Bloodline of Ash and Fang

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE CALM BEFORE

The key turned in the lock with a soft, precise click just after 5 AM. Damian started, his hand gripping the windowsill where he’d been staring into the empty, silent street for what felt like hours. The memory of those two points of silvery-blue light in the darkness was burned onto his retinas. The sound of his mother’s tired footsteps in the hallway was a profound relief, a tangible anchor to reality.

He found her in the kitchen, filling the kettle at the sink. Lilith Graves looked like she carried the weight of her entire night shift in the slump of her shoulders, but she still managed a soft, weary smile for him. In the dim kitchen light, she could have passed for his older sister, the timeless quality she possessed more pronounced in her fatigue.

“You’re up early,” she said, her voice a husky whisper.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he murmured, sliding into a chair at the worn wooden table. The house was quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator and the growing rumble of the kettle.

She studied him, her doctor’s eyes missing nothing—the tension in his jaw, the shadows under his eyes. “Everything okay, sweetheart?”

The words were on the tip of his tongue, a desperate confession. There was a man outside. With eyes like frozen moonlight. He was just standing there, watching me. And I couldn’t move. But looking at the deep exhaustion etched on her face, he swallowed them down. She had enough to carry without his nightmares bleeding into her waking life. “Yeah,” he said, forcing a lightness into his tone. “Just… first day of school jitters, I guess. Sophomore year. Big deal.”

It was a weak excuse, and they both knew it, but she accepted it with a slow, understanding nod. They sat in a comfortable silence until the kettle’s whistle pierced the calm. She made two cups of tea, the scent of chamomile filling the room as she pushed a steaming mug toward him. For a few precious minutes, in the quiet of the pre-dawn kitchen, the world felt almost normal again. The fear receded, soothed by the simple, solid presence of his mother.

By the time they went to their separate rooms, the sky outside was lightening to a soft, pearly gray. Damian fell into a fitful sleep, his phone clutched in his hand, Jeremy’s number dialed and unanswered, the call going straight to a voicemail that felt like a void.

The blare of his alarm at 8 AM felt like a physical assault. Sunlight streamed through his blinds, painting bright stripes across the floor. For a disorienting second, the terror of the night felt like a dream. Then the memory solidified, cold and heavy in his gut. The smell of frying bacon and rich coffee seeped under his door, a siren’s call to normality. He dragged himself out of bed, the lack of solid sleep a heavy blanket over his thoughts.

A hot shower helped. The water sluiced over the tense muscles of his shoulders and back, the steam clouding the mirror and fogging the world outside the stall. He was built lean and strong, with the kind of natural, sculpted definition that came from something deeper than sports. Water dripped from the dark strands of hair plastered to his forehead. He ran a hand through it, pushing it back from a face that had lost its last traces of boyish softness, leaving behind sharp cheekbones and a simmering intensity in his storm-gray eyes that sometimes unsettled even him. He toweled off quickly, the mundane routine a small defense against the chaos swirling in his head.

By the time he came downstairs, dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans, the small house was alive with a different energy. The table was set. Cassie, already buzzing with a fourteen-year-old’s relentless vitality, was chattering a mile a minute about her freshman schedule and which teachers were supposedly “tyrants.” Lilith moved between the stove and the table with a quiet, efficient energy that always amazed him, a seamless dance of pouring juice, flipping pancakes, and loading plates.

“You know it’s a weekend, right?” Damian said, sliding into his seat. “You could be sleeping. You just got home.”

“And miss this?” Lilith smiled, setting a stack of golden-brown pancakes in front of him. The gesture was so normal, so achingly familiar, that it almost convinced him the night had never happened. “Never. Besides, someone has to fuel you two for the sophomore year invasion on Monday. You’ll need your strength.”

The doorbell rang, a cheerful chime that made Cassie bolt from her chair like a shot. She returned a moment later, ushering Jeremy into the kitchen. He looked effortlessly put together, as always, a worn calculus textbook tucked under his arm. A charming, slightly sheepish grin was plastered on his face, but Damian didn’t miss the tightness around his eyes, the faint shadows that mirrored his own. Jeremy had clearly not slept either.

“Morning, Dr. G. Sorry to ambush you like this,” Jeremy said, his voice easy and warm. “I’m in a serious calculus crisis. The homework’s due first thing Monday and I am officially drowning. Think Damian can throw me a lifeline for a couple of hours?”

“Of course, Jeremy,” Lilith said warmly. “Sit, have some breakfast. You can’t solve advanced mathematics on an empty stomach. There’s plenty.”

Cassie suddenly became intensely interested in scrutinizing her orange juice, a faint but unmistakable pink tinge coloring her cheeks whenever Jeremy glanced in her direction. A small, secret smile played on her lips.

Jeremy easily fit himself into the morning chaos, complimenting the food, making Cassie laugh with a stupid joke about parabolas, and deftly navigating Lilith’s gentle questioning about his own family. He was a master of this—the golden boy who belonged everywhere. But throughout it all, his gaze kept flicking back to Damian, a silent, urgent question passing between them.

Finally, after the plates were cleared and the excuses about a “quiet study session at the library” were smoothly delivered, the two boys stepped out onto the sun-drenched porch. The second the front door clicked shut behind them, the easy-going mask fell from Jeremy’s face. The color drained from his knuckles as he clenched his hands.

He looked at Damian, his expression grim and stripped bare of all its usual charm. “Okay,” he said, his voice low and deadly serious. “We’re clear. What I’m about to show you… you can’t ever tell anyo

ne. Not your mom. Not Cassie. No one.”