Page 6

Seren

Draken stood by the tall, narrow window, arms crossed over his chest, watching as the rain swept over the hills, turning them into mist-laden shadows. The steady patter against the stone walls of the building was softer than the storms of Vargrheim, but it still carried a familiar melancholy.

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks since he left his land, his people—his family.

And two days since they had reached this township. The high priest said he had to wait.

A restless ache gnawed at him, something deeper than the call of duty. He had never been a man prone to sentiment, yet distance had sharpened his longing into something he could not ignore.

He missed his people, the familiar weight of command, the feeling of standing amongst his warriors, knowing they were one body, one mind, one purpose. The tribelink was always buzzing.

He missed his eldest son, the boy already growing into his strength, a mirror of Draken in his younger years—bold, sharp-witted, reckless with the confidence of youth.

The triplets, still at the age where they worshipped the ground he walked on, their small hands constantly reaching for him, their laughter a sound he had taken for granted.

Especially Renna who ruled him and her brothers.

But most of all—he missed his heart.

Astrid.

His chosen mate. The queen of his heart.

Draken exhaled, his breath fogging against the cool glass.

War was a constant in his world. Though the Feral wars that his grandparents had fought had driven the humans back into the cities, there were always squabbles over power or territory.

He had fought in battles that turned rivers red, had watched his brothers die in the mud at his feet.

He had known loss and hardship, had been forged in blood and fire.

But nothing had ever unmade him like leaving Astrid behind.

She had stood tall as he departed, her face a mask of steel, but he had seen the truth in her eyes. She had never been one to weep, but her fingers had lingered just a little longer against his wrist when they had said goodbye.

Astrid was not just his mate—she was his tether. His voice of reason, his equal in every way. She was the only one who could temper his fire, the only one who knew when to push him, when to hold him back, when to remind him that he was more than just the warrior the world saw.

And gods, he missed her.

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply.

But there was no turning back now.

The Oracle had spoken all those years ago, and now, after two failed journeys eastward, he was closer than ever.

He had to find the girl.

Because until he did, he could not return home.

His fingers drummed absently against his arm as his mind drifted back, drawn into the memory that had haunted him for years.

Draken had stood before her, his newborn son wrapped in wolf-fur, the tiny weight of him warm, fragile.

The Oracle's chamber had been filled with the acrid scent of burning herbs that day, thick, curling tendrils of smoke twisting through the air like phantom hands.

The crone sat before the great fire, her eyes white and unseeing, her frail hands trembling over the bowl of still water that reflected things no ordinary eye could see.

The crone's voice sounded deeper and heavier, bouncing off the stone walls of her den.

"The blessed one has been born."

Draken had felt it—the shift in the air, the power of a truth set in motion.

Then she had spoken again, her voice echoing with something not entirely of this world.

"His soul is bound to another."

A slow dread had unfurled in his chest. He had seen the way the crone's lips parted in wonder, in awe— as if she was witnessing something rare, divine.

"A child with hair like night and eyes like the moon shall be born far from here. She alone will complete him."

Draken had clenched his jaw, his wolf bristling inside him.

A bonded mate.

Such a thing was practically legend—a fate written in blood and bone, one that could not be severed. It was a gift and a curse.

He had never wanted such a destiny for his son.

And yet, the crone had spoken.

Draken exhaled, his breath fogging slightly against the cool glass of the window.

This was his third journey eastward. The first two had been dead ends, filled with false trails and wasted time. His warriors were restless, ready to return to their own mates, their own lives.

But he couldn't leave.

Not yet.

Because despite the failed attempts, despite the years lost chasing a fate he had never asked for—he couldn't shake the feeling that this time, he was close.

That she was here.

Somewhere in this land of magic and secrets, the child the Oracle had spoken of existed.

And Draken would not return home until he found her.

His fingers tightened around the windowsill as he watched the rain roll down in slow rivulets, his mind drifting to the uneasy balance of power that had shaped the world he now lived in.

There had been a time when humans—the Hairless Ones, as the shifters often called them—ruled everything. They had their machines of war, their numbers vast, their arrogance limitless.

And yet, for all their guns, bombs, and steel-plated beasts, when they had turned their sights on the shifters and the magical ones, they had miscalculated.

They had thought that superior technology would be enough.

That sheer numbers could tip the balance.

They were wrong.

At first, it had been a slow war—skirmishes along the borders, traps laid in forests and mountains, cities enforcing brutal crackdowns on any supernatural presence.

There were shifters skinned and left just outside the territories; children stolen from their mothers.

But humans had underestimated what it meant to fight those who had spent their existence living as predators.

The shifters had hunted the enemies down in the night, one by one—silent, relentless.

The magical ones had burned their machines with a flick of their wrists, shattered steel and circuits with a whispered word.

And so, the war had dragged on, with human desperation growing by the year. Until, finally, they had begun to realize the truth:

As their numbers dwindled to a fraction of what it used to be, even with all their machines, they were going to lose.

It was then that the truce was declared.

A truce built on necessity, not trust—when the human leaders, once proud and unbending, finally saw that they stood on the edge of extermination.

They had retreated into their cities, abandoning vast expanses of land, leaving the wild places—the forests, the mountains, the open fields—for the shifters and the magical ones to claim as their own.

Now, those lands belonged to them.

The shifters ran free, their territories vast. The magical ones built their hidden villages, their covens woven into the very fabric of nature itself.

And the humans?

They were confined to their towering cities, their glass and steel prisons, where they depended on trade to survive.

For though they had kept their machines, their laboratories, their data networks—they had lost the one thing they had never learned to control.

The land itself.

Now, it was the shifters and the magical ones who tended the farmlands, who protected the great forests, who held dominion over the rivers and the beasts.

And in return, the humans offered what they still had to give—technology, medicine, and advancements in engineering.

It was an uneasy alliance.

Neither side truly trusted the other.

Neither side had forgotten the war.

Draken wondered, not for the first time, how long the peace would last.

But not all humans had been the enemy.

There had been those who had fought alongside the shifters, those who had hidden witches, warlocks, and shifters alike, at great risk to themselves.

Some of them had become allies, tolerated within the territories, and welcomed in certain neutral territories where humans, shifters, and magical folk coexisted under watchful eyes.

And just as some humans had found a place among the supernatural, so too had some of the supernatural embedded themselves among humans.

It had started as a necessity—a way to ensure the war would never come again. But over time, it had become something else.

Shifters and magical ones now lived in human cities; their presence was unknown to most.

They worked in their police forces, their governments, their intelligence agencies.

Some were traders, overseeing the flow of food and medicine between the supernatural territories and human settlements. Others were watchers, keeping an eye on signs of unrest, signs of rebellion.

Because while the truce had held for decades, there were whispers in the cities.

There were fractions among the humans who resented the loss of the wild lands, who still dreamed of retaking what had been abandoned.

And there were those among the supernatural who believed the war had ended too soon.