Moonlit Hearts

Chapter 5

"…All these years, he had been holed up here. He didn't care to find me." The words were barely out of her lips when she heard a loud howl. With a survival instinct, she leaped to her feet. Reality came to her as she swirled around, surrounded by trees where the sky was shrouded by a blanket of thick branches. Fear clamored at her heart as it thundered into her ears. She breathed a dangerous air; the owls hooting prickled her ears. Rough terrains loomed ahead. How did I get here? The forest would have been pitch black without the full moon bathing it in its milky white luminescence.

Inhaling large breaths of damp, humid air. Darting her eyes agitatedly, it was difficult to tell where she came from. The howl came again, and bumps broke out on her skin; she wrapped her hands around her shivering self. The whispering wind blew at her hair, rustling the leaves and swaying light branches. The cold tendrils of eeriness prickled Isabella, hurrying her step with the constant look over her shoulders. Her heart beat erratically at being followed, which scared her even more.

She wasn't looking forward, concerned that she might be attacked from behind, until she slammed into a rigid tree. Perhaps a rigid body oozing terrifying masculinity and cedarwood cologne wafted into her nose. Slowly raising her gaze to expect the worst, she stared into a pair of grey eyes, watching her intently. They were so close that every part of her was rekindled. Unspoken words traveled between their gazes. Her lips parted to speak but clamped shut.

He hadn't changed much, but she felt the intensity of his enigmatic aura, which surpassed the man she knew five years ago. The urge to run her fingers past his smooth cheekbones, all the way to his chiseled jaw, which snapped incessantly.

"Isabella." The low call of her name was as smooth as velvet, thawing at her hardened heart. Stroking parts of her that shook with life. A surge of awareness tore through. She recoiled, taking steps backward, and he advanced, "I'm not here to hurt you. I would never hurt you. I just… I needed to see you and be sure I wasn't mistaken."

"Get away from me!" her blood-curdling yell ripped from her throat, leaving Adrian in a state of hesitation as he halted in his tracks. She was a mess on the inside, but he couldn't know that. "I need you to leave."

"You look lost to me."

"Were you following me?"

His jutting eyebrows couldn't conceal his bewilderment. There was her answer. "I never forgot about you." He pursed his lips, and his broad shoulder slackened as he struggled with words.

"I don't care." She side-stepped, but his large frame shifted to block her path, "Dammit, I mean it. I was a d**k for leaving. I owed you an explanation, but I was a coward. The thought of my actions haunts me. I never wanted to lose you."

His words got to her for a second, and her eyes wetted at his proclamation. Suddenly, reels of sleepless nights, tear-stained face, broken heart, despair, waiting by her phone for his call, her endless voicemails to him, and her shattered insanity. He had taken so much from her he couldn't begin to fathom.

"I didn't come here to hear your empty confessions. You mean nothing to me. Whatever we'd was long dead before I came here. I have moved on. You should." All that was said, with her heart shattering even more. Her mind screamed at her lies. The questions she wished to ask pounded painfully in her mind.

His jaw spasmed and engaged in a lock. Piercing gaze prodded into Isabella's soul, seeking the truth. A rejected expression rippled across his features. She fed his eyes with her determined strength before walking away.

***Adrian***

The urge to hold her knocked my senses off. My wolf yelped at my cowardice. Isabella made it clear she didn't want me. In five years, I couldn't get over her, the torture of her being far away. She was in Silverwood, and I didn't trust my judgment. I had to win her no matter what. Fate had brought us together for a purpose; I wouldn't squander this opportunity. An all too familiar presence piqued my senses, a shadow lurking in the dark so far off that if I pursued, he would never make it in time to apprehend it and never make it back to watch Isabella return home. The sudden realization that it was watching me, watching Isabella. I heard the leaves rustle and turned to see Isabella walking away. I half expected her to break into a run. She seemed so good and fluid with it ever since I saw her in silver wood. I wonder why she came down to this town of all the good places in New York.

“Isa, please wait!” , I called out. I had not called her that name in years. She didn’t turn back instead she picked up her pace.

***Isabella***

“How dare he call em by that name”, I muttered to myself, the same name he used when he broke my heart to a million pieces that Saturday night five years ago.

Moisture gathered at the corners of my eyes, a searing heat against my skin, but the chill of the night was quick to quell the inferno, freezing each would-be tear in its tracks. I wouldn’t allow them to fall—not now, not for him. I moved with urgency, my limbs propelling me through the dense underbrush, desperate for the solace found only in the shroud of night, away from Adrian. He, who once filled my dreams with sweetness, had become nothing but a spectral presence haunting the deep woods of my memories.

My flight was halted abruptly by a clearing where the moon hung heavy and full, its glow casting a ghostly light upon a lone figure near the lake’s edge. I stopped, my breath stolen by the sight. Not a person, but something other—something that seemed to weave itself into the very mist rising from the water.

As it turned towards me, there was the briefest flash of eyes like molten silver, catching the moon's reflection. My heart hammered against my ribcage, urging me to flee.