Chapter 3: Shadows in the Night

Luna

The shop never really closed, not even after midnight. In this town, someone always needed a cover-up, a quick fix, or a confession pressed into their skin after all the bars went dark. I kept the neon Open sign dim, the overheads off, and let the glow from the streetlights leak through the blinds in bruised stripes. The best jobs happened after hours, when the world got weird.

I wiped down the last tray, watched the blue disinfectant bead and drip into the catch basin, and tried not to stare at the tattoo machine sitting center-stage on my table. I’d taken it apart and cleaned it twice since Riven left, but I still swore I could see a silver sheen on the needle, like a memory refusing to rinse off. I capped the ink bottles, aligned them alphabetically, and ran my palm along the table’s edge. The vinyl was split in places, patched with duct tape, but it was my anchor. Without it, I’d have drifted years ago.

The sigil I’d tattooed onto Riven’s chest still haunted my mind’s eye. Not just the shape, spiral, star and break, but the way the lines throbbed, as if the ink had a heartbeat of its own. I’d checked my own reflection a dozen times since then, expecting to find some mark bled over onto me. Nothing new. Just the old tattoos: compass, crows, a knife wrapped in peonies, a chain of unbroken links down my left forearm. Each a mile marker, each a scar with better PR.

I was sliding the tray into the sterilizer when the door handle rattled. Not the polite after-hours knock or the urgent pounding of a drunk, but a precise, metallic clatter, like someone was taking stock of the lock before deciding if it was worth breaking. I froze. The street was empty, it had been since one-thirty, and my phone was still plugged in at the rear wall, updating itself to death. For a moment, I considered ignoring it, just waiting in silence until the intruder got bored and left.

The handle rattled again, harder. The bolt held. Then the door just… opened, as if it had never been locked at all.

Three men walked in.

“Walked” is really the wrong word. They flowed, smooth as oil over water, all in leather and dark wool, faces set in matching half-smirks. The one in front was the tallest, maybe an hair past six-four, shoulders almost comically broad in his tailored coat. He took up all the air in the room. His hair was silvered at the temples, his beard trimmed into something precise and geometric, and his eyes were a cold, dissecting gray that made me want to break eye contact or punch him in the throat. Probably both.

The other two fanned out behind him, one left, one right. Both wore gloves, both had that blank, enforcer look, the kind of resting bastard face you get from years of punching people for a living. Neither blinked.

The leader looked around the shop like a real estate agent, taking in the walls lined with flash designs, the mismatched chairs, the smell of rubbing alcohol and ink. He smiled, and it didn’t touch his eyes. “Ms. Vance,” he said, voice perfectly modulated, just the right amount of bass to make it feel like a compliment and a threat at the same time. “Open late, I see.”

“I go where the work is,” I replied. The gloves were off, but I palmed a fresh pair behind the tray, just in case. “If you want a walk-in, you’ll need to wait till tomorrow. I was just about to close.”

He stepped forward, nodding at the machine. “We’re not here for a tattoo.” I didn’t move. “Then you’ll need to take it up with the Chamber of Commerce. Or my landlord. Or whoever’s dumb enough to care.” A flicker of amusement crossed his face. “You’re not what I expected.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but every hair on my arms prickled, my own tattoos crawling under my skin like ants before a thunderstorm. “Who are you?” He raised a hand, gesturing with the slow assurance of a king. “Varek. My associates and I are… in acquisition.”

He didn’t say what, but I caught the glint in the eyes of the left-hand man. He was sniffing the air, subtly, but the movement caught my attention. Wolves. I’d heard stories, seen the scars left behind in places where packs roamed. This was my first close encounter.

“Is this about a client?” I said, forcing a smile. “I keep records. You want to see the books?” Varek’s smile widened a fraction. “We’re not here for the books.”

The right-hand man moved, circling the edge of the shop. He stopped at the flash wall, fingers grazing the laminated sheets. “She’s covered in them,” he muttered, but it was more observation than insult.

