Chapter 6

• Lucien
• The red didn’t fade.
• Long after Rhea pulled away, after her pulse steadied and the runes dimmed, that single line of light beneath the stone remained. Neither glowing nor pulsing
• Just there like a wound that hasn't decided if it wanted to close.
• Lucien didn’t speak. He stared at it longer than he meant to, the air had gone still again but not quiet.
• He stood still above it.
• The silence wasn’t peace.
• Rhea stood behind him, her breath faint and uneven.
• She hadn't spoken again, there was no need to
• Rhea said nothing as he turned to her.
• She didn’t meet his eyes but she didn’t lower her head either.
• Her fingers twitched slightly at her sides, like something inside her still remembered the pull.
• He reached for her wrist, hesitating just before contact.
• Then carefully
• “Come on.”
• He didn’t remember the walk back.
• Only the way her presence hovered behind him. Too quiet to ignore, too heavy to dismiss.
• When they passed the guards, no one spoke.
• Some of them tried not to look.
• Most of them failed.
• Reid was waiting at the stairwell but didn’t step in. He simply watched them pass, something unreadable behind his narrowed eyes.
• Lucien didn’t stop.
• He left her at the upper chamber.
• No words.
• No questions.
• Not yet.
• When the door shut between them, he exhaled for the first time since the runes turned red but it didn’t help.
• He returned to the chamber alone.
• He told no one.
• He didn’t need an audience.
• What he needed was space and answers
• The circle of stone hadn’t shifted. The markings remained dull, cold and unbothered.
• All except the red rune.
• It wasn’t pulsing now but it wasn’t dormant either.
• He stepped into the circle again.
• His boots touched the mark where she’d knelt.
• The hum stirred faintly, so low it was almost no sound.
• He crouched.
• Ran two fingers along the rune’s edge.
• The stone was cold but beneath it, warmth.
• Like something was still breathing under the surface in recognition.
• Later, he sat alone in the war archives.
• The torches had gone low.
• No one else dared come this deep unless summoned. The shadows clung to the ceiling like they’d lived there forever.
• He cracked open the locked case.
• Three seals.
• One for the Blackridge front,
• one for Alpha clearance,
• and the third…
• Vale.
• He stared at that last mark longer than the others.
• It pulsed faintly when his fingers brushed it.
• That wasn’t protocol. A reaction shows it had waited for him.
• Inside the case:
• *Burnt parchment, stitched together by thread
• *A metal collar tag marked EAST-L-04
• *And a cracked and blurred painting
• Two pale girls.
• No names.
• Just the stamp in the bottom corner
• ‘Bloodbound project – phase 3’
• He flipped the photo over.
• One to survive
• One to forget
• Lucien closed the box carefully. His jaw ached from how hard he was grinding it.
• This wasn’t a coincidence.
• It wasn’t fate, it was deliberate.
• Someone had brought that girl into his territory.
• Someone had left her alive.
• That night, he stood on the fortress balcony as the wind howled down from the cliffs.
• Snow drifted sideways in sheets, catching in his hair, on his coat, unmoving.
• Below, the land stretched silent and dark. The world before the storm.
• He didn’t speak, didn't growl, didn't even breathe deeply.
• Behind him, the door opened.
• He didn’t turn.
• He knew her steps now.
• She stopped beside him.
• For a while, they said nothing.
• Then..
• “Did you find her?” she asked.
• He didn’t answer right away.
• “I found both of you,” he replied
• Rhea exhaled.
• Her breath fogged the air between them, then disappeared into the cold.
• He glanced at her while she looked at him.
• And when she finally spoke again, her voice was almost too soft to hear.
• “She’s not dead, Lucien.”
• She didn’t say who.
• She didn’t have to.
• Lucien didn’t speak.
• The snow fell between them, silent.
• Then her hand moved.
• Slowly, like it hurts to lift.
• She turned her palm toward him.
• A faint light traced along her skin. Thin lines, delicate, like cracks beneath glass. The rune from earlier had changed. It was on her palm, not silver or red but black.
• His breath caught.
• Not because of what it looked like but because he recognized it.
• He had seen that same mark only once, years ago at Blackridge burned into the skin of a body that had never breathed again.
• His wolf stirred in fear.
• The mark was death-bound.
• A rune used to seal magic that should not survive resurrection.
• Lucien stepped forward, reaching for her wrist.
• The mark vanished.
• Gone, like it had never been there.
• Her distant eyes met his and something behind them flickered.
• “Rhea,” he said carefully, “who else has seen this mark?”
• She blinked once.
• “I don’t think it’s for you to know.”
• He narrowed his gaze. “Then who is it for?”
• Her mouth opened then closed again and when she finally answered, her voice was barely more than a whisper
• “Whoever left me behind.”