(Music suggestion for Author's Thoughts: "Bury a Friend – Billie Eilish (Instrumental)" or "Path of the Fireflies – J.T. Peterson")
---
The fire in the high hearth flickered but gave no warmth.
Lucian stood before the semicircle of robed figures, the cold stares of the Council pressing into his skin like a blade that did not cut—but threatened to. Their silence was a weapon, sharpened by expectation and suspicion. They'd been watching him for weeks now. They always watched.
He remained still, hands clasped behind his back, the silver embroidery of his collar catching the firelight. Regal. Imposing. And yet…
Beneath his skin, something writhed.
A memory.
A scent that never left.
Eyes that haunted him in the folds of night.
"You have grown careless, Lucian," said the eldest among them—Vethros, his voice like brittle parchment. "Your attention…strays."
Lucian's jaw clenched. "My duties have not been abandoned."
"Then how do you explain the breach?" asked another, a woman with ivory hair and sharp crimson eyes. "A human was found wandering near the outer perimeter. Unmarked. Unharmed. You crossed the northern woods two nights ago—alone. Why?"
The silence that followed was damning.
Lucian could still see it clearly.
That night. The forest. The boy.
No… Kyrell.
Lying in the wet grass, pale with something beyond death but untouched by it. A body that should've been drained of life, yet radiated with something ancient. Something familiar. Something forbidden.
He had thought it was a dream then.
But it wasn't.
He remembered now.
The soft rasp of Kyrell's breath. The heat that radiated from his skin despite the cold. The way his blood called to Lucian without ever being spilled.
Lucian had fled before he could understand it.
And now, he was being hunted—not just by those memories, but by those who ruled beside him.
"I crossed the boundary to investigate the scent of decay," Lucian replied evenly, tone void of tremble. "The air was laced with it. I found nothing of consequence."
"You found something," Vethros murmured, eyes narrowing. "Your aura has shifted. Your restraint... frays."
A beat passed. And then another voice, young and defiant, interrupted.
"What if Lucian isn't the one fraying?" came a sharper tone.
The council turned as Renak stepped forward from the shadows—uninvited, but not unwelcome by all.
He'd returned quietly earlier that evening after delivering the messages from the outer provinces. Most assumed he'd left. But Renak had lingered.
He always lingered.
Eyes locked with Lucian's for the briefest second—an unspoken tether of loyalty. Or jealousy. Perhaps both.
Vethros narrowed his gaze. "Speak carefully, Renak."
"Perhaps," Renak said, tilting his chin, "we should ask why your wards failed to detect a living human crossing the border in the first place."
The room stirred.
Lucian said nothing. But something behind his eyes darkened.
Renak was defending him.
Or distracting.
His gaze lingered a heartbeat too long—on Lucian's mouth, on the line of his neck where the collar did not hide the way he tensed.
Desire was an open secret when it came to Renak. But Lucian had never reciprocated. Not even when Mara tried. Not even when the council tried arranging alliances to soften his more dangerous edges.
Lucian had only wanted—
Kyrell.
A name he could not say aloud.
A name that should not exist.
Not anymore.
"And what of the scent that clung to you?" the woman pressed again. "You returned smelling of living warmth. It wasn't human blood… but something lingers."
Lucian didn't answer.
Because even now, he could still smell Kyrell.
The sweetness. The ozone. The pull.
And that terrified him more than the council's threats.
He turned his head slightly, offering only silence.
Let them wonder.
Let them plot.
Let them believe he was weakening.
Because Lucian knew now that whatever force had placed Kyrell in his path was not done. And whatever Kyrell was—hunter, boy, dream, or danger—he wasn't just haunting Lucian's mind.
He was returning.
And that meant only one thing.
The hunger was waking again.