I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
Patréon/emperordragon
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By the ti Lucas rolled up to Lockwood Estate, the night had settled into its familiar hush. Lights glowed warm in the windows, and the sll of roasted chicken drifted out as he stepped through the door.
Susan greeted him with her usual tired but kind smile, made a plate for him. Jenny was already there, chattering about school while Milo sprawled under her chair, tail thumping whenever she dropped scraps.
Lucas slipped into his seat, letting the rhythm of the house settle around him.
Dinner was ordinary—comforting in its simplicity. Jenny animatedly recounted so story, her fork punctuating the air as Susan laughed and teased her. Lucas smiled when appropriate, chid in when needed, and answered Susan's gentle questions about his day with easy half-truths. On the surface, it was just another family dinner.
But the entire ti, part of him was elsewhere. Watching hunters rise like machines after blows that should've ended the fight. Rembering the figure that stood by the car. The way Laura's eyes had carried just a flicker of unease.
Afterward, he excused himself, heading upstairs with Milo padding close at his heels. His room was quiet, the kind of quiet that presses in on you. Lucas sat on the edge of his bed, Milo settling by his feet, those sharp blue eyes watching him with quiet affection.
Lucas leaned back against the headboard, exhaling slowly.
The fight replayed in his head—the sound of bones cracking under Laura's fists, the way the hunters' bodies refused to stay down. He knew how fragile the line already was between the Hales and the Argents. Soone was cutting that line thinner, sharpening it into a blade.
He was strong, stronger than he'd ever been in his old life. But tonight showed him strength wasn't enough.
That figure in the lot—what it had done to those hunters…
Puppets. That's what they'd been. Raging, mindless shells, stripped of fear and pain. He'd seen hunters mad with fury before, but not like this. Not hollowed out and filled with unnatural rage.
"I've never seen anything like it," he muttered under his breath. Milo whined low, nudging Lucas's hand with his muzzle. Lucas gave him a scratch behind the ears, grateful for the grounding presence.
Eventually, Lucas pushed himself up and crossed the room. From the back of his closet, he pulled out a weathered box, its edges worn soft with ti. Inside lay Richard's journals—dozens of them, filled with scrawled notes and tight handwriting, maps, sketches, warnings. Lucas spread them across his desk, flipping through the pages one by one.
Files filled with observations on supernatural patterns, creature behaviour, ancient lore, half-forgotten rituals… but nothing about controlling n like marionettes, nothing about mysterious figures hiding in shadows. Page after page, and still nothing.
Finally, Lucas leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. A tired sigh escaped him. He gathered the journals, careful, almost reverent, and slid them back into their box.
The questions lingered, unanswered and sharp. But for tonight, they would have to wait.
Lucas shut off the lamp, climbed into bed, and let Milo curl against him. In the dark, with only the sound of Milo's steady breathing, he closed his eyes.
anwhile, on the other side of town...
The night air outside the Argent house was still, heavy with the kind of silence that ca before storms.
Malia's question—So what are we going to do with these two?—still hung in Laura's mind as she loaded the unconscious hunters into the backseat and slid into the driver's seat. I'll handle it, she had told Malia. Whether she believed that herself was another matter.
The ride across town was quiet except for the low hum of the engine. The two hunters slumped in the back looked almost peaceful now, stripped of the rage that had consud them earlier. Puppets with their strings cut.
When she pulled up to the Argent house, Laura laid on the horn once—short, sharp, intentional. A signal, not a plea.
The porch light flicked on, and soon enough Chris Argent stepped outside, his expression unreadable in the pale wash of light. Laura got out of the car before he could say anything, eting him halfway with a steady, unflinching stare.
"Two of your hunters went after Malia," she snapped, voice tight with barely restrained fury. "At her school. I'm returning them to you."
Chris's eyes shifted past her, narrowing as he caught sight of the battered hunters in the backseat. He walked forward, leaned in, and took them in with one grim look. When he straightened, his voice was low.
"So you had to badly beat them up?"
Laura shook her head once. "At first, they were just knocked out. But they woke up—and attacked and Malia." She kept her tone clipped, controlled, deliberately omitting the shadowed figure that had triggered their frenzy. That was not a card she was willing to lay on the table.
Chris grunted, a sound halfway between disapproval and reluctant acknowledgnt.
Laura pressed on. "But these two idiots and their actions aren't what's important. Soone is trying to incite a conflict between us. I'm sure you've felt it too—sothing's off."
For a long mont, Chris stood silent, jaw working. Then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he nodded.
Laura's voice softened but carried steel. "Derek didn't kill Andrew. Soone threw his body on Derek's car and ran away. That's the truth."
Chris's gaze hardened, his arms crossing over his chest. "Let's say that's true. Let's say your family had nothing to do with Andrew's death. But I need to hear it directly from Derek. I want him to look in the eye when he says it. Only then can I believe it."
Laura's jaw clenched, her breath flaring through her nose. "You're crazy if you think I'd just hand soone from my family to you."
Chris didn't flinch. "Then Derek still remains the pri suspect in Andrew's death."
The two of them stood there in the cold, the weight of six years of blood between them, unbroken by ti.
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