The town of Everglow had a quiet that made even the wind seem like an intruder. It wasn't the peaceful kind of silence that came with early mornings—it was the kind that carried weight, that pressed against the lungs and made every exhale feel too loud. The streets were narrow and cobbled, the stones damp with the memory of last night's rain. Houses leaned close to one another as if whispering secrets, their windows reflecting slivers of pale light from the reluctant dawn.
Raya Ash walked slowly, her boots clicking faintly against the stones. A gray scarf was wrapped snugly around her neck, the ends fluttering when the wind snuck through the street's crooked turns. She pulled it tighter, though the chill biting at her skin wasn't from the cold. It was something else—the strange heaviness in the air, the feeling that unseen eyes traced her every step.
She had come here for research. For answers. For stories that others had dismissed as myths.
Everglow was known for its folklore—legends of creatures that ruled the night, of wolves that could take human form, of Alphas who commanded both fear and devotion. She had read about them in forgotten journals, scribbled notes in the margins of yellowed pages. Every account spoke with a mixture of awe and terror. She thought herself prepared to face whatever truth lay beneath those tales. She thought reason and logic could shield her.
She had been wrong.
The first warning came not as a sight, but a sound—subtle, deliberate, wrong.
Something between a whisper and a growl, low enough that she might have missed it if her senses weren't already strained to breaking. Raya stopped mid-step, her breath catching in the cold air. The world around her seemed to still—the rustle of leaves, the drip of rain from the eaves, even the faint hum of morning life. Everything paused.
Then it came again.
From the alley beside the abandoned apothecary—a sound like a footstep, but too soft, too precise. Raya's hand went to the dagger she kept concealed beneath her coat, fingers brushing the familiar weight of it. It was a laughably small weapon for someone walking into the heart of local superstition, but it gave her courage all the same.
She turned her head slowly.
A figure stepped from the shadowed mouth of the alley. Tall. Still. Every line of his body honed to something dangerous. The sunlight caught on his hair—dark, like the color of blood dried on steel—and when his gaze lifted to meet hers, the world narrowed to a single, burning point. Red.
Eyes that glowed faintly even in the daylight. Eyes that didn't blink, didn't waver, that looked through her rather than at her.
She'd heard that name before. Niel Amdy.
The people of Evershade spoke it in half-whispers, as though the syllables themselves might summon him. The Mad Alpha—a creature of power and unpredictability, the ruler of the northern forests where no human dared to tread.
Some said he was a man once; others swore he had never been anything but a monster wearing human skin.
And now, he stood before her.
Her throat went dry. Her feet wanted to move, to flee, yet she was rooted in place, bound by something invisible and magnetic that pulsed between them.
"You shouldn't be here."
His voice carried easily across the few feet of space, low and smooth, but edged with something primal. Each word vibrated in her bones.
"I—" Raya swallowed, forcing her voice to work. "I'm just passing through. I didn't mean to—"
He tilted his head slightly, studying her like one might study a puzzle.
"Passing through," he repeated softly. "And armed?"
Her fingers twitched around the dagger's hilt. "A precaution. I'm a scholar. I'm here to study the local folklore."
That earned the faintest twitch of his lips—not quite a smile, not quite mockery. "A scholar," he murmured, as if tasting the word. "Curiosity is a dangerous thing in Everglow."
Before she could answer, movement flashed behind him. A blur. A snarl.
Raya barely had time to gasp before something lunged out of the alley—a shape too fast, too animal to be human. She stumbled backward, the dagger slipping from her grasp as claws caught the light.
And then time slowed.
Niel moved.
He didn't hesitate, didn't even seem to breathe. One moment he stood before her, the next he was a streak of motion—swift, fluid, merciless. The creature's snarl turned to a choked whimper as he caught it mid-lunge, twisted, and drove it to the ground. The crack of bone echoed in the narrow street.
Raya pressed a hand to her mouth, trembling.
The thing on the ground—a wolf, or what once was one—lay still, its eyes wide, the faintest steam rising from its body. Niel didn't look at it. His gaze lifted back to her, crimson and calm, as though snapping a beast's neck were no more remarkable than brushing dust from his coat.
"Do not move," he said quietly. The command in his tone was absolute. "You're lucky I am… patient tonight."
She couldn't find her voice. The only sound she managed was the rough pull of her own breathing. "Why?" she whispered at last, her words trembling like her hands. "Why did you save me?"
Niel crouched beside the fallen creature, studying it with detached interest before turning his head slightly toward her. The movement was predatory, graceful, unsettling.
"Because I chose to," he said. "Not because you deserved it."
Raya flinched, unsure whether the words were a threat or a warning—or both.
He rose again, tall and commanding, and for the first time she noticed the faint pattern of scars running along the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his dark coat. Evidence of battles fought and survived.
Everything about him felt carved from danger—the calm posture, the measured tone, the quiet confidence of someone who had never been denied power.
"You shouldn't wander here after sundown," he continued, voice softer now. "The forest listens. The things it hears… they obey."
Before she could gather the courage to speak again, he stepped back into the shadows. One heartbeat, he was there. The next, he was gone. The alley yawned empty and silent, as if he had never existed.
Raya stood there for what felt like hours, her dagger lying forgotten at her feet. Her mind struggled to make sense of what she had witnessed—the impossible speed, the inhuman strength, the eyes that still burned in her memory.
When she finally returned to her rented room that evening, the air inside felt too still, the walls too thin. She lit the small oil lamp on the desk, the flame trembling like her hands. The shadows it cast danced along the walls, twisting into shapes her imagination was too eager to form.
Every time she blinked, she saw him again—those red eyes, that voice that rolled through her like distant thunder.
Sleep refused to come. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the old house breathe and creak. The stories she had come to study no longer felt like stories. They felt like warnings she had been too proud to heed.
She thought about the moment he had looked at her—really looked. There had been no kindness there, yet something about that gaze had unsettled her more than fear. A pull. A strange, unspoken recognition that made her stomach twist.
Who was he beneath that calm cruelty? And why had he spared her when it would have been easier to turn away?
Outside, a wolf howled—low, mournful, too close. Raya's pulse quickened. She rose from the bed and went to the window, parting the curtain just enough to see the street below.
Nothing. Only mist curling along the stones, wrapping the world in pale gray.
But she could feel him.
Somewhere out there, watching.
Raya pressed her hand against the cold glass, her reflection faintly visible beside the emptiness beyond. She whispered to herself, almost as if saying it aloud could undo it:
"He's real."
The words trembled into the night air.
The legends were true. The Alphas were not myths. They lived, breathed, and ruled the unseen world that lingered just beyond human reach.
And the one who bore red eyes—the one who had saved her life—was the most dangerous of them all. Even as fear coiled in her chest, something else stirred beneath it, something she didn't want to name.
Curiosity. Fascination. A pull that defied logic.
Raya knew she should leave Everglow at first light, return to the safety of a world she understood. But deep down, she already knew she wouldn't.
The shadow of the Mad Alpha had fallen over her.
And once the darkness claims a name… it never lets go.