The war had raged for decades—wolves against vampires, claws against fangs. At first, the wolves held the advantage. They fought in unyielding packs, iron discipline and raw strength carrying them through battle after battle. For every vampire nest burned to ash, another territory was reclaimed. For a while, it seemed the wolves might actually win.
Until the vampires unveiled their secret weapon.
A hybrid.
Half wolf, half vampire—something that should never have existed. Its very blood was a weapon, burning through wolves like acid fire. Vampires learned to dip their blades in hybrid blood, and the wolves’ triumph shattered. Warriors who had never fallen in battle collapsed writhing in the mud, their veins blackening as their strength bled out of them.
The war turned.
But wolves are not creatures that yield easily. They fought on. Claws against fangs, fire against shadow. Forests burned. Castles crumbled. Corpses paved the land until even the crows refused to fly overhead. And at last, with both sides broken, the leaders bent beneath exhaustion and struck a treaty.
It was peace. In name only.
The wolves demanded security, and security meant one thing: extinction. Every hybrid must die. Their blood, too dangerous. Their existence, too threatening. No exceptions.
And so the hunts began.
Children were dragged from mothers’ arms. Entire bloodlines wiped from the earth in the name of safety. Screams and fire marked the end of an entire people.
But one child was spared.
Her mother, bloodied and exhausted from labor, fled into the forest with her newborn clutched tight. Behind her came the baying of wolves, the stink of iron and smoke. She knew the end waited for her. But not for her daughter. Never for her daughter.
Through the night she ran, until her lungs shredded and her body threatened to collapse. At last she reached the door of a witch—an old friend, one bound to her by love and oath.
The baby was thrust into the witch’s arms. A single command tore itself from the mother’s throat.
“Hide her. Protect her with your life. Swear it.”
The witch’s tears stained the child’s face as she whispered the vow. Then the mother turned, bared her teeth, and hurled herself back toward the sound of the hunt. Her last stand was made of fury and blood, claws flashing against steel until silence swallowed her whole.
The wolves never knew the child had slipped their grasp.
The witch cloaked the girl in shadow, weaving spells that disguised her scent, wrapping her in safety as tightly as swaddling cloth. She grew not as an abomination, but as a daughter, raised alongside the witch’s own child—Kaelen. They were sisters, laughing beneath the stars, whispering secrets beneath candlelight, dreaming of futures neither could hold.
But time is merciless.
The witch grew old. Her magic thinned, her hands shook, and when death finally claimed her, the protective veil tore open. The girl’s true nature bled into the world once more. Kaelen tried—gods, she tried—to rebuild the spell, but her power was not her mother’s. Shadows slipped through her fingers. Wolves began to stir.
So the girl ran.
She ran until her legs bled, until her throat burned, until hiding became her only heartbeat. Always watching. Always waiting. Always fighting when cornered, leaving trails of blood and bodies behind her. But no one escapes forever.
They caught her in the mountains, chains biting her wrists, her defiance dragging down a dozen before she fell. Dragged toward death, condemned to the blade.
The last hybrid.
Me.
