### Chapter Two – Teeth in the Dark ###Chicago mornings were worse than Chicago nights. Nights were honest about their filth. They wore darkness like a mask, hid the blood and the screams behind neon lights and sirens. Mornings, though they tried to pretend the city was normal.Bryan hated mornings.The diner on Halsted reeked of burnt bacon and cheap coffee. Grease lined the windows, trapping the stench like a curse. Bryan sat in the booth opposite Pa. Clever, stabbing at his eggs with a fork like they offended him.Clever didn’t notice. He was too busy counting a lot of bills, lips pursed, squinting through smudged glasses. The man rubbed his bald hair backwards, leaving greasy strands dangling over his wide forehead. His suit was the kind of brown that looked like it had been dragged through every alley in the city.“You did good last night, kid,” Clever said, licking his finger and flipping another bill. “Real good. Two bodies and a half-dead mutt left squealing. Word’s already s

### Chapter Four – A Wolf’s Shadow ###The city never shut up.Bryan lay on the thin mattress of his room above Pa. Clever’s pawn shop, staring at the ceiling while horns blared somewhere down on Clark Street. The radiator hissed like it was choking to death. His crossbow leaned against the wall, loaded, ready.He should have been asleep. He wasn’t.Because someone was watching him.Not tonight, maybe. But recently. He could feel it. Like a set of eyes carved into his spine every time he turned a corner.Bryan sat up, rubbing his face with both hands. “Get a grip,” he muttered. His voice sounded too loud in the cramped room.But the memory of last night’s hunt clawed through his head. That wolf in the alley. The way it died too easily, as if the kill had been rehearsed. And worse—the way his own hands hadn’t shaken.They should have. He wasn’t a soldier. He was just a kid who’d learned to shoot because Pa. Clever dangled money and food over his head. But last night, in that alley, he’

### Chapter Six – The Uncle in the Shadows ###(Phele’s POV)The night air pressed thick against the rooftops of Chicago, heavy with the scent of blood, smoke, and betrayal.Lord Pheles crouched in silence, his black cloak blending with the darkness, eyes glowing faintly silver as he peered down into the alley below.He had followed the scent on a whim. A pull. Something he could not name. And now, His chest tightened.“Bryan…”The name slipped past his lips, no louder than a whisper swallowed by the wind.Alive. The boy was alive.For nineteen years he had convinced himself one of his brother’s sons had survived. Bruno—yes, Bruno he had found, hidden, protected, raised away from Amark’s shadow. But Bryan? He had long been a ghost in Pheles’ mind, a faint memory drowned in Samantha’s blood and fire.Yet there he was. Not a dream. Not a phantom. A boy—no, a man—standing against three higher-class wolves who called him Prince.Pheles’ fingers curled into his palms. The wolves weren’t wr

### Chapter Eight – The Curse of the Prince ###(Bryan's POV)Bryan’s lungs burned with every breath. His chest felt like it had been crushed by a freight train, his arms shaking as he leaned against the cold brick wall of the alley. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead, warm against his skin.He hated the smell of blood.Not because it made him sick. No—because it didn’t.Mayer stood a few feet away, wiping her blade clean with practiced movements, her eyes flicking toward him between strokes. She hadn’t said a word since the last wolf fled into the night.Bryan spat, the metallic taste of iron thick on his tongue. “What the hell was that?”Mayer looked up, her expression calm, almost too calm. “You tell me.”Bryan blinked at her. “What—what do you mean?”Her gaze was slowly dying on his eyes. He felt the weight of it, sharp and measuring. “The way they looked at you. The way they called you.”“Prince?” He spat the word like poison. His laugh cracked, brittle. “That’s insane. I’

### Chapter Ten – A Name in the Dark ###(Bryan POV)Bryan couldn’t sleep.He lay on the lumpy mattress in his cramped apartment, staring at the ceiling where water stains shaped shadows that moved when the headlights from passing cars cut through the blinds. The city outside never slept, but tonight it felt like the noise pressed harder against the glass, sirens, shouts, tires screeching.His chest rose and fell too quickly, sweat clinging to his skin though the night was cold. Every time he closed his eyes, the same images played again: claws slashing, wolves snarling Prince, his mother screaming, her blood blooming across the floor like a spreading stain.And then the shadow of the man he hated most, faceless yet undeniable.Amark.He sat up, pressing his palms into his eyes. “I’m losing my damn mind.”His reflection in the cracked mirror across the room looked pale, exhausted. But what unsettled him most was the memory of amber burning in those same eyes earlier tonight.He had al