The truth remains.
There will be no mate.
No hearth.
No future carved from anything but ruin.
No son to inherit this curse.
No legacy beyond the ending I will force into existence.
The line ends with me.
It must.
The hunger surges again—but this time, it changes.
Not rage.
Not mindless need.
Something sharper.
Focused.
Aware.
I freeze.
The wind shifts.
A scent rides it—subtle, distant, carried from the direction of the portal hidden deep within the forests of Earth.
The one that opens in that strange mortal place.
New Jersey.
I have watched it countless times.
Observed from shadow.
Detached.
Unmoved.
Until now.
This is different.
Soft.
Alive.
But layered with something older.
Something… familiar.
Not prey.