Varek focused on me. “A man came in here yesterday. Tall. Scar on his jaw. Smelled like snow and old blood. He paid in cash, no card, no paper trail.” He let the words hang. “Did he say what he wanted?”

I shrugged. “Most people just want something to show off in summer.” He chuckled, a dry, practiced sound. “Not this man. He would ask for a very specific design.” His voice dipped, lower, almost conspiratorial. “A mark of protection.”

The room got colder. “You tell me,” I said, keeping my hands flat on the table. “Lots of people want protection these days.” The left-hand man sniffed again, deeper this time. “There’s residue,” he said. “Strong. Not just the wolf. Something else.” Varek’s eyes sharpened. “You dabble in magic, Ms. Vance?” I scoffed, but it sounded weak even to me. “I draw lines for a living. That’s all.”

He took another step forward. Close enough now that I could smell his cologne, pepper, cedar, and something sharp underneath, like ozone. His gaze flicked down my arms, scanning the tattoos, then back up to my eyes. “You’re going to tell us where the marked wolf is,” he said, voice soft as a lullaby. “Or I’ll find another way to jog your memory.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t have, even if I wanted to. Riven hadn’t said anything about being hunted, just that he was running from everyone. I believed him, now more than ever. “Last chance,” Varek said, tilting his head. “Where did he go?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

He smiled. “That’s unfortunate.” Then, to the enforcers, “Search the place. Look for anything out of the ordinary.” They obeyed instantly. The left one started at the front, tearing through drawers, knocking over chairs, dumping out the sterilizer. The right one went for the back room, kicked the door open, and began methodically dismantling my supplies, upending boxes, smashing jars on the tile. I tried to dart around the table, but Varek blocked me with a single hand, fingers like a steel trap on my bicep.

“Easy,” he murmured, as if comforting a child. “This is nothing personal. But the Fenrath Pack does not tolerate thieves. Or those who abet them.” I jerked my arm free. “I’m not abetting anyone. I tattooed a guy. That’s it.”

He leaned closer, so close his beard grazed my cheek. “Then you have nothing to fear. But the wolf who came to you is very dangerous, Ms. Vance. For your own safety, you should reconsider protecting him.”

A crash from the back room, glass, maybe the tank of the autoclave. My stomach dropped. The enforcers tore through everything. In less than a minute, the front of the shop looked like a bomb had gone off: ink splattered on the walls, every bottle overturned, the glass display case shattered, my best machine smashed underfoot. Designs I’d spent years collecting ripped from the frames, crumpled and tossed aside like dirty napkins.

I lunged for the left-hand man as he grabbed my book of custom pieces, but Varek stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. His grip was inescapable. “Let it go,” he said, the words more command than advice.

The enforcer tossed the book into the sink, turned the water on, and ground it in with his fist until the paper pulped, black and blue and unreadable. I felt my heart stutter, rage and despair colliding in my chest. Varek let me go, stepped back, and watched as the destruction unfolded. “This can stop,” he said, “if you tell me what I want to know.”

“I don’t know,” I said, barely above a whisper. He sighed, genuine disappointment in his voice. “Loyalty is admirable. But pain has a way of breaking even the best of us.” He gestured at the shop, the carnage. “Consider this a warning. Next time, I won’t be so lenient.” He turned, coat swirling, and the enforcers followed. One last look from the left-hand man, wolfish and hungry, then the door closed behind them.

I stood in the ruins of my shop, ink pooling on the floor, the smell of alcohol and fear thick in my lungs. I wanted to scream, or cry, or punch a hole in the wall, but all I could do was slide to the floor and stare at the broken pieces of my life.

The sigil on my arm, the compass, burned cold. They’d be back. And next time, I might not have a shop, or a body, left to save.

~~**~~

Riven

The safe house stank of ammonia and cheap cigarettes, but it was the first place I’d slept with both eyes closed in months. I’d barricaded the door with a battered file cabinet, wedged a broom handle under the window, and spent an hour listening for the telltale whine of a Fenrath Pack engine in the alley. Nothing. Silence thick as dust.

