Lydia
Sleep never came.
By morning, her eyes were dry and her limbs heavy with dread. She went about her duties quietly, avoiding Duncan's gaze during breakfast, keeping her head low whassing the other staff. Her senses buzzed with tension.
If someone or something had come to Ravenglade using ancient magic, she would have felt it. Should have.
Unless they were masking themselves like she was.
Her necklace glowed faintly beneath her blouse, warm against her skin. Isolde had warned her: If the light turns cold, it means another presence is near. So far, it stayed warm.
Safe.
Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that eyes were watching her.
Not just Duncan's. Something older. Hungrier.
Later that day, Ana whispered another rumor in the kitchen, that one of the outer farmers had vanished. No blood, no signs of a struggle. Just… gone.
Lydia's hands tightened around the tea tray.
It was happening again.
And the wolves would look for someone to blame
That night, the air was thick.
Heavy with something unspoken. As if Ravenglade held its breath.
Lydia slipped out into the garden after curfew, careful to avoid the patrol paths. Her boots whispered against the gravel as she moved between rows of hedges and stone fountains. The scent of lavender drifted through the breeze, sharp and strangely calming.
She needed air. Needed space to think.
Who had killed that creature outside the gates?
And why did the magic smell like something she knew?
She paused near the edge of the garden, where an old iron fence lined the border of the Thorne property. Beyond it, the forest stretched in shadows and thorns.
Something shifted between the trees.
Her breath caught.
It was subtle, but her senses—so carefully trained—picked it up immediately. A movement. A presence. Not entirely human. Not entirely… alive.
She narrowed her eyes and stepped back slowly, one hand drifting to her necklace.
The shadows thickened.
Then..
A shape lunged from the trees.
Lydia's instincts kicked in. She pivoted and bolted across the garden, her cloak flaring behind her. Whatever it was,it moved fast. Too fast. It crashed through the underbrush, snapping branches, gaining.
Her boots slipped on the grass as she darted around the statue of an angel and twisted through a side path. The scent of blood hit her like a slap.
Old. Feral.
She turned a corner,
And ran straight into a wall of muscle and heat.
Strong arms caught her before she hit the ground.
"Lydia?"
Duncan.
He was in his nightclothes, boots unlaced, hair wind-tossed. But his eyes, his eyes were burning with golden light.
"Something's in the garden!" she gasped. "I saw…"
He didn't ask questions. He let her go, turned, and stepped in front of her just as the thing burst from the hedges.
It wasn't human. Not anymore.
It looked like a man tall, gaunt, dressed in tattered clothing but its face was twisted. Its eyes glowed with hunger, and its mouth was smeared with blood. Its limbs were too long. Its voice,when it snarled was a gurgle of pain and madness.
"Stay back!" Duncan shouted.
The creature hissed and leapt.
Duncan shifted in the blink of an eye bones cracking, muscles expanding his wolf form exploding forward in a blur of gray and gold.
Lydia staggered back as the two collided.
It was brutal. Violent.
The wolf was faster, stronger. But the creature whatever it was fought like it had nothing to lose. Claws scraped fur. Teeth snapped. Blood hit the stone path.
Lydia's hand clutched her necklace.
She knew that kind of hunger. That smell.
It was a turned vampire, a feral, mindless one. The kind that hadn't fed on blood alone, but on pain, on forbidden rituals. Something someone had made.
Not born.
Not like her.
Duncan slammed the creature against a tree and snarled. The thing shrieked, twisted, and lunged again. Lydia couldn't just stand there. She ripped a shard of silver from a broken garden spade and flung it toward Duncan.
He caught it mid-air.
One strike, deep in the creature's heart and it collapsed in a wheezing heap.
Silence.
Duncan shifted back with a grunt, breath ragged, bare chest heaving, his arm streaked with blood.
He turned to her slowly. His eyes were still glowing.
"What was that?" he asked.
Lydia swallowed hard.
She could lie.
Or she could edge closer to truth.
"Something old," she said. "Something broken."
Duncan stared at her for a long time.
"You recognized it."
Not a question. A fact.
She didn't answer.
A beat of silence passed between them.
Finally, Duncan stepped forward, his voice low. "Who are you really, Lydia?"
She looked up at him.
The wind stirred her hair. The moon lit the bruise on his collarbone. She saw the suspicion in his eyes,but something else too. Worry.
Not for himself.
For her.
Lydia's voice came quiet and sure. "Someone trying to survive."
That answer seemed to reach him. His shoulders eased slightly. His voice gentled.
"You saved my life."
"No," she said softly. "You saved mine."
He took another step toward her, then stopped.
His golden eyes searched hers for something he couldn't name.
Then he turned, and called for guards
Duncan
They burned the body by sunrise.
The flames lit the garden in gold and ash, and the town's soldiers watched with grim faces. Duncan said little, but his mind was a storm.
That creature… It shouldn't have been able to pass through Ravenglade's wards.
Unless someone had helped it.
Unless it already lived among them.
His thoughts drifted, unwillingly to Lydia.
She had moved like someone trained. Fought with instinct. And she had thrown him silver. A human wouldn't have thought of that.
But more than all of that, she had recognized what it was.
He walked the garden perimeter alone, ignoring the offers of help, of medical attention. He needed clarity. Needed to think.
As he turned a corner near the east wall, he found his mother standing there.
Lady Elara.
"You saw it too," she said.
"Yes."
"Your father wants to send for the Council."
Duncan sighed. "It's too soon. The Council will panic the town."
"They should panic," she said coolly. "If this is a sign of the past returning…"
He looked at her. "You think vampires are back."
"I think they were never truly gone," she whispered.
Duncan was silent.
"And the girl?" Elara asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
"She saved me," he said at last.
"She's dangerous."
"She's… hiding something," he agreed. "But not danger. Not yet."
Elara turned her sharp eyes on him. "Be careful with your heart, Duncan. If this is what I think it is, if there's a vow being broken, there will be blood.