the deal, Alexander," I began, my tone final. "You are now Lycan. You will live for thousands of years, aging only by centuries, never falling ill. You have one strict, unbreakable law: you must hunt."

I explained the cycle: every decade, beneath the Blood Moon, he must hunt and kill a living creature, consuming it fresh in his wolf form to maintain the strength of the change. "No humans. Ever. That is the only rule that comes with your eternity. Disobey it, and your death will be long and excruciating."

He held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded once, his regal authority undiminished by the transformation. He took a day to absorb the staggering power within him. His first act as the eternal King was to send his advisor to purchase twice the normal provisions for the village—a shrewd move, accounting for the new, ravenous appetites of a growing wolf. He was, and would always be, a smart,