Lycan Witch

Chapter 7: Whispers

The candle guttered on Aria’s desk, throwing uneven shadows across the worn wood. She leaned closer, pressing her quill to the parchment, but her hand trembled so badly that ink blotched the page.

She cursed softly, setting the quill aside. It wasn’t the ruined sketch that unsettled her—it was the image itself. The same image she had been drawing again and again these past nights.

A wolf.

Not the shaggy, lean wolves that sometimes prowled the outer woods. No, this one was massive, with eyes that seemed to glow from the page itself. The lines she had drawn were jagged, as though her hand had moved without her consent, as though the creature had stared at her from memory rather than imagination.

Her stomach knotted. She had seen him—if only for an instant.

It had been weeks ago, a flicker between trees, the faintest glimmer of silver fur beneath moonlight. She had convinced herself it was nothing but her mind playing tricks. And yet…

The more she tried to forget, the more it haunted her.

Aria pushed away from the desk and crossed the room to the window. Hollowbrook lay silent beneath the heavy night, cottages darkened, the forest a looming wall beyond. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, though the chill she felt came from within, not without.

She wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. But she felt something—an invisible thread tugging at her chest whenever she thought of the wolf. It wasn’t danger. It wasn’t comfort. It was something stranger, sharper, like a whisper she couldn’t quite make out.

Her grandmother used to speak of signs, of threads that connected souls. But those were old women’s tales, stories told over stew and fire to frighten children. And yet…

Aria shut her eyes, trying to steady her thoughts. That was when the unease deepened.

Because she felt it again.

That weight on the air, the sense of being watched. It had happened more than once lately, always at night, always when she was alone. Sometimes she told herself it was just nerves, a trick of shadows. Other times… her heart insisted otherwise.

She backed away from the window, extinguished the candle, and slipped into bed. Sleep took longer than usual, tossing her between restless dreams—dreams of silver eyes, of claws scraping stone, of a voice she didn’t know yet somehow trusted.

When dawn broke, she jolted awake, chest tight, the echo of a howl lingering in her ears.

Somewhere in the woods, something was calling to her.

She pressed her hand to her racing heart and whispered into the silence:

“Why do I feel like you’re meant for me?”