Prophecy – Chapter 4 – Prophecy
Chapter 4
Present Day
“If I fall,” he said, breath steady despite the movement, “I’ll take you with me.”
“Unlikely,” Tobias replied, grinning as he recovered. “You’re smaller. Physics is against you.”
“You don’t even know what physics is.”
“Don’t need to. I win without it.”
They circled each other at the edge of the clearing, the ground hard beneath their boots, frost cracking softly with every step. A couple of younger boys lingered nearby, pretending to be interested in anything other than the fight.
Daemon moved first, quick, precise. Tobias met him easily, stronger, heavier, forcing him sideways before Daemon slipped free again.
It had always been like this between them. Tobias all weight and confidence, Daemon sharper, harder to catch. Neither quite managing to beat the other cleanly, which suited them both.
“You’re distracted,” Tobias said after a moment, catching Daemon’s wrist and shoving him back.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” Tobias replied. “You’ve been like it all week. Thoughtful. It’s unsettling.”
Daemon exhaled, rolling his shoulders as he stepped back into position.
The truth sat there, just beneath the surface, impossible to ignore now.
“It’s close,” he said.
Tobias didn’t joke this time.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”
For a moment, the cold settled around them, the forest holding still in that way it sometimes did, as though listening.
Daemon had noticed it days ago. The way scents lingered longer than they should. The way the air felt thicker, sharper, easier to breathe and harder to ignore. Even the light seemed different, catching on things it had no business catching on.
At night it was worse. Sleep came in pieces now, never fully settling, his body unwilling to rest properly, as though something inside him had already woken and was waiting for the rest of him to catch up.
Everyone said it felt like this before a first shift and he had always assumed they were exaggerating.
They were not.
“You pacing yet?” Tobias asked.
“No.”
“You will,” Tobias said. “Give it a day or two. You’ll be halfway through the forest before you realise you’re not meant to be there.”
Daemon huffed a quiet laugh. “You pace anyway.”
“True,” Tobias admitted. “But mine had purpose.”
“You walked into a tree.”
“That was one time.”
“Three.”
Tobias opened his mouth, then paused.
“Fine. But I recovered quickly. Important part.”
Daemon shook his head, but the tension in his chest eased slightly.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said after a moment. “Just… getting on with it.”
Tobias tilted his head slightly. “You think it changes things?”
“It does,” Daemon said. “Everything after this… it’s ours. Not just what we’re told to wait for.”
Tobias studied him for a second longer than usual, then gave a small nod.
“Still planning on leaving?” he asked.
Daemon didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
That settled more between them. They had been planning it for years. Leaving the forest, heading for the palace, joining the Royal Guard. Not for glory, not really. For something of their own. Something chosen.
Tobias had nothing tying him here. As the Alpha’s orphan nephew, he belonged everywhere and nowhere at once. Daemon had always wondered what that felt like, whether it made leaving easier or simply meant there was nowhere to return to.
“Good,” Tobias said. “Would’ve been dull without you.”
“You wouldn’t go alone.”
“I would.”
“You’d get distracted by the first girl who smiled at you and never make it past the border.”
“That is a risk,” Tobias said thoughtfully, as though genuinely weighing it.
As if summoned by the admission, two girls passed along the edge of the clearing, their voices low at first, laughter soft and easy between them. Both of them glanced over as they drew closer, though one lingered longer than the other, her gaze settling on Daemon in a way that was far less subtle than she likely intended.
Tobias noticed immediately.
Of course he did.
He straightened slightly, running a hand back through his hair as though it needed the attention, his posture shifting without effort into something far more deliberate as he turned just enough to meet their line of sight.
“Are you training or just showing off?” one of the girls called, her tone light, familiar.
“Both,” Tobias replied without hesitation. “You’re welcome to stay and admire.”
The other girl laughed, nudging her friend lightly before looking back again, this time directly at Daemon. There was a flicker of something curious in it, not as bold as Tobias’s admirer, but no less clear.
