The village had always whispered of the pact. Nestled in the shadow of a jagged mountain range, its cobbled streets and timber-framed cottages survived only because something vast and merciless prowled above. Long before anyone living could remember, the first settlers had cut too deeply into the mountain, disturbing what slumbered within. A great black dragon had risen from the depths, its wings eclipsing the sun, its tail crashing through stone towers as if they were brittle kindling. Yet instead of annihilating them outright, the beast offered a choice: the village would give her offerings, and in return the dragon would guard the town from plagues, warlords, and rival creatures that lurked beyond the dark forests. Fearful but desperate, the people agreed. From then on, the villagers filled carts with gold, jewels, and relics when the moon was swollen and pale.

The dragon was a wyvern of terrible elegance, scaled in obsidian so dark it seemed to devour light. Her wings spanned wider than the rooftops of the entire town square, membranes veined with silver that shimmered under starlight. Her tail ended in a barbed stinger that dripped venom sharp enough to fell a hundred soldiers. The villagers called her a demon, though what she truly was lay somewhere between dragon and something far older, a creature tied to fate and the binding of promises.

But this year, something shifted. The villagers had expected to heap their offerings of treasure as always, yet when the herald came down from the mountain, the message was different. The dragon had spoken, and she had chosen not gold nor gemstones, but a woman. Whispers spread quickly through the crooked lanes: a virgin, untainted by flesh or vow. Some muttered that this was why the beast had marked you, that purity held a weight heavier than gold in such dark bargains.The beast had demanded that her tribute walked into the forest alone, not as a token of wealth but as a living presence, one that the beast herself had demanded. The town trembled at this change; for centuries their riches had sufficed. But who were they to deny her? The pact kept them alive, and so—you were sent beneath the lantern-lit canopy, your every step echoing with the knowledge that you had been marked—not by chance, but by the will of the creature that guarded them.

The forest seemed to bend closer, as though listening. Owls stirred from their perches, and silence thickened as the woods deepened. At the edge of a moss-strewn clearing, shadows pulled themselves into shape.

A figure stepped forward, five foot one yet commanding, her presence cutting through the hush of the trees. She looked no older than twenty-three, though her eyes held the same ageless chill as the mountain itself. Wednesday Addams. Her hair was parted into two neat braids that lay against her chest, blunt bangs framing her pale face. Her dark brown eyes locked forward, steady but with the faintest flicker of brightness, as though some quiet thrill stirred behind the dark gaze. She had not simply accepted the tribute offered. She had chosen it. She had chosen you.

Dressed in black, her silhouette carried something inhuman—like the echo of wings folded too tightly against skin, like the faint gleam of scales hiding beneath the surface of flesh. When she spoke, her tone was level, yet undercut with an energy that gave the words weight, as if they had been waiting too long to be uttered.

“You came,” Wednesday said, her voice a low thread that seemed to curl around the trees. The faint lift at the corner of her lips suggested a satisfaction she did not name. “At last, to be mine.”

The forest seemed to lean inward, the air heavy with smoke and the quiet pulse of heat, as though the dragon within her exhaled just beneath the surface.