I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
https://www.patréon.com/emperordragon
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The door closed behind Susan with a soft but final click, like the last punctuation at the end of a sentence neither of us had the courage to finish. Her scent lingered in the apartment long after she was gone—floral perfume layered faintly over something heavier, something older. Regret, maybe. Or a history that refused to stay buried.
I stood there staring at the door like it might swing open again, like it might offer me some answer I hadn't already torn myself apart trying to find. But it was silent. Just wood, metal, and silence.
Then, almost ghostlike, Emily appeared from the hallway. She moved slowly, quietly, as if she'd been waiting in the wings of a play, unsure when her cue would come. She leaned against the frame of the hallway for a moment before stepping into the room, barefoot and composed in that maddening, graceful way of hers.
I raised an eyebrow at her. She just shrugged, her tone dry and brittle as sun-bleached paper. "It was a family matter. I didn't think it was my place to interfere."
The casualness of it was deliberate. Calculated, even. She crossed the room without fanfare and dropped onto the couch like she hadn't just overheard the unraveling of something messy and deeply personal. She tucked her knees up beneath her, eyes scanning the room like she was taking in the damage.
I let out a dry chuckle, half amused, half exhausted. "You're so dramatic."
She didn't even blink. "Pot, meet kettle," she replied, deadpan.
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable, exactly—but it wasn't easy either. It hung between us, full of unspoken things. Eventually, she turned her head and looked at me sideways, voice quieter now.
"So. Are you really going to live with her?"
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I got up and walked across the room, past the dull hum of memories packed into every shadow. I knelt in front of the old cabinet and opened the bottom drawer—the one hidden behind a false panel, secured with a lock, and dusted in mountain ash more out of amusement than necessity.
Inside was a stack of identities. Versions of me.
Lucas Smith—my go-to when I needed to disappear quickly.
I thumbed through them like I was flipping through a worn closet of old clothes, each name a costume I'd worn for a life that never quite fit.
"Which one should I be this time?" I murmured to myself. "Jones has the history. Miller's got multi-state credentials. Smith… Smith's as blank as they come."
Behind me, I felt rather than saw Emily cross her arms. Her voice cut through the air, sharp and steady. "You're really going to walk away from the name Richard gave you?"
My fingers hovered over the cards. Suddenly they felt heavier.
She didn't stop. She never did when it mattered. "And the rest of it? This apartment. The car. Everything he left for you…"
I closed the drawer slowly and rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired in a way that went bone-deep. "I'm not walking away from the good. I'm just going to lie low for a while until I figure out how to come back. Without getting shackled in legal red tape by someone with worse than a grudge, maternal guilt."
Emily straightened, eyes narrowing just slightly. "She's a mother, Lucas. Do you really think she's just going to give up? That she is ever going to stop looking for her son?"
I breathed in, then out, slow and deliberate. "What am I supposed to do, then? Just… go with her? Play the prodigal son and be back in time for dinner and a bedtime story? Because I don't see how that fits into a life like mine. Hunters don't do curfews."
She sighed—deep and full of something that felt like both understanding and frustration. "I'm just saying… she genuinely cares about you. I don't need your werewolf senses to see that. You could try. Open a door instead of slamming it shut. You might be surprised what you find."
I turned and looked at her, really looked at her. "You actually believe that?"
Her voice softened. "I do. And I think Richard would've said the same thing—maybe not right away, but eventually."
I didn't say anything. Couldn't. The words weren't there.
So she kept going. Quiet, but relentless. "You know… Richard and I taught you a lot. Skills. Tactics. All the sharp edges. But without meaning to, we passed down some other things too."
She paused, eyes locking with mine. "The weight. The cynicism. The belief that people will always disappoint you, so you should stay one step ahead of them. That being tired of the world is normal."
Her words landed like blows I hadn't seen coming. Not sharp—but deep.
"That kind of thinking? That's for the old. The broken. The ones who've seen too much." She leaned in, eyes fierce now. "But you? You haven't even seen enough yet. Don't inherit our ghosts, Lucas. You deserve better than that."
I sat back down on the couch, slower this time.
The stack of identities still sat on the table in front of me. Untouched. Unchosen.
And for the first time in a long time, I realized I wasn't sure who I wanted to be anymore.