The clocktower of Blackthorn Hall stood as it
had for centuries, its iron hands frozen at
midnight. Thomas Wren had not set foot in the
estate since the night he fled, tail between his
legs, after being accused of embezzlement and
treason. The scandal had ruined him, his name
erased from society’s ledgers, his title
stripped by Parliament. Now, with no family left
and no fortune, he returned not as a lord but as
a ghost.
The village of Blackthorn had changed little.
Cobblestones still cracked underfoot, and the
scent of damp wool and coal smoke clung to the
air. But the people avoided his gaze. Whispers
followed him through the streets—of a curse, of
blood on the walls, of a beast that prowled the
woods beyond the moor. He dismissed them as
superstition, until the first howl split the
night.
Thomas found the body in the east wing, slumped
against the grand piano where his mother once
played. The corpse was that of Sir Edmund Harrow,
the man who had framed him. A knife protruded
from his chest, its hilt carved with the sigil
of the Wren family. The room reeked of iron and
decay.
The villagers claimed the werewolf had taken him.
Thomas scoffed, but the next night, the creature
came for him. It did not break down the door; it
simply appeared, a mass of sinew and teeth, its
eyes glowing like coals. He barely escaped, his
ribs screaming, his boots soaked in mud as he
ran into the moor.
He stumbled upon the old chapel, halfburied in
brambles. Inside, a faded tapestry depicted a
wolfheaded figure standing beside a crowned man.
The inscription read: “When the moon bleeds, the
oath is broken.” Thomas remembered the pact his
father had made with the beast—a secret
agreement to protect the Wren line in exchange
for blood. His father had failed. His brother
had failed. Now, it was his turn.
The villagers would not let him stay. They
blamed him for the killings, for the curse. When
he tried to explain, they threw stones. One
struck him in the temple, and he fell,
unconscious, into the river.
He woke days later in the ruins of the chapel,
the wolf standing over him. This time, it did
not attack. Instead, it placed a clawed hand on
his chest, pressing hard. Pain lanced through
him, and he saw visions—his father signing the
pact, his brother’s betrayal, the night his wife
died, her blood staining the floorboards. The
wolf was not a monster. It was a judge.
Thomas knew what he had to do. He returned to
the hall, climbed the clocktower, and stood
beneath the frozen hands. With a single motion,
he pulled the chain that controlled the
mechanism. The hands moved. The clock struck
once. Then twice. Then twelve.
The sky turned red. The moor roared with the
sound of howls. And when the final chime rang
out, the wolf vanished, its form dissolving into
mist. The clocktower crumbled behind him, stone
and iron collapsing into the earth.
Thomas Wren walked away, a free man, but forever
marked. The villagers called him mad. The
newspapers called him a murderer. But in the
silence of the moor, the wolf’s voice echoed in
his mind: “The oath is broken. The blood is paid.
”
