I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
https://www.patréon.com/emperordragon
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Chapter Nineteen: The Path Chosen
Not the awkward kind of silence that follows a fight, nor the bored quiet that comes when no one has anything to say. No, this was different—this was the kind of stillness that felt earned. The kind that settles over a place like mist when the trees outside decide to hush the world, just for a little while. The forest beyond the windows stood in agreement, tall and unmoving, as if it had chosen—for one rare evening—to keep its secrets to itself.
Emily had gone for one of her walks again. She did that often, slipping into the woods like a shadow, saying it helped her clear her mind. I never pushed her on it. Some things weren't meant to be questioned. But if I were being honest with myself, I didn't think it was about peace or clarity. I think she just liked to be away from people sometimes. From voices. From questions. And, more specifically, from Richard.
Which left just the two of us inside.
He was sprawled across the battered old couch like it belonged to him, his limbs arranged in that familiar, lazy sprawl that said he didn't care what you thought—because he'd seen too much of the world to be impressed by it anymore. He looked like someone who carried a lifetime of stories behind his eyes, but had long since stopped telling most of them. I was sitting on the floor beside him, knees pulled up, fingers drifting through the small wooden box of chess pieces he'd brought in earlier. They weren't fancy. Just old. But each one had character—tiny cracks along the edges, little nicks in the paint, a history carved into every curve and scuff. They felt worn, real. Lived in.
He turned his head slightly, regarding me with that half-lidded look of casual interest. "You ever think about college?" he asked, voice low and gravelly, like he was just tossing the question out to see if it would land anywhere.
I blinked, caught off guard. "College?" I echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Not really. I mean, I can't even take the GED for a while still. Seventeen, right? That's like… forever away. Practically a whole other lifetime. I'll be gray and wrinkled by the time they hand me a diploma."
He snorted, a small amused huff. "Ten-year-old drama queen," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
I smirked and nudged a bishop aside in the box, then looked up at him with a question already forming in my throat. "Do you think I could be a hunter?" I asked. "Like you?"
The easy smile he'd been wearing faded, melting away like morning fog when the sun gets too high. He didn't answer right away. Instead, he leaned forward slowly, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at the worn floorboards like they held some kind of memory only he could see. He looked tired. Not physically—he was too stubborn to let himself look that way—but in the eyes. The kind of tired that sits on your soul.
Eventually, he spoke. "What do you know about hunters?"
I shrugged, picking up a pawn and running my thumb along its base. "Only what Emily's told me. That they're human. That they go through some kind of Ceremony to earn the Hunter's Mark. And that the mark changes them—gives them abilities. Superhuman strength, speed, endurance. Enough to stand toe to toe with something corrupted and not get shredded in the first five seconds."
He nodded, still quiet, his gaze fixed somewhere far away.
"The mark makes you stronger, yeah," he said eventually. "Physically, it puts you on par with an average werewolf. Maybe a little more, depending on how long you've had it and how you train. But that's about it. I don't have your senses. I can't smell a lie on someone's breath or hear a twig snap half a mile away. I don't have claws or fangs. I don't have instincts that keep me alive in the dark. All I've got is training. Discipline. Grit."
I tilted my head, studying him. "That's not what I meant," I said. "I'm not talking about what I can do. I want to do what you do. I want to help stop the corrupted things before they hurt people. I want to be part of something that matters."
He let out a long, slow breath. That sigh—the one that said he didn't want to have this conversation, but he knew it was already too late to avoid it.
Leaning back, he tilted his head until he was looking up at the ceiling, eyes distant. "Just because you were born into this world," he said quietly, "doesn't mean you're chained to it. There are werewolves—and other shifters—who don't fight. Who live quiet, ordinary lives. They work in banks. Fix cars. Run coffee shops. Nobody even knows what they are. You could have that. A normal life. No blood, no monsters, no graves."
"I know," I said simply. "But I don't want to be normal."
That stopped him cold. Silence fell between us, thick and solid like a wall. Then I added, softer this time, "I want to be like you."
This time, he looked at me. Not a glance. A real look. The kind that's searching—not just seeing, but weighing. Trying to read between the lines of my soul to see if I understood what I was asking.
"You don't know what that means," he said, his voice almost a whisper.
I met his gaze without flinching. "Then teach me," I said. "So I do."
He clenched his jaw, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. I could see it happening—could feel the gears turning behind his silence. He wanted to argue. Wanted to protect me with logic, with fear, with guilt. But he also knew I wasn't backing down.
He saw it. The resolve in my voice. The steadiness in my eyes.
Eventually, he let out a groan, rubbing a hand down his face like I'd just handed him a hundred-pound burden. "Fine," he muttered. "But no hunts. Not until I say you're ready. And don't think this'll be easy just because you're a werewolf. If you're going to do this, I'm going to put you through hell. You'll bleed. You'll cry. And there will be days when you'll wish you'd have taken literally anything else instead."
I nodded, unable to hide the grin tugging at my lips. "So… training starts tomorrow?"
He gave me a look—flat, unimpressed, and bone-dry. "Kid," he said, shaking his head, "training started the second you opened your damn mouth."
And just like that, it was done.
No ceremony. No epic speech. Just a quiet agreement in a quiet cabin, with the smell of old wood and the distant sounds of trees swaying in the breeze.
It wasn't a path that promised comfort. Or normalcy. Or even survival.
And I wasn't walking it alone.