I stripped off my shirt and checked the sigil again. The lines were perfect, sharp, black, healed so fast it might as well have been branded on. In the yellow light, it looked like the work of a machine, not a needle. The skin around it was cool to the touch, no redness, no tenderness, just a low, persistent ache that faded a little each day.

I lay back on the mattress, boots still on, and stared at the ceiling. I let my mind drift to the girl with the violet eyes, the way her hands never trembled even when the rest of her did. There was something in her face I couldn’t stop replaying, a kind of old hunger, the opposite of the feigned bravado I saw in most people. She did the work for its own sake. No pretense.

Sleep crept in, slow and syrupy. I let the wolf fade to the background, let my human body pretend it was safe for a while.

That’s when it hit.

Not a nightmare. Not even pain at first, more like being hit by a wave of cold air, the sudden drop in pressure before a storm. I sat up, heart pounding, and the ache in my chest flared from zero to blinding. I clutched at the tattoo, half expecting it to be burning, but the skin was still cold, colder than the air.

The taste of copper hit my tongue, sharp and insistent, and behind my ribs something twisted, a bolt of panic so strong it made my vision white out. The wolf in me recoiled, then howled in warning.

The sigil pulsed, a quicksilver flash beneath the skin, and for an instant I saw, not with my eyes, but with the same part of me that navigated by scent and wind and moon, the inside of a shop, my own blood pooling on tile, glass shattered everywhere, the air thick with fear and the stench of enemy wolves.

Luna. The bond between us had been nothing but a whisper since the ink settled. Now it was a scream. I lurched off the mattress, half-blind, clawing at the wall for balance. The pain was like a wire looped through my chest, yanking me forward with every pulse. I stumbled for the door, kicked the cabinet aside with a grunt, and heard it splinter as it crashed to the floor.

Outside, the alley was silent, but the world felt wrong. Every shadow stretched too long, every sound too loud. I could feel her terror vibrating through the tattoo, raw and ragged, and in my head I heard the echo of Varek’s voice, cold, satisfied, savoring the hurt.

I forced myself into motion. Down the fire escape, three steps at a time, boots clanging on rusted steel. I hit the pavement running, the taste of blood hot in my mouth. The wolf fought to the surface, but I slammed it back down. No time to lose control, not now.

I found my bike where I’d left it, wedged between a dumpster and the loading dock. I thumbed the starter and the engine kicked to life, loud enough to wake the dead. I gunned it out of the alley, rear tire fishtailing on wet asphalt. The headlight split the night, but the world beyond was already alive with Luna’s panic, a psychic north star pulling me toward her.

I hit the main road and didn’t bother with traffic or lights. Nothing mattered but speed. The city blurred by, concrete and neon smeared into streaks. The bond was so strong now I barely needed eyes; I could follow the scent of her fear, the static of her pain, straight as a shot.

Every block, the memory replayed: her scream, the glass breaking, the iron stink of enemy wolves in her space. The guilt was a live wire in my gut. I’d brought this on her. My mark was supposed to protect, not drag her into the worst of my world. But the sigil didn’t care about my intentions. It cared about connection.

I opened the throttle, felt the wind bite into my skin, and let the city fall away behind me. The closer I got, the more the pain in my chest eased, replaced by a cold, clear purpose. She was waiting for me, and if I was too late, I’d never forgive myself.

The bike howled down the avenue, past the river, past the train yard, until I saw the lights of her shop flickering up ahead. Even from two blocks out, I could smell the blood, the shattered ink, the wolves who’d done this.

I skidded to a stop in front of the building, barely got the kickstand down before I was running. The door was off its hinges, glass crunched under my boots, and the inside was chaos. Everything wrecked. The girl with the violet eyes was there, hunched behind the counter, hands trembling, blood on her knuckles and a look in her face I’d never seen before, emptiness.

I crossed the floor in two steps, dropped to one knee, and reached for her. “Luna,” I said, voice low, desperate, “Are you hurt?” She blinked up at me, like she didn’t recognize my face. Then she laughed, sharp and broken. “Took you long enough,” she said. I stared at her, the smell of her terror still thrumming in my chest. “Who did this?”

