SKOLL

The second we walked into The Red Veil Lounge, I wanted to leave.

The air was thick with heat and perfume, bodies pressed too close, laughter too loud, voices too fake. Sweat and lust clung to the walls. The kind of place that tried to convince you it was alive—but all I smelled was rot and desperation under the glitter.

Lucien moved through the place like he owned it, flashing a tight smile here, a chin lift there, shaking a hand and light, friendly kisses on the cheek with women as we passed through.

He looked like control, power in a tailored suit and heads turned when they saw us—when they saw him. When they saw me.

A ripple moved through the lounge like a shift in the wind and whispers followed.

“Is that—?”

“That’s the Ulfric boy—”

“The Lycan who vanished...”

“Didn’t he kill his brother?”

I didn’t slow and didn’t care. Let them stare and whisper. Let them remember because at the end of the day? I didn’t disappear quietly, I went out in blood.

Bodies were left behind—broken, burned, bled dry. Fucking names erased and families shattered. Every single one of them tied to Kane’s death, they all paid.

Some screamed. Some begged but none of them stopped me and that was what they remembered. Not the silence, nor the carnage. The rage. The fallout.

That’s what painted the name Skoll Ulfric in red. And now that I was back? They knew better than to speak it too loud—because if I was here, someone was going to bleed.

Lucien moved through the bodies like he was born for this—soaking in the stares, feeding off the whispers. He always had. But not like these preening, money-drunk supernaturals clawing for relevance.

Lucien didn’t need noise. He wore his power like a knife beneath fine fabric—polished, patient, always ready to cut.

That’s why we worked.

Before I vanished into the wild, he was my right hand—the one I trusted with the Pit, with my empire, with my name. And now, walking beside him again, I saw how well control suited him.

Power bent toward Lucien. Not out of fear, but calculation. Respect. Because he made people feel like they belonged… right before he ripped it away.

And beneath all that charm, beneath the cool precision—he still gave a damn. Maybe not about them, but about order. About me.

He kept the Pit from crumbling. Didn’t chase me when I disappeared. Didn’t ask questions. Not until a few days ago.

I didn’t just lose my brother to that mystery drug—Lucien lost his fiancée. My sister. Collateral damage when Kane spiraled into violent withdrawal. And still, Lucien stayed. Focused on the Pit. On the kingdom.

While I walked away.

And now—despite all that calm, all that control—when the drug resurfaced, he found me. Dirt-caked. Ghost-ridden. Hollowed out. And he didn’t hesitate.

Lucien never needed proof of blood. He just needed to see the fire in my eyes hadn’t gone out. And in his own way… that meant something.

A hostess, in a crimson dress that barely clung to her hips stepped in front of us, her expression too polished to be real. She gave Lucien the once-over, licked her lips. “Your booth is ready,” she purred, her voice the kind men paid to hear.

I didn’t speak. Just followed as she led us past dancers, drunk elite, and supernaturals pretending they mattered. The music vibrated through my ribs, low and steady.

The VIP section was tucked into the far corner of the lounge—dark, semi-private, faintly warded for noise. The kind of place where secrets got traded, and deals got sealed in blood or worse.

I claimed a seat, taking the spot with my back to the wall. Leather creaked under me. The table was obsidian glass, reflective enough to see my own eyes glaring back.

“If Jason wastes our time, I’ll put him through the fucking table.” I said.

Lucien took a seat to my right, his voice low and even. “His name’s Jasko,” he said, and kept going. “Dmitri vouched for him. And since the call for information went out—promises of payment for anything on the supplier, this lead stood out. He knew about the vials. Not many know about the vials, or what color the substance even is.”

That name hit wrong, for the hundredth time since I returned to the city.

Dmitri. I clenched my jaw, the memory flickering up behind my eyes—his uncle’s obsession and the blood left behind when it was already too fucking late.

Lucien must’ve felt the shift in me because he added—without looking—“I’m not arguing about Dmitri with you, again.” A pause. Another beat passed between us. My pulse slowed, but not by much.

“Didn’t ask you to,” I muttered but the taste in my mouth turned bitter all the same.

Lucien exhaled. “As I digress, the lead is thin,” he admitted. “But it’s something.”

“You’re now telling me that it’s a thin lead.”

“You wouldn’t have come.”

“Why did you need me to come, if this may be a waste of time?”

Lucien was quiet for a moment, before he answered. “You walk into a room and silence follows. That kind of silence? It shakes loose truth—or fear. Maybe both.”

In other words, my friend doesn’t need me to lead and nor has he insisted on it. He needs me to provoke. Stir the shadows and that’s strategic, not sentimental. He’s weaponizing my presence.

A VIP booth next to us erupted in laughter—something shrill, ugly, and I fought the urge to bare my teeth.

Lucien looked at me, brow raised. “You promised to play nice.”

“Sounds less like you need me to behave but too remind those who they crossed.”

Before my friend could reply, a waitress came by—legs too long, smile too practiced. Her dress barely clung to her frame, made of slivers of gold chains linked together. As she leaned toward Lucien, her scent washed over the table—salt water and night-blooming jasmine with something darker beneath, like the ocean floor after a storm.

Her dark waves brushed over his shoulders as she greeted him and whispered something against his ear.

