Chapter 3

• Rhea
• The room was too warm.
• Stone walls. No windows. Just a fire burning low behind a wrought-iron grate and a wooden bed she hadn’t touched.
• She sat on the floor instead, back against the farthest corner, knees drawn to her chest, eyes fixed on the door.
• It hadn’t opened again.
• Not yet.
• She didn’t move. Not even to breathe deeply.
• The silence in this place was different. Not empty, not hostile but watchful. Like the walls themselves were listening and beneath it all, he was here. His presence lingered like static in the air, too distant to see, too close to escape.
• She hadn’t flinched when he drew near.
• Not when his blade touched the leather at her side.
• Not even when his wolf pressed into the space around her like a storm front threatening to break.
• But inside?
• She had felt the shift.
• It wasn't exactly fear but recognition.
• The kind that lived in bone. That hummed beneath her skin when his voice went quiet. That strange stillness she felt when he stared at her, when she didn't run.
• She blinked slowly, gaze flickering to the floor. Runes glowed faintly beneath the stone, mostly dormant.
• Runes only responded to pack blood.
• She wasn't part of a pack.
• She never was. At least, not that she remembered.
• Her fingers dug into the fabric of her coat. The fabric was worn out, stained with something she couldn't remember.
• Mud, blood, it didn't matter.
• Her hands were scraped and raw beneath the sleeves. She’d lost count of how many nights she’d wandered before the frostbite numbed her enough to stop feeling it.
• She didn’t know what drew her to the cliffs.
• Didn’t know what had pushed her feet across that invisible line.
• Only that something had shifted when she stepped onto this land.
• Like she’d been walking in circles her whole life and this was the center.
• “Lucien Duskbane”
• He hadn’t given her his name.
• He didn’t need to.
• She had heard it before, once whispered between the crack of stonewalls. A name spoken with awe and fear.
• A name tagged on an old file with red ink.
• That file had gone missing.
• The lab had burned
• She had walked away from it through flame, with no one chasing her.
• She saw it in the way the others watched him, like soldiers around a loaded weapon. In the way his command slipped between the cracks of the stone, soundless but absolute.
• He was feared. Respected. Obeyed.
• But it was the way he didn't growl or attack her, that felt wrong.
• That didn’t happen.
• Not with what she was told.
• Not with strangers.
• Not with girls who didn’t belong anywhere.
• Her nails dug into her palms.
• She didn’t want to remember.
• She didn’t want to think about the time before silence.
• Before the fog in her head.
• Before her name had become the only thing she could still claim.
• “Rhea”
• She hadn’t said the rest.
• Not to him.
• Not to anyone.
• What was the point?
• No one believed in ghosts anymore.
• The door creaked.
• Her head didn’t lift, but her senses flared.
• Slow and deliberate footsteps.
• Not loud enough to be anyone else.
• Lucien
• She didn’t have to see him to know.
• The heat of his presence reached her. Not anger. Not dominance. Just that pressure again like the air had weight and he carried all of it.
• Still, she didn’t move.
• “Did you sleep?”
• His voice was rough.
• She looked up, finally.
• He stood just inside the doorway, arms crossed, gaze unreadable. No blade this time. No visible threat.
• She shook her head once.
• He stared at her a moment longer, then stepped farther into the room. Closed the door behind him.
• “You didn’t shift,” he said.
• It wasn’t a question.
• Rhea said nothing.
• “You’re not rogue. You don’t smell like a pack and my Beta thinks you’re a trap.”
• She raised a brow faintly.
• “Are you?”
• Another silence.
• “If I were, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
• Lucien exhaled through his nose, something dark flickering in his eyes. “You talk like someone used to being hunted.”
• “I talk like someone who knows not all monsters wear fangs.”
• The words came too fast.
• Too easy.
• She didn’t mean to say them.
• Lucien’s gaze sharpened.
• “What are you?”
• Rhea didn’t answer.
• She didn’t know.
• Not really but whatever she was, it had kept her alive when she shouldn’t be. When the labs burned. When the cages opened. When the screaming stopped.
• Lucien stepped closer.
• She didn’t recoil.
• He crouched in front of her without touching. Just watching. Like a wolf sizing up something it couldn’t understand.
• “You’re not afraid of me,” he said.
• “No.”
• “You should be.”
• Her eyes locked on his.
• “So should you.”
• For a moment, neither of them moved.
• And then, a sound
• Faint.
• Lucien’s head snapped toward the door. Rhea heard it too.
• Steel sliding against steel. A lock picked. A mistake.
• Lucien was on his feet before she blinked.
• “Stay here,” he said, voice like a blade unsheathed.
• But she was already moving.
• Not after him. Not towards the door.
• To the wall.
• Where the sound had come from and before he could stop her, she pressed her palm flat against the stone.
• The wolf runes carved there, silent since she arrived lit up.
• Lucien froze.
• The glow was
• faint. Moon-silver.
• “Those runes only respond to pack blood,” he said quietly.
• Rhea said nothing.
• The light faded and Lucien Duskbane stared at her like he’d seen a ghost.
• Maybe he had.
• Because Rhea Vale didn’t know what she was.
• But she had just answered the call of Alpha blood.