CHAPTER 341: LEGENDS

ADAM

The air in the meeting room was thick enough to choke on. The kind of silence that felt alive—pressing, listening, waiting.

Maps lay spread across the table, dotted with ink marks where the attacks had been reported. Names of colonies, forests, villages—places that had once been peaceful now painted red with blood. The scent of wax from the burning candles mixed with the faint metallic tang of unease.

We’d gone over the facts again and again. The conclusion was the same: the vampires were out for us.

And yet, I couldn’t understand why.

My mind circled the question until it bled into another—one I didn’t want to entertain. Sage.

Her name slipped through the cracks of my concentration like smoke. I clenched my jaw, forcing my thoughts back to the table, to the vampires, to anything that wasn’t her.

But my wolf wasn’t cooperating. It growled softly in my head, restless, whispering her scent which still lingered in my nostrils from the last time I’d seen her.

Shut up, I snarled inwardly. The damned beast was defective.

Maybe I’d pay a visit to the pack doctor—no, better still, the priest in the Goddess Caves. If there was anyone who could fix this insanity, it’d be one of them. A wolf shouldn’t hum like a lovesick fool every time a woman’s name came up.

But then I pictured the outcome of that—news spreading, the priest whispering it to his brother, the brother to his mate, and before nightfall, the entire kingdom knowing their Alpha’s wolf had a crush.

No. Absolutely not. I’d rather live with the defect.

"Why after all this time?" Daniel’s voice sliced through my thoughts. "What are they after?"

The question hit the room like thunder. It had been on everyone’s mind, even mine.

My father, Edward Brekan, leaned back in his chair. The old man looked older still tonight—lines deepened, hair grayer, eyes dull from the weight of too much memory. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy, grave.

"They’re after the Abstenum."

The word echoed through the hall. Even the fire crackling in the hearth seemed to pause.

"The Abstenum?" Noah repeated, brows furrowed. "That’s a myth."

Edward’s gaze hardened. "It’s no myth. It’s a relic from the age of gods."

He let out a long breath, as though the story itself was dust he hadn’t touched in decades. "Legend says the Chief of Gods scattered the mineral across lands ruled by werewolves and lycans—those he trusted most to guard it. He knew the beings born of angels and humans—those cursed hybrids that gave in to their darkness—would one day hunger for it."

His voice dropped lower. "The vampires are those hybrids that gave into their darkness."

No one spoke. The only sound was the slow tick of the grandfather clock in the corner.

My father continued, his words measured, his tone distant. "The last attack was over a century ago. My father told me of it, as his father told him. The vampires came then for the same reason—they sought the Abstenum. But they failed. It cost us hundreds of lives, yet we prevailed."

He rubbed his temples, shoulders slumping slightly. "And now they’re here again."

For a moment, I saw something I rarely did in him—fear. It aged him, made him look twenty years older in an instant. I hated it.

War. The word wasn’t spoken, but it hung there between us. Heavy. Real.

I raked a hand through my hair and leaned forward. "Then we reach out to the other werewolf regions. If this spreads, we’ll need allies before—"

"They won’t come," Father interrupted quietly. "They’re too afraid. The vampires aren’t creatures you negotiate against—they’re nightmares that bleed into reality. Every pack will fend for themselves."

Daniel cursed under his breath.

Noah, ever the rational one, said, "We still have an advantage. They can’t walk under sunlight."

I met his gaze. "If they’ve chosen to attack now, Noah, it means they’ve already found a way around that."

His expression faltered. None of us wanted to believe it, but it was the truth.

The queen spoke then, her voice soft yet steady. "Then perhaps we shouldn’t face this alone. The witches—maybe the Witch Kingdom would be willing to help."

Daniel shook his head immediately. "That would be suicide."

"They’d demand blood for blood," Noah added. "They have not yet forgiven us... for whatever wrong it was we committed."

I refused to think on those memories.

Father gave a low, humorless chuckle. "Noah is right. And the vampires—" He lifted his eyes to hers. "—they don’t do allies. They devour them."

The queen’s lips pressed into a thin line.

I could feel the tension crawling back into the air like smoke curling around our throats.

"What if," Daniel began slowly, "they’ve already conquered another region? Taken their Abstenum?"

My father’s gaze snapped to him. "Impossible. We’re the only ones on this side of the continent entrusted with it. The mineral isn’t something found in markets or mines. It’s sacred. Hidden. The gods ensured that."

"So where is it, then?" I asked quietly.

The question slipped out before I could stop it. I’d never dared to ask before. The Abstenum had always been a secret passed from king to heir, a truth buried under layers of duty and silence.

Father’s eyes met mine, and for the briefest second, something flickered in them—a warning, maybe even guilt.

"That," he said slowly, "is knowledge I alone carry. And it will stay that way until I deem it time."

I leaned back, trying to mask the unease that coiled in my gut. A mineral powerful enough to let vampires walk the earth unbound by sunlight.

Why had the gods created something like that in the first place?

"I think it was for the Ancients," Father said suddenly, as if plucking the thought straight from my head. "The good ones. The first guardians. Before corruption turned their blood."

Silence fell again.

The queen reached across the table, placing a hand gently over his. "Then the legends were true."

He nodded once. "And if they’ve found a way to sense it... it means they’ve grown stronger. Or desperate."

Desperate vampires. That was somehow worse than powerful ones.

Noah exhaled, frustration edging his voice. "So we guard a mineral that can make our enemies invincible, but we can’t destroy it, move it, or even use it ourselves?"

"That’s the irony," Father said grimly. "The Abstenum is both curse and salvation. To touch it is to be marked by it."

I stared at the map again, tracing the inked lines of our borders with my finger. How can we win this?

My wolf stirred in the back of my mind, restless again. Find her.

Sage.

I ignored it, clenching my fists beneath the table. Now wasn’t the time for distractions, no matter how intoxicating they smelled.

"The ancients... what are they? How can we find them?" I asked, unclenching my fists. "Maybe we can get them to help us."