Night of our becoming

Amara’s POV I didn’t sleep that night. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw gold, bright, burning, endless. The wolf’s eyes. His eyes. It should have been a dream, but it wasn’t. My skin still remembered the heat of that gaze, the way it crawled under my bones like fire. By morning, my pillow was cold and damp with sweat. I’d turn over a hundred times, chasing sleep that refused to come. My body was exhausted, but my mind kept replaying that single, breath-stealing moment in the forest. The way the trees had gone silent. The way his gaze had pinned me like I was something that belonged to him. The memory had blurred into something that didn’t quite feel real anymore, it didn’t make sense. None of it did, yet somehow left its mark, literally. Right above my heart. At first, I thought it was a scratch from the fall. The forest had been wild that night, wind sharp, shadows alive, the moon too bright to feel safe. But when I stepped into the bathroom and pulled my shirt aside, I froze. The mark was small and strange, like a crescent carved in light. It shimmered faintly beneath my collarbone, gold fading into black. It wasn’t there last night. It wasn’t a wound. It was a symbol. And it throbbed. It looked like the curve of a crescent moon, delicate but glowing faintly under my skin. I remember whispering, “What the hell…” but my voice came out too soft, too afraid. I touched it once just to see if it would vanish like some weird trick of reflection. But the moment my fingers brushed it, heat flared beneath my skin. Not painful. Just… alive. A low sound rippled through the silence. Not a growl per se, not quite a sigh. It came from inside me. That was when I knew something had followed me out of the woods. The sound startled me so much that I dropped my phone. It hit the floor with a sharp thud, shattering the strange silence. “Get a grip, Amara,” I muttered. “You are losing it.” I went to work anyway, pretending everything was normal. Pretending I wasn’t haunted by golden eyes and the sound of my own heart, beating too loud. The café was quiet that morning, rain tapping gently against the windows, the smell of coffee wrapping around me like a warm lie. Routine helped. Wipe tables. Steam milk. Smile. Repeat. But even then, I could feel it, the faint hum beneath my ribs, like something waiting to wake. When the door opened, the small bell above it chimed. I looked up out of habit, and my body forgot how to move. He was standing there. The stranger from the forest. Tall. Broad shoulders beneath a dark coat that looked soaked through. His hair was a little too long, wet strands falling over his brow. But it was his eyes, those eyes that made the air disappear. Gold, even in the dull café light. The same burning, feral gold from my dreams. For a few seconds, everything else blurred. The light, the air, it was just him. His gaze swept the room once before landing on me. My hand slipped, the cup I’d been holding crashing to the floor. He flinched, not much, but enough to make me realize he wasn’t expecting to see me either. Every instinct screamed to run, but something deeper kept me rooted. For a moment, neither of us spoke. He moved closer. Slowly. Like a predator that knew exactly how small I felt. Then he said my name. Softly. Like he already knew it. My heart stuttered. “Do I...do I know you?” He hesitated, jaw tightening as if the answer hurt to say. “You shouldn’t,” he murmured. “You were never supposed to see me.” A shiver ran down my spine. “Then how do you know my name?” He looked away, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “Because the moon marked you.” That sentence meant nothing and yet everything. The mark on my chest throbbed, heat blooming like a secret trying to break free. I took a step back. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, marked?” His gaze returned to mine, intense and impossibly sad. “You would not believe me if I told you.” “Try me,” I whispered. But before he could speak, the door swung open again. A rush of cold air swept in, and he stiffened, his head snapping toward the street. Something changed in his face—alert, dangerous. He muttered something under his breath I couldn’t catch, then turned back to me. “You need to stay away from the forest,” he said, voice low, urgent. “Promise me.” I didn’t promise. I couldn’t. My pulse was racing too fast, my mind spinning too wild. He took one last look at me like he was memorizing something he knew he shouldn’t, and then he was gone. The bell above the door chimed once more, soft and final. I stood there long after he left, the coffee cooling on the counter, my hands trembling. Outside, the rain had stopped. The world felt too quiet, like everything was holding its breath again. Then, faintly, through the hum of silence, I thought I heard it somewhere distant and low, a howl. Long, sorrowful, and not entirely human. And the mark over my heart throbbed again, answering.