Lucien smiled, hand grazing her lower back, eyes lingering and then he laughed with what was exchanged between them.

The waitress giggled and then stepped back, still watching my friend as she asked. “The usual?”

Lucien’s smile deepened, “Black Lotus. Neat.”

Her throat bobbed, and she gave a quick nod before asking me. “And you?”

“Tehom Burn.”

Her eyes widened. “Full strength?”

“If it doesn’t claw its way up and burn the throat, it’s not strong enough.”

She nodded, swallowing hard, and vanished without another word.

Lucien chuckled low, “Still drinking demon fire?”

I leaned back, eyes scanning the room. “Still pretending that fae nectar doesn’t rot your spine?”

He lifted a brow, that smug smirk still tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s not the drink rotting me. It’s this city... and that damn drug resurfacing after five years.”

“And it can’t be traced through a normal blood test,” I pointed out.

“We never would’ve spotted it if that one fighter hadn’t started a brawl,” Lucien added and I recalled the video he had shown me days after returning to the city.

The fighter was clearly drunk, sloppy and he shattered the jaw of a sponsor before Lucien’s men dragged him off. The fighter looked normal, and a little wired. A little too strong but after seventy two hours in detainment? He started begging to be released and claimed that Lucien and his men didn’t understand what would happen.

His withdrawals were kicking in. Convulsions. Sweating. Hallucinations and eyes rimmed in black, like his body was rotting from the inside out.

It was similar… but different from Kane.

The drug hadn’t been refined back then. With my brother, the change was obvious—violent and fast. We watched it eat him from the inside out, and didn’t know that Kane was on any drug. The way my brother’s bones cracked beneath his skin, still echoed through memory.

The flicker in his eyes before I put down my own flesh and blood.

The man Lucien had detained? Four days later without the drug and he wasn’t a man anymore. Just a twitching, shrieking shell, and Lucien’s men had to put him down like a rabid dog.

There were too many questions, like who was the supplier and why? Was this a war on the supernaturals? A genocide? Or just greed dressed in blood and bone.

Either way—someone’s going to bleed for it.

The waitress returned, heels clicking, hips swaying like she knew she was being watched. Her tray held both glasses: one filled with shadows and embers, the other glowing faintly like moonlight trapped in syrup.

Her dress caught the low light, the fine gold chain at her throat trailing down, and vanishing beneath the edge of her neckline.

She set Lucien’s glass down first. “Black Lotus. Neat,” she purred, her fingers brushing his as she placed the drink.

Then mine. “Tehom Burn. Full strength,” And she gave me a small smile.

Lucien gave a quiet hum of approval, raising his glass. “Perfect, as always.”

As she turned to leave, his hand slid along her waist, catching her just enough to make her pause. He leaned in, pressing a kiss low against her back—just above the curve of her hip.

“Tell your manager he still owes me for last week’s favor,” Lucien murmured against her skin.

She shivered and walked off without a word, but the smile she wore was pure sin.

I watched her go, then turned back to Lucien, eyebrow raised. “What’s her name?”

Lucien sipped his drink, slow and unbothered. “Camille.”

“She’s gorgeous. What is she?”

“Siren. She’s a good girl, and occasionally sings at the Lounge.”

I grunted, eyes tracking her until she vanished past the thin curtain. “If she can twist a man’s spine with a smile, I don’t want her breathing near mine.”

“They’re not all bad,” Lucien chuckled, low. “Just that one siren that played you back in highschool.”

Maybe. But I knew better.

Sirens were dangerous—because while we Lycans are immune to most forms of magik, their brand of sorcery wasn’t about spells or incantations. It’s older. Slippery. Woven into sound, scent, sensation. It doesn’t hit the brain—it soaks into the blood.

They don’t command you. They don’t bind your limbs or fog your mind. They make you feel. Make you want and that’s worse, because you still think it’s your idea.

Their voices don’t enchant—they excavate.

They find the crack in your armor, the memory that still stings, the ache you buried and forgot. Then they sing right into it.

Suddenly, a scent amongst many carried magik. Not the normal scent, this one was faint, but sour. Twisted. Like cursed ash after a botched ward—burnt edges of power that had frayed from overuse or gone wrong entirely.

Lucien’s nostrils flared and I felt my own jaw tighten. We were Lycans. Immune to most magik, but we could smell it. Sense it, especially when it was broken.

When it didn’t want to be touched and someone here broke a magik spell, that they were never meant to fuck with.

I knocked back my drink. Fire clawed down my throat like a beast let loose, and it would have felt fucking fantastic, if I wasn’t so on edge.

Lucien leaned back, eyes tracking the floor searching beyond the glass railing. Watching the many bodies moving around us, dancing and socializing. “We’ve got company.”

My gaze followed his—past the bodies and landed on the man weaving through the crowd like he didn’t want to be seen.

Jasko.

He was young and wiry, nervous and with a tray in hand. Rag over his shoulder. Sweat lining his temples even though the lounge was chilled.

Jasko was trying too hard to look normal and doing a shit job of it, as his eyes flicked to our booth. Too fast. Too direct and Lucien didn’t move as the informant approached, just kept sipping his drink.

The man stopped at our table, adjusted his collar, and smiled like he wasn’t already halfway to dead.

-

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