CHAPTER THREE

The first thing I notice when I open my eyes are the bright lights, and the second thing I notice is the strange figure sitting on the chair beside my bed. 

“You are still here?!” I murmur in shock as I recognise the person sitting on the chair as Lucien Blackwell.

“Where else would I be?” Lucien asks with a smirk on his lips, and if I didn't know better, I would say he's laughing at my predicament. 

“I don't know! Stuck in my imagination or something! How are you real?!” I ask in a frustrated and completely baffled tone as I stare at him the way one would stare at a lab rat. 

Lucien continues to watch me calmly as if he's already accepted this impossible reality. “The Inkwell.” He says simply, nodding to the object sitting on the desk, its surface gleaming in the light. 

I blink, still half-convinced that this is some bizarre dream. “The inkwell?” I echo, my voice wavering between disbelief and fear.

Lucien nods again, his expression softening just a fraction. “Yes. The inkwell you found in that quaint little shop. It’s no ordinary object, Emma. It carries power, ancient and beyond human understanding. When you wrote my story, it gave me form, substance… life.”

I stare at him, my mind reeling. The inkwell, the one I’d been so drawn to, the one the shopkeeper had warned me about, is responsible for this? “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper, more to myself than to him. “How can something I wrote become real? How can you be here?”

Lucien leans back in the chair, his dark eyes never leaving mine. “Because you willed it. The inkwell responds to the desires, the intentions of its owner. You created me, Emma. And now, here I am.”

I can’t wrap my head around this. Just hours ago, I was sitting at my desk, pouring my soul into a story that felt more real than anything I’d written in years. The words had flowed from me as if possessed, as if the story had been waiting for me to find it. But I never imagined… this.

“I need to wake up,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head. “This is just a dream. A really vivid, really strange dream.”

When I open my eyes again, Lucien is still there, a small, amused smile playing on his lips. “I assure you, Emma, this is no dream.”

I glance around my apartment, half-expecting the walls to start melting or something equally dreamlike, but everything remains stubbornly ordinary. Except, of course, for the impossibly handsome werewolf sitting beside my bed.

“What… what am I supposed to do with you?” I ask, feeling utterly lost.

Lucien tilts his head slightly, considering my question. “That depends on what you want, Emma. You brought me here, and now our fates are intertwined. You could choose to write me out of existence, but I suspect that’s not what you want.”

His words send a shiver down my spine. Write him out of existence? Is that really within my power now? The thought is both exhilarating and terrifying.

“I don’t even know what I want,” I admit, pulling the blanket tighter around myself. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I just wanted to write… to feel like myself again.”

Lucien’s gaze softens, and for the first time, I see a hint of sympathy in his eyes. “I understand. You were searching for something, and the inkwell gave it to you. But magic always comes with a price, Emma.”

My heart skips a beat. “A price?”

He nods gravely. “The inkwell’s magic is powerful, but it’s also unpredictable. It’s tied to your emotions, your deepest desires. You may think you’re in control, but the more you use it, the more it takes from you.”

His words send a shiver down my spine, but before I can respond, the lights in the room flicker—once, twice—then go out completely, plunging us into darkness.

“Lucien?” I call out, my voice shaky as I fumble for the lamp on my bedside table. My fingers finally find the switch, but the light doesn’t come on.

“I’m here,” Lucien’s voice reassures me from the darkness, but there’s an edge to it now, something that makes my pulse quicken with unease.

Before I can ask what’s wrong, a strange, otherworldly noise echoes through the room—like the rustling of paper mixed with a low, ominous hum. It’s coming from the direction of the desk, from where the inkwell sits.

“Get away from it!” Lucien’s command slices through the dark, urgent and laced with fear. But I’m frozen in place, my eyes locked on the faint, eerie glow now emanating from the inkwell. The room fills with an unnatural energy, thick and heavy, making it hard to breathe.

Then, out of nowhere, a gust of wind whips through the room, strong enough to knock over the chair by my desk and scatter papers across the floor. I stumble back, heart pounding in my chest, as the inkwell begins to pulse with light—bright, blinding, and utterly terrifying.

“Emma, move!” Lucien’s voice cuts through the chaos, but before I can react, something slams into me with the force of a truck, knocking the breath from my lungs. I’m thrown to the ground, the world spinning around me, as darkness swallows everything whole.

The last thing I hear before losing consciousness is Lucien shouting my name. 

Then, nothing.