“Will I see you later?” the first girl asked, already half turned away, as though she expected the answer before he gave it.
Tobias’s grin deepened. “You usually do.”
“Arrogant,” she tossed back, though there was no bite in it.
“Who….Me?” he replied, smirking.
They moved on, their laughter trailing behind them as they disappeared between the trees, though not before the quieter of the two cast one last glance over her shoulder toward Daemon.
Tobias watched them go, entirely satisfied with himself.
Daemon gave him a long look, taking in the grin, the posture, the complete lack of shame.
“You practise that, or does it just happen naturally?”
“They like it.”
“They don’t know you.”
“That’s part of the charm.”
Daemon stepped forward without warning and drove into him again, catching him mid-grin and forcing him back hard enough that his boots slid against the frozen ground.
“Focus.”
“I am focused,” Tobias said, shoving back, still half laughing. “Just not exclusively on you.”
“That’s your problem.”
They grappled again, stronger now, breath visible in the cold air, the rhythm between them tightening.
Daemon felt it then, sharper than before. Not pain, not even discomfort, but something pressing outward beneath his skin, something aware. Waiting.
He pushed harder, forcing Tobias back another step.
“When it happens,” Tobias said between breaths, “I’m watching.”
“Why?”
“In case you turn into something unfortunate. Like a rabbit!”
Daemon smirked. “You’ll be disappointed.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
They collided again before the words had properly settled, Tobias driving forward with his weight, forcing Daemon back a step before he twisted free, breath catching slightly as he turned it into a shove of his own.
“Too slow,” Tobias muttered, already coming at him again.
“Too heavy,” Daemon shot back, ducking under his arm and catching him low enough to throw him off balance for half a second.
Tobias swore under his breath, recovering quickly and dragging him back in, their boots scraping hard against the frozen ground as they fought for position.
They broke apart a moment later, both breathing harder now, the cold air cutting sharply into their lungs, each pull of breath visible between them.
Daemon rolled his shoulders once, settling his stance again, the earlier tension in his chest easing into something steadier, something he could hold.
“Try not to fall over,” Tobias said, though there was a slight edge to it now, stepping in again rather than back. “Would ruin your reputation.”
Daemon huffed a quiet breath, shifting just enough to avoid the next grab.
“I don’t have a reputation.”
“You do,” Tobias replied, catching his arm and attempting to twist him down. “You just don’t notice it.”
Daemon wrenched free and drove into him again, forcing him back a step.
“And you do?”
“Of course,” Tobias said, half laughing now despite the effort. “Mine’s excellent.”
“Your reputation,” Daemon said, breath uneven as he shoved him again, “is that you flirt with anything that moves.”
“That is not true,” Tobias shot back, genuinely offended as he pushed into him harder. “There are standards.”
“Name one,” Daemon said, catching him properly this time and holding him there just long enough to make the point.
Tobias hesitated, breath catching, then gave a short, reluctant nod.
“…movement is still a requirement.”
Daemon snorted, the sound breaking through the strain, and shoved him off again.
For a moment, everything felt simple.
________
The sun was already dipping by the time Daemon left the clearing.
The path home wound through familiar ground, the forest settling around him like something that had always known him. Every turn sat easily in memory, every rise and hollow exactly where it should be.
Smoke curled from the chimney when he reached the house. The door stood slightly open, warmth spilling out into the cold.
“Home,” he called as he stepped inside.
He kicked off his boots and moved into the kitchen, still carrying the last of that lightness with him.
A stew simmered slowly over the hearth. Plates were set neatly on the table.
Both his parents sat by the fire.
Waiting.
Daemon slowed.
His father’s face gave nothing away. His mother’s eyes were red.
Something in his chest tightened, the earlier calm shifting without warning.
“What’s happened?”
He crossed the room quickly, pulling his mother to her feet and wrapping his arms around her. She held on longer than usual.
His father gently guided her back into her chair.
