I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
spatréon/emperordragon
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Chapter Thirty-One: A Spark
Lucas's Perspective
For a long ti, the only sound was the steady hum of tires rolling over cracked asphalt, a quiet rhythm that almost lulled into forgetting how much had changed. Richard sat behind the wheel, his posture calm but rigid, his hands locked in place at ten and two like he was clinging to control—not just of the car, but of the silence between us. His eyes were locked on the horizon, where the sun had just disappeared behind the distant hills, leaving behind streaks of burnt orange and blood-red sared across the sky like an open wound.
I sat beside him in the passenger seat, my body still, but my mind racing in a hundred directions at once. Outside the window, trees blurred past in indistinct shapes, telephone poles ticking by like the seconds of a slow, heavy clock. But I wasn't really seeing any of it. My thoughts were still trapped in that cave—still surrounded by smoke and stone, still tasting the tallic tang of blood in the air, still feeling the electricity burn through like I'd been split open and sothing else had taken over.
Sothing in had cracked wide open.
Sothing had co out.
Lightning.
Real lightning.
And Richard had seen it happen.
He had watched it happen.
I couldn't keep it in any longer. I had to know what he thought. What he knew. So finally, I broke the silence.
"Are we not going to talk about it?"
He didn't look at . Didn't flinch or sigh or shift in his seat. But I saw it—the way his grip tightened on the steering wheel. Just a fraction. Just enough.
"That lightning that ca out of ," I said carefully, trying to keep my voice calm, steady. "Right before I blacked out, I saw your face. You looked… shocked. And in all the ti I've known you, Richard, I've never seen you look like that."
He let out a breath. It was slow and heavy, like he was exhaling sothing that had been sitting in his lungs for years. It was more than just tired—it was burdened.
"I didn't bring it up," he said at last, his voice low and rough, "because I don't have any answers for you."
I nodded slowly, absorbing that. I hadn't expected a full explanation. Not really. But it didn't stop the storm of questions boiling under my skin, each one clawing for space in my brain. Why ? How? What was I?
He glanced at —just for a heartbeat—then turned his eyes back to the road. "But if I were you," he added, voice dipped in warning, "I wouldn't ntion it to anyone else."
I frowned. "Why?"
His tone changed. It dropped into sothing quieter, more cautious. Like we weren't alone. Like the shadows in the car might be listening.
"You know how it is," he said. "No matter who you are—shapeshifter, hunter, etc—it doesn't matter. The forces of nature still affect us. Fire burns. Cold freezes. We might heal, we might survive it, but it still hurts. Even the corrupted… even the monsters… they're not immune."
I nodded. That much I already understood. The world didn't care what you were. So things hurt everyone.
"But lightning," he continued, "that's sothing else entirely. Lightning is worse. Far worse. No creature is immune to it. High-voltage weapons have been in the hunter arsenal for decades—tasers, shock nets, arc grenades. You na it. And they work. Doesn't matter how strong a shapeshifter is, or how twisted a corrupted creature becos—lightning cuts through all of it."
My breath caught as the mory returned—vivid, unshakable. The cave. The mont it happened. Henry, that smug monster of a man, his body seizing as the energy surged from my claws. How it wasn't just the power—it was the effect. Like nature itself had struck him down.
I nodded with the new understanding that what happened back there wasn't just impossible.
It was sothing else entirely.
I stayed quiet after that. So did Richard. The silence returned, thicker than before, laced with unspoken things neither of us wanted to face yet.
Two days later, we finally reached the cabin. The moon was high, pale and ghostly behind thin clouds, casting a soft silver light over the trees. I should've been grateful for the shelter, the safety, the quiet—but I wasn't. I was too restless. My body ached with fatigue, but my nerves were lit like wires. That kind of tired where even blinking feels like too much, and yet sleep won't co no matter how badly you want it.
I showered. Ate a quiet dinner with Richard and Emily. Climbed into bed. Laid there with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling like it might offer so kind of answer.
Then I heard them.
Muffled voices coming from the kitchen.
I closed my eyes, focused. My werewolf hearing sharpened like a blade. The distance between us disappeared. I could hear them like I was standing in the room.
Richard's voice first. Tense. Hesitant.
"He didn't just kill Henry. He electrocuted him. Lightning—from his claws."
Silence followed. Thick. Loaded.
Then Emily spoke, soft but deliberate. "There was once a bloodline."
My breath caught in my throat.
Emily continued, her voice wrapped in sothing old—like she wasn't just rembering, but summoning history. "Werewolves, yes—but different. Ancient. Their na's been lost to ti, buried by fear. Legends say they could wield lightning. Not manipulate it. Be it. Like it was part of their body, not so borrowed force."
"I've never heard of them," Richard said, sounding unsettled.
"You wouldn't have," Emily replied. "The other shapeshifters… even other werewolves… they were terrified. Thought it was unnatural. Too powerful. So they did what cowards always do when faced with sothing they can't understand."
"They hunted them," Richard said, voice grim.
"Every last one," Emily confird. "Wiped them out. Erased them. Not a trace left. Or so we thought."
A long pause followed, deeper than the others. Then Richard said, barely above a whisper, "Looks like the bloodline isn't gone."
I heard him exhale. I imagined him shaking his head.
"I always knew the kid was different," he said. "But this… this is sothing else."
"He's not just gifted," Emily said, her voice harder now. "He's sothing ancient. Sothing dangerous."
Her footsteps moved, the sound of resolve.
"This cannot get out. Not to anyone. If the wrong people learn what Lucas is…"
"It would put a target on his back," Richard finished, "just for existing."
They didn't say anything more. But I didn't need them to.
I lay there in the dark, my heart pounding in my chest like a war drum. My fingers twitched, and for a mont—just a breath—I felt it again. The spark. The crackle. Like sothing alive and ancient was curling beneath my skin.
Still there.
Still mine.
But at what cost?
Because whatever I was…
Whatever I am…
It's not just power.
It's a secret.
A legacy.
A threat.
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