It was quiet — too quiet — when Sayori slipped through the hidden door beneath the East Wing.
The latch had rusted, but Thalen had loosened it days before without asking why. He'd only glanced at her, his brow tense, and whispered, "Be careful, Sayori."
She hadn't promised she would.
What lay beyond was not part of the castle's known architecture. The air shifted — damp, ancient. The hallway sloped downward, torches long dead in their brackets. A cold draft whispered against her arms as she walked. Slowly. Silently.
Then she saw it.
The chamber opened like a wound in the earth.
Silver runes carved into the walls pulsed faintly with light. At the center, a circle etched into the stone floor glowed faintly with smoldering ash. Surrounding it were tools — twisted instruments, glass vials, remnants of fur, claw, and bone.
A ritual space.
And inside the circle — not a person, but a form — bound and flickering between shape and shadow.
Sayori's breath caught.
A werewolf. Or something that had once been one. It snarled without voice, chained not by metal but by the runes. She took one step closer—
And that was her mistake.
The creature lunged.
The barrier held — mostly.
But one claw, one flash of silver-hooked bone, slashed out as the runes sparked violently. The magic didn't break, but it flared hard enough to throw Sayori across the stone floor. Her body hit the wall with a sickening crack.
Darkness swam at the edges of her vision.
She gasped — sharp, ragged — blood spilling from her ribs where the claw had sliced deep.
She remembered crawling. She didn't remember collapsing.
---
She awoke in a cold bed, in a room not her own. Pain anchored her limbs to the sheets. Every breath was like fire in her side.
The Elf medic refused to touch her.
"Human blood reacts to silver differently," he said flatly. "I heal her, I risk corruption. Find someone of her kind."
So they sent her away.
Under heavy guard and bundled in cloaks, Sayori was taken by carriage, far beyond the castle walls, to a place few in the North remembered: Hollowmere, the last known human village to still practice the healing arts. A relic. An embarrassment.
---
Back in the castle, Fenris paced.
Sayori had been gone for two days.
Two.
Not long, not truly — and yet.
His hand gripped the windowsill until the wood cracked beneath his fingers. Her absence made the air in his chambers feel thinner. His meals went untouched. Servants avoided his gaze more than usual.
He had told himself she was useful. Loyal. Sharp.
He hadn't told himself she mattered.
Not until now.
Not until he woke from a dream where her blood stained the stone floor, and no matter how loudly he howled, she would not open her eyes.
Thalen stood quietly at the door. "The human healer will treat her, my lord. The injury was severe, but they say she still breathes."
"That's not enough," Fenris growled.
"She will live."
"But not here," Fenris snapped. "Not where I can see her. Not where I can protect her."
His voice softened then, like the dying of a storm. "I should have known."
Thalen didn't speak. But he understood.
There were whispers among the old bloodlines of such moments — not a flare, not a fire, but a realization. Quiet. Irrefutable. Inevitable.
The cursed Alpha had found his mate.
And she had been dragged from his side — broken, bleeding — while he sat blind to his own heart.