“Sit, Daemon,” he said. “We need to speak with you.”
The warmth in the room did not feel the same.
Daemon remained standing for a moment, looking between them, waiting for someone to speak first. The silence stretched longer than it should have, settling into the corners of the room like something unwelcome.
“What’s happened?” he asked again, quieter this time.
His mother rose before answering, crossing the space between them and pulling him into her arms. She held him tightly, fingers gripping at the back of his shirt as though he might already be slipping away.
Daemon frowned slightly, then wrapped his arms around her in return.
“Mum…”
She didn’t let go straight away.
When she finally did, his father was already watching them, his expression calm in a way that didn’t quite sit right.
“Sit, Daemon,” Ralph said.
There was no sharpness in the words, but there was something else. Something that made Daemon listen without arguing.
He sat.
His mother lowered herself back into her chair, though her hands did not settle. They twisted together in her lap, restless, uncertain.
Ralph leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, his gaze fixed not on Daemon, but on the fire.
“It is time you knew the truth of how we came here.”
Daemon blinked once.
“History?” he said, trying for something lighter than the moment deserved.
His mother looked up at him then, and whatever he had been expecting, it was not that.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It’s time.”
Her voice trembled, and she swallowed, as though forcing the words past something lodged in her throat.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
That stopped him.
Not the words themselves, but the way she said them. Like a certainty she was trying to argue against.
Daemon leaned forward, frowning, and moved from his chair to kneel in front of her.
“Mum, you’re not going to lose me,” he said, taking her hands. “Nothing you say is going to change that. I’ve always said I’ll leave one day, but that’s not about you. It never has been.”
She shook her head, tears already slipping free.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Then explain it to me.”
Ralph drew in a slow breath behind him.
“Before anything else,” he said, “you need to hear this.”
Daemon glanced back at him.
“We love you,” Ralph continued, steady, certain. “Having you in our lives has been the greatest blessing we could have hoped for. Nothing I say now changes that. You are our son.”
Daemon’s chest tightened slightly.
“You’re worrying me.”
Ralph nodded once, though the movement felt more deliberate than certain, as though he had steadied himself before continuing.
“We could not have children,” he said, his voice even at first, but quieter than it had been before. “For many years we hoped. We waited. We thought… we thought that would be our life.”
He paused then, his gaze dropping briefly toward the floor before lifting again.
“Then one night everything changed.”
Daemon did not move, his attention fixed on him now.
Bella drew in a slow breath beside him, as though gathering herself before speaking.
“A she-wolf came to us,” she said. “It was late. Dark. She shouldn’t have been out there alone in the state she was in.” Her voice faltered slightly, but she pushed on. “She didn’t stay. She couldn’t. She barely had the strength to stand.”
Daemon frowned, something tightening in his chest at the way she said it.
“She was hurt,” Bella continued, softer now, the memory clearly sitting close to the surface. “Badly. But she held on long enough to find us.” Her hands twisted together again. “She was carrying two babies.”
Daemon went very still.
“Two?”
Ralph nodded, watching him carefully now, as though measuring every reaction.
“You were not alone.”
The words seemed to take a moment to reach him.
“You have a sister.”
They did not land cleanly. Not at first. They seemed to hover somewhere just out of place, as though his mind had not yet decided where they belonged.
Daemon stared at him.
“I have a what?”
“A sister,” Bella said, and this time her voice gave way, breaking under the weight of it. “We didn’t mean to keep it from you for so long. We didn’t have a choice.”
He shook his head slowly, searching for something that would hold.
“No… that’s not right.”
“It is,” Ralph said, more firmly now, though there was no hardness in it, only the need to be understood.
“I knew everyone,” Daemon said, the words coming quicker, less steady. “Every child in the old pack. Every single one.”
Bella reached for him without thinking, her fingers closing tightly around his hands as though she could anchor him there.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “You did.”
There was something in her expression then, something that carried both apology and fear, as though she was waiting for the moment he pulled away from her.
