When I woke, the forest no longer smelled of blood.
It smelled of smoke.
Of pine needles.
Of something faintly metallic that clung to the back of my throat like a half-forgotten dream.
I blinked against the pale light trickling through wooden shutters. My skin was sticky with sweat, and my heartbeat was doing a fast, uneven dance. For a moment I didn't know where I was. Then I saw the heavy beams above me, the rough-spun blanket pulled over my legs, and the chair pulled close to my bedside.
Luca.
He was there—half-slumped, one arm draped over the armrest, breathing slow and steady. In the weak dawn glow, his hair caught threads of silver, almost glowing. A bruise darkened his jaw where something had clawed him, but the rest of him looked impossibly calm. As if danger had touched him only to remember who it was dealing with.
The last thing I remembered was the snarl in the trees. The eyes.
And then—Luca's hand pulling me out of the dark.
Now, the only sound was the slow crackle of a dying fire and the quiet reminder that I was still alive.
---
I pushed the blanket aside. My body protested with little jolts of pain—scratches, mostly—but nothing deep. Someone had cleaned the wounds. Someone had dressed me in a shirt that wasn't mine, oversized and smelling faintly of cedar and rain.
When I tried to stand, the floorboard creaked. Luca's eyes snapped open.
"Easy," he said, voice rough from sleep. "You were out for almost a day."
"A day?" My throat rasped. "Where are we?"
"My cabin. The others don't come this far out."
"The others?"
He hesitated, studying me as though weighing what the truth might cost him. "Hunters," he said finally. "And… things worse than hunters."
That wasn't an answer, but it was something.
---
He poured water into a cup and handed it to me. Our fingers brushed—nothing dramatic, just a moment of contact—but heat flickered up my arm all the same. I sipped the water and tried not to notice the way his eyes followed the movement.
"You shouldn't have been in the forest alone," he said.
"I wasn't alone," I murmured. "Until I was."
"Something chased you."
"Something," I repeated, because what else could I say? Something with silver eyes. Something that sounded like me.
His jaw tightened. "Did you see it clearly?"
I almost lied.
But the memory of those eyes pulsing in the dark felt too sharp to swallow. "No. Only… it felt familiar."
Luca's hand clenched around the cup. A muscle worked in his cheek before he said softly, "Familiar how?"
"Like it knew me."
That earned a silence thick enough to drown in.
---
Later, after I convinced him I could walk, he led me outside. The forest stretched endlessly, silver mist curling between the trunks. The air smelled damp and alive, as if the world was exhaling.
"This place—" I began.
"Old land," he said. "Most people forget how deep it runs."
He moved like he belonged here, steps sure, movements deliberate. Even the wind seemed to shift around him. Every instinct in me screamed that he was dangerous, but not in the way people meant. He was danger wrapped in restraint—something holding itself perfectly still to keep from breaking loose.
We stopped at a ridge overlooking a valley. From here, the world looked harmless: a thin river winding through pines, smoke from distant chimneys curling upward. Civilization pretending the wild didn't exist.
"What do you remember before the forest?" he asked suddenly.
I frowned. "Before…? I remember leaving town. The lights fading. The storm coming in."
"No," he said. "Before that."
His tone made me look at him. "Why are you asking?"
"Because that thing in the woods didn't choose you by chance."
---
We returned to the cabin before noon. The air had grown heavy, as if the forest was listening. Luca checked the windows, the locks, the faint circle of salt near the door. I watched him, and something about the ritual looked practiced—old.
Finally I asked, "What are you, Luca?"
He froze. Then a slow smile ghosted across his face. "What makes you think I'm not human?"
"Instinct," I said. "And the way the forest seems to listen when you breathe."
He didn't deny it. He only looked at me for a long, unreadable moment and said quietly, "You're not wrong."
The fire snapped between us. Outside, a crow called—sharp and distant.
Inside, the air thickened with unspoken things.
---
That night, I couldn't sleep. My skin felt too tight, like it was keeping secrets my mind hadn't caught up with. I paced to the window. The moon was a thin blade of white behind clouds.
I saw movement below the trees—quick, fluid. Not Luca.
