Chapter Two
Lucas
I hadn’t closed my eyes all night.
The cottagewas silent, the kind of silence that clawed at my insides, that gnawed at the frayed edges of my soul. Aiden’s absence had turned this place into a tomb. Cold. Empty. Lifeless.
Annika stirred beside me. I could hear her uneven breath as she woke up. I recognized the second reality crashed back into her. It was visible in the way her body tensed, the way her fingers tightened in the sheets. There were no soft murmurs, no sleepy stretches. Just devastation settling into her bones that Aiden was not with us.
I should have stopped this. I should have been faster. Stronger. Wiser. I should have protected them.
That guilt was a living thing inside me. I could feel it coiling around my ribs, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. I’d gone over every moment, trying to find the instant I failed. I had gotten careless. I thought we were safe.
Annika pushed the covers back and sat up. Her hair was tangled, her eyes hollow. She didn't look at me. She also didn’t say anything. She just stood up and walked out of the room.
I followed.
The door to Aiden’s room was open. Moonlight spilled through the arched window, illuminating what seemed to be an endless, empty space of longing.
Annika went to the chest of toys against the far wall and knelt beside it. Her hands trembled as she lifted the lid.
One by one, she took the toys out, placing them on the floor with careful, deliberate movements. A wooden horse. A stuffed wolf. A soldier carved from dark oak.
I clenched my jaw so hard I tasted blood.
She wasn’t looking for anything.She was unraveling.
I stepped closer, but I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? That we’d find him? That everything would be okay?
I already said that, and we were both starting to believe it less and less.
Annika picked up a small rattle and turned it over in her hands. Her breath hitched. She swallowed hard, pressing it against her chest.
Something inside me cracked.
I should be holding her, but I felt frozen, locked in my own torment. I was supposed to be her strength. Her protector. But I had failed her, failed our son.
Annika’s fingers stilled in the chest. Her breath hitched, but I caught it.
She pulled something from the pile of toys, holding it in both hands. It wasn’t one of Aiden’s. I knew every last thing in that chest, we both did. Every stuffed animal, every wooden carving, every trinket I’d ever placed in his small hands. This didn’t belong.
I stepped closer. “What is that?”
Annika slowly turned it over, revealing a small, ancient-looking relic. A rune.
The stone was no larger than my palm, rough-edged and dark, like it had been chipped from something far older. A series of symbols had been carved into its surface, lines that twisted and intersected, forming a pattern that sent a strange unease crawling up my spine. They weren’t familiar. Not vampire, not witch, not any language I knew.
Annika ran her thumb over the engravings, and the air around us shifted. Just slightly. A whisper of something foreign, something wrong.
I reached out, my fingers brushing against the stone, and a sharp, electric jolt shot up my arm. I yanked my hand back with a curse.
Annika’s eyes snapped up to meet mine. “Did you feel that?”
I nodded, flexing my fingers. “Where the hell did this come from?”
Her gaze dropped back to the rune. “It was buried beneath Aiden’s things.”
The words landed like a blade to my gut. It didn’t belong here. It didn’t belong anywhere near our son.
Rowena would know what it was. If anyone could read its meaning, unravel whatever dark magic had woven itself into this stone, it was her.
“I’m taking this to Rowena,” I said. “She’ll know what it is.”
Annika looked up at me, her beautiful eyes blazing. “I’m coming with you.”
“No.” The word left my mouth too quickly. I ran a hand through my hair and forced myself to breathe. “I need you to stay here.”
Her eyes fired up. “Stay here? While my son is missing? While you go off to—” She exhaled sharply, gripping the rune tighter. “Lucas, don’t do this.”
“I’m doing what needs to be done,” I ground out. “Rowena is our only hope. You know that. If this rune is as dangerous as it feels, I won’t risk—”
“I don’t care about the risk.” She stood up as her shoulders squared and her chin lifted in that stubborn defiance that had both infuriated and captivated me since the moment we met. “I’m not waiting in this town, surrounded by sorrowful glances and drowning in fear while you go after answers alone. He is my son, too.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and something inside me wavered.
Damn it.
I wanted to keep her safe, to keep her away from whatever darkness had already slithered into our home. But she wasn’t wrong. Sitting here, waiting, would kill her faster than anything we might face outside these walls.
I exhaled sharply, although I could have guessed it would end like this “Fine.” The word tasted bitter. “But you stay close to me, Annika. No matter what.”
She gave a single nod, but I didn’t miss the way her fingers trembled around the rune.
I didn’t miss the flicker of fear in her eyes.
Neither of us said what we were both thinking. Then again, we didn’t need to think. We needed to act.
The ride to Rowena’s cottage was swift. We knew the way well, and so did our horses, which tore through the first light of the morning like specters in the winds. The trees seemed to thicken as we approached, their skeletal branches reaching either for us or for something invisible riding behind us. A strange mist clung to the ground, swirling like restless spirits.
