There was a stone table; Lucas was stretched across it. His wrists were bound in silver-chained knots.
Some people circled around him, their faces blurry against his eyes, their hands pressed against his bare chest, not to heal, but to peel.
An old woman had her hands over Lucas's head, murmuring silent words he could not hear. Then he heard his muffled scream.
Lucas arched over the table; his screams were raw and wordless as his skin split beneath their fingers.
Blood welled, too much of it, pooling in the grooves of the stone and dripping onto the earth below.
Sebastian jerked back from Beatrice so hard he slammed against the windowpane. His lungs burned. The vision continued to cling to him like a nightmare.
He heard a whisper, a final breath… It was Lucas. Sebastian.
"They're killing him."
Beatrice sighed as she rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Don't be overdramatic. Wolves are sacred people. They won't kill one of their kind for such a trivial thing."
"No! I saw it." Sebastian's hands shook. Beatrice's laugh was sharp. "You're hallucinating. The bond is desperate. It's lying to you."
But Sebastian was already striding for the door, his arm ripping it open like a piece of paper.
"Sebastian!"
She called out to him. She trailed behind him, trying to catch up to the speedy vampire. "Where do you think you're going?"
His siblings looked at the couple, seeing the worry and desperation in their brother's eyes. For days, he hadn't come out from his room, eaten, or slept.
They desperately tried helping him, but he bolted the door closed. Earlier was the first time they saw him come out for a glass of water.
"Sebastian?"
His mother called out to him. He didn't look at her back; he didn't answer their calls.
"Sebastian! If you walk out of that door, it's over."
He turned, fangs and claws out.
For the first time in years they had been together before Lucas or his imprint contradicted their relationship; he had never let her see his fangs fully bared.
"Then I guess you pack up."
Sebastian didn't remember leaving his house.
One moment he was pressed against the windowpane, his lungs burning, Beatrice's voice a distant buzz somewhere behind him, like a fly trapped against glass.
The next moment, he was running.
The world outside dissolved into a watercolor blur of dark trunks and darker shadows. Branches clawed at his arms like the fingers of drowned women.
Mud sucked at his shoes. He didn't feel any of it.
All he could feel was the bond.
It was screaming inside his chest like an animal caught in a trap. Like a wire pulled taut around his ribs, drawing blood with every frantic heartbeat.
The vision still clung to him like a nightmare soaked into skin.
The stone table. The silver chains.
The hands pressing against Lucas's bare chest, not to heal but to peel.
And that scream. God, that scream. Raw. Wordless.
The kind of sound that doesn't come from the throat but from somewhere deeper. Somewhere that doesn't know how to do anything but break.
Sebastian ran faster.
He crossed the border before he even realized it.
The invisible line between vampire territory and wolf packlands hummed under his feet like a plucked harp string, a warning he ignored.
He was deep in their land now.
Stupid. Dangerous.
A vampire running alone into a pack of wolves who had every right to tear him apart and hang his bones from the trees.
He didn't care.
The trees thickened around him, closing ranks like soldiers.
The moonlight died somewhere above the canopy, leaving behind a world of grays and deep blues. And then—
"Sebastian?"
Two wolves emerged from the shadows, shifting mid-stride, their fur melting into skin like frost retreating from morning light.
Sebastian recognized them immediately.
Max.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a scar cutting through his left eyebrow like a river through a valley. His expression wasn't hostile, just surprised.
The kind of surprise you feel when you see a ghost you'd already made peace with.
And Lucian.
Leaner, quicker, with sharp eyes that always seemed to be reading the fine print of the world.
He tilted his head, taking in Sebastian's disheveled state. Mud painting his pale skin, the scratches etched into his arms like a map of desperation, and the terror swimming in his dark eyes.
"Hey," Lucian said softly, stepping forward like he was approaching a wounded animal.
"What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Max placed a gentle hand on Sebastian's shoulder. Not rough. Not accusatory.
Just grounding, an anchor thrown to a man drowning in open water.
"Breathe, dude. You're on pack lands now. You're safe. Just tell us what's going on."
Sebastian's chest heaved like a bellows.
He hadn't expected kindness. He didn't deserve it.
He had spent months breaking their friend's heart in cheap motel rooms, leaving before sunrise like a thief fleeing the scene of a crime.
And yet here they were, hands gentle, voices soft, pulling him back from the edge.
It cracked something open inside him anyway.
"It's Lucas," he gasped.
The words tasted like rust and guilt.
"He's in trouble. Bad trouble. I saw—I saw him—"
Max and Lucian exchanged a glance.
Just the quick, silent communication of wolves who had already accepted Sebastian as part of Lucas's story.
Part of Lucas's heart.
The broken, jagged, impossible shape of it.
"Where is he?" Lucian asked, his voice steady as a held breath.
"I don't know. But I need to speak to Timothy. Now. Please."
Max nodded, already shifting back into his fur, his body folding and reforming like water finding its shape.
Lucian stayed in skin just long enough to squeeze Sebastian's arm, a small pressure, a small warmth, and a small promise.
"Okay. We'll take you to him. Stay close."
Lucian shifted beside him, bones rearranging with a sound Sebastian had learned not to flinch at months ago.
Fur rippled across lean muscle, and suddenly there were two wolves flanking him—Max, dark as charcoal, and Lucian, the color of wet slate.
They moved close, not crowding, just there. A promise.
Sebastian ran with them.
The forest opened and closed around him like a living thing. Roots reached for his feet. Branches slapped his face.
He didn't slow. The images played behind his eyes on a loop he couldn't shut off.
Please, he thought, not knowing who he was begging.
Please let me be wrong. Please let me be on time.
The alpha's house rose from the trees like a held breath. Warm light spilled from the windows.
Somewhere inside, Timothy waited.
Sebastian didn't knock. He never learned how.