The dungeon beneath Noctara Castle was carved from obsidian, its walls slick with age and sorrow. Torches burned blue with enchanted flame, casting ghostly light across the stones.
Princess Seraphina Dravara descended the spiral steps, her cloak whispering behind her. Each step echoed in the silence, each heartbeat louder than the last. She had told no one where she was going. Seraphina knew what would happen if her mother found out she was visiting the werewolf prisoner punishment, shame, or worse.
But she couldn't stop thinking about him.
Prince Kael Fenrir.
She had seen many werewolves before broken soldiers dragged through Noctara's gates but none like him. He had looked at her not with fear or hatred, but with something she could not name.
The guard at the final gate bowed low.
"Your Highness, the beast is secured."
She hid her frown. "Open it."
Chains clattered as the iron door groaned open. Inside, Kael sat against the wall, wrists bound by runic shackles that glowed with cold light. His golden eyes lifted when she entered, and momentarily, the air between them crackled like stormfire.
"You came," he said, voice low and rough.
"I shouldn't have," Seraphina replied, stepping closer. "You're dangerous."
He laughed softly, a sound like thunder on the horizon. "You're the daughter of Lilith Dravara. I think you're the dangerous one."
Seraphina's lips curved. "You have no idea."
Silence stretched between them, heavy but not hostile. She studied the bruises on his arms, the cuts that healed too fast to be natural. He was strong, proud, and yet there was something broken in his eyes.
"Why did you come here, vampire princess?" he asked at last. "To gloat? To see your people's trophy up close?"
Seraphina hesitated. "No. I came to understand."
He raised an eyebrow. "Understand what?"
"Why does this war never end," she whispered. "Why do we keep killing each other and calling it honor?"
Kael's expression softened for the first time. "Because our parents made it so. Because they taught us to hate before we could even speak."
Seraphina looked away. "And yet here we are talking, not killing."
"Maybe that's the start of something," he murmured.
Their eyes met again, and the silence became something else charged, alive. For a heartbeat, the walls between vampire and werewolf didn't exist.
Then the torches flickered, and Seraphina froze.
Footsteps.
"Someone's coming," she whispered.
Kael straightened, his chains rattling softly. "Go. If they find you here"
She reached into her cloak and pressed a small, blood-red crystal into his hand. "This will ease the pain of the runes. Don't let them see it."
"Why are you helping me?" he asked, voice rough with confusion.
She met his gaze. "Because I don't think you're the monster they say you are."
Before he could answer, she turned and vanished into the dark.
When the guards entered moments later, they found the prisoner silent but smiling faintly, as though he had just heard the first true promise of freedom.