She bared her teeth, more wolf than human. “Said his name was Varek, left me a warning.” I clenched my fists. “You’re coming with me,” I said, and there was no room for argument. She shook her head, but the fight had gone out of her. “I can’t leave. This is all I have.” I looked at the ruins around us and felt the old rage surface, cold and merciless. “Not anymore,” I said.

The sigil on my chest pulsed again, and this time I felt it reach out, a silent question answered by the shiver of her skin. She could feel it too. We were linked, now. Maybe forever.

I stood, offered my hand. She stared at it, then up at me. The fear was still there, but something else had taken root, resolve, or maybe just the pure animal drive to survive.

~~**~~

Luna

After the wolves left, I spent a long time listening to the shop settle. It sounded like bone breakage and slow collapse, shards of mirror giving way on the floor, the guttural cough of the old fridge trying to restart, a single ink bottle rolling back and forth in the puddle near the chair. I stood in the center of it, boots soaking up the chemical soup, and cataloged every detail, as if I could rebuild it just by memorizing the wreckage.

Glass was everywhere. Some pieces are finer than sugar, catching the light in razor constellations. Others jagged enough to punch through my boot sole if I dared to move. A galaxy of tiny blue ink droplets trailed across the tile, blending at the edges into the bright crimson from my own scraped knuckles. The tattoo chair lay on its side, vinyl ripped open, stuffing gouged out and tossed like innards. The wall where I hung my best work looked like a gallery of violence, every design ripped in half, the frames crushed under boot heel. My hands shook as I pulled a splintered frame off the floor and tried to piece the fragments back together, even though I knew it was useless.

I knelt by the sink and dug the ruined custom book out of the basin. The pages peeled apart in wet clumps, bleeding color down my fingers, every sketch and tracing blurred into a bruise. I tried to wring it out, then let it fall, heard the slap as it hit the linoleum. I wiped my hands on my jeans, but they still looked bloodstained.

I was still on my knees when the front door exploded inward. Not “opened,” the hinges gave, wood splintered, and a cold wind rode the force inside. I was still so numb I barely moved. I was crouched behind the overturned chair, heart punching at my ribs, waiting for Varek or one of the other monsters to finish what they’d started.

Instead, Riven stormed in.

He filled the doorframe, the wolf in him barely contained now, gold eyes, hair wild, chest rising and falling like he’d run a marathon. His boots hit glass and didn’t slow. He scanned the room, clocked me behind the chair, and then moved fast enough that I didn’t have time to blink. Suddenly he was there, crouched in front of me, hands out but not touching.

“Luna,” he said, voice rough, like he’d been screaming for miles. “Took you long enough,” I whispered. His eyes flicked to the blood on my hand, then to my face. “Are you hurt?” I shook my head, then stopped, not sure if it was true.

He exhaled, but it didn’t sound relieved. More like he’d been holding his breath for years and this was just another disappointment. “Who did this?” he asked, but I saw in his face that he already knew.

“Said his name was Varek. Left me a warning.” I said. The word tasted like rot. “You’re coming with me,” Riven said as he stood. I shook my head, my brain still on autopilot. “I can’t leave. This is all I have.” He took another moment to take stock. “Not anymore,” he said.

He was silent for a moment, head bowed. Then he reached for my hand, slow and careful, waiting for me to yank it away. I didn’t. His skin was warmer than it should have been. He turned my palm over, pressed a thumb to the cut, and I felt something pass between us, something not entirely physical, a hum along the nerves, like the aftershock of a strong current.

“I felt you,” he said, still staring at my hand. “Through the mark.” My mouth went dry. “What do you mean?” He let go, flexed his fingers like they hurt. “When they attacked, I… ” He stopped, shook his head. “It’s not just a tattoo. It’s a bond. Protection, yes. But more than that.”

I stared at him, cold sweat breaking on my forehead. “You said it was a ward.” He looked up, and I saw the wolf in him, the part that never left, even when he tried to pretend. “I lied,” he said, but it didn’t sound like an apology.

