Noah
I heard growls coming from the dungeon in the manor. I was warned never to go there but I can't help the growing curiosity as a girl of fourteen.The air in the dungeon tasted like metal and rain-soaked stone. Each breath burned cold against my throat, carrying the scent of rust, blood, and something wilder and alive.
My torch hissed when a drop of water fell from the ceiling and hit the flame. Shadows jumped along the walls, jagged and hungry, as if they were whispering warnings I was too foolish to hear.
Papa warned me to steer clear of this place, saying it was hunted. He forbade mama and me from this part of the Elder's Castle. But I was curious about it, intrigued when I heard stories about the ghost down in the dungeon that growled day and night. I wasn't supposed to be here.
Elder's daughters did not sneak into the depths beneath the council fortress. They didn't creep past guards while pretending to be errand boys delivering rations.
They didn't risk everything to see the thing that the guards talked about.
But I was just fourteen and curiosity had always been the thorn under my skin. The rough wool tunic scratched at my neck. My hair- cut short, uneven, the way my mother insisted so I'd pass as a boy when the elders called upon the children, the younger generations, as they called us, stuck to my forehead with sweat.
Strands the colour of dark honey curled against my temples, and no matter how I shoved them under my hood, they refused to stay hidden. My reflection, if I'd dared to glance in a puddle, would have shown a too-thin boy with hollow cheeks and storm gray eyes that never stopped searching.
I didn't like how I looked. I looked boyish and under-fed. I am a girl and I wanted to look in a mirror and feel like one.
The guards called the ghost a prisoner. They said he was once a beast and other things I found questionable. I wanted to see for myself. They say his howls shook iron bars. I wanted to hear them for myself.
A low growl rippled through the silence. It wasn't loud, but it crawled through my skin like claws. The torchlight trembled in my hands.
Every instinct in me screamed at me to run but my boots kept moving like I was drawn to it. I kept moving down to the last flight of steps, towards the cell at the far end.
The smell hit me first. Not the smell of filth or blood but of iron coins soaked in the rain, old and sharp, then the sound of chain scraping stone, slow and deliberate.
I heard the growl again and this time with a whimper that sounded human. "Who's there?" The voice was hoarse, broken from disuse. Not a monster's snarl but something colder and controlled.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. "Just someone checking on the prisoners."
"Liar! You don't smell like guards." Those words rolled from the dark corners like smoke. I lifted the torch higher. The light caught on metal links, on pale skin smeared with dirt and dried blood and then eyes, deep amber eyes that shone like liquid gold.
Those molten lava eyes fixated on me, unblinking and inhumanly calm. This was no ghost but a human boy or maybe just a boy with a cursed energy. He was nothing like the books described. He was utterly handsome and intense. He watched me with a curious gaze on his face. He bared his teeth; there weren't any fangs or monstrous muzzle just a boy with chains biting into his wrists and ankles.
His hair hung in tangled waves; his bronze skin shimmered with sweat and dried blood. I was amazed and surprised what a young boy will be doing down here. He could be hungry or sick. Did the elders know? Did my father know about this?
"What are you?" I whispered before I could stop myself. His lips curved more of a warning than a smile.
"Free me and you'll find out."
The torch sputtered again, the light dancing across the cell door and the old rusted lock that looked one tug away from breaking. My hands shook. I didn't come here to free him. I only came here because I wanted to see him. But his quiet voice that spoke with certainty urged me, pulling me into an abyss that I will regret. "What's your name?"
"Lucien," He said. "What's your name, little one?" I say almost immediately.
"Noah" I said almost immediately.
I immediately regret it because he could track me down and kill me for trapping him indirectly. Thoughts swarmed my mind. I didn't tell him the name that my dad used to call me in front of those elders which is Noah.
"Noah." His voice lingered over it, tasting the sound. "I won't forget that."
Something inside me shifted then, something I didn't understand. Fear, yes but also a pull, like the moon tugging at the tide. Behind me, footsteps echoed faintly from the stairwell, a guard changing post. I had seconds before being caught.
The key ring hung on a hook beside the door, forgotten. My fingers moved before my mind did. The lock clicked. The door groaned open. I turned to him and unlocked the shackles then whispered. "Run."
He didn't move at first, just stared at me as if memorizing my face. Then the chains fell, and he stepped forward, tall and silent.
When he passed me, he paused, close enough to feel his breath. "When we meet again, little one," he murmured. "Be sure to look feminine. You are prettier the way you are."
And then he was gone, swallowed by the dark, leaving only the echo of chains and the burn of my own heartbeat in the quiet.
I stood there, clutching the torch, staring at the open cell door as if I could will it to shut and erase what I had done. But the chains lay broken at my feet and the scent of dried blood and silver lingered in the air.
It took less than an hour for the fortress to erupt. The alarm bell rang, sharp and accusing echoing through the corridor. My heart plummeted as shouts filled the stairwell-guards, elders, my father's voice like thunder. By the time they found me, I was frozen to the ground.
My father's cloak swept the floor like a storm as he approached. Elder Varyn, one of the most feared members of the counsel- his eyes like shards of ice. I wanted to speak, to lie, to say I'd been compelled but my throat ran dry.
The guard beside him snarled, "The Lycan's gone. The door is open and he's the only one here." Father's hand struck before I could even blink.
The slap cracked across my cheek, the taste of iron blooming in my mouth. "You have doomed us all." He hissed.
"He wasn't a monster," I whispered. "He was-
"Enough!" His voice thundered through the hall. "Do you have any idea what you've done? That creature was proof! A weapon to remind our race of our power and you set it loose."
Tears blurred the torchlight. "He was dying."
Father stared at me with disgust and contempt. "Mercy is a weakness. And weakness has no place in our bloodline."
Guards grabbed my arm. I struggled and begged till my voice became hoarse and my lungs burned. He didn't even look at me as he gave the order. The elders left in anger leaving him and I. He glared at me. "You are a disgrace even disguised as a son."
"Bind her and lock her up. Even if he screams for the moon, let her learn what silence feels like." They dragged me past the corridors where I used to read and learn, where my mother stood with unshed tears in her eyes but unable to go against my father's command all because of surrender and marriage.
The old chamber wasn't a room but a tomb beneath the manor walls- one the elders used for punishment. They tossed me in, leaving me there with nothing but his words. "Mercy is weakness."
I lost count of the hours. My stomach twisted from hunger, my lips cracked and my throat ached from screaming apologies no one heard. The door finally creaked open, it was my mother.
Her eyes were red, and her voice shook. "He wanted to kill you but I begged him not to." She whispered. "But you have to drink this." She pressed a trembling hand to my cheek then reached for a small vial.
I didn't understand until the bitter liquid burned down her throat, and a dull warmth spread through my veins.
Then I felt it like something inside me being smothered. My heartbeat slowed, the pull of moon fading. "What is happening...."
"I'm sorry. Forgive me," She whispered.
My vision blurred, the room spinning until darkness claimed me.