The room was a sanctuary of shadows.In the center, Aisha lay shackled inside a metal cage, her breath caught between fear and pride.Before her stood Sanathiel.
"Two days have passed since I brought her here in secret," Noah's voice echoed, distant, almost ceremonial. "I would've preferred you met her under different circumstances, Sanathiel… but here are the keys."
Sanathiel didn't answer.He walked toward the cage, unlocking the padlock with a sharp click.The cloth covering the woman's face slid between his fingers.Chestnut hair cascading to her waist. Soft lips. Green eyes—not Zaira's, but they burned just the same.
"What do you have to do with me, huntress?" he murmured, crouching to look closer.
A moon-shaped pendant hung from her neck. Sanathiel ripped it off with one swift tug, waking her with a muffled gasp.He pulled her by the shackles, forcing her to kneel.
"You've got guts," he whispered, lifting her chin. "But you're definitely… not her."
Her scent disoriented him. It was familiar. It pulled at his instincts.Tension crackled between them, a thread ready to snap.
"I just want to leave! Let me go," Aisha said. Her voice trembled, but didn't break.
Sanathiel smirked bitterly."Far from me? Or far from what you are?"
He stepped closer, his shadow enveloping her.He gazed at her with a storm of repressed desire and ancient fury.His fingers brushed her neck, then her face—pausing at the mark on her collarbone.His mark.His seal.A memory he didn't remember.
"Because of people like you… I've been a puppet."
He gripped her tightly, pressing her against the bars. The metal groaned beneath the strain of his anger.And then, his fangs sank into her shoulder.
Flashback:
Aisha's blood didn't taste like iron… it tasted of salt. Tears. Kerens weeping as he left Zaira behind in the Nevri ruins, knowing he'd never see her grow.
Aisha screamed. The pain was a spear of fire.Sanathiel drank for an instant… then spat it out.Confused. Offended.It was different.
"What's happening to me?" he muttered, stumbling back.He stared at her, her trembling body covering the wound with both hands.
"Let me go!" she cried—not in fear, but rage.
"You're Kerens' daughter, aren't you?" His voice hardened again. "Tell me where the Exiled One is."
Aisha could barely speak.Each word chained her to ruin, but she didn't retreat.
"If you want to find him… recognize your brothers."
Those words hit deeper than the bite.Sanathiel processed them in silence… and laughed.A dry, dangerous laugh.
His claws tore into his own flesh. His body trembled.Clothes shredded.Before her, Sanathiel stopped being human.The white wolf emerged, magnificent, golden eyes gleaming with feral light.
Aisha staggered back.Her body screamed to run, but her limbs wouldn't obey.When he approached again, she reacted on instinct—biting his hand fiercely.
"You'll never lay your claws on me again, white wolf!"
Sanathiel paused. He looked at her.And for the first time… he hesitated.
"You… remind me of her. Of Zaira.But you're not the same.You've got your own fire."
As if that recognition unsettled him, he took a step back.
"This isn't over," he muttered.
Sanathiel stopped again.His eyes shimmered gloriously, startled by her defiance.Aisha, trembling but unyielding, had confronted him—and it shook him.His lupine features softened for a moment, as if remembering something distant… or someone.
"Do you really think you can intimidate me?" he said with a razor-sharp smile, his voice coarse like earth cracking under the moon."That spark in your fight… reminds me of her."
The air thickened, charged with a scent only a wolf could sense: fear… and desire.Sanathiel's veins glowed with golden runes, while the mark on Aisha pulsed in sync.An ancient vow now bound them: huntress and wolf, victim and executioner.
"Kerens' vow damns us both!" he roared."Blood for blood, wolf for huntress… Damn you, Exiled One!"
Aisha gasped for air, sweat beading her forehead, broken chains still hanging from her wrists.Sanathiel stepped back… then froze.Something in him called her again.A wild, uncontrollable urge.
His body trembled. The runes on his shoulders burned like hot embers.The incomplete transformation tore him from within.The wolf inside howled for possession. For a bond. For control.
The mark.
He saw it.On her skin. In her scent.In the way her heartbeat matched his.A connection buried deep in their blood.
With a deep growl, Sanathiel lunged toward Aisha.
She wanted to scream, but only a stifled moan escaped.Fear… or something else.He held her tightly—but not cruelly.The heat of his sweat-drenched body melded with hers.Her torn shirt fell like paper.Her breath hitched. A muffled sound escaped her lips. Not fear. Not entirely.It was rage, yes… but also a tremor older than instinct.
"Stop…" she whispered, but her voice was swallowed by the closeness.By the touch.By the tremble of her skin.
Sanathiel didn't answer.Not with words.His body moved for him, guided by an instinct he couldn't understand, couldn't control.The wolf, the man, the past, and the desire—merged in a single act: possession and belonging.
The moment was brief. Brutal. Unspeakable.
Aisha arched beneath him, her nails scraping the stone.Her breath was gasps, rage, confusion.A single tear slid down her cheek, lost in sweat.Sanathiel held her, his heartbeat like a war drum.
And then—silence.
He pulled away, trembling, as if awakening from a trance.His golden eyes searched for hers… but Aisha could no longer hold his gaze.She collapsed, fainted, lips parted, the mark of his bite still bleeding on her shoulder.
Sanathiel stepped back, panting.He looked at his hands. They were shaking.
"What have I done…?" he whispered. But there was no guilt in his voice. Only confusion.His mind didn't understand…But his body knew:Something had been sealed.Something irreversible.
The lamp flickered once more.
Sanathiel looked at her one last time—her sleeping figure, exposed, wounded… marked.Then he turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving behind only the echo of his steps and the unmistakable scent of a newly forged bond.
From the darkness, Noah watched it all unfold.
"This is how chains are forged, Sanathiel… with blood and guilt."
Aisha opened her eyes in the dimness, her body aching, her soul shattered in all directions.The mark on her shoulder still burned, as if it were scorching her from within.
She tried to sit up, but the world spun.
Her eyes fell on the broken chains.In the air, his scent still lingered: forest, fire… and blood.
"It wasn't a dream…" she whispered, her voice cracking.
She leaned her back against the cold wall.And for the first time, she wept.Not from fear. Not from weakness.But because she had felt something.Something that dragged her toward that damned wolf—as if fate itself wanted to drag them both into the same abyss.
Falling into sleep, her mind numb from the shock.