Lycaon didn't get an answer. Not one worth hearing.
His jaw tightened, boots echoing sharply as he turned and stormed out of the cell, the heavy iron door slamming shut behind him. Rage burned hot in his chest, every step a thunderclap in the quiet corridor.
But then—A hand landed on his shoulder.
The heat in his veins faltered.
He turned, expecting another guard; Instead, he found his father standing there.
In the stillness of the isolated dungeon, where the walls kept every secret, the mask of the clan leader slipped away. What stood before him was not the Alpha…but a father. One whose eyes carried the quiet, aching worry of a man watching his son carry too much.
"Lycaon," his father's voice cut through the silence—steady, but edged with something unspoken.
The dungeon seemed smaller now, the air thick with heat from torches and the weight of words not yet said.
"You can't fight the whole war alone," his father murmured, resting a heavy hand on his son's shoulder. It wasn't restraint—it was an anchor. "If you burn yourself out like this… there'll be nothing left for your people. Or for you."
Lycaon's jaw clenched, his pulse still pounding from the cell confrontation. But his father's earlier words came back to him—haunting, unexplained.
"You said something before," Lycaon said at last, his voice low but sharp. "That the night has begun collecting its debt. What did you mean by that?"
His father's gaze shifted, shadow crossing his features. "It means," he said slowly, "that old promises never die. They wait… and when the time comes, they take what's owed."
Lycaon's eyes narrowed. "And the vampire in that cell is part of this debt?"
The faintest flicker passed through his father's gaze—memory, pain, maybe even regret."Before you were born," the clan leader said at last, voice low. "And before he was what he is now."
The words lingered like smoke in the torchlight, curling with secrets Lycaon wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Lycaon didn't push further. Whatever truth his father carried, it was fractured—shards of something too heavy to hold. In Alvric's eyes there was no malice, only a deep, quiet regret. And Lycaon… he wasn't ready to bear it.
Alvric drew a slow breath, as if to speak, but Lycaon's voice cut through the space between them.
"Why was magic forbidden on this land?"
The question landed like a blade, sharp and unrelenting.
Alvric's jaw tightened. His gaze flicked toward the silver-threaded walls, lingered too long, and then lowered to the ground—as though looking Lycaon in the eye might betray something he'd spent years burying. For a heartbeat, he seemed ready to speak.
But instead, he let out a breath that carried the weight of something personal… something he had once been part of.
When his eyes finally met Lycaon's again, there was something darker than fear in them. Not just knowledge. Not just guilt. But the shadow of a choice made long ago… and the price still waiting to be paid.
And then, silence.
"Why is my appearance hidden from everyone? Tell me, Father."
Lycaon's tone carried an edge—less curiosity, more demand.
Alvric didn't answer right away. The pause was long enough for the torchlight to flicker twice, shadows shifting like restless spirits against the stone. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, but heavy.
"You were a blessing we received in the hardest of our days," he said. "And we wanted no one to know your face. Because if word had spread… the old laws would have marked you. You would have been hunted. Killed long ago."
The air in the dungeon thickened, pressing in on them. The silence was no longer empty—it hummed, like a memory of magic that still dared to breathe in forbidden places.
Lycaon's jaw tightened. The words made no sense, yet they felt like a key turning in a lock he had never seen.
"The old laws?" he pressed. "You mean the ones tied to the ban on magic?"
Alvric's gaze didn't waver, but something in it shifted—regret, fear… and the weight of a truth too dangerous to give.
"Some debts," Alvric said, "are older than kingdoms. Older than wolves. And when the night begins to collect them… it always comes for the blood it was promised."
Lycaon felt his pulse in his ears. He didn't know which was worse—that his father believed this… or that it might be true.
And before Lycaon could make any sense of his father's words, the echo of hurried footsteps broke the suffocating stillness. One of the dungeon guards came running, breath ragged, armor clinking with each frantic step.
"Alpha—" he gasped, voice uneven.
The day's first light was creeping into the cracks of the stone walls, but there was no relief on the guard's face. Only grief.
Lycaon straightened, already bracing for the worst.
"Speak," he ordered.
The guard swallowed hard, eyes flicking briefly toward Alvric before locking on Lycaon.
"The west army… it's gone. Completely taken down. By the vampire."
Lycaon's breath caught.
"And?"
The answer came like a blade to the gut.
"Both the vampires and our wolves… all of them… are dead."
The silence that followed was different now—no longer heavy with secrets, but with loss.
The words hung in the air like poison.Lycaon felt his pulse in his ears, the weight of the guard's report pressing down on him. Dead. All of them. Wolves and vampires alike.
His gaze flicked instinctively toward the dungeon corridor. Toward the one prisoner who was supposed to be too weak to stand.
The vampire.
Something in Lycaon's chest tightened—not grief, not yet. A colder, sharper feeling.
"When?" he asked, his voice low, dangerous.
"Hours ago, Alpha," the guard said, hesitant. "Before dawn. We… don't know how it happened."
Lycaon's jaw clenched. He did know one thing—this wasn't random. The timing, the precision. And the one creature they kept alive in the most secure cell in the clan's history… might be at the center of it.
Without another word, Lycaon strode toward the cell, each step echoing in the dungeon's hollow corridors.
Inside, the vampire was still chained, still sitting on the cold floor, but his eyes followed Lycaon like he'd been waiting for him.