2025-11-06 19:56:43Rain hammered the alley as Luca and Marrow slipped into the shadows behind the bar. The air smelled of wet asphalt and rust. A security light buzzed overhead, flickering like it was deciding whether to stay alive.
Marrow scanned the street before moving. “Don’t speak until we’re two blocks out,” she murmured.
Luca didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He followed, steps soundless despite the slick pavement. His balance felt too precise to be learned. It was remembered, somewhere beyond memory.
They turned through a narrow walkway between buildings, past dumpsters and steam vents and a door marked NO ENTRY with peeling red paint. A stray dog lifted its head from under a stairwell and growled low. Its ears flattened. Its body dipped. Submission.
Marrow noticed.
She didn’t comment.
They reached a rusted fire escape ladder. Marrow grasped the rails and climbed. Luca’s hands followed — but he didn’t look where to place his feet. He climbed like a creature that had done it a thousand times in the dark.
They reached the rooftop.
The city sprawled before them — neon in blue, red, and sickly yellow. Sirens screamed somewhere distant. Thunder rolled overhead.
Marrow exhaled. “We need answers,” she said. “Which means we need him.”
Luca looked at her. “The bartender.”
She nodded. “You were never careless, Luca. You didn’t leave information lying around. But you trusted him with something. I don’t know what. And now—”
A voice cut her off from behind them.
“—now he’s in danger because you woke up.”
Luca turned slowly.
The bartender stood in the rooftop doorway, breathing hard, rain soaking through his shirt. He must have run up the stairs. His hands shook, not from the cold, but from fear and something heavier.
Regret.
“You should have stayed dead,” the bartender said.
Marrow tensed. “You called them?”
The bartender’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Luca stepped toward him — not threatening, not aggressive — just present. The bartender stumbled back anyway.
“You know what happens if they find you,” the bartender said. “The Order has trackers out. They’ve been waiting for a sign — any sign — that the Pack might return. If they realize you’re alive—”
“They already know,” Luca said quietly.
Footsteps echoed below. Doors slamming. Radios crackling.
The bartender’s face broke — not into fear — into heartbreak.
“I tried to protect what was left of you,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to see you become that thing again.”
Luca’s voice remained calm. “What thing?”
The bartender just closed his eyes.
And said nothing.
Marrow swore under her breath. “We’re out of time.”
Luca walked past her and knelt in front of the bartender. Not hostile — but the air around him tightened, like gravity had grown heavier.
“Look at me,” Luca said.
The bartender didn’t.
Luca didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t grab him. He just waited — with the patience of something that had waited centuries before.
Finally, the bartender looked up.
Luca’s eyes were dark, steady, still — but there was something behind them now. Not glowing. Not monstrous. Just ancient.
“Tell me the truth,” Luca said. “What was I?”
The bartender’s breath shook. “You were the Alpha. The anchor. The only one who could hold the Pack through the turn. When the moon rose, you were the voice they listened to. Without you, they tore each other apart.”
Luca held the man’s gaze, and something moved behind Luca’s own eyes — a flicker, a tremor, a memory trying to break through the dark.
“And Rhea?” Luca asked — soft as rain.
The bartender swallowed hard. “Rhea was the one who kept you from losing yourself to the change.”
Marrow looked sharply at him. “Rhea controlled him?”
“Not controlled,” the bartender whispered. “Loved.”
Silence rolled across the rooftop like thunder.
Then —
Boots hit metal stairs below.
Multiple pairs.
Coming fast.
Marrow’s hand went to the inside of her coat. Luca didn’t look at her, but he already knew she was armed.
“Front or back?” Luca asked.
Marrow jerked her head toward the far ledge. “Jump to the parallel roof. Three meters across. You can make it.”
“Can you?” Luca asked.
Marrow’s jaw twitched. “If you go first, I will.”
The bartender grabbed Luca’s arm suddenly. “You don’t understand — the Order isn’t just hunting you. They’re hunting her. Rhea. If they get to her before you do, she’s gone. For good.”
Rain streamed down Luca’s face. His expression didn’t change. But inside, a wire pulled tight.
“Where?” Luca asked.
The bartender shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t—”
He stopped.
Because Luca’s eyes changed.
Just for a second.
Not fully. Not visibly monstrous. But the pupils stretched — not wide like fear, not narrow like anger — something else. Something predatory that didn’t belong to men.
The bartender flinched.
And the answer came out of him like a confession:
“The Glass Citadel. Corporate district. Penthouse level. She used to go there when she needed to think. Before everything went wrong.”
Below, a radio crackled:
“We have movement on the roof.”
Luca released the bartender’s arm — gentle, controlled — then stood.
Marrow stepped beside him, gun already drawn.
No panic. No hesitation.
Luca looked across the gap between rooftops — wind whipping, rain falling hard enough to sting.
Three meters.
His body didn’t question it.
He stepped back once.
Then ran.
His boots hit the rooftop edge and his feet left the ground — body stretched, movement effortless.
He landed on the far roof in a roll that flowed back into standing.
Marrow followed — not graceful, but committed.
She landed hard, stumbled, caught herself on her palm, and exhaled.
From behind them came the pounding of boots and shouted orders.
Luca didn’t look back.
He simply said:
“Corporate district. Now.”
