THREE
1348 Words
The trees swallowed me whole.
One step past the treeline, and my house disappeared. The porch light. The windows. The life I'd been sleepwalking through for five years. Gone, like I'd never been there at all.
I kept walking.
The bag bumped against my hip. My grandmother's knife was warm in my jacket pocket. My thumb the one Kael had licked still tingled, like a low-grade fever I couldn't shake.
The woods were dark. Not city dark, where your eyes adjust after a minute. Forest dark. The kind of dark that has weight. That presses against your skin and whispers you don't belong here.
I didn't care.
I'd never belonged anywhere.
Twenty minutes in, my thighs started burning.
I'm not built for hiking. Never have been. I'm five-foot-four with a chest that needs underwire and hips that don't lie. Curvy, my mother used to say, before she left. Voluptuous, the foster packs whispered, like it was an insult.
Elias used to love it. He'd grab my waist with both hands and groan so much to hold. Back when he still grabbed.
Tonight, my curves were just extra weight. The bag strap dug into my shoulder. A branch caught my jacket and tore it. My boots, cute ones, not practical ones, were already rubbing blisters into my heels.
I kept walking.
Because behind me, I could hear Elias's truck engine roaring to life.
He was looking for me.
Of course he was. Not because he wanted me back. Because I'd embarrassed him. Because Kael had touched what was his, and Elias couldn't let that stand. It was never about love. It was about ownership.
I knew that now.
I'd known it for a while, actually. I just hadn't wanted to say it out loud.
The truck sounds were getting closer. Elias knew these woods. He'd grown up in them. I was a city wolf—born in a pack near the interstate, raised in foster homes with paved driveways and streetlights.
I was out of my depth.
And I was too stubborn to admit it.
The river stopped me.
Not a big river. Not the kind you need a boat for. But wide enough. Fast enough. The water was black in the moonlight, moving too quickly to be safe.
I stood at the edge, breathing hard. Sweat dripped down my back. My chest heaved. My dark curls were already a disaster; they were sticking to my neck and my forehead.
I looked like a mess.
I felt like a mess.
But for the first time in years, the mess was mine.
"Lost?"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
I spun around. Too fast. My boots slipped on the wet rocks, and I went down hard on my hip, on my elbow, on my pride.
Kael stepped out from behind a pine tree like he'd been there all along.
He looked the same as he had in my kitchen. Dark hair. Darker eyes. That jacket. Those boots. But there was something different about him now. Something sharper. His eyes caught the moonlight and held it, like he was hungry and I was dinner.
"You followed me," I said.
"I never left."
I pushed myself up. My hip throbbed. My elbow was bleeding a fresh cut, because of course it was. I brushed dirt off my jeans and glared at him.
"You could have said something."
"I wanted to see how far you'd get."
"How far did I get?"
He glanced at the river. Then back at me. His mouth twitched.
"Not very."
I should have been angry. I was angry. But underneath the anger was something else. Something warm. Something that had nothing to do with the burn in my thighs or the throb in my elbow.
He'd watched me struggle. He'd watched me limp and sweat and almost fall. And he hadn't laughed. Hadn't swooped in to save me.
He'd just... watched.
Like, I was worth watching.
"You're bleeding again," he said.
"I noticed."
He stepped closer. I didn't step back. The river rushed behind me, cold and loud. The trees loomed above us. And Kael, this impossible, terrifying, hungry man, reached for my arm.
His fingers were gentle. Ridiculously gentle for someone with so many scars.
He pushed my sleeve up. Examined my elbow. The cut wasn't deep, just a scrape from the rocks, but it was bleeding freely, dripping down my forearm in thin red lines.
"You're clumsy," he said.
"I'm curvy," I said. "There's a difference."
His eyes flicked up to mine. Then down. Taking me in. Not leering. Not measuring. Just... seeing.
"Yes," he said quietly. "You are."
Something in his voice made my stomach flip.
He lifted my elbow to his mouth.
Same as before. Same slow, deliberate movement. Same warm tongue. The same shock of contact shot through my whole body like lightning.
He licked the blood away.
The cut closed.
I stopped breathing.
"There," he said. "Better."
"You can't just..." I started.
"I can."
"You don't know me."
"I know enough."
"You don't know anything about me."
Kael tilted his head. The moonlight caught the hard line of his jaw, the hollow of his cheek, the dark hunger in his eyes.
"I know you stayed five years with a man who stopped seeing you. I know you packed a bag six weeks ago and didn't leave until tonight. I know you're wearing boots that hurt your feet and a jacket that doesn't keep out the cold. I know you have a grandmother's knife in your pocket and no idea where you're going."
He paused.
"And I know you taste like honey and thunder."
My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
No one had ever said anything like that to me. Not Elias. Not anyone. I'd spent my whole life being too much or not enough. Too curvy. Too quiet. Too needy. Too independent. Too broken.
Kael looked at me like I was exactly right.
"You're not taking me home," I said.
It wasn't a question.
"No," he said.
"You're not delivering me to Elias."
"I'd rather die."
"Then what are you doing?"
Kael smiled. Not the sharp smile from the kitchen. Something smaller. Something almost... real.
"I'm offering you a choice."
Behind us, through the trees, headlights cut through the dark.
Elias's truck.
He'd found the trailhead. He'd be here in minutes.
Kael didn't flinch. Didn't rush. He just stood there, waiting, watching me.
"You can go back," he said. "Walk out of these woods, get in his truck, and pretend tonight never happened. He'll be angry for a week. Then he'll forget. And you'll be a ghost again."
I shook my head.
"Or," Kael said, "you can come with me."
"Where?"
"Somewhere he can't find you."
"And then what?"
Kael stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at his face.
"Then you decide," he said. "I'm not your mate. I'm not your Alpha. I'm not your saviour. I'm just a monster who's been alone a very long time, offering you a place to be alone together."
The headlights were closer now. I could hear the truck engine rumbling, tyres crunching on gravel.
Elias would be here any second.
I looked at Kael. At his scars. At his hungry eyes. The way he held himself so still, like he was braced for me to say no.
I thought about honey and thunder.
I thought about being a ghost.
I thought about my grandmother's knife in my pocket, and my grandmother's blood in my veins, and how she'd always told me a woman with curves knows how to take up space.
I took up space.
"I'll need better boots," I said.
Kael's smile widened. Real this time. Sharp and bright and terrifying.
"I'll buy you a hundred pairs."
He held out his hand.
Behind us, Elias's truck crested the hill. Headlights flooded the riverbank.
I took Kael's hand.
His fingers closed around mine. Warm. Solid. Mine.
And then he pulled me into the dark.
- Writer
