Chapter 22 Intent To Claim

Chapter 22 Intent To Claim


Soon.

It echoed behind my eyes, branded there like a promise I couldn’t scrape off no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t scream. I didn’t move. I lay perfectly still, staring at the window as if looking away would make it real again.

Or worse.

Maybe it already was.

My body shook beneath the blankets, fever blurring the edges of fear into something dreamlike and sharp. I pressed my palms into the mattress, grounding myself the way I’d learned years ago. Count what you can feel. What you can hear. What you can smell.

The house was quiet. Too quiet.

No footsteps in the hallway. No murmured voices. No guards shifting their weight. It felt like the entire place had gone into a held breath, waiting to see what I would do next.

I didn’t know how long I lay there before the door opened.

I flinched hard, pain flaring down my spine, heart slamming against my ribs. Loren stepped inside, candlelight casting long shadows behind him. One look at my face and he stopped short.

“What is it,” he asked, already moving closer.

“There was something at the window,” I whispered.

He glanced toward it immediately, posture shifting. Alert. Trained. “Did you see someone.”

I shook my head. “No. But it breathed. On the glass.”

The silence that followed was not comforting.

Loren’s jaw tightened. He crossed the room and inspected the window, running his hand along the frame, the latch, the sill. Everything looked untouched. Unbroken. Normal.

Too normal.

“There’s nothing there now,” he said carefully.

“There was,” I insisted, my voice cracking. “It wrote something.”

That made him look at me.

“What.”

I swallowed. “Soon.”

Something flickered across his face. Fear, quickly buried beneath composure.

“I need you to stay here,” he said, voice low. “Don’t move. Don’t open anything. I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t wait for my response.

The moment the door shut behind him, the house changed.

I felt it.

The air grew dense, vibrating faintly, like a distant storm rolling in underground. The walls hummed. Somewhere deep within the structure, something old and unseen locked into place.

A lockdown.

I slid out of bed despite the protest of my wounds, pulse skittering. The window was clear now, innocent glass reflecting my pale face back at me. I touched it cautiously.

Cold. Solid.

But the forest beyond it was not.

The trees swayed without wind. Shadows twisted unnaturally, stretching toward the house before snapping back. A low sound rolled through the distance, too deep to be thunder, too controlled to be natural.

Azran.

I felt him before I heard him.

The pressure slammed into the house like a wave, making my knees buckle. Power rippled through the walls, through the floor, through my bones. It wasn’t rage exactly. It was focus sharpened into something lethal.

He knew.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway. The door opened without a knock, swinging wide with force that rattled the frame. Azran filled the doorway, eyes blazing, expression carved from pure, restrained violence.

“Did it touch you,” he demanded.

I shook my head, trembling. “No. It wrote something.”

He crossed the room in an instant, gripping my chin, tilting my face up so he could inspect me. His touch was firm, not gentle, but not careless either. His eyes searched mine, scanning for something I didn’t understand.

“What did it say.”

“Soon.”

The word hadn’t even finished leaving my mouth before the house reacted.

The lights dimmed. The windows sealed with a low, grinding sound. Somewhere outside, the forest screamed.

Azran released me slowly, his hand curling into a fist at his side. His voice, when he spoke, was terrifyingly calm.

“He crossed the line.”

My heart hammered. “Your brother.”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean,” I asked, barely breathing.

Azran turned toward the window, staring out at the trees like a king surveying a battlefield. “It means he has declared intent.”

“Intent to what.”

He didn’t answer right away.

When he finally looked back at me, something in his gaze made my blood run cold.

“Intent to claim,” he said.

The word settled over me like a sentence.

“And this time,” he added quietly, “I will not be merciful.”

Somewhere beyond the walls, something answered with a laugh that shook the forest to its roots.

And I understood then.

The war had begun.