BECKONS
By Jack Dense
(Rosa's POV)
The night breathed against her skin. Rain glazed the cobblestones in silver, and each strike of Rosa Hart's heels echoed through the narrow street like a heartbeat trying to keep its pace.
The city behind her pulsed with electricity, but here, between alleys and shadows—everything seemed to hold its breath. She wasn't chasing a headline anymore. She was chasing a whisper.
They called it Lunar.
A nightclub that appeared only under the full moon. A place where secrets were currency and danger was the house special. Some said it didn't exist at all. Rosa intended to prove them wrong.
The door, when she found it, was nothing extraordinary. Wedged between two forgotten storefronts, it looked like the entrance to a basement that had outlived its purpose. Flaking iron. Faded paint. But the faint blue glow slipping from beneath the seam pulsed like something alive.
Rosa hesitated, her hand hovering just short of the handle. The air carried smoke, incense, and something metallic, like blood diluted with perfume. Her instincts whispered turn back. Her curiosity whispered just one look.
She pushed the door open.
Sound hit her first—music that was not quite electronic, not quite organic. It thrummed through the floor, vibrating against her ribs. Then came scent—spice, moonlight, and danger.
The world on the other side was not a nightclub but a dream pulled inside out. Silver veins of light traced the walls, pulsing in rhythm with the music. The crowd moved like liquid, shadows bending with a sensual precision that made her skin prickle.
Rosa froze.
This was not indulgence; this was power masquerading as pleasure.
Then she saw him.
Marshal Wolfe stood beneath a shaft of light filtering from a skylight high above, the glow catching in his dark hair and cutting across the sharp lines of his jaw.
He was tall, built like a secret that demanded to be uncovered. When his gaze found hers, the noise faded until all that remained was the sound of her pulse. His eyes were darker than midnight and twice as dangerous.
Something in her chest shifted.
She tried to look away, but her body refused. The air between them seemed to thicken, to tether her to him. Her skin tingled.
The faintest shimmer ran beneath it like a vibration waiting to be claimed. She drew in a breath, steady but sharp, and turned her attention elsewhere before she forgot how to think.
"Who brought along the outsider?" a woman's voice sliced through the haze, low and mocking.
Rosa turned toward the source. A beautiful woman with silver eyes leaned against the bar, regarding her with predatory curiosity. Beside her stood a man with gray streaks running through his hair and a stare that could cut stone.
Their movements were too controlled, too synchronized. The hierarchy was already clear even before Marshal's gaze flicked briefly toward them-one glance, and they straightened like soldiers.
He was their center, their gravity.
Rosa realized then that Lunar was not a club. It was a fortress. And she had walked right into it.
She strode to the bar and ignored the eyes that turned to follow. Bottles lining the shelf shimmered with a faint blue, like captured moonlight. The bartender said nothing at all, simply poured her a drink that smelled faintly of rain. Rosa barely touched it.
Marshal's eyes followed her progress, soothing but unyielding.
"You do look like one who does not get scared so easily," a voice whispered from the back.
She turned. He was closer than she expected. His voice carried quiet authority, like velvet laid over steel.
"Journalists rarely do," she said.
He arched a brow. "And what story brings you to my doorstep, Miss…?"
"Hart. Rosa Hart."
He smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "I know that name. You expose what should remain hidden."
"Or what the powerful prefer buried." She threw back.
Their words brushed like flint, sparks dancing between syllables. He took a slow step closer, and the crowd subtly adjusted, instinctively parting as if the air itself obeyed him.
"You should leave," he whispered.
"Why?"
"Because not every truth is meant for human eyes."
Her pulse stumbled. "You think I scare that easily?"
"I think you don't know what you're standing in."
Before she could answer, a sharp sound cracked the air—a gasp, then silence. Rosa's head jerked toward it. A man near the far wall stumbled backward, eyes wide. For a split second, the shadows behind him moved like water. Then he was gone. Just gone.
The lights flickered, the music faltered, and a ripple of unease spread through the room.
Rosa's breath caught. "What was that?"
Marshal didn't respond. His jaw clenched, his eyes scanning the crowd. Then they locked with hers once more.
"You see too much," he said very softly.
"You make it hard to look away."
Something unreadable flickered across his face. He reached out before she could step back, his fingers brushing hers. The contact was electric. Heat rushed up her arm, sinking into her chest, into her blood. It was ancient, instinctive, recognition burning through the fear.
"You feel it, too," he whispered.
"I don't know what you mean."
"You do." His voice dropped to a whispered promise meant for her ears alone. "And that is why you cannot leave."
Rosa tried to pull away, but his hand clamped down, tight without being cruel. Around them, murmurs began to stir again. The others watched, waiting for a sign she couldn't read.
"I came for a story," she said, her voice shaking despite her effort to sound strong.
"You found one," he replied. "But it is not the one you expected."
Before she could answer, the scream ripped through the music. High, desperate, human. The crowd froze. Lights flickered once more and jagged shadows danced across the walls like living things.
In an instant, Marshal's eyes flashed darker, his entire carriage fluidly changing from tranquil to deadly.
"Stay behind me," he said.
Rosa's instincts screamed to be running, yet the strange pulse beneath her skin flared brighter, tugging her toward him instead.
"What's happening?" she whispered.
He turned back to her, and for the first time, she saw something raw behind the control—fear. "Something that should not have crossed the threshold."
The shadows at the edge of the corridor shifted a second time. This time, she saw it-a shape shifting between contours, human one moment, monstrous the next. The crowd began to back away, their faces pale with recognition.
Marshal stepped forward. The air around him seemed to shift, thick with power almost palpable. Rosa's breath caught as the silver light from the walls bent toward him, wrapping him in its glow.
"Marshal," she breathed, "what are you?"
He turned his head slightly, his eyes gleaming like twin shards of moonlight. "The thing that hunts what hunts you."
It launched itself from the darkness, but Marshal met it with a motion so quick she could hardly track it. For an instant, the world reduced to sound-bone and impact, the hiss of air ripped apart by motion. Then silence. The figure fell, dissolving into smoke that curled away like a breath in the cold.
Rosa stood frozen. "That was not human."
"No," he said softly. "And neither am I."
Their eyes met, and for the first time, the world felt impossibly still. Her fear was still there, but it was threaded with something else—a pull, deep and undeniable.
"I should run," she whispered.
"You should," he agreed.
"Then why can't I move?"
His hand lifted, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "Because the moon never lets go of what it calls its own."
Her breath shook. "And you?"
"I warned you," he murmured. "You should not be here."
The lights flickered once more, and from the corridor came another sound—not a scream this time, but a growl that made the floor tremble.
Marshal's face hardened. "It is not over."
Rosa's heart hammered as the shadows began to stir again, darker and thicker than before. She turned toward him, her voice barely a whisper. "What happens now?" Marshal's gaze sharpened on the dark, moving shape; his jaw clenched. "Now," he said, his voice low and resolute, "the hunt begins."
To be continued…