Chapter 253: The Vision
Scarlett’s POV
"Can you all please leave?" I whispered, rubbing my forehead as I forced my voice to sound weak and tired. "The room feels... crowded. My head is pounding, and I just need to be alone."
For a moment, none of them moved. The heavy silence in the bedroom felt like a physical weight, pressing down on all of us.
Liam looked like he wanted to say no. His jaw tightened so hard the muscles jumped, and his red, watery eyes stayed fixed on me as if looking away would destroy him completely. He took a small step forward, his hand moving at his side as if he wanted to reach out and grab me.
"Scarlett..." he whispered, his voice rough and broken.
My heart cracked into a million pieces. The sadness in his eyes was almost enough to make me scream the truth right there. But I forced my body to freeze. I kept my face perfectly blank and emotionless.
"Please," I said softly, staring straight ahead so I didn’t have to look at him.
That one word broke something deep inside him. The fight drained out of him, and he slowly stepped back.
Leonard looked at me one last time. His dark brown eyes were filled with a pain so deep, so full of pure rejection, that I had to look away before I completely broke down. He looked like a man who had just been handed a death sentence.
Leo was the last to move. He didn’t say a word, but his sharp blue eyes searched my face carefully, too carefully. He was trying to read my face, trying to see beneath the heavy lie I had wrapped around myself like a shield. For one terrifying second, my breath caught in my throat. I thought he knew. I thought he could see right through my act.
Then ma’am Olivia gently touched his arm, drawing his attention away. "Let her rest," she said quietly, her voice full of pity and concern.
Leo clenched his jaw, his blue eyes flashing with a mix of anger and deep sadness, but he finally turned away. One by one, they walked toward the door with heavy, dragging steps. The door closed behind them with a soft, final click.
The moment it did, a broken, violent sob tore out of my throat. I clamped both hands over my mouth, trying to keep quiet so they wouldn’t hear me through the walls, but it was completely useless. The pain came rushing out of me all at once, hot and uncontrollable. I curled onto my side beneath the thick blanket, pulling my knees to my chest. I pressed my face deep into Liam’s pillow, breathing in his familiar scent as hot tears soaked the cloth.
Moon Goddess, what had I done?
I had seen Liam break. I had watched Leonard jump away from me like I had stabbed him right in the chest. I had seen Leo’s eyes darken with a kind of sadness that hurt even worse than shouting.
And I had done it on purpose. I had planned it. Because I loved them. Because I loved them too much to let them destroy each other in a useless war over who got to claim me.
"I’m sorry," I whispered into the darkness of the empty room, my voice breaking over the words. "I’m so sorry. Please forgive me."
My wolf cried inside my head, a small, sad sound of pure grief. But the Red Wolf remained completely silent, locked away deep in the shadows of my mind. That somehow made the emptiness inside me feel even worse.
It seemed I now had two wolves. Yes. My normal wolf and a different wolf I couldn’t explain. But I could feel the energy of two different wolves inside me.
Tiredness slowly dragged me under, numbing the sharp edges of my mind. But even as sleep pulled me down into the dark, my fingers remained tightly held around Liam’s pillow, holding onto it like it was the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.
Then everything went red.
I opened my eyes and found myself standing in that strange, endless world again. The sky above me was a deep, dark red. It went on and on in every way without a single star. Red mist curled like smoke around my feet. The air felt heavy and thick with an old power. It was silent here. Too silent. There was no wind. There was no sound. There was nothing but the steady beat of magic.
"I did what you wanted," I whispered, my voice sounding small and low. It echoed through the empty red world. "I pushed them away. I lied to them. They think I don’t love them anymore."
For a few seconds, nothing answered me. The red mist just rolled over the ground. Then, the shadows moved. A huge shape came through the dark ahead of me.
My breath stopped in my throat as the Red Wolf came out of the mist. She was even bigger than she was before, standing way over me. Her thick red fur shined like hot fire under the blood-red sky. Her huge eyes looked down at me, old, cold, and hard to read.
"You wasted time," she said. Her voice did not come from the air, it came straight inside my brain.
My stomach dropped into a cold pit. "What?"
The Red Wolf took a slow step closer. Her heavy feet sank into the red mist. The ground shook under her weight. "You waited too long to take your power, Scarlett. You were too slow."
Fear crawled like ice up my back, making me shake. "What are you talking about? I did what you showed me! I saved my brothers from killing each other!"
Her old eyes shined with a sudden, sharp light. "They are not the only bad thing coming. While you were busy worrying about three wolves, another predator has already begun hunting you."
Suddenly, the red world around us broke like a piece of broken glass. Pictures popped into my mind, moving so fast they made my head spin.
I saw a huge black castle standing under a dark sky with no moon. Its tall towers were covered in moving, twisting shadows that looked alive. Below the castle, wide rivers of dark blood ran through stone paths, making the ground red. Hundreds of pale fighters with glowing red eyes stood in the yard. They were all kneeling in perfect, scary silence.
Then the dream shifted, pulling me inside the dark castle, and I saw him.
A man was sitting on a huge chair made from solid black stone. He was very good-looking. Too good-looking. The kind of nice face that made people stop and look. He had sharp, perfect features that looked like they had been cut from smooth stone. Long silver hair fell over his broad shoulders, standing out against his pale skin. But it was his eyes that made my whole soul shake—they were the exact color of fresh, wet blood. He looked neither young nor old, but so old it made me feel like I had no power at all. A heavy crown of dark, twisted metal sat on his silver hair.
Vampire. The word hit my mind like a hard blow. He was a vampire. No. Not just a normal vampire. A king.
He must have felt me looking at him through the dream, because his head suddenly snapped up. His blood-red eyes looked straight into mine through the memory. A slow, scary smile came across his pale lips. It was a smile full of dark promise—cruel and very hungry.
I fell backward in the red mist, gasping for air as fear squeezed my chest. "Who is he?" I whispered, my voice shaking. "Who is that man?"
The Red Wolf’s voice wrapped around me, heavy and cold like a dark warning. "The Vampire King. The one who has looked for the blood of the last Red Wolf for hundreds of years."
My blood turned to pure ice. "Why? What does he want with me?"
The Red Wolf lowered her huge head until her burning eyes were right in front of mine. Her hot breath smelled of metal and smoke. "Because your old blood is the key to opening what his people lost a long time ago. To him, you are a prize. A weapon."
Before I could ask another question, the dream changed one last time.
I saw five dark vampires kneeling before the black chair. Their heads were bowed in respect, and their heavy suits of clothes were as black as night. Their eyes shined with that same creepy red light.
The Vampire King slowly stood up from his stone chair, his long black cloak dragging behind him. His cruel smile grew bigger as he looked down at his top fighters.
"Bring her to me," he said, his voice smooth but deadly sharp.
One of the kneeling vampires looked up, a cold smile on his pale face. "Alive, my King?"
The king’s red eyes shined with dark anger. "Of course. Do not hurt my property."
The dream broke into a thousand pieces of red light.
I woke up with a loud scream, sitting straight up in the dark bedroom. My whole body was covered in cold sweat, and my chest moved up and down fast as I tried to catch my breath. I held the heavy blanket tightly against my chest, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the cloth.