The car hadn't moved in hours.
It sat parked at a crumbling overlook on the outskirts of some no-name town, engine off, lights dead, snow gathering in soft white blankets across the windshield.
The plan had been to wait.
To let the others search, to let the trail grow cold or warm as it wished, to sit in the silence and not think about the fact that Lucas had been gone for weeks and the bond between them felt like a bruise that wouldn't heal.
Sebastian was doing a terrible job of not thinking.
His forehead rested against the cold glass of the passenger window. His breath fogged the surface in slow, rhythmic clouds.
Behind him, Lyla and Shane were arguing about something meaningless. Whether to get food now or later, whether the left headlight was dimmer than the right, or whether Shane had actually seen a deer or just imagined it.
"—I'm telling you, it was right there."
"It was a shadow, Shane."
"It had legs, Lyla."
"So do shadows. Metaphorically."
"That doesn't even make sense."
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Their voices blurred into a low, familiar static. They meant well. Both of them.
They had come with him when he'd said he needed to look, even though there was nothing to find, even though Lucas had left of his own accord with nothing but a bag and a broken goodbye.
I need to go.
Then go.
He should have fought. Should have asked why one more time. Should have—
"Sebastian."
The car vanished.
The bickering. The cold. The weight of the last three weeks. All of it evaporated in a single breath because that voice, that voice, pierced through him like a blade made of moonlight and static electricity.
Sebastian's eyes flew open.
"Sebastian?" Lyla's voice was suddenly cautious. "You okay? You went completely still."
He didn't answer.
He was already moving, the door open, cold air rushing in, boots hitting the frozen gravel.
The forest stretched out before him, dark and endless, every tree draped in white.
"Sebastian."
There. Faint. Agonized. Coming from the direction of La Ber.
"Lucas," Sebastian whispered. Then louder, to the trees, to the snow, to whatever god might be listening.
"Lucas."
He started walking. Then jogging. Then running.
"Sebastian!" Lyla was out of the car now, Shane right behind her. "What the hell? Sebastian, stop!"
He didn't stop. He couldn't.
The bond was pulling, not the gentle tug of a packmate nearby but a desperate, ragged yank, like a drowning man grabbing at a rope.
Lucas was in pain. Lucas was calling for him.
And La Ber was days away on foot, but Sebastian wasn't thinking about distance. He was thinking about Lucas. Alone. Hurting. Calling.
Shane lunged for his arm. Sebastian sidestepped without looking, vampire-fast, and kept running.
"Dammit—Lyla, he's going—"
"I can see that!" Lyla grabbed for him too, fingers grazing the back of his jacket, but Sebastian was already gone, a dark shape swallowed by the treeline, moving faster than any human should.
Shane didn't hesitate.
He tore his jacket off mid-stride, and by the third step, the change was already ripping through him, bones cracking, spine curving, and skin giving way to fur.
The wolf that hit the snow, which was grey and lean and fast, paws pounding the frozen earth as he chased the vampire's fading silhouette.
Lyla stood alone by the car, heart hammering, breath clouding in front of her face.
She stared at the dark forest for one long second. Then she spun, yanked open the driver's door, and grabbed the radio.
"Change of plans," she said, her voice sharp as broken glass.
"Sebastian heard something. He's running back toward La Ber. Shane shifted and went after him. I'm driving. Get here now."
She didn't wait for a reply. The engine roared to life.
Tires spun once, twice, then caught. The car shot forward, snow spraying behind her like a wake.
—
The forest gave way slowly, reluctantly, as if it didn't want to surrender what it had swallowed. Timothy moved with the practiced silence of a hunter, Zachary a half-step behind him, both of them following the trail Shane had carved through the snow.
Wolf prints, deep and urgent, overlaid with the occasional scuff of Sebastian's boots—though those grew rarer the farther they went.
The vampire had stopped running like a man on two feet and started running like something else entirely.
Something older. Something that didn't need to touch the ground to know where it was going.
The bond, Timothy thought. It was pulling Sebastian forward like a fish on a line.
They broke through the last line of pines, and the cabin appeared—a dark shape hunched against the snow, windows black, chimney cold.
The door hung open, swinging slightly in the wind. And in the doorway, silhouetted against the empty dark inside, stood Sebastian.
He wasn't moving.
Timothy slowed. Zachary stopped beside him. They didn't need to see his face to know.
The way his shoulders curved inward, the way his hands hung uselessly at his sides, and the way his whole body seemed to have collapsed without falling—they knew that stance.
They had worn it themselves once. Twice. Too many times.
Too late, that stance said. Again. Still. Always.
"Sebastian," Timothy said quietly.
Sebastian didn't turn around. His voice, when it came, was hollow. Scraped clean of everything except the bare bones of sound.
"He's not here."
Timothy stepped closer. The cabin was small, one room, really, with a cot in the corner and a fireplace that had gone to ash.
The floorboards were scuffed, and the single window cracked. And there, in the center of the room, a dark stain on the wood.
Not blood. Sweat. So much sweat that it had pooled and soaked into the grain.
"Was it Lucas?"
Timothy breathed. Sebastian shook his head.
The vampire finally turned. His face was grey, his eyes red-rimmed, his lips slightly parted like a man who had forgotten how to close his mouth.
"I felt him. I swear I felt him. He was calling my name. The bond was screaming. But I got here and—" He gestured at the empty cabin, the cold hearth, the silence.
"Nothing. He's gone. Or he was never here. Or I imagined the whole—"
"You didn't imagine it."
Zachary cut him off. "What?" Sebastian asked, bewildered. Zachary stared at the vampire and sighed. "You didn't imagine him calling to you. That's what being imprinted does to you."
"And you know this because?"
Zachary sighed deeply and looked at the cabin door before speaking, "Because I saw how my brother almost went crazy over it."