Bargaining With Darkness

The night pressed down like a living thing.

I knelt in the ruins, Lucian's broken body cradled against mine, my blood-matted hair tangling with his.

His skin was cooling.

His heartbeat — fading.

And my soul shattered with every dying second.

"This isn't how it ends," I choked out. "Not you. Not us."

The forest around us twisted — the trees bending in unnatural ways, whispering promises on the wind.

Bring him back, they said.

Give us what you are.

I didn't hesitate.

I laid Lucian gently on the ground, my hands slick with his blood, my throat raw from screaming.

The earth cracked open before me — a black rift yawning wide.

From it, something rose.

Not a man.

Not a beast.

A god of rot and ruin, wearing a smile that didn't reach his dead eyes.

He smelled of grave soil and broken oaths.

"Little Queen," he said, his voice a silk noose tightening around my heart. "You called."

I forced myself to stand, though my knees trembled.

"I want him back," I said. "Name your price."

The creature's smile widened.

"You would give anything?"

"Everything."

He circled me, dragging a clawed finger across my jaw, leaving a line of burning ice in its wake.

"So desperate. So reckless. Perfect."

I didn't flinch.

"Name it," I snapped.

He leaned close, breath like frost.

"Your wolf," he purred. "The power that just woke inside you. Your rage. Your fire."

I froze.

Without my wolf, I would be nothing.

Mortal. Breakable. Powerless.

But Lucian's heartbeat was slowing by the second.

I turned to look at him — his bloodied face, his broken ribs — and felt my decision settle like a blade in my gut.

"I accept."

The god laughed — a sound that made the stars shudder.

"Done."

He plunged his hand into my chest.

Pain exploded through me — not physical, but soul-deep.

I screamed as he ripped my wolf free — the part of me that had kept me alive through every betrayal, every heartbreak.

It howled once — wild and furious — and then was gone.

My knees hit the ground.

I was cold.

Empty.

Human.

And then—

Lucian gasped.

His eyes flew open, glowing gold in the darkness.

He coughed, blood spraying from his mouth, but he was breathing.

Alive.

Tears blurred my vision.

I crawled to him, my fingers trembling as I cupped his jaw.

"Lucian," I whispered. "You're back."

He blinked, disoriented.

"Seraphina… what did you do?"

I opened my mouth to answer — but the god was already fading, his laughter lingering like a curse.

And in his place—

The world shifted.

Lucian's eyes — once gold — now burned with an unnatural black ring around the irises.

Something else had come back with him.

Something wrong.

The air grew thick, heavy.

Lucian staggered upright, muscles rippling, power radiating off him in suffocating waves.

He was stronger than before.

Too strong.

His wolf — darker, deadlier — snarled from within him, no longer fully his own.

He grabbed me, rougher than he meant to, fingers biting into my arms.

"What did you give?" he rasped, his voice a mix of his and something other.

Tears slid down my cheeks.

"Everything," I whispered.

And somewhere deep inside, I knew…

Lucian had been saved.

But the man I loved might never be the same.