The Last Dinner / The Wolf Unbound

The summons arrived at dusk, written in Lysander’s precise, cold handwriting:
> “Family supper. Attendance required.”


No seal, no signature. Just that sentence — a blade disguised as courtesy.
Aiden read it twice before folding the parchment carefully, fingers trembling not from fear but from fury. He knew what it meant. He had sensed it coming for weeks, the whispers in the corridors, the servants’ sidelong glances. The noose was tightening. Tonight would be the final pull.
He dressed deliberately. No attendants, no house colors. Only black — the shade of mourning, of rebellion, of wolves that hunt alone. Outside his window, thunder murmured low over the Rhadell estate; rain threatened the horizon like a promise.
When he finally stepped into the dining hall, the air was already thick with tension.
The table gleamed with silver and wine. Lord Rhadell sat at its head, broad shoulders stiff beneath ceremonial robes. To his right, his son — Lysander.
Aiden’s pulse stumbled for half a breath. Lysander looked carved from marble tonight: tall, sharp-jawed, his pale hair tied back, the faintest shadow of exhaustion beneath his eyes. He didn’t look up as Aiden entered, but Aiden felt the pull all the same — that familiar ache in his chest that never quite faded, even after everything.
He took his seat opposite them, the silence stretching taut.
Only the rain began to fall — soft at first, then steady, drumming against the arched windows.
“Wine?” Lysander asked without looking at him.
Aiden’s smile was brittle. “Is that an offer or an order?”
“Both,” Lord Rhadell replied instead, voice heavy. “You’ll need it.”
Two servants moved to pour. Aiden waved them off. “I prefer a clear head tonight.”
That earned a faint, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of Lysander’s mouth. It wasn’t quite a smirk, but not sympathy either.
Lord Rhadell cleared his throat. “We won’t waste time on pleasantries. My son has something to say.”
Finally, Lysander’s gaze lifted.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the space between them — two men bound by duty, betrayal, and the ghosts of something that might once have been love.
“Aiden,” Lysander said, his tone formal, distant. “This… arrangement between our Houses has served its purpose. You’ve been cared for. Sheltered. But your instability has become a liability.”
Aiden tilted his head. “Instability?”
“You disappear for hours. You disobey my father’s orders. You’ve become unpredictable. It’s time to dissolve this union.”
The words hit like stones. Not unexpected — but still, hearing them aloud twisted something deep inside.
“So,” Aiden said quietly, “you want a divorce.”
“I’m demanding one.”
Lord Rhadell leaned forward. “You will sign the papers. Tonight. Peacefully, if you have sense.”
Aiden looked from one to the other — father and son, predator and heir — and for the first time, he didn’t feel small. The months of drugs, of silence, of obedience had burned away into something sharper.
“Of course,” he said. “If that’s what the Rhadells desire.”
Lysander blinked, almost surprised by the easy agreement. “You’ll sign?”
“Yes.” He reached for the document slid across the table, scanned the fine print. Each word dripped with deceit: forfeiture of estate shares, revocation of inheritance, confinement to a “private convalescence home.”
A gilded prison.
He met Lysander’s eyes and smiled faintly. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“I always do,” Lysander replied.
Aiden signed. The quill scratched across parchment, sealing his own disappearance — or so they thought.
When he set the pen down, his fingers brushed against the table’s underside, just for a moment. A soft click. Hidden in the carved wood was a small metallic device no bigger than a coin — one of the last gifts smuggled to him by an old ally. It pulsed once, faint blue light hidden from view.
Tracker activated.
He straightened, calm as ever. “There. Satisfied?”
Lord Rhadell took the paper, inspected it, and gave a curt nod. “You’ve done the right thing, boy. Now perhaps you can rest in peace.”
The phrasing wasn’t accidental.
Lysander’s jaw tightened. “He’ll be escorted back to his quarters,” he said. “And tomorrow—”
“No.” Aiden rose smoothly. “I’ll escort myself.”
The guards shifted uneasily, but a flick of Lysander’s hand stopped them.
“Let him go,” Lysander said, voice low.
Their eyes met again, and for an instant — just one — Aiden thought he saw something flicker behind the mask. Regret? Memory? It was gone before he could name it.
He turned, cloak brushing the marble as he strode from the room.
Behind him, Lord Rhadell’s voice was a growl. “You’re too lenient with him, Lysander.”
And Lysander’s reply, barely audible through the rain: “You don’t know him like I do.”