Something else.
By the time I reached the door, Luca was already there, shirt half-buttoned, eyes alert. "Stay inside," he said.
"I saw—"
"I know."
He slipped out into the night without another word.
Minutes stretched. The forest whispered. My heartbeat tripped and stumbled.
When I couldn't stand it any longer, I followed.
---
The forest looked different under the moon. Shadows weren't just shadows; they breathed. Moved. I followed the faint sound of snapping twigs until I reached the clearing—the same one from before. The air smelled wrong. Like iron and rain.
Two shapes clashed in the darkness. I heard a low growl, then the sickening crack of impact. One of them—Luca—emerged into the moonlight. His eyes glowed faintly, not silver, not gold—something in between.
He was bleeding, but even wounded he looked almost otherworldly. The other figure vanished into the trees, leaving only the echo of its snarl.
When he saw me, he didn't speak. He just stood there, chest heaving, the night caught in his hair. Moonlight slicked over the veins on his arms. His breath came out in clouds.
"What did I tell you?" he said finally.
"Not to follow," I whispered. "But you were hurt."
He laughed once, low and incredulous. "You don't listen."
"Then tell me what's going on."
He stepped closer. The scent of rain and earth surrounded me. "If I tell you, you'll run."
"Try me."
For a heartbeat, I thought he might. Then his expression softened, the fight in him collapsing into something else—something almost tender.
"You should be afraid of me, Aria."
"Maybe I am," I said. "But not enough."
---
He turned away, running a hand through his hair. "The thing you saw—it wasn't hunting you. It was testing me."
"For what?"
"To see if I'd break the rules."
"What rules?"
He looked back at me. "The ones that keep our kind hidden."
Our kind.
The words rang through me like the toll of a bell. "You mean—"
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. The sound that drifted from deeper in the forest—half-howl, half-scream—finished it for him.
I realized then that the stories weren't stories. They were warnings.
And Luca wasn't just my rescuer.
He was one of them.
---
The next morning, sunlight streamed across the wooden floor, catching in dust motes like floating stars. Luca was gone. In his place, on the table, lay a folded piece of paper and a small silver charm shaped like a crescent.
The note read:
Trust the silence. It keeps you alive.
Beneath it, faint fingerprints smudged in ash—proof he'd been there. Proof he might come back.
I touched the charm, and the metal hummed faintly, as though responding to something inside me. When I closed my eyes, the hum grew louder—steady, rhythmic. Like a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
Outside, a wolf howled.
And deep inside me, something howled back.
---
The rest of the day blurred. I wandered the cabin, trying to piece together what any of this meant. Every sound from the woods made my pulse race. Every shadow looked like it could reach out and touch me.
By dusk, I found myself staring at my reflection in the window. My eyes—once an ordinary brown—caught the last sliver of sunlight and shimmered, just for a moment, silver.
The truth arrived like a cold wind.
Whatever hunted me in the woods wasn't a stranger.
It was kin.
And the pull I felt toward Luca wasn't just attraction. It was recognition.
---
That night, the sky tore open with thunder. The storm rolled through like an animal breaking free. I sat by the window, clutching the silver charm, listening to the rain. Every crash of lightning made the forest flash white for an instant, revealing fleeting shapes between the trees—too tall, too fast, too deliberate.
Something was calling me.
I should have ignored it. I tried. But my body moved before my mind agreed.
The rain hit like needles as I stepped outside. The air tasted alive. The trees leaned in, whispering in a language I almost understood. And somewhere ahead, I could feel Luca—his presence like static, magnetic, pulling.
When I reached the clearing, the storm stilled. The world held its breath.
He stood there, soaked, eyes glowing faintly. Not quite human, not quite beast. "You shouldn't have come," he said.
"I had to know."
"Know what?"
"What I am."
Lightning cracked across the sky, and for a split second, I saw my reflection in his eyes—silver, wild, untamed.
He whispered my name like a warning, but it sounded too much like a prayer.
---
And somewhere between the thunder and the silence, I realized the truth:
The story between us had never been about rescue.
It had always been about recognition—two creatures caught between sin and salvation, bound by the same moon