The understanding did not come all at once. It moved slowly at first, piecing itself together from things that had never needed questioning before, then too quickly to stop.
“Freya.”
The name left him quietly, drawn out of him rather than chosen.
Bella’s breath caught sharply, and whatever control she had been holding onto slipped.
“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking completely now. “Freya.”
For a moment, the room seemed to fall away from him, not disappearing entirely but slipping out of focus, as though something else had taken its place without asking.
He saw her as she had been. Mud on her boots, hair catching the light as she ran ahead of him through the trees, never slowing, never checking if he followed, because she had always known he would. Liam’s voice somewhere behind them, calling them both back, already half exasperated, already resigned to being ignored.
He could hear her laughter as clearly as if it were still echoing through the forest.
He remembered the way she climbed, quick and fearless, always higher than she should have, always just out of reach, and the way he had chased after her anyway, breathless and determined, because being left behind had never been an option where she was concerned.
And beneath those memories, quieter but sharper, was the ache he had carried when it ended.
The night he had been taken.
The confusion of it, the way it had made no sense to him then, the way he had fought it without understanding why. He remembered her name in his mouth, calling for her even when they told him to be quiet, even when there had been no answer.
He had not understood what he was losing.
Only that he was losing it.
“My Freya?” he said, and his voice was softer now, but there was something in it that had not been there before, something unsteady beneath the question.
Bella’s breath caught.
“Yes,” she said, and there was no attempt to steady it this time. “Freya.”
The name settled differently now, no longer something simple, no longer something he could place easily alongside everything else he knew. It carried too much with it, too many memories that no longer sat where they had before, shifting under the weight of what he had just been told.
“All those years…” he said, though the words felt too small for what they were trying to hold.
“We were told to keep you apart,” Ralph said, his voice quieter now, less certain than before. “The less anyone knew, the safer you would be.”
Daemon dragged a hand back through his hair, his breath uneven, his thoughts refusing to stay where he put them.
“Safer from what?” he asked, though part of him was already bracing for the answer.
Bella did not speak this time. She looked to Ralph, her expression tightening slightly, as though she already knew what it would cost to say it aloud.
Ralph met Daemon’s gaze, holding it.
“From the man who killed your mother.”
Daemon blinked once.
“What?”
The word left Daemon before he could stop it, sharper than he intended, but there was no space to soften it.
Ralph did not answer immediately. He drew in a slow breath, his gaze dropping for a moment before lifting again, as though he needed that pause to steady himself before continuing.
“Your mother was murdered the night you were born,” he said, his voice quieter now, the words carried with care rather than force. “Whoever did it believed both of you died with her.”
Daemon stared at him, waiting for something else to follow that might make it sit differently, but nothing came quickly enough to soften it.
Ralph continued, though more slowly now, as though each word had to be chosen before it was spoken.
“But someone was not certain,” he said. “There were questions. Not openly, not at first, but they spread. Quietly. Someone was looking for surviving children.”
Daemon felt something tighten low in his chest, not quite pain, but something close enough to make it hard to ignore.
“If anyone had looked too closely at you and Freya together,” Ralph went on, his gaze still fixed on him, “they would have seen it. You were almost identical. The same colouring. The same eyes.”
Daemon shook his head slightly, trying to follow the line of it, trying to make sense of something that refused to settle.
“So you ran.”
Ralph’s expression shifted at that, something passing across it that did not quite reach his voice.
“No,” he said, and this time there was weight in it, something firmer. “We didn’t run.”
He held Daemon’s gaze, not looking away from it.
“We hid you.”
The words sat differently.
Not easier.
Just… clearer.
Daemon let out a breath that didn’t quite feel like his own, his thoughts slipping again, refusing to stay where he placed them.
“All this time…” he said, though he did not finish the thought.
“There is more,” Ralph said, and there was hesitation in it now, the first real sign that even he did not want to continue, but knew he had to.
