Chapter 153 Just One Path pt 1
Duncan
The moon went dark. Not eclipsed. Not hidden behind clouds. Just gone.
One moment it hung silver and full above the tournament grounds, steady and eternal as it had been since the beginning of our kind. The next, it blinked out like a candlewick crushed between fingers.
The world followed.
Sound drained first. The hum of voices, the crackle of torches, the distant clank of steel. All of it dissolved into a suffocating vacuum, as if the night itself had drawn a breath and refused to release it.
Then the cold came.
It sank through my skin and into my bones, not the sharp bite of winter but the hollow chill of something dead brushing against something living.
Conn stirred. ‘This is not sleep.’
I didn’t remember closing my eyes. I didn’t remember falling asleep. But I was no longer cuddling with Seren in our bed after another long day of training. Now I stood alone on a battlefield that had already served its purpose. The ground beneath my boots was slick. I looked down. Blood.
So much blood it reflected the sky like a warped mirror. Bodies lay strewn across the torn earth—wolves I knew, warriors I had trained, faces I had trusted. Some were still. Some were not.
The air smelled of iron and smoke. In the distance, something moved.
Hybrids. They did not rush. They simply walked. Deliberate, unhurried. Unchallenged.
Their eyes burned red against the corpse-strewn field, and their mouths were slick with the remnants of my pack.
My chest tightened. “Seren.” I ran.
Each step felt like wading through invisible chains. The earth resisted me, sucking at my boots as if it wanted me to stay and witness what had already happened.
I found her near the center of the carnage, on her knees.
Her hair hung loose and matted with blood, though not all of it was hers. The ground around her was scorched black, cracked outward in violent fractures. Silver light flickered weakly from her palms, unstable—like something struggling to ignite. She was breathing hard, her power drained even as she tried to pull more. And there was something else. Something in me twisted violently at the sight of her. Not just protectiveness or rage. Something deeper. Primal.
Conn snarled low in my mind. ‘Protect them.’
Across from her stood a figure I knew before I truly saw him. He was tall and elegant. Untouched by the chaos around him. King Mikhail.
His eyes burned an unnatural shade—neither wolf nor vampire, but something fused and wrong. He watched her like one might observe a rare animal caught in a trap.
He tilted his head slightly. “Such potential,” he said softly. His voice carried without effort, smooth and cultured.
I tried to move, but I couldn’t. The bond between us strained painfully, stretched too thin. Conn roared, but the sound did not leave my throat.
Seren lifted her face. Her eyes found mine through the vision. Somehow, she saw me.
And fear—real fear—flashed across her expression. Her hand shifted unconsciously, hovering protectively over her lower abdomen before she seemed to realize what she was doing. The gesture was small. Instinctive.
The male across from her noticed. His smile deepened. Interest sharpened in his gaze.
Behind her, Gideon was down on one knee, silver chains biting into his skin, dark veins spreading beneath the surface. Hybrids held him fast, but his eyes burned with fury.
King Mikhail stepped closer to Seren. “You are magnificent,” he said quietly. “But magnificence fades.” Darkness gathered in his palm—a living shadow, dense and writhing, before he flung it outward. It struck her square in the chest.
Her power detonated outward in a violent burst of silver and gold, ripping through the air like shattered glass. She screamed.
The ground trembled. Mikhail stepped closer, his pace almost lazy. “You cannot save them from here,” he said calmly, his voice carrying as if the wind itself bent to him. “This is the path your pride carved.”
The moon above us—what little of it had fought its way through the dark—cracked. A fissure split its surface, spreading like a spiderweb across a dying star. The sky bled red. Hybrids raised their heads as one.
Howls rose—wrong, layered, corrupted.
I finally found my voice. I roared. The sound tore through the battlefield, and everything fractured.
The blood, the bodies. The sky.
I jolted upright in my bed, breath ripping into my lungs like I’d been drowning. The moon still shone outside the window, the silver light bathing our room where it spilled in.
Conn’s presence pressed hard against mine. ‘This is just one path,’ he said quietly. My hands trembled as I continued to suck in air.
Seren stirred beside me. “Duncan?” Her voice was soft, sweet, a soothing balm after the nightmare I’d just suffered through. Without thinking, I grabbed her, hauling her against my chest. She was okay. My hands roamed over her, checking for injuries, though I knew it was just a dream. No, a vision, but one that hadn’t come to pass yet.
“Duncan, love, what is it? What’s wrong?” She stopped my hands, steadied them, while she forced me to look into her eyes.
“I…I had a dream. A vision, I guess.”