CHAPTER 2 The Enemy Revealed
672 Words
Ariel woke with a start.
Her cheek was pressed against warm fur, the forest still wrapped in early dawn. For a moment, she forgot where she was ,until the wolf beneath her shifted. A low rumble echoed through his chest. Not a growl… something heavier. Something that made the air tremble.
“Hey…” she whispered gently, brushing her fingers over his ear. “You’re safe. I’m still here.”
But then came the sound that didn’t belong in any forest, a sharp crack, like bones snapping in fast succession. And another. And another.
Ariel shot to her feet, stumbling back.
The wolf jerked, spasming violently as his limbs twisted. His fur rippled like something was crawling beneath it. And then, horrifyingly, it began to disappear.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, backing into a tree, hands shaking.
The wolf grew taller. Broader. His neck stretched. His stance straightened. Bones cracked, reformed, reshaped.
And where the injured wolf had been…
…stood a man.
A man with scars like lightning, muscles carved like stone, and golden eyes that burned hotter as they locked onto hers.
Ariel’s breath left her lungs.
“You…” she whispered.
His voice came out low, coated in gravel and power.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
She pressed her back to the tree, palms sweating. “W-what are you?”
His jaw tightened. “The one you shouldn’t have touched.”
Her heart dropped.
“But I, I saved your life.”
“And you shouldn’t have,” he snapped, frustration flashing across his face. He raked a hand through hair as dark as midnight. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Ariel swallowed hard. “I helped someone who was hurt. That’s all.”
“That’s not all.” His voice softened, dangerously quiet. “You interfered with fate.”
She blinked. “You’re not making sense.”
Golden eyes pinned her in place.
“You touched the Bloodmoon Alpha. Me.”
Something cold slid down her spine.
“And that’s bad because…?”
He stepped closer, slow and predatory.
“Because the prophecy says the human girl who touches the Alpha…”
He leaned in, voice a whisper of thunder.
“…is the girl he is destined to kill.”
Ariel’s blood iced over.
For a heartbeat, she forgot how to breathe.
She stared at him, at the same creature she held in her lap hours ago, the one she had bandaged, comforted, protected.
“No…” she whispered. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
For a moment, just a moment, something flickered across his face.
Guilt.
Pain.
Regret.
“You didn’t,” he said quietly. “And that’s the problem.”
Ariel tore her gaze away, trying to steady her breathing. “So what happens now? You kill me because of some prophecy you believe in?”
He stared at her like she had just asked if the moon could bleed.
“No,” he said simply. “I don’t kill innocents.”
“So what then?”
Kael, she didn’t know his name yet, but he held himself like someone used to being bowed to, inhaled deeply.
“You come with me.”
“Excuse me?” she gasped. “To where?”
“My territory.”
She shook her head violently. “Absolutely not. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He stepped closer, shadows clinging to his form, voice rough with a kind of desperation she didn’t yet understand.
“You don’t have a choice,” he murmured.
“If you stay alone in this forest, rogues will smell my blood on you. They’ll kill you. And if the prophecy takes hold…”
His jaw clenched.
“I’ll be the one forced to finish what fate began.”
Ariel’s heart cracked open in fear, but beneath the fear, something else stirred.
Because even though he stood like a threat…
His eyes looked haunted.
Like hurting her would destroy him more than it would destroy her.
- Writer