Daemon let out a short, hollow breath that almost resembled a laugh, though there was nothing in it that suggested humour.
“There always is.”
Ralph did not respond to that. He simply nodded once, then spoke again, more carefully than before.
“There was a prophecy.”
Daemon looked at him, something sharpening behind the confusion now, something trying to find shape.
“A prophecy.”
“We were told to give it to you when your seventeenth year approached,” Ralph said. “When your first shift drew near.”
He rose slowly, not abruptly, as though even that movement needed to remain measured, and crossed to the hearth. His hand moved to the loose brick with familiarity, but there was a brief pause before he shifted it aside, as though the act itself carried more weight now than it had when it was first placed there.
From within, he drew out a folded piece of parchment.
He held it for a moment, not looking at it, then turned and placed it in Daemon’s hand.
Daemon took it without speaking.
The paper felt fragile beneath his fingers, worn by time, older than anything else in the room.
He unfolded it slowly.
—-
My dear children,
Know that you are loved. Know we did all we could to save you.
If you read this, you stand on the edge of your first shift and the beginning of your destiny.
And so it begins…
When the moon burns twice as bright
White wolves shall rise in shadow’s light.
The rogue king’s reign shall meet its end
By claw and fang as packs defend.
But beware the whispers, the turning tide
For betrayal and power walk side by side.
The Dark Wolf shall rise to test the three
A choice must be made to set them free.
—–
The words settled into the room like something alive.
Daemon stared at the final line.
“To test the three.”
He repeated it and looked at his parents…. Ralph frowned slightly.
“We were told only of two.”
Daemon’s grip tightened on the parchment.
“What does any of this mean?” he asked, his voice rising despite himself. “White wolves? Rogue kings? Dark wolves?”
The questions came faster now.
“You kept this from me for nearly seventeen years and now I’m meant to just accept it?”
Bella shifted, half rising, but Ralph lifted a hand.
“Let him.”
Daemon pushed himself to his feet too quickly, the chair catching against the floor behind him as he moved. For a moment he simply stood there, the parchment still loose in his hand, his thoughts refusing to settle long enough for him to decide what he was meant to do next.
Everything seemed to arrive at once and refuse to stay where it was put.
A mother he had never known.
A sister he had always known.
Freya.
The name moved through him differently now, no longer just memory but something altered, something that shifted the shape of every moment he had shared with her. He could see it all again without meaning to, the way she had run ahead of him through the trees, the way she had laughed when he failed to keep up, the way she had always seemed just beyond reach, and none of it felt quite the same as it had before.
Beneath it all, constant and rising, was the pressure he had been trying to ignore for days. It pressed more insistently now, threading through his chest and along his limbs, not painful but impossible to forget, as though something inside him had become aware of the change before he had.
His wolf was there.
Waiting.
Daemon dragged a hand back through his hair and began to pace, not with purpose but because standing still no longer seemed possible. The room felt smaller than it had a few minutes ago, the walls closer, the air heavier, as though everything around him had shifted slightly out of place.
“I don’t understand,” he said, though the words felt insufficient the moment they left him. He tried again, slower this time, as though careful speech might steady something inside him that refused to settle. “I have a mother I never knew, a sister I didn’t know was my sister, and this…” He lifted the parchment slightly, his grip tightening without his noticing. “All of this.”
The anger that had flared at first had already begun to slip away, leaving something far less certain behind it. It no longer burned cleanly enough to hold onto, and in its place was a sense of imbalance he could not quite correct, as though the ground beneath him had shifted and had yet to decide where it would settle again.
He looked at them then, properly, not through the shock or the rush of everything he had just been told, but as they were now, sitting there and watching him.
They were not hiding anything anymore.
If anything, they seemed to be waiting, braced for whatever came next, as though they had already imagined the ways this could break and were hoping this would not be the worst of them.
That realisation pulled at him in a way the anger had not.
