A ripple passed through the wards around Mystic Falls — subtle to most, nearly invisible to any human eye, but Matteo Le Rouge felt it like a tremor under his skin.
The moment his boot touched the soft, mossy earth at the border of the town, the wind shifted.
The scent was wrong.
Old pine and bloodroot. Wilted flowers. But laced beneath that?
Rot.
Not of death — no, Matteo had seen death in too many forms to mistake it. This was something... older. Unnatural.
Predatory.
His bright blue eyes narrowed. Flashing golden.
The forest welcomed him like an old friend, but it also whispered warnings in a tongue only his kind understood. Magic born of bloodlines and ancient oaths stirred around his ankles like smoke, slithering toward the source of disruption.
He placed a hand on the bark of an old oak tree and whispered in Le Rouge tongue — a language older than Latin and forgotten by most.
"Who hunts?"
There was no verbal reply.
Only feeling — a rising pressure that made his bones ache and his teeth clench.
Something had entered the woods. Something dark. And it wasn't here for the town.
It was here for his son.
He inhaled slowly, pulse steady. "I'm coming, piccolino," he murmured. "You will not be touched."
Then, without another word, Matteo disappeared into the forest's shadows — silent as a ghost.
Damon sat at the edge of the garden fountain, shoulders hunched, fingers twisting in his lap. The stone beneath him was cool, the sound of trickling water distant and soft, but it did little to calm the hurricane inside his chest.
He stayed at his reflection in the water — tired, eyes rimmed red, lips still faintly swollen from earlier kisses. A teeth mark still lingered on his neck, tinged with magic, the echo of Klaus's bite thrummed in his skin.
He'd gone to the forest with need.
He'd come back changed.
A golden phoenix now pulsed beneath Klaus's skin, the evidence of something he never meant to give. A bond. A tether. A mark he didn't understand.
"I didn't know," Damon whispered to himself.
"I didn't mean to."
His voice cracked. He dragged both hands through his hair, frustrated tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.
It was all spiralling. Again.
The witch had nearly killed him.
Elena — Elena, who used to be his entire world — had tired to rip him apart.
And now, somehow, by needing someone, by being weak for once, he'd thrown the balance of the Mikaelsons into chaos. Pitting brother against brother. Drawing Klaus deeper into something... irreversible.
"God," he breathed out. "Why do I always fuck everything up?"
He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, fingers trembling.
"I didn't ask for this," he muttered. "I didn't ask to be magic. I didn't ask to be part of some ancient family line. I didn't want to feel anything for those smug, gorgeous, muderous bastards."
His voice broke again on a laugh. "And yet here I am. Falling for three brother. And branding one of them like he's mine."
He sat in the garden, curled forward, breath shivering in his lungs.
"I'm a damn burden," he said quietly.
He didn't see the gold flicker behind his eyes, didn't notice the subtle glow that shimmered just below his skin. But the magic heard him. And it disagreed.
You are not a burden, it whispered.
He shivered and looked up.
That's when he felt it.
A ripple in the air — not cold, not hostile.
Warm. Familiar.
Safe.
It came from the east. From the forest. Slow and ancient and impossibly powerful. It didn't feel like magic he'd known before. It didn't even feel like his own, not exactly.
But it called to him. Like a star pulling him back into orbit.
Damon stood slowly.
He took a step toward the tree-line, breath hitched.
The sensation only grew stronger. Like the air itself recognised him — like the trees remembered his name.
His pulse sped up, lips parting.
"...What is that?"
He closed his eyes, trying to focus.
The magic tasted like citrus and smoke. Like old lullabies. Like the warmth of a fire he hadn't sat near since childhood. It didn't force its way into his veins.
It sang to his bones.
It was like being held from afar. Like a hand brushing through his hair the way his mother used to do when he was small. Like a whisper in a language he'd forgotten but never stopped understanding.
He blinked, and tears slipped down his cheeks.
"Why does it feel like... home?"
A breeze danced around him, lifting his hair, curling around his wrist like a thread. His magic trembled in response — eager, uncertain, almost childlike in its reaction.
It knew.
Whatever that presence was — it was connected to him.
His heart pounded in his chest. Not from fear.
From hope.
But beneath that...
A shadow stirred in the east.
Not the warm magic.
Not his father.
Something else.
And it was watching.
Matteo's boots pressed into damp earth as he stopped near a clearing cloaked in ancient witch markings.
The darkness gathered here was not natural. It pulsed like a curse. Malevolent. Focused.
"Show yourself," Matteo called, his voice calm but sharp. "I know you're here."
The shadows twisted
Something old and faceless — formed of hate and hunger — hovered at the edge of the tress. It had no form. Not yet. But it reeked of ancient power and unfinished purpose.
"You smell of broken oaths," Matteo said, narrowing his eyes. "Of blackened covens and bastard rituals. Why are you hunting my blood?"
The thing didn't answer — only hissed, retreating deeper into the forest.
Coward, Matteo thought, but didn't chase it. Not yet.
He turned toward the faint pulse of his son's magic — golden, confused, but alive.
Soon, he would go to him. But first, he would uncover what darkness had entered the game.
And he would destroy it.
•········ʚ 🩸🩸🩸 ɞ ········•∘
Took a bit to actually write this. I will be posing regularly with this book again, I hope you enjoyed my darlings
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Their Raven
FanfictionDamon has spent a century as a vampire, believing that his immortal life began when he was turned but when long-buried memories resurface, he discovers a shocking truth before he became a vampire he was a witch, a powerful one. As a child, Damon wie...
