Chapter 6:
Sanathiel walked through Itzel's residence with measured steps. Each movement echoed against the cold marble like a whisper that refused to fade.The walls gleamed beneath the dying light of dusk, but the hairline cracks in the portraits betrayed censored stories. He stepped on a loose tile, and the creak resounded like a muffled sob.
The housekeeper led him into a glass-walled parlor. There sat Itzel, poised beside a low table. Her elegance remained intact, but her eyes told another story—something wilted, a sadness etched deep into her soul.
"Here, it's one of my favorites," she said, offering him a glass of wine with a smile that never reached her eyes.
Sanathiel accepted the drink, his gaze never leaving her. Something in the way her fingers moved, the tiny tremors in her posture, kept him alert. As he sipped, his eyes caught on a portrait in the far corner of the room. A young woman with fair hair, her gaze brimming with mystery.
"It was taken before her funeral," Itzel whispered, her voice heavy with a grief that required no explanation.
Sanathiel narrowed his eyes, studying the canvas. Something in that face stirred an unease, a half-forgotten memory clawing its way to the surface. Then, the silence shattered.
A young woman burst into the room, her presence sharp and burning. The resemblance to the portrait was undeniable, though her eyes blazed with a fury that no painting could capture.
"Another lover, Itzel?" she spat, her contempt cutting like glass. "Did you tell him you're married?"
Porcelain fragments scattered like broken tears. Among them, a silver wolf pendant caught the light. Cristal snatched it up possessively before storming off, never noticing how Sanathiel froze at the sight—an echo of his own damnation, the same symbol he had carried the night of the Red Moon.
"Enough, Cristal," Itzel said sharply, her composure cracking as she tried to rein in the girl.
The name struck Sanathiel like thunder. His chest pounded wildly, and for a moment the floor seemed to give way beneath him.
"You dishonor my father's memory!" Cristal's voice broke as she hurled a vase, the crash reverberating through more than just the room.
Itzel closed her eyes, exhaling her frustration."Forgive her, Sanathiel," she said softly. "Since her father died… things have been difficult." Yet her tone carried something else—an evasion he could not overlook.
Sanathiel set the glass down, his attention locked on Cristal. The girl glared once more before vanishing through the door. When the room fell silent again, he turned to Itzel.
"Itzel… tell me the truth. The rumors about your daughter… are they true?"
For a moment she held his gaze. Then her shoulders collapsed, and a long, weary sigh escaped her lips.
"Follow me. To the greenhouse."
The air grew heavier as they crossed the threshold into the glass chamber. The walls dripped with condensation, as though the greenhouse itself struggled to breathe under the weight of what was about to be revealed.
A tangle of black roses coiled around Itzel's throat as she spoke, nature conspiring against her. Sanathiel noticed the flowers nearest to Cristal had withered when she uttered the words white wolf.
"Cristal… is she my daughter?" His voice was little more than a whisper, yet it carried the force of a storm held back.
The silence that followed was deafening. Itzel didn't need to answer. He already knew.
"She doesn't know," she admitted at last, lowering her gaze. "And you cannot tell her. Not yet."
Sanathiel tasted metal—blood, from the inside of his cheek. The wolf pendant in the portrait now felt like mockery, the painted eyes turned to accusation.
He had a daughter. A daughter he had never known. And now the truth bound him tighter than any chain.
"Her father…" Itzel's voice faltered. "He was killed by the White Wolf."
Sanathiel staggered back as if her words had pierced his chest. The air grew suffocating, every breath a struggle.
"Vengeance?" The word seared his tongue like venom.
"She feels it, Sanathiel. Deep down, she knows. She will hunt the one responsible. And if she ever discovers who you truly are…" Itzel's warning trembled, sharp as a blade. "She will destroy you."
Her words struck him like a storm. His past, his curse as the White Wolf, had created an enemy in the most agonizing form: his own blood.
"If you touch her, Sanathiel, it won't be you who destroys her," Itzel said, brushing her fingers across the cracking portrait of Cristal. "It will be she who devours you. Wolves don't distinguish between blood and flesh when hunger takes them."
He clenched his fists, a maelstrom of emotions boiling inside. He knew she was right. Yet how could he ignore Cristal now that he knew the truth?
As they left the greenhouse, his thoughts were chaos. But one certainty clung to him—the echo of Itzel's final words: The day she learns who you are… it will be too late for both of you.
Sanathiel stared at the ruby bracelet in his hand. His mind circled endlessly, weighed down by revelation and dread.
He had a daughter.
The thought struck with the same brutal clarity as the Red Moon over his worst memories. How many years had passed without him knowing? How many times had he walked the same earth as her, blind to the truth? His chest burned with an emotion he could not name—was it guilt? Rage? Fear?
The brush of Itzel's fingers against his jaw broke his trance. The bracelet slid into his palm with a faint chime, and before he could react, her lips brushed his in a fleeting kiss, a promise that should never be spoken.
Warmth threatened to anchor him—until a sharp sting pierced his hand. Itzel had pressed a nail into his skin, fine as a thorn.
"Lovers die from secrets," she whispered, her venomous words curling through the air. "Or they keep them. You decide, White Wolf."
Sanathiel stepped back, his expression darkening with confusion. Desire and guilt entwined like twisted roots in his mind. But Itzel only smiled, with the serenity of someone who always knew more than she revealed.
She walked away slowly, her laughter echoing like dry leaves beneath her steps, as if the earth itself mocked him.
Sanathiel clenched the bracelet, the cold metal biting into his palm. Itzel's scent still lingered in the air, clutching at his soul.
And then the truth crystallized in him, unshakable:He was trapped.
No matter how far he tried to flee his past, it always found him.And this time, it had taken form in Cristal—his daughter, his executioner, the cruelest legacy of the White Wolf.