The girl hadn't stirred in hours.
Aurora sat beside her in the apothecary's back room, damp cloth in one hand, her other hand glowing faintly with a monitoring spell. The girl was stable. Her breathing had evened out. But something felt… off.
There was no name on the girl's ID. No phone. No sigil on her necklace. Only that glowing mark across her wrist—the one that looked like it had been burned in with something older than fire.
Aurora had drawn a cleansing circle around the cot. Just in case.
Damien leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. His shirt was back on, but the tension in his shoulders said the Alpha was close beneath the surface.
"She doesn't belong here," he said.
"She's human," Aurora whispered, dabbing the girl's forehead. "But marked. Possessed, maybe. Or worse—chosen."
"Chosen by what?" Damien asked, jaw tight.
Aurora hesitated. "I think… by them."
She waited until Damien went downstairs to scout the perimeter before she moved to the edge of the cot. Her fingers hovered over the glowing wrist mark.
She could feel it… pulsing. Like it was alive.
She closed her eyes and whispered a light-reading spell.
A second sigil appeared—beneath the girl's skin. Not visible. Not meant to be seen. A blood-binding glyph woven into her very flesh.
Aurora's breath caught. She'd seen it once before—in the forbidden pages of her mother's grimoire.
It was a soul anchor.
A magical doorway. A vessel seal.
Someone—or something—had injected a presence into the girl's body.
She reached for a sterilized athame and hovered the blade an inch above the girl's wrist. Just enough pressure to break the glyph without spilling too much blood.
"Forgive me," Aurora whispered.
She made the incision.
The girl's eyes snapped open.
But they weren't her eyes anymore.
They were pure black, swallowing her irises whole. Her mouth opened—too wide—and let out a sound that was not human.
A growl. A chant. A shriek.
"We SEE you, First Flame!"
"We SMELL the bond!"
"Your fire will FEED us when the third moon falls!"
Aurora flew backward as the magical backlash blasted her into the wall.
The girl sat upright, spine cracking, limbs trembling like puppet strings pulled too tight.
"Aurora!" Damien's voice roared from downstairs. Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs.
Aurora scrambled to her knees. "Don't let her speak again!" she cried.
But it was too late.
The girl's voice twisted into a second phrase. Ancient. Powerful.
Words meant for summoning.
Damien burst into the room, eyes golden, claws out. He didn't wait.
With one motion, he grabbed the girl by the shoulders and slammed a silver-etched rune stone against her throat.
The possessed scream died on impact.
She collapsed, instantly unconscious.
Silence.
Aurora's heart thudded in her chest.
Damien looked at her, breathing heavy. "What the hell just happened?"
"She was being used," Aurora said, her voice shaking. "Not just watched. Controlled. That spell was from the grimoire. The forbidden pages. The ones my mother said never to touch."
Damien's gaze hardened. "Then we need to burn them."
"No," Aurora snapped. "We need to read them. All of them. Someone out there is using spells older than any school of magic still practiced. If we don't understand what they're doing, we'll never stop it."
Damien didn't like it. She could see it in his clenched jaw, the way his fists twitched. The Alpha in him didn't want her near that kind of danger.
But this time… he didn't stop her.
"Then we do it together," he said. "No secrets."
Aurora nodded. "No secrets."
But deep down, she already knew there was one she hadn't told him.
The last time she saw that soul-anchor sigil…
It was in her own mother's spellbook. Drawn beside her name.
----
As Aurora begins translating the forbidden grimoire pages, she finds a prophecy… one about the return of the Shadow Alpha, a beast once sealed by flameblood witches.
And the prophecy ends with two words:
Damien Blackwood.
----