“I love you,” he said, and the words came more slowly now, deliberate, as though he needed them to be understood clearly despite everything else that had shifted. “You are my parents. That hasn’t changed, and it isn’t going to.”
Bella’s breath caught, her hand rising to her mouth as tears slipped through her fingers, but Daemon could not stay with that for long. His thoughts refused to hold in one place, moving instead between what he had just learned and what it meant, and then away again before he could follow it properly.
“But I don’t know what to do with this,” he admitted, quieter now, the frustration in his voice directed more at himself than at them. “I don’t even know where to put it.”
He turned slightly, his gaze drifting toward the far wall without really seeing it, his body already pulling away from the centre of the room as though distance might give him space to think.
The air felt wrong.
Too close.
Too full.
He took a step back, then another, not entirely aware that he was moving until he was already near the doorway.
“I just need a minute,” he said, the words softer now, less controlled, as though even speaking them required more effort than it should have.
He did not wait for an answer.
He turned and left, the door closing behind him with a care that did not match the unrest in his chest, as though some quieter part of him still clung to habit even while everything else shifted.
The door closed behind him, not slammed, just… firm.
Silence settled over the house.
Bella leaned into Ralph’s shoulder, her breath uneven.
“Well,” she whispered faintly, “that went better than I thought it would.”
Ralph did not answer immediately.
His eyes remained on the closed door.
“He’s going to find her,” he said quietly.
Inside his room, Daemon did not sit.
He closed the door behind him and remained there for a moment, his hand still resting against the wood, as though he needed the solid weight of it to steady himself. The quiet felt different in here, not calmer, but heavier, as though everything he had just heard had followed him inside and settled into the walls.
He moved without deciding to, pacing the length of the room and back again, his steps uneven, his thoughts refusing to settle into anything he could properly hold.
Freya.
The name returned first, sharper now, carrying everything with it. Not just what she was to him, but what she had always been without him knowing it. Every memory shifted slightly as it surfaced, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, as though he had been looking at it from the wrong angle all along.
And beneath that, deeper and harder to ignore, was the weight of everything else.
A mother he had never known.
A truth that had been kept from him for seventeen years.
A prophecy that spoke of things he did not understand and somehow expected him to.
It pressed in on him from all sides, leaving no clear place to stand, no single thought he could follow from beginning to end without it breaking apart halfway through.
His wolf stirred again, stronger now, drawn not just by the shift that was coming but by the unrest itself, by the rising tension in his chest and the uneven rhythm of his breathing. It did not bring clarity, only awareness, heightening everything until even the smallest thoughts felt sharper than they should have.
Daemon dragged both hands through his hair and stopped in the centre of the room, trying to force himself to think clearly, to take hold of something that would stay still long enough to make sense.
The words on the parchment came back to him then, not all of it, but enough.
The Dark Wolf shall rise to test the three.
He frowned, the line catching on something deeper than the rest, not because he understood it, but because he didn’t.
They had said two.
The parchment had said three.
And for some reason, that felt like the part that mattered.
He stood there a moment longer, the thought turning over in his mind without settling, then something else shifted into place beneath it, quieter but more certain.
Freya.
If any of this was real, if any of it meant anything at all, then she was part of it.
He was already moving before the thought had fully formed.
The door opened sharply this time.
“How far?” he called down the hallway. “How far to the old pack?”
“About a week,” Ralph answered. “Less if you travel hard.”
Daemon leaned slightly into the doorway, his hand still on the frame as he considered that.
A week.
Less if he pushed it.
“If you go…” Ralph added after a moment, “take Tobias with you.”
Daemon almost dismissed it out of habit, then paused, the suggestion settling differently now that everything else had shifted.
Tobias would come.
He always would.
And for once, the thought of not going alone mattered more than it had before.
He gave a short nod, though his father could not see it.
“I will.”
He drew in a breath and let it out slowly, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck as he tried, not entirely successfully, to gather his thoughts into something useful.
Whatever came next, it would not begin here.
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