The dream clung to me like ash; thick, choking, impossible to forget. His voice hadn't followed me this time, but something else had. A gate. Carved from black stone. Marked with symbols I couldn't understand but somehow recognized. I'd reached for it before I woke, and even now, the name burned the back of my throat.
Kai stood at the entrance to the bunker, bathed in the last streaks of night. His shoulders were tense, his jaw locked tight. Watching. Waiting. Like he always was.
"You were outside my door again," I said quietly as I approached.
He didn't look at me. "You screamed."
Well... "Not loud enough to wake you."
"I don't sleep." His eyes flicked to mine, too fast, too sharp. "Not when you're dreaming of that thing."
I leaned against the stone wall, close enough to feel the cold off his skin. "You know what he is, don't you?"
He looked away. "No one does."
"But you've seen it before."
Silence stretched between us.
"I had a sister," he said finally. "Not by blood. But she was marked, like you. One night, they came. We fought, we bled, and still they took her. I found her body three days later in the woods. Eyes gone. Chest hollow."
My stomach twisted. "That's why you hate how I remind you of her."
"I don't hate it," he said softly. "I fear it."
The next morning, I told the others we had to leave. The shadows would come back, and we couldn't afford another fight. Not here. Not like this. Kai argued, at first. But he saw the way the others looked to me now. I wasn't just the girl who showed up bleeding and marked, I was something more. I didn't know what yet, but they did.
Kai mentioned a place in the mountains. A sanctuary untouched by shadow. Hidden by old blood magic.
"We'll move at first light," he said.
We left with only what we could carry, Kai, me, and three others from the Fenris pack. We traveled in silence most of the morning. Every branch snap made me flinch. Every whisper of wind sounded like breath too close to my neck.
Kai walked beside me, silent and unreadable as always. But now, he didn't stop me from drawing my blade. From watching the woods like a fighter, not a burden.
By midday, we reached a river crossing. The water ran fast and cold, mist curling off its surface. That's where they came, shadow-marked wolves, lunging from the trees like ghosts in flesh.
It happened fast. Blood, snarls, the crash of bodies into water.
One of them came for me. I raised my blade too late, but my mark flared, and something inside me snapped. A pulse of light exploded from my chest. The wolf was thrown back, limp against a tree.
When I turned, everyone was staring.
That night, we camped in a cave veiled by roots and salt-heavy air. One of the older wolves, Mira, prepared a binding ritual. Salt circles, bone ash, old words whispered in a language I didn't know.
When the salt touched my skin, it burned. Like fire trapped beneath my bones.
"Don't flinch," Mira warned.
I didn't. I couldn't.
Afterward, I sat near the fire, my body aching, my mind more so.
Kai sat opposite me, watching like he was trying to solve something he didn't want the answer to.
"You didn't hesitate today," he said. "You reacted. Controlled it."
"I didn't control anything," I muttered. "It just happened."
He didn't argue. But I saw it, the flicker of something in his eyes. Hope. Or fear. Maybe both.
I drifted off by the fire. The cave was warm, but the dream was cold. I saw the gate again. The black stone. The golden vines. This time, I got closer. Close enough to see a name carved into the center, glowing with soft silver light.
When I woke, the name was still on my tongue. I whispered it without thinking.
Kai froze. His head turned slowly toward me.
"You've been there," I said, breathless. "Haven't you?"
His expression hardened. "That place isn't a sanctuary."
"Then what is it?"
He didn't answer. But something in his eyes told me, whatever was waiting beyond that gate had been watching me long before
I was ever marked.