I dismounted before my horse had fully stopped and stalked toward the door. I knew Annika was right behind me without even turning around. Raising my fist, I pounded against the wood, and the frame rattled under the strength of my hand. The door creaked open before I could knock again.
Rowena stood there, as sorrow lined her face like an omen. Her eyes—those eerie, knowing eyes—locked onto mine, filled with something between dread and resignation.
“I had a dream,” she murmured, almost as if talking to herself. “Something dreadful has happened.”
Annika inhaled sharply beside me.
Rowena’s gaze flickered to her, then back to me. “But I do not know what.”
My gut twisted. She knew things before they happened. If she hadn’t seen this, if even her sight was clouded…
I clenched my jaw. “We come seeking guidance.”
She stepped aside, and we entered the dimly lit cottage. Candles burned low, their flames dancing against the stone walls. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, filling the air with the scent of sage and lavender, but even their presence couldn’t banish the weight pressing against my chest.
Annika held the rune out to me, and I took it, walking straight to Rowena. Without a word, I placed it in her palm.
The second her fingers closed around it, her entire body stiffened. Her breath caught, and the candles flickered violently as if a sudden gust of wind had swept through the room.
Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came out. Only the widening of her eyes, the tightening of her fingers around the stone, told me she felt it too.
I took a step closer. “What is it, Rowena?”
She didn’t answer right away. She only stared at the rune, shuddering.
Then, finally, in a voice barely above a whisper, she spoke. “This… is not of our world.”
Annika moved closer. “What do you mean?”
Rowena’s fingers tightened around the rune. I noticed her knuckles had turned white.
“I mean it does not belong to vampires, witches, or shifters. This magic is older. Stranger. It is something I have not touched in a long time.” She finally looked up, tearing her gaze away from the mysterious object. “Where did you find it?”
“In Aiden’s chest,” I said, my voice rough. “Buried beneath his toys.”
Rowena inhaled sharply, her brows knitting together. Her gaze flew to Annika, then back to me. “Someone left this for you to find… for Aiden to find.”
“Does this have something to do with Aurelius?” Annika trembled as she asked the question we were both afraid of.
“Maybe,” Rowena whispered. “Maybe not…”
Anger curled through me. “What do you mean maybe? What does it mean? Where is my son?” I demanded answers to the questions I couldn’t answer myself.
Rowena turned away, moving toward a heavy wooden table cluttered with books, vials, and ancient relics. She laid the rune down gently, as though afraid it might break… or break something else.
She hovered her hands over it, closing her eyes. A murmur of incantations slipped from her lips, words so old even I didn’t recognize them. The air shifted again, as if we were somewhere else entirely.
Then suddenly, the rune pulsed.
A deep, eerie glow seeped from its carved lines, a light that wasn’t quite red, wasn’t quite blue, but something between, something that didn’t feel natural at all. It pulsed once, twice, like a heartbeat.
Annika’s frightened hand gripped my arm.
Rowena’s eyes snapped open, and she stumbled back, gasping for air. She pressed a hand to her chest, as if steadying herself.
“This is a tether,” she said in a shaky voice. “A link between two places.”
My blood turned to ice.
“To where?” I demanded.
Rowena’s fingers trembled as she traced the rune’s surface. She swallowed hard.
“I do not know,” she admitted. “But wherever it is… Aiden is there.”
Annika’s grip on my arm tightened, her nails digging into my skin. I could feel her trembling, but her voice was steady when she spoke.
“Can you use it?” she asked, her gaze locked onto Rowena. “Can you trace the magic? Find where it leads?”
Rowena exhaled slowly, shaking her head. “It’s not that simple.” She motioned toward the rune, still pulsing with that unnatural glow. “This magic is foreign. Unstable. If I try to force it open, I could shatter the link completely—or worse, alert whoever created it.”
My fangs ached with the force of my fury. “I don’t care about the risk,” I snarled. “I care about my son.”
Rowena’s eye cut me likea blade. “And if pushing too hard gets him killed?”
The words were a slap, knocking the breath from my lungs. Annika flinched beside me, but she didn’t let go.
I forced myself to breathe, to think past the rage pounding in my skull. “Then what do we do?”
Rowena hesitated. “There may be a way,” she said cautiously. “I need time to unravel its magic, to understand what kind of forces we’re dealing with. If I rush this, I risk setting off a trap—one we might not be able to undo.”
Time. A luxury we didn’t have.
Annika stepped forward, voice tight with desperation. “How long?”
Rowena hesitated. “A few days, at least.”
Too long.
But what choice did we have?
I clenched my fists and turned away, stalking toward the window. The night stretched endlessly beyond the glass. Aiden liked to look at the stars. Now, those same stars were nothing but cold, distant pinpricks of light. Somewhere out there, Aiden was alone. Afraid. Or worse.
I couldn’t think like that.
Annika moved beside me, her hand brushing against mine. “We’ll get him back,” she whispered.
I swallowed the knot of fear in my throat and turned back to Rowena. “Do whatever you have to,” I said. “Just find out what that damn thing is.”