Chapter 1: Moon On Concrete
734 Words
The moon was too bright tonight.
Eva Leonhart tugged her jacket closer around her ribs as she walked, her breath turning white in the December air. Blackthorn City had a way of swallowing people whole...its alleys, its shadows, its endless noise. But tonight, even the noise felt… muted. Like the whole city was waiting for something.
She was late again closing shift at the bookstore. Thirty minutes past midnight, dragging her feet toward the only place she could call home: a faded studio apartment above a laundromat. Rent due. Fridge empty. Phone nearly dead.
Typical.
What wasn’t typical were the dreams she’d been having for weeks running barefoot beneath a blood-red moon, bones bending, skin burning, hearing a howl that felt like it lived inside her chest.
She blinked hard, shaking it off.
'It’s just stress', she told herself. 'And lack of sleep. And everything else you’re ignoring so you can keep pretending you’re fine.'
Her footsteps echoed. The streetlights flickered overhead—first one, then three in a row. She tried not to notice that they went dark exactly as she passed beneath them.
Nerves prickled across her shoulders.
It felt like… eyes.
Watching.
Tracking.
She pressed her phone awake. No service. Of course.
Her pulse picked up.
“Don’t panic,” she whispered. “It’s just a city. Just a walk. Just...”
A low growl crawled through the corridor of brick walls.
Eva froze.
The sound wasn’t human. It vibrated in her bones, animal and intentional, like something announcing itself.
Her voice wavered. “Hello?”
She regretted speaking the second the word left her mouth.
Two shadows peeled from the darkness—men, or something shaped like men. Their movements were wrong. Too smooth. Too quiet.
“Pretty little thing,” one hissed, voice scratchy like gravel. “You shouldn’t walk alone at night.”
Eva backed away. Her hands shook. “I—I don’t want trouble.”
“You already have it,” the second murmured, eyes reflecting moonlight like silver glass. “We can smell you.”
Smell me?
Before she could ask what that meant, they lunged.
She ran.
Her bag hit pavement. Her shoes slapped concrete. Her lungs burned and then something else burned too. Deep beneath her skin, a pulse like wildfire spread from her chest to her fingertips.
Her vision sharpened. Every sound magnified. Every smell turned sharp, metallic, wild.
What...what is happening to me?
Fingers snagged her hair.
And then.
A snarl shook the air.
Not like theirs.
Bigger. Darker. A command no creature could ignore.
The men froze.
Something stood between her and them now, backlit by the moon—broad shoulders, inked skin, glowing eyes like molten ice. A man, barely clothed in a leather jacket, tattoos winding over muscle like shadows shaped into wolves.
He didn’t look at her.
He stared at them.
“Touch her again,” he said, voice low, lethal, “and I’ll rip your throats out with my teeth.”
The two attackers hissed and fled, melting into the night as if swallowed whole.
Eva trembled. The adrenaline hit her too fast and too hard.
The stranger turned slowly, like he was afraid facing her might shatter something.
Their eyes met.
Her heart stopped.
“You,” she whispered.
His jaw clenched. Those glowing eyes flickered—recognition, shock, something almost like fear.
“You need to leave this place,” he said.
“I...who are you...”
“Leave.” His voice dropped lower, rougher. “Before I change my mind.”
Something about him dared her to stay. Something else warned her she was safer pretending this never happened.
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
He didn’t reply.
He just stepped back into the shadows and vanished.
Like mist. Like a dream.
Eva stood alone in the alley, heart racing, knees weak.
But then her phone buzzed.
She looked down.
A message-not from a number she knew.
Four words.
Words that made her blood run cold.
“He knows you’re awake.”
Eva stared at the screen, breath trapped in her throat then suddenly, something warm bloomed across her collarbone.
She pulled her shirt aside.
Glowing—faint, like moonlight lines began etching themselves into her skin. A shape slowly forming.
A mark.
Right where his teeth would’ve bitten her.
And before she even understood.
Pain ripped through her chest.
and she collapsed.
- Writer
