"Blake!"
Someone shook me awake. Slowly, I opened my eyes, the world around me still spinning. My vision blurred for a moment as I tried to pull myself together.
I looked around, disoriented until my gaze landed on the familiar face of my twin brother. Concern lined his features, his eyes searching mine as he sat beside me.
"Are you still haunted by those same nightmares?" he asked softly, his hand gently resting on my shoulder, grounding me in the present.
I swatted his hand away as I stood. "Why are you still here?" The words came out sharper than I intended, and I couldn't suppress the irritation that gnawed at me.
He raised an eyebrow, unbothered. "I'm trying to be there for you."
A growl escaped before I could stop it, the sound low and animalistic. Jake flinched, and instantly, my stomach twisted with guilt.
"I'm sorry," I muttered. He didn't deserve that. He had only ever tried to support me, and yet I'd pushed him away at every turn.
His expression softened, and without missing a beat, he gave me a smile that was both warm and resigned. "Mom and Dad wanted me to give you this." He reached into a box, pulling out a crystal ball.
It was a peace offering more than anything—a gesture to break the awkward silence that hung between us, not really about the gift itself.
"Are we becoming Scryers now?" I teased, the corners of my mouth tugging into a slight smile despite myself.
Jake chuckled. "No,"
"But seriously, what if the angels find it?" The concern in my voice slipped out before I could hold it back. It wasn't just about the crystal ball—it was about the risks we kept taking, pushing the boundaries of what we were allowed to do, all to stay connected without being caught.
Jake rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed at my tendency to overthink everything, but retrieved a few more items from the box. "It's the only way we can stay connected with you. To feel your energy without the angels discovering our involvement."
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to reconcile the reality of it all with the heavy weight of the history I carried.
Let me explain: I came from a bloodline of half-angels and half-human, Night Hunters, beings sworn to the Light, devoted to its cause. We were supposed to be pure. Anything outside of that—anything diverging from human or angelic—was branded an abomination. A decade ago, that's exactly what I became.
I was just sixteen when the werewolves attacked. They turned me into one of them. I had no choice but to run, to leave everything I'd ever known behind. Since that night, I had been forced to live in hiding, surrounded by the very creatures I was trained to hunt and destroy. Now, I was one of them—loathing myself more with each passing day—but I clung to survival, even if it was a reluctant kind of existence.
"Please don't cut us out of your life," Jake's voice trembled, the words breaking through the thick silence that had settled between us.
I turned to face him, regret swelling in my chest as I saw the hurt in his eyes. The kind of hurt I'd caused, and yet, I didn't know how to fix it.
I may have been cold, maybe even heartless, but how was I supposed to comfort him when I couldn't even comfort myself?
My gaze dropped to the crystal ball in my hands, its smooth surface cold. I exhaled a weary sigh, trying to gather the right words, though I knew I couldn't make it better.
"Jake, you know they won't hesitate to strip your wings if they find out about your connection to something like me." The truth of it stung, sharper than I wanted to admit. My family cared, they really did—but that only made it worse. I wished they could forget about me. That would be easier.
"Someone, not something," Jake snapped, cutting through my self-loathing. "You're not a thing, Blake. Never call yourself that." The force of his words caught me off guard. I flinched, though I knew it was coming. He hated it when I talked like that.
He pouted then, an expression so familiar, so much like the brother I remembered, the one I still longed to be close to.
The silence stretched, until Jake broke it again, his tone shifting unexpectedly.
"Do you realize you've grown taller since we last met?" he grinned. The same grin he always wore when he didn't want to confront the serious stuff, when he needed to distract me from the consequences we were both facing.
"Jake, don't change the subject." For once I needed us to address the serious stuff without dodgng the topic.
"We used to be the same height, same size, and now you're huge. Don't forget to unpack the rest of the boxes," he said, his voice light, almost teasing, as he walked back toward the door.
"Jake!" I snarled, frustration boiling beneath my skin.
Jake glanced back at me, his smile wide, then spread his huge and impressive wings and in an instant, he soared into the night sky.
"You brat, get back here!" I shouted, but he ignored me, disappearing into the darkness as if I didn't even exist.
"Brat!" I stood there for a moment, frustrated, but underneath it all, was my love for him even though he acted like a child. I loved my family deeply, and cared about them with all my heart, but the closer they got to me, the greater the risk they faced. If they continued reaching out, they would suffer the same fate that awaited me—the punishment of having their wings stripped.
A fate worse than death for a Night Hunter.
It was the kind of punishment that erased everything. It was like being hollowed out, losing your identity, imprisoned in a void that could never be filled. It would be a life of constant emptiness, where nothing ever felt whole again.
I sighed heavily as I looked around my new home, a cabin nestled deep in the woods. The solitude was a bitter companion. I'd moved countless times in the last ten years, each time running from the trouble that always seemed to find me.
_______________
Six months later.
It was the longest I'd stayed anywhere in years.
I sat in a rocking chair on the back porch, a cold beer in hand, the night air crisp and still.
Most days, I had found a sense of peace here—contentment, even. But there were still moments, like now, when I despised the wolf that I'd become.
Loneliness was my closest friend. No one wanted me. The night creatures hated me for being a Hunter, and the world of light rejected me for being a werewolf.
I took a long sip of my beer, trying to drown out the bitterness of those thoughts.
"It's bad enough that the angels would kill me if they found out what I've become—an angel-wolf hybrid," I muttered to myself, staring out at the dark horizon.
"I belong to neither the light nor the dark," I said softly, more to myself than anyone else.
But then, something in the air changed.
My nose twitched, the scent hitting me before my mind could process it. A faint, metallic, putrid stench that only grew stronger with each passing second. It was disgusting.
"A corpse?" I muttered, sniffing the air, trying to make sense of it.
"Damn, what is that stench?" I grumbled, regretting ever lifting my nose. "It reeks of something rotten and decaying…"
I was just about to push myself off the chair and head inside when a soft, panicked voice reached my ears, followed by a loud crash against the window.
Wait. I knew that voice.
A pit of dread formed in my stomach, and without thinking, I bolted inside the house, my heart hammering in my chest.
The sight that greeted me was nothing short of terrifying.
"Oh God, Jake?" I gasped, my breath catching in my throat as I took in the scene before me.
Jake was sprawled on the floor, blood staining the wooden floorboards beneath him. His body was growing pale, too fast.
"Help me," he whispered, his voice weak, trembling with pain.