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1519 Words
I crouched low beneath the scorched undercarriage of the jungle car, smoke curling in lazy tendrils around the broken metal. The acrid sting of burned pine and burnt flesh clawed at my lungs. My fingers brushed over a shattered bullet casing, half-buried in the wreckage. This was how they got here. But from the looks of it they weren’t alone.
“Alpha, over here,” one of my wolves called, voice low and urgent.
I moved toward the voice, senses raw, heart pounding. “What’ve you found?”
“A sigil, Alpha. Crimson, faint but real. A bullet.”
The casing glowed under my touch, pulsing once like a heartbeat before dying to ash. My teeth clenched hard enough to taste blood.
Blood sigil bullets.
Not made for humans. Not made for wolves. These were weapons forged in ancient shadow and forgotten blood magic. The runes etched into the casing were old, almost forgotten even by most witches. These bullets weren’t forged in anger. but in ritual. Crafted to trap.
Whatever hunted here… wasn’t flesh and bone.
My mind circled back to her.
The girl
The way the air snapped tight when I passed like the world was holding its breath. Her scent wrapped around me dark jasmine and danger, wild and raw. The strange static on my skin when I got too close. She clawed at something buried deep inside me, something I didn’t want to admit.
And that terrified me more than any hunter ever could.
Across the forest, Bjorn barked orders. to the warriors. The captured hunters had already been chained and dragged off. No one else had survived. My wolves had made sure of it.
No one entered Draakmoore and lived to tell the tale.
“Alpha,” someone called out. “Human blood. Not hers. Someone else was with the girls and took a hit.”
“Where are they?”
“Gone. No sign of them. Movers are hauling the truck and luggage to the pack house. Orders are clear: no one touches a thing until you get there.”
I gave a curt nod. “Send the trackers. I want whoever bled here found. Now.”
Landon’s voice sliced through my mindlink, tense. “Alpha…”
“Speak.”
“The girls. One escaped.”
——-
They said he was the Alpha.
Maybe that’s what they called their leader.
He didn’t need to say it. You felt it in the silence that followed him, in the way the trees seemed to bow as he passed, real leader figure. Something in a part of me that shouldn’t exist, standing up like it was being summoned.
But now he was gone. And I hated how I felt that too.
Two of the men he’d come with stayed behind, standing in front of us like stone walls, shoulders squared, like they expected resistance.
“We have orders,” said the taller one, same one that stood beside him earlier. “You’re to come with us. The Alpha wants you safe.”
I backed up a step, my boots scraping over broken glass and dirt. Safe? That word didn’t belong here, in the blood-soaked wreckage of a jungle car with burning pine in the air.
“We’re fine right here,” I said. “Tell your Alpha he can—”
Before I could finish, two more men flanked us from behind. Kaia flinched, instinctively pulling me close. I turned, shielding her.
But by the time I whipped around again—
She was already across the broadest one’s shoulder, limbs dangling like she weighed nothing.
“Kaia?” I choked.
She didn’t even look alarmed.
She gave a lazy shrug. “I’m exhausted, Lil. At least they’re not shooting at us.”
Not yet.
My heart thudded against my ribs like it wanted out.
I wasn’t going down like that.
I felt it before they moved, that flicker in my gut, somewhere between instinct and… something older.
Too late.
I twisted hard and shoved the nearest one off, my nails raking down his arm.
He didn’t even flinch.
Two hands grabbed my waist. I screamed. Kicked. Bit.
“Easy,” one of them muttered against my ear. “Keep thrashing and we won’t put you down. There’s room on every muscle here for you.”
I froze, stunned. Disgusted. Furious.
My skin sizzled. A crack of heat shot through my nerves.
He hissed this time, the first sound of pain.
Something in me stirred.
My blood roared. My vision fractured.
Heat rolled under my skin like a tide, boiling from my belly outward. My fingertips stung, nails lengthening into claw-like crescents. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see straight.
“What the hell—” one of the men said, his grip slipping.
My body jerked. Arched. A sound tore out of me, not a scream, not quite human, just before the air cracked around me.
Everything went still.
The warrior holding me shouted something.
But I wasn’t listening.
I moved not thinking, not planning, just pure instinct. My legs hit the ground running, faster than I ever remembered being. My skin hummed like it was threaded with fire, with something that didn’t belong to this world or maybe belonged too much.
Branches slapped past. My lungs burned, not from exhaustion but from power.
Behind me, I heard shouting. Crashing.
Kaia’s voice, faint.
“Lilith!”
But I couldn’t stop.
Wouldn’t.
The forest opened up ahead, shadows warping, pulling away like they knew better than to touch me.
I didn’t know where I was going. Only that I had to get away.
Branches tore at my clothes, shadows chased me down, and something deep inside me pulsed in time. My lungs burned, but I couldn’t stop
Until I slammed into something solid.
Someone.
It was like hitting a wall of heat and muscle, so fast and so hard my feet left the ground. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. My knees buckled.
The force of the impact threw me backwards, but he caught me before I hit the ground, and suddenly I was beneath him, pressed into the forest floor, breathing hard.
The Alpha.
His scent wrapped around me, wild pines and scorched earth clung to his skin, that maddening scent of dark cedar wrapped around me like smoke. He hovered over me, eyes glowing gold? No, deeper. Burning.
His hands were on either side of my head, not touching me, but close enough that every inch of my body sparked like it had been wired to his.
He looked down at me and that’s when it started.
My body betrayed me.
Heat unfurled in my chest, in my belly, curling low and molten. My heart stuttered. My lips parted. “Get off,” I said, voice raw, trembling more from the way my blood had started singing again than from whatever this was.
But he didn’t move.
My body arched without my permission. My skin felt too tight, too aware. I wanted to scream, wanted to claw my way free from my own flesh. I felt power press against my ribs like wings begging to unfurl. Felt some needy hunger rise.
“Get off” I squirmed harder, but my hips curled toward him like they didn’t get the message.
No.
No, no, no.
I didn’t want this.
But something inside me did.
Something that woke up the moment he touched me. It stretched beneath my skin, sleek and hungry, coiling around my spine and whispering “More.”
He stiffened, like he felt it too. His nostrils flared. His gaze dropped to my mouth. His hands clenched into the earth.
“What are you?” he rasped.
“Please, let me go,” I whispered back, voice wrecked and breathless, because it wasn’t me anymore, not just me.
And he felt it too.
His breath hitched. He leaned closer. Not with control like i thought he would but with need. Not like a man claiming something but one answering a call it couldn’t deny.
“No,” I gasped, turning my head. “Get off me.” Although my actions said otherwise, was i squirming or grinding him, at point I couldn’t tell.
Still he didn’t move. Couldn’t. I could feel it in the way his muscles trembled. Whatever was making me feel this needy was calling to him on a level he couldn’t resist.
And I-I didn’t know if I wanted to fight it
Or surrender to it.
My skin rippled. My eyes burned. I felt the world tilt. Felt every heartbeat in the forest. Felt him.
“Lilith? Stop moving.” he said my name like a warning. Like a prayer wait. I never told him so how the hell”
And just before I could break, just before the thing inside me could win cause goddamn the way he called me. I twisted, moved even harder, stop moving my a*s, I shoved with everything I had, and ran.
I’m not a quitter but I sure do know when to run so I can live to fight another day.
- Writer
