Taken
1125 Words
Maya's Pov
The air shifts before the world does.
It’s a subtle thing, like static brushing my skin, the hairs on my arms lifting in a slow, chilling wave. I freeze at the window, tea mug forgotten in my hands. My reflection stares back at me in the glass, wide eyes, parted lips, and a pulse visibly hammering at my throat.
Then I hear it.
A creak.
From inside the house.
My wolf is already halfway to the surface before I turn.
He stands in the doorway to the kitchen, as if he’s always belonged there.
Vincent.
Alive. Real. Solid.
But there’s something different now, something not quite human in the way he stands. Not the boy I once kissed in the backseat of his beat-up Mustang. Not the man I killed in a blood-soaked warehouse.
No. This man is something else entirely.
“Didn’t even lock the door,” he murmurs, glancing around. “Still trusting. Or still stupid.”
I don’t answer.
Because I can’t.
My mouth is dry. My heart is not racing, it’s galloping. And worse? My wolf isn’t running. She’s still. Watchful. Tense... but not afraid.
She knows him.
Vincent walks forward slowly, the way wolves do when they approach wounded things. Not threatening. Not rushed. Just inevitable.
“Get out,” I manage, though it barely comes out a whisper.
His head tilts. “You used to say my name like a prayer. Now it’s a curse on your tongue.”
“Get. Out.”
“I will,” he says softly, “when you come with me.”
“No.”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I feel the heat rolling off his chest. Close enough that I catch the scent, cedar, storm wind, and smoke. It punches through my memories like lightning through dark sky.
My voice cracks. “I buried you.”
His gaze flickers with something unreadable. “And I crawled out.”
Silence stretches between us. My hand tightens around the mug. It’s the only thing anchoring me.
“Why now?” I whisper.
He steps even closer, and I feel it before I see it, the way his fingers trail up the inside of my wrist. Slow. Reverent. Dangerous.
“Because you’re mine,” he says, so gently it hurts. “You always were.”
I jerk my hand back. “You left me long before you ever died.”
“I was trying to protect you,” he says, voice suddenly sharp. “From the Council. From yourself. You don’t even know what you are, Maya.”
“Don’t tell me who I am.”
“I don’t have to.” His hand rises to my cheek, the backs of his fingers brushing the edge of my jaw. “Your blood’s been singing to me since the night I woke up. Since the mark appeared.”
His touch is careful, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he presses too hard. But there’s hunger behind it, too. Something desperate. Something that tastes like love, but refuses to call itself that.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say, even as I don’t move.
“But I did.” His thumb grazes my bottom lip, slow and maddening. “And you didn’t run.”
I turn my head sharply, breaking the contact. My breath trembles. “You don’t own me.”
His laugh is bitter. “No. But we’re bound, all the same.”
He steps back just long enough to reach into his coat. And then I see it—a rune stone, glowing faintly red.
My blood goes cold.
“Vincent...don’t...”
He crushes it between his palms.
In the same second, the world tilts.
The air bends.
My vision blurs.
And when it clears,I’m no longer in my house.
---
We’re in the forest. Moonlight filters through the trees in splinters of silver. Moss glows faintly beneath our feet. The veil between realms feels thinner here.
The ruins.
The Old Place.
A forbidden land beyond pack borders where ancient rites were once performed. Where blood magic lingered like smoke in the stone.
I spin toward him, fury igniting.
“You transported me?”
Vincent looks unrepentant. “I brought you home.”
“This is not my home.”
“Maybe not now,” he says. “But it will be. The blood remembers.”
I charge at him, but he catches me...fast, fierce, familiar. One arm locks around my waist, the other cradling my neck. It’s not painful. It’s terrifyingly gentle.
His forehead presses to mine.
And for a moment, just one, he breathes me in like I’m oxygen after a lifetime in smoke.
“I could never hate you,” he whispers. “Even when you ran. Even when you left me to die.”
His voice cracks. And I finally hear it.
The ache.
The truth.
Vincent still loves me.
But he’ll never say it.
Not out loud.
Instead, he speaks with the way his hand curls at the base of my spine, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my soul. The way he presses his mouth, not to my lips, but to the crown of my head.
That’s how he says it.
Mine. Still mine.
I’m shaking. “Let me go.”
He does. Slowly.
But we both feel it. That invisible cord. The second mark. The one I never asked for but can’t undo.
“Don’t run to Rhain,” Vincent says, softer now. “He’ll use you. They all will. You think an Alpha protects without a price?”
“He’s trying to help me.”
“He’s trying to claim you.”
His jaw tightens. “And if he touches you again, I will kill him.”
---
Before I can respond, a roar splits the forest.
Then comes the sound of something crashing through trees. Snapping branches. Slamming roots. Power.
My mark ignites. Rhain.
He appears in a blur of rage, eyes glowing gold, shirt torn from his shift. He’s still mid-transition, fangs out, claws half-formed, pure fury rolling off him in waves.
His gaze lands on Vincent, then on me.
Then on where Vincent’s hand rests on my hip.
Rhain growls. A real one. Deep. Primal. Not for show.
“Step away from her,” he snarls.
Vincent turns slowly, deliberate. “She came willingly.”
“Liar.”
“She didn’t fight me.” Vincent’s eyes glint. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
Rhain lunges.
I shout, “Don’t!”
But it’s too late.
Claws clash.
Teeth snap.
And power, ancient, royal, raw, explodes in the clearing.
I scream, and the forest answers.
Because the bond is tearing open now.
Not one.
Not two.
Three.
- Writer
