CHAPTER FOUR
1042 Words
MAREN’S POV
The night in Hollowridge was colder than usual, the kind of cold that slid beneath your skin and reminded you that even bones could shiver. Maren pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, her boots crunching softly over the gravel path leading into the woods. The moon hung low, swollen and watchful, casting long, silver fingers through the trees. She didn’t mind the dark. Darkness had always been kinder to her than the light.
She hadn’t walked this path in years.
Each step stirred old ghosts.
The branches whispered overhead—gossiping, accusing, remembering.
She deserved it.
Maren’s fingers, gloved and pale, brushed against the locket at her neck. A foolish relic from another life. It clinked faintly as she walked. Inside it was a photograph, long faded, of two smiling girls—her and her sister. Before things fell apart. Before she made choices that couldn’t be undone.
A crow cawed somewhere above her, a harsh sound that sliced through the hush of the forest.
“Still watching me, aren’t you?” she muttered to no one.
She was talking more to the town itself than the bird. Hollowridge had a memory like no other. And a thirst for secrets. That was the trouble with a place like this—it didn’t forgive easily. Especially not traitors.
Her jaw tightened.
No, she wasn’t ready to call herself that. Not out loud. Not yet.
But she had betrayed them—