Becoming Bait | ONC 2026

Peer pressure can be deadly.

Discovering that the parents of your closest friend are hunters of all things supernatural is bad enough. Saying no when that same friend insists you join their next so-called "hunt" is worse.

Cassius Thorne wants nothing to do with anything outside the realm of reality. The hunt is supposed to be his first and last. No one expects him to throw himself in front of a rabid werewolf. Much less to survive the bite. Instead of being stunned by his heroism, the werewolf steals the spotlight by dropping dead.

What should have been a miracle becomes a sentence.

Unable to refuse the girl he loves-or the hunters who now see him as a weapon-Cassius is forced to join their ranks. Again and again, he's sent out to lure werewolves into traps. Sometimes he's bitten. Sometimes the hunters are fast enough. Every time, his body pays the price.

Either way, the role is the same.

He is the bait.

When compassion for a werewolf pup sparks retaliation, the monsters strike back by taking what the hunters value most-their living weapon. Taken by the very creatures he was used to drawing in and destroying, he finally understood the truth.

He knew what it meant to be bait for monsters.

He never imagined becoming bait for his own kind.

ONC 2026 Prompt #120

You survive a werewolf bite because your blood carries a rare, deadly condition that poisons them and now you hunt werewolves by letting them bite you.