Locked in the Dark
She didn’t scream. Not when the door slammed shut behind her. Not when the silver chains tightened around her wrists. Not even when the torchlight flickered low, leaving the cold dungeon in choking shadows. Lyra just stared at him. Quiet. Steady.
That unsettled Kael more than if she’d begged.
Or wept.
Or cursed him.
But no—she simply watched. Like she understood something he didn’t. Like she was already used to cages.
Kael turned the iron key in the lock with more force than necessary, the clank of metal echoing through the stone chamber. Moss grew in the corners. The walls still bore claw marks from the last time he lost control. The scent of old blood lingered beneath the damp.
This place was not meant for someone like her. But he couldn’t take chances. Not now. Not when he couldn’t trust his wolf. Not when he couldn’t trust himself.
“You could’ve at least warned me,” Lyra said, voice low and dry. “Before you dragged me down here like a criminal.”
Kael’s golden eyes flicked toward her. “You disappeared in the night. Spoke in tongues. Woke with blood on your hands. What would you call that?”
“A nightmare,” she muttered. “Or a prophecy.”
He said nothing.
Her wrists strained slightly against the chains. Not enough to struggle—just enough to test them. He watched her wince as the silver burned faintly against her skin. She was definitely part wolf. The chains proved that much. But not a full one.
Her scent wasn’t quite right. Not the wild pine-and-earth that came from his kind. No. She smelled like stormwind and old magic. Like salt and steel. And something darker underneath. Something that pulled at him.
Kael turned away before she could see it in his eyes.
“You’re not in danger down here,” he said, his voice tight.
Lyra gave a soft laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “You mean you’re not in danger.”
His jaw clenched.
She was right.
That’s what scared him.
---
He paced the corridor outside for hours. He tried not to listen. But he heard everything. Every shift of her body against stone. Every sharp inhale. Every time she spoke a name in her sleep—a name that wasn’t his, but still made his stomach twist. He hated this. He hated that she was beneath his home, caged like a feral creature, when a part of him wanted her closer.
Worse—he hated that his wolf did too. The beast within him didn’t growl when she was near.
It watched her. Waited.
Recognized her.
Kael’s fingers ran along the fresh claw scars in the stone wall beside him. A reminder of who he was. What he became. What he’d done.
Every full moon. Every love he’d lost. Torn apart by his own hands. And yet… she hadn’t run. Even when she knew what he was. Even when she woke covered in blood she didn’t remember shedding.
She asked him to kill her. And he couldn’t.
---
“Come back to mock me?” Her voice stopped him cold.
She sat now against the far wall of the cell, legs pulled to her chest, wrists still chained but looser. Her eyes glinted faintly in the dark—too bright. Too steady.
“I came to make sure you were still breathing,” he muttered, stepping just beyond the bars.
“You say that like you expected me not to be.”
Kael didn’t answer. The silence pressed in between them. Finally, Lyra said, “Why do you hate me so much?”
Kael blinked. That caught him off guard.
“I don’t hate you.”
She tilted her head. “You sure chain me up like you do.”
“I’m protecting both of us.”
Her lips parted as if to say something. But then she stopped. Looked down at the cuffs on her wrists instead. The silver burned faintly, making her skin shimmer where it touched.
She whispered, “It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
Kael’s stomach twisted. That wasn’t a good thing. “Silver should burn,” he said.
“It did. The first time someone used it on me.”
He stilled.
She looked up slowly. “You think you're the first person to chain me up?”
His hands curled into fists.
“I was ten the first time,” she said quietly. “My old pack thought I was cursed. Said I sleepwalked into the woods and woke up with dead birds at my feet. They said I spoke in tongues. Saw things. I didn’t remember any of it. But they said I was unnatural.”
Her voice cracked, just once.
“So they locked me in the root cellar. Every full moon. Just in case.”
Kael’s throat tightened.
“I stayed there until I was sixteen,” she said. “Until I stopped dreaming and started bleeding. Until the Alpha said I smelled wrong and the seer said I was empty inside.”
She met his gaze, eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
“I didn’t come here to be saved, Kael. I came here because if anyone was going to kill me, I wanted it to be the worst of us.”
Kael looked away. But not fast enough. She saw the pain in his eyes. And the fury.
“Don’t ever say that again,” he growled.
“Say what?”
“That I’m like them.”
Lyra blinked, startled.
“I didn’t say—”
“You think I lock you up because I hate you? Because I want to hurt you?” His voice rose, low and dangerous. “I do it because I don’t trust what’s inside me. I do it because I know what I am. And I know what I do when I lose control.”
She swallowed.
“Then maybe we’re the same.”
Kael stepped closer to the bars, his voice low.
“Maybe we are.”
And there it was again—the pull. Like a string made of blood and moonlight connecting them. Tension snapped between them like a wire drawn too tight.
“I don’t know what you are,” he said. “But I can feel it. In your scent. Your blood. Your eyes. You were made for something dark.”
“I know,” she said.
“I should kill you.”
“I know that too.”
Kael’s hands gripped the bars.
“And yet, I keep coming back.”
Lyra stood slowly, chains dragging behind her. She moved toward the bars until only inches separated them.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” she whispered. “This... whatever it is between us.”
Kael’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s the problem.”
They stood there, breathing each other in, the scent of heat and fear and something far more dangerous weaving between them. Kael wanted to step back.
He didn’t.
And Lyra?
She leaned closer. “If you’re going to kill me,” she murmured, “do it now.”
He didn’t move.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
He stared at her, eyes burning gold.
“Because I think the moon cursed me twice,” he whispered. “First to kill those I love.”
“And second?”
He gritted his teeth.
“Second—to love the one who’ll destroy me.”
From the shadows behind them, *a low growl echoes through the
dungeon.*
Kael spins, blade drawn. But they’re alone. Or so they think. And behind Lyra, the silver cuffs are melting—dripping to the floor like molten moonlight.