Chapter 1 The Stranger in the Storm

The night howled with fury. Thunder rolled like an angry beast through the skies. Lightning slashed the heavens in jagged bursts, illuminating the gnarled silhouette of Eryndor's Black Forest. The wind screamed through the trees, bending massive oaks and tossing firs as if they were twigs. Even the streams, once melodic, now roared with a savage, deafening force.

It felt like the forest had awakened, moaning, creaking, and crying with the voices of lost souls.

Inside a crumbling cottage on the forest's edge, an old man sat hunched near a dying fire. Ninety winters had bowed his back, stolen his teeth, and painted his beard white as snow. He was the last of his bloodline

Thalia.

His granddaughter. Sixteen, radiant, and once the light of his final years. But she was gone, vanished days ago, as if swallowed by the forest itself.

He had searched every trail, cried her name to the trees, the wind, even the wolves. No sign. No body. No blood. Just silence. The dreadful kind that creeps into your bones and tells you you're truly alone.

Had she run off with a lover? Perished in some unseen tragedy? Or worse-abandoned him?

"Oh, Thalia," he whispered brokenly. "Why did you leave me? Who will care for me now? Who will close my eyes when death comes?"

His voice cracked. Tears slid down a face already carved with sorrow. That's when it came-a knock. Loud. Sudden. Impossible.

The old man struggled to his feet, heart pounding. He opened the door.

A tall man stood before him. Around forty. His clothes-rich but worn. His blond hair-long and wild. His blue eyes-haunted. Something about him was... off. He radiated sorrow, like it clung to him.

The old man gestured him inside without a word.

He offered food. The stranger didn't touch it.

The storm raged harder. Thunder boomed directly overhead, shaking the cottage. The stranger flinched, his face contorted in agony. The old man reached for a crucifix above the hearth, but the guest raised a commanding hand-his authority sharp, undeniable.

The old man froze.

"You tremble at the storm?" he asked gently.

"I am unhappy," the stranger replied, his voice tight. "And so are you."

The old man told him-briefly, painfully-of Thalia.

The stranger listened, then spoke slowly. "You are alone. Forgotten. If you died now, wolves would find your corpse before anyone else. You'd rot, unmourned."

The old man shivered. "Why do you speak such terrible things? Who are you?"

Thunder cracked again. The man didn't answer.

Instead, he offered something impossible.

"I can make you young again," he said. "Strong. Handsome. Rich. Intelligent beyond anything you've ever known. All I ask is that you walk beside me-for eighteen months. At the end, we part. Forever."

The old man's heart pounded. "And the price?"

"There are two conditions," the stranger replied, eyes dark. "First: you remain by my side, obeying me, until sunset on of the eighteenth month. Second... you must prey upon the human race."

The old man recoiled. "What does that mean?"

The stranger leaned closer. "Do you know the legend of the Were-Wolf?"

The old man's blood turned cold. "I've heard tales... of cursed men who become wolves at night."

"At sunset on the last day of each month," the stranger said, "the cursed take the form of the beast. They remain that way until dawn."

"And this... this is the condition?"

"It is."

The silence stretched. The storm outside echoed the old man's thoughts-violent, chaotic, unstoppable.

"I accept," the old man whispered. "I have nothing left. No one."

"Good," the stranger said. "Elias, your time begins now."

Elias stiffened. "You know my name..."

The stranger smiled grimly. "I know much more. Wait here."

He disappeared into the night.