Six years ago – Blackwood Estate
The witch came at midnight, and Damian Blackwood should have killed her on sight.
Instead, he poured her a glass of whiskey.
It was the first lesson his father had taught him: Never let an enemy know they're an enemy. Smile. Pour a drink. And wait for them to show you their throat.
Seraphina sat across from him in the high-backed leather chair that had belonged to three generations of Blackwood Alphas. She was beautiful in the way dead things were beautiful—pale skin, sharp bones, red hair that spilled over her shoulders like a warning. Her eyes were amber. Her scent was grave dirt and something sweet, something rotting.
She was a witch.
And she was in his study.
"I need your blood," she said.
Damian didn't reach for a weapon. His wolf would have warned him if she were a threat. Instead, he leaned back in his father's chair—his chair now, though it still smelled of old tobacco and older secrets—and studied her over the rim of his glass.
"My blood is expensive."
"My sister is dying."
"Everyone dies."
Seraphina's mask slipped. For just a moment, he saw something real beneath the witch's composure—fear, desperation, a love so fierce it had driven her across pack borders to beg at the feet of an Alpha she'd never met.
"Your bloodline carries a rare healing property," she said. "It's why your pack has survived plagues that destroyed others. It's why your father lived thirty years longer than any wolf should have. One vial. That's all I ask."
Damian set down his glass.
"You're asking for a lot more than blood. You're asking me to trust a witch in my territory. At midnight. With no witnesses."
"I'll leave immediately after. You'll never see me again."
He should have said no. Every instinct screamed at him to say no. Witches couldn't be trusted. Witches took what they wanted and left chaos in their wake. His father had taught him that too.
But Seraphina was trembling.
Not with fear of him. With fear for her sister. And Damian—eighteen years old, newly Alpha, still raw from burying his father three days ago—remembered what it felt like to watch someone you loved slip away.
"One vial," he said. "And then you leave pack lands forever. If I ever see you again, I'll kill you myself."
She nodded.
He cut his palm with the letter opener on his desk. The blade was silver—his father's, engraved with the Blackwood crest—and it bit deep. Blood welled up, dark and thick, and dripped onto the mahogany surface.
Seraphina produced a glass vial from somewhere inside her cloak. Her hands shook as she held it beneath his bleeding palm. The blood filled the vial slowly, drop by drop, each one catching the firelight like a ruby.
"That's enough," she whispered.
Damian wrapped his hand in a handkerchief. The wound would heal by morning. It always did.
Seraphina stood. She tucked the vial into her cloak, and for a moment, something flickered across her face—relief, gratitude, and something else. Something that looked almost like guilt.
Then she turned to leave.
And she saw the drawing.
It was tacked to the wall beside his desk—a charcoal sketch, rough and imperfect, drawn by a boy who'd never learned to hold charcoal properly. A girl's face. Brown hair. Wide eyes. A small smile that hinted at secrets.
Elara.
He'd drawn it the night after the river. He'd been thirteen, newly Alpha, drowning in responsibilities he wasn't ready for. But every night before bed, he'd taken out the charcoal and tried to capture her face.
He'd never gotten it right. The drawing never did her justice.
But he kept it anyway.
Seraphina stared at the drawing for too long. Her amber eyes widened. Her lips parted.
"No," she breathed.
Damian frowned. "What?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she whispered something under her breath—three words in a language he didn't recognize. The sound scraped against his ears like broken glass.
"What did you just—"
Nothing.
The thought came from nowhere. He blinked. Looked at the wall where the drawing had been.
There was nothing there.
Had there ever been anything there?
Seraphina was already moving toward the door. "Thank you for your hospitality, Alpha Blackwood. I won't forget this."
She left.
Damian sat in his chair for a long time, staring at the empty wall. Something felt wrong. Something felt missing. But every time he reached for the thought, it slipped away like water through his fingers.
He went to bed.
He didn't dream of a girl with brown hair.
He never dreamed of her again.
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