I wanted to scream. Or hit him. Or just rewind the last twelve hours and never open my door to strangers again. “So now they’re after both of us?” I asked. He nodded. “You’re marked. They’ll come again. They don’t let things go.”

He helped me stand, and I glared at him. “You know what’s funny? I don’t even know your last name. I don’t know anything about you, and now my life is a crime scene.” He stood there, looming over me, but I didn’t back down. He didn’t try to touch me again. “I’m sorry,” he said, and for a second it sounded real.

I walked to the back wall and picked up what was left of my license, the glass shattered, the paper inside wet and curling. I pressed it flat, tried to smooth out the wrinkles, but it just fell apart in my hands.

“I can’t stay here,” I said, more to the shop than to him. He was at my side again, not close enough to crowd, but close enough that I could feel his heat. “Come with me.” I snorted. “To what? A safe house? A bunker?” He shrugged. “Somewhere they won’t look. For a while.”

I wanted to refuse. To tell him to get out, leave me to sweep up the pieces, pretend I could fix this on my own. But the thought of Varek’s eyes, the way he looked at me like I was already dead, made the decision for me.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We moved fast. I grabbed what I could: a few needles that hadn’t been crushed, a handful of ink bottles, a sweatshirt from the lost-and-found. Riven checked the alley, then pulled me through the side door, steps silent even on the broken glass. He had a bike waiting, matte black and mean, the kind of thing built for running, not showing off. He handed me a helmet, didn’t ask if I needed it, just waited.

When I climbed on, the engine vibrated through my thighs, and for a second, I felt alive. More than alive, dangerous. He revved once, checked the street, and then we were gone, the shop shrinking behind us, the ruined sign flickering “en” as if begging me not to forget.

We took the back roads, ducked through industrial parks and abandoned lots, always moving, never straight, never predictable. I watched the city blur past, lights smeared into lines by speed and wind, and tried not to think about what I’d left behind.

Eventually, he pulled into a dark lot behind a shuttered strip mall. He killed the engine and waited for me to slide off before he did. I peeled off the helmet and handed it to him, noticed the way his hands shook, just for a second.

He led me inside, up a back staircase, to a storage room that smelled like old fries and ammonia. There was a mattress on the floor, a stack of water bottles, and a folding chair. It was bleak, but it was a shelter.

I sat on the mattress, legs stretched out, and stared at the ceiling. He stood by the door, watching, not sure if he should speak. “So now what?” I asked, voice hollow. He ran a hand through his hair. “We lay low. Wait for the pack to move on. Maybe find a way to break the bond.”

I looked at him, studied the lines of his face. He looked older now, or maybe just more tired. “You said the mark was protection. That it would keep them away.”

He pulled off his shirt, revealing the sigil I’d etched into his chest. It glowed, faint but unmistakable, as if the ink itself was alive. He touched it, grimaced. “It’s working,” he said. “They can’t get to me the way they want. But you… ” He trailed off, guilt written plain across his face.

I reached out, traced the edge of the spiral with one finger. It was hot to the touch, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. “You should have warned me.” He nodded. “I should have. But I didn’t want to scare you. I didn’t want to believe it would work.” I let my hand drop. “Why did you come back for me?”

He hesitated. “Because I felt you. Because I owed you. Because… ” He swallowed. “Because it’s what I am.” I leaned back, stared at the mark on his chest, the faint shimmer of light in the dark. “So what now? We just keep running?” He nodded. “Until we find a way to fight back.”

I thought of my ruined shop, my ruined hands, the way the world always seemed to close in on me no matter how far I drove. “Okay,” I said. “But if we’re doing this, I get to pick the next hiding place.” He grinned, just a flash of teeth, and for the first time since everything went sideways, I felt something like hope.

He sat on the floor beside me, close but not touching, and we listened to the silence for a long time. The city hummed outside, alive and oblivious, but in this room, with him, I felt the static in my veins settle. The wolf in him, the ghosts in me, maybe we both finally had something worth running for.

Somewhere in the dark, the sigil pulsed, and I let it anchor me. For now.