Marrow nodded once.
They vanished into the storm.
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Latest Chapter
THREADS THAT REFUSE TO DIE
The storm rolled in quickly, clouds muscling across the sky as if the heavens themselves were bracing for what Annabelle was about to uncover. She stood beside the window, watching the first drops of rain distort the glass. Each streak felt like a countdown—slow, deliberate, unavoidable.Ashton and Bernard were at the table behind her, maps and old documents scattered across the surface. The room felt too small for the weight of what they were trying to untangle. Every page they touched carried a ghost. Every name whispered a threat.Annabelle finally turned.“Start from the beginning,” she said. “From the moment my mother first realized something was wrong. Don’t leave anything out this time.”Bernard exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose, the exhaustion in his posture revealing just how long he had been carrying this secret.“She was working late one night,” he began. “Cross-checking accounts for the charity foundation she managed. She noticed a transfer that didn’t make sense… th
THE MASK OF THE TRUSTED
Annabelle didn’t realize she was shaking until Ashton stepped in front of her again, placing both hands on her shoulders as if anchoring her back to the floor. Her breath came out in broken bursts, like the air itself had turned too sharp to swallow.Mr. Harrow.The man who had been in her living room after her mother’s funeral.The man who had spoken gently, offering to “help with the paperwork.”The man who checked on her every few months, just enough to seem caring, never enough to seem suspicious.Her knees weakened under the weight of the realization.“Mr. Harrow can’t be involved in this,” Annabelle whispered, though her voice already carried the hollow tremble of disbelief crumbling into truth. “He… he helped me. He guided me through everything. He was the one who said my mother’s case was closed. He said the evidence was lost in the fire—”Bernard’s expression told her everything.The evidence wasn’t lost.It was buried.“Annabelle,” Bernard said softly, “that’s exactly the ro
SHADOWS THAT NEVER LEFT
Silence swallowed the room so completely that Annabelle could hear her own heartbeat stumbling inside her chest. The words Bernard had just spoken clung to the air like heavy smoke.Connected to her mother’s death.Annabelle’s knees weakened again, and Ashton’s arm tightened instinctively around her waist, steadying her even before she realized she was falling. She leaned slightly against him, the weight of Bernard’s revelation pressing through her bones like a slow, crushing tide.Her voice was barely a whisper—thin, trembling.“Bernard… what do you mean connected? Connected how?”Bernard turned away for a moment, raking a shaking hand through his hair. It was the kind of movement a man made when he had reached the end of his strength, when the truth had been sitting on his tongue for too long.“It didn’t start with us,” Bernard murmured. “It didn’t start with anything you said or did. Annabelle… someone has been circling your family long before you even knew how deep your mother was
THE WEIGHT OF PROMISES
The morning crawled in slowly, dragging pale light across the windows like someone gently lifting a veil after a long night of tears. Annabelle stood at the balcony rail, fingers curled around the cold metal, staring at the horizon as if the sun owed her an explanation for rising again. Behind her, the room felt too silent, too heavy, as though every breath inside the walls had grown cautious.She heard Ashton moving before she saw him. His footsteps were slow, not from sleepiness but from the quiet uncertainty that had been lingering between them since last night. He paused at the doorway, watching her slender back, the way her shoulders lifted and dropped with a deep breath she didn’t release fully.“Annabelle,” his voice finally reached her, low and careful, like he was approaching a wounded animal. “You’ve been out here for almost an hour.”She didn’t turn. “I needed the air,” she murmured, her tone soft but edged with exhaustion. “I didn’t sleep much.”“I noticed,” he said, walki
Embers of Dominion
Dawn broke unevenly over the city, casting fractured beams of light through the smoke and debris that still clung to the alleys. Luca walked with deliberate steps through the streets, muscles taut, senses sharp, every shadow a potential threat, every whisper a piece of information. The Warden’s trial had left him changed—not merely stronger, but clearer, more focused. The silver memory now burned like a lodestar in his mind, illuminating the paths others couldn’t see, revealing threats before they could strike, and exposing weaknesses others assumed hidden.The factions were restless. His first strike, the chaos of the previous nights, and now the reverberations of the trial had sent tremors through their ranks. Rumors of a returning predator spread quickly, carried by whispers, graffiti, and subtle signals that Luca alone could read with precision. The city itself seemed to pulse in anticipation, as if aware that its rhythm was about to be rewritten.He moved toward the industrial se
The Warden’s Trial
The night hung heavy over the city, cloaking it in shadows that stretched and writhed like living things. Luca moved through the streets with lethal precision, senses stretched to their limits, every nerve attuned to even the faintest tremor of danger. He could feel the pulse of the city beneath his feet—the steady rhythm of life, crime, and chaos—and it guided him like a compass, warning him of traps, ambushes, and unseen threats. Every building, alley, and rooftop was a potential battlefield, and every shadow might conceal a predator or a pawn.Tonight, the air carried more than the usual scent of asphalt, smoke, and decay. There was something else—an undercurrent of power, subtle yet unmistakable. It emanated from the old quarter, where the Warden had first trained him, where the silver memory had been forged and hidden away. Luca knew instinctively that the trial he had sensed in fragments of his memories was now manifesting. This was not merely a confrontation with enemies; it wa
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