---
Outside, the storm had broken.
Thunder split the sky, rain spilling in torrents across the courtyard stones. Aiden paused under the archway, inhaling the scent of wet earth and freedom. His heart pounded, not with fear but exhilaration.
In his pocket, the tracker blinked once — signaling its twin hidden in the house’s old servant tunnels. If the Rhadells tried to find him, the signal would lead them in circles.
He looked back only once. Through the rain-streaked windows, he could see Lysander still seated, motionless, the candlelight cutting hard angles across his face.
Lightning flashed. For a heartbeat, it illuminated everything — the hall, the guards, the cold perfection of the man who had once been his salvation and his ruin.
Then Aiden turned away and vanished into the storm.Rain swallowed the night.
By the time Aiden cleared the lower courtyard, his cloak was plastered to his shoulders, the fabric heavy and cold. Lightning chased him through the maze of hedges and carved stone. The estate that had once been his prison now loomed like a fortress in the storm—each tower gleaming pale when the sky flared, then sinking again into darkness.
He didn’t run blindly. Every turn, every hidden door had been memorised months ago while the drug fog still dulled his mind. He had forced himself to remember, mapping each corridor in whispers and scratches on the wall. Now, that memory kept him alive.
He slipped through a servants’ gate behind the stables, boots sinking into mud. The air smelled of iron and rain-wet hay. Somewhere above, a horn sounded—short, sharp, alarm.
They’d noticed.
Aiden smiled grimly. Let them chase.

---
Inside the manor, Lysander stood at the tall windows of the dining room, watching the storm rip apart the sky. The guards’ torches danced across the grounds below, scattered lights searching the dark. His father barked orders behind him, furious.
“He’s escaped through the lower gate,” a soldier reported. “We’ve loosed the hounds.”
Lysander said nothing. His eyes followed the treeline beyond the outer wall, where the shadows grew thick. He could almost see the path Aiden would take—toward the old woods, the river crossing, the border hills. Always the same direction, he thought. He never looks back.
“Bring him back alive,” Lord Rhadell snapped. “We’ll have witnesses to his madness.”
Lysander turned then, his face unreadable. “Alive,” he repeated softly, and left the room before anyone could stop him.

---
The forest met Aiden like a second breath. Rain fell harder under the canopy, branches cracking beneath his boots. The cold bit into his skin, but it felt clean—pure in a way nothing in that house ever had. He moved fast, heart hammering, the hidden tracker in his pocket pulsing faintly against his palm. Each blink confirmed the decoy was working: the Rhadells’ men would be running circles through the tunnels.
Still, he could hear pursuit. Distant voices, the baying of hounds. Too close.
He pushed harder, lungs burning, until the trees thinned and he stumbled into a clearing. The moon broke through for a breath—silver on wet grass, silver on his shaking hands. He hadn’t realised how badly he was bleeding; a torn sleeve showed a gash down his arm, dark with rain and blood.
He wrapped it quickly with the edge of his cloak, cursing softly.
A branch cracked behind him.
He froze.
“Don’t move,” a voice said—quiet, rough, not one of the Rhadells’. “You make a sound, and I decide you’re not worth saving.”
Aiden slowly turned.
A man stood half-hidden beneath a pine, crossbow raised. Tall, broad-shouldered, soaked to the bone. His coat bore no crest, only the dull gleam of metal at his belt. The eyes that met Aiden’s were amber—feral, assessing.
“I’m not your enemy,” Aiden said carefully.
“Everyone says that,” the stranger replied. “Until I find a knife in my ribs.”
Another flash of lightning lit the space between them. The stranger’s gaze lingered on Aiden’s torn sleeve, the blood, the noble fabric of his cloak. Recognition flickered. “Veylor,” he murmured. “So the rumours are true.”
“Who are you?” Aiden asked.
“Someone who hates the Rhadells more than you do,” the man said, lowering the bow. “Name’s Kael.”

---
They took shelter in a ruined watchtower a mile deeper into the forest. The walls were cracked, but a fire hissed in the hearth within minutes—Kael moved like a man used to surviving storms. Aiden sat opposite him, shivering, watching the flames catch.
“You shouldn’t have helped me,” Aiden said. “They’ll hunt anyone who does.”
Kael shrugged. “They already hunt me. You just gave them another reason.”
He passed over a strip of cloth. “Wrap that arm.”
Aiden did, fingers clumsy. Kael’s hands came to help, rough but careful. The silence between them was thick—filled with the sound of rain on stone, the soft pull of fabric, the closeness of two people who didn’t yet know if they could trust each other.
When Kael finished, he didn’t step back immediately. His gaze stayed on Aiden’s face, searching. “You’ve been through hell,” he said quietly.
Aiden met his eyes. “Hell looks different depending on who’s holding the leash.”
For a moment neither spoke. The air between them carried warmth that had nothing to do with the fire.
Then Kael rose, tossing another log into the flames. “Rest. At first light we move west, before the patrols cross the ridge.”
Aiden leaned back against the cold wall. The exhaustion he’d fought for weeks finally caught him; his eyelids grew heavy. He heard Kael settle near the doorway, keeping watch, the faint clink of his weapon as he shifted.
For the first time in months, Aiden slept without the taste of poison on his tongue.

---
When dawn came, pale and shrouded in mist, the two men were gone from the tower. The hounds reached the clearing an hour later, noses pressed to the ground, but the rain had washed the scent away. Only the remnants of the fire remained—embers like dying stars, whispering that the wolf was no longer chained.