The moon hung over the forest like a pale eye, casting its glow upon the stone altar where Luciano Kerens knelt, the marks on his skin burning with a familiar fire. Though the storm had passed, the darkness in his chest remained, heavier than the winter fog weaving through the trees.
The cold bit into his skin, but that was the least of his concerns. What truly consumed him was the weight of the oath etched into his bones, a pact that had sealed the fate of three generations. His eyes, dulled by decades of shadow, scanned the cracks in the altar. The time-worn stones still reeked of sulfur—the same stench from that night.
A snap of branches broke the silence.
Before he could turn, a voice laced with resentment froze his blood.—"Luciano..."
He turned slowly, like a man meeting his inevitable fate. Between the trees, a lean figure stepped forward. Moonlight touched the claws first—curved, lethal, obsidian-sharp. Then came the eyes. Golden. Burning. The same ones that haunted Luciano every night in his dreams.
"Sanathiel," he whispered—not as a name, but as a curse, as though saying it aloud would unleash the hell they both carried within.
The boy emerged fully from the shadows. His breath was the only sound in the forest—shallow and ragged, like the air itself scorched his lungs. His claws flexed with a crackle of strained tendons.
"Did you come to pray to your stone god?" Sanathiel's voice was a barely contained snarl. "Or to ask him for forgiveness?"
Luciano didn't answer. His gaze dropped to the silver medallion hanging from the young man's neck: a wolf howling at a full moon—the same he had given him the night he found him among the smoldering ruins of Pueblo Esperanza.
"You haven't changed," Luciano lied, knowing every word brought them closer to the edge. "You're still the boy I pulled from the fire."
A growl rattled the air. Sanathiel stepped closer, and for the first time, Luciano saw the scars—fresh claw marks across his torso, still bleeding. More recent than any wound he carried.
"The flames you started," Sanathiel spat. Then his white fur erupted—not a transformation, but a detonation. Each hair burst from his skin like a thorn, until only those golden eyes remained, glowing with a fury far too human.
The words rang in Luciano's skull like funeral bells. Sanathiel raised his hands, and in the glint of his claws, Luciano saw it: the fire consuming Pueblo Esperanza—flames devouring thatched roofs, figures running with children in their arms, his own younger face watching the chaos from a hilltop.
"I'm not your masterpiece," Sanathiel roared. His fur rose like blades of ice, each strand crackling with arcane energy. "I'm your punishment."
Luciano stumbled backward, striking the altar. The runes etched in the stone burned through his tunic, searing his back—a reminder of his oath to the demon. He wanted to shout the truth: that the pact had been to save the seven-year-old boy sobbing over his parents' corpses. But the fog now pouring from Sanathiel's mouth smelled of gunpowder and scorched flesh—just like that night.
"Stop!" Luciano's voice broke as a claw slashed across his chest, leaving three oozing trails of thick, black liquid. "You don't know what you're unleashing..."
Sanathiel pinned him to the altar. His golden eyes became wells of white light, and in their depths, Luciano saw the gears of an ancient mechanism turning: the Ritual of the Three Suns—the true purpose of the pact.
"Look," Sanathiel hissed, forcing Luciano to witness the vision. "You taught me to lie. The demon taught me how to uncover them."
The mist condensed into figures: Luciano kneeling at the altar decades ago, drinking from a chalice filled with liquid shadow while the lifeless body of young Sanathiel lay at his feet.
"It was the only way to save you!" Luciano shouted, but his plea turned into a strangled gasp as the claws closed around his throat.
A sharp whistle cut through the night. Noah appeared out of nowhere, plunging an obsidian dagger into Sanathiel's side, the blade sizzling against lunar fur.
"How fast is the end, little brother?" the vampire grinned, his fangs slick with pitch. "The Master wants his tragedy in three acts."
Sanathiel hurled Luciano against a pine. The crunch of breaking branches was followed by the sound of the medallion shattering against a rock. For a moment, both stared at the silver wolf spinning in the dirty snow.
That was all Noah needed. His fingers dug into Sanathiel's wound, pulling out glowing veins that writhed like puppet strings.
"Run, old man," the vampire spat at Luciano, his bloodshot eyes locked onto the white wolf. "Your son and I have a script to rehearse. And this time, there's no happy ending."
As Luciano dragged himself from the clearing, the last thing he saw was Sanathiel howling—not to the moon, but to the broken medallion. The cracks in the silver formed forbidden constellations, ones only the Kerens could read.
In the depths of the forest, something answered the howl. Something older than pacts, hungrier than demons.It roared, shifting from beast to man.
"Until the darkness fades," an ancient voice whispered, echoing through the trees.
Silence fell. From the shadows, a figure watched the scene, its smile barely visible in the gloom."It's time to begin the first act."