London, 1887.
Fog like wet wool.
Gaslight flickering in the soot.
Horse hooves on cobbles.
And beneath it all —
a hum.
Not in the air.
Not in the pipes.
But in the bones of the city.
They called it progress.
They called it empire.
They called it civilization.
But Yrsa felt it the moment she stepped off the train —
not as memory,
but as hunger.
The third Bloodline was here.
Alive.
Hiding.
Afraid.
And it was breaking.
She found the first sign in a newspaper.
Not in the headlines.
Not in the reports of Jack the Ripper's latest victim.
But in a small column on page six:
"Detective Elias Varek Solves Third 'Impossible' Case – Scotland Yard Heralds 'The Man Who Smelled the Truth'"
Below it: a sketch.
A man in a long coat, hat pulled low.
Sharp jaw.
Eyes shadowed.
But in the line of his neck —
a faint, jagged mark, like a scar shaped by fire.
She touched the paper.
Her own mark — the silver vine, now threaded with gold —
throbbed.
She knew him.
Had never seen him.
But knew.
Like a name whispered in a dream.
Elias Varek did not believe in ghosts.
He believed in scent.
Not perfume.
Not smoke.
But the truth —
sweat of guilt.
Iron of blood.
The sour tang of fear.
The faint, sweet rot of a lie.
He could smell it all.
From ten feet.
Through walls.
Even in silence.
They called him a genius.
A prodigy.
The man who never guessed — because he knew.
But he knew something else, too:
He was not well.
Every full moon, his skin burned.
His teeth ached.
His shadow moved when he didn't.
And in the mirror — just for a second —
his eyes weren't brown.
They were yellow.
Like animal eyes.
Like hungry eyes.
The doctors said nerves.
Stress.
Overwork.
He didn't correct them.
He wore gloves to hide the way his fingers twitched.
A high collar to cover the mark on his throat — the one that pulsed when he lied.
And he drank brandy like water, not for pleasure,
but to drown the thing beneath his skin.
He met her in a library.
The British Museum Reading Room.
Rain tapping the glass roof.
Scholars bent over books like penitents.
She stood in the folklore section — not reading, but feeling the spines, her fingers tracing titles:
"Lycanthropy in the Northern Tribes."
"The Úlfseidr: Myth or Memory?"
"The Oath of the Silent Heart."
He smelled her before he saw her.
Not perfume.
Not soap.
But snow.
And beneath it —
iron.
And something older —
like roots in deep earth.
He approached.
Not as a detective.
As a man who had forgotten how to breathe.
"You shouldn't be reading that," he said.
She didn't look up. "Why?"
"Because it's not real," he said. "It's myth. Superstition."
She turned.
Looked at him.
Not at his face.
At his throat.
At the mark.
"It's real," she said.
"And you know it."
He stepped back.
The room tilted.
His pulse roared.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She closed the book.
Placed it in his hands.
On the cover: a rune.
The mark of the Third Bloodline.
And beneath it —
a name.
Hers.
Already written.
"Yrsa Vaela," she said.
"And you are Elias Varek.
Last of the Third Line.
The Alpha who hides from the Wolf."
She leaned close.
"I can smell it in you.
Not fear.
Not madness.
Hunger."
Then:
"And I can feed it."
He nearly dropped the book.
They met again that night.
Not in the library.
Not in his rooms.
But in the mortuary beneath St. Bartholomew's.
Cold.
Sterile.
Dead.
He needed proof.
Needed to believe she wasn't a madwoman.
A fraud.
A trap.
She stood beside a slab.
A sheet covered a body — one of the Ripper's victims.
Not for the dead.
But for the test.
"Smell her," Yrsa said.
"Not the blood.
Not the fear.
The* lie* the killer left behind."
He hesitated.
Then leaned in.
Inhaled.
And it came —
not as scent,
but as vision:
A man in a surgeon's coat.
Hands steady.
Eyes blank.
Cutting not in rage —
in ritual.
And on his wrist —
a mark.
Not like his.
But close.
He pulled back.
Shook.
"How did you know?"
She didn't answer.
She placed her hand — the one marked with the silver-gold vine — on the sheet.
Closed her eyes.
And sang.
Not loud.
Not in words.
But in a low, resonant hum —
the same one from the nuns' well,
the same one from the temple.
The air changed.
Not warmer.
Not brighter.
But thinner — like the veil between worlds had torn.
And the dead woman —
her fingers twitched.
Elias stumbled back.
"That's not possible."
"She's not speaking," Yrsa said.
"She's* remembering*."
She opened her eyes.
"The killer is not a madman.
He's a* hunter*.
And he smells you too."
He looked at her.
Not with suspicion.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
"You're not here to save me," he said.
"You're here to* wake* me."
She nodded.
"And when I do —
you won't be able to hide anymore."
He closed his eyes.
The thing beneath his skin —
it didn't growl.
It laughed.
They did not make love that night.
They survived it.
Back in his rooms, the fire low, brandy untouched,
he stripped off his coat.
His shirt.
Turned his back to her.
The runes were there — not on his back, but beneath it —
a lattice of scars that pulsed with heat.
They had been faint for years.
Now, they glowed.
"I've spent my life fighting it," he said.
"Starving it.
Drowning it.
Locking it behind walls of logic."
He turned.
"It's so tired."
"And so am I."
She stepped forward.
Touched his chest — over the heart.
It beat too fast.
Too hard.
"You don't have to fight," she said.
"You have to* balance*."
She placed her other hand on his back, over the runes.
"Let me in."
He closed his eyes.
And for the first time in thirty-two years —
he stopped resisting.
She began to sing.
Not the Oath.
Not the lullaby.
But the song of the temple,
the song of the nuns,
the song of the first Beta.
And as she sang, the runes dimmed — not from fear,
but from relief.
He shuddered.
Not from pain.
From release.
And when he opened his eyes —
they were not yellow.
Not brown.
But gray — like storm-light on snow.
He looked at her.
"You're not just waking the Bloodlines," he said.
"You're* remaking* them."
She smiled.
"We always were meant to* change*."
Then:
"Now come.
There are eight more names.
And the Hollow Fang is already hunting."
He took her hand.
Not as a detective.
Not as an Alpha.
But as a man who had finally stopped running.
And outside,
in the fog,
something with too many joints
watched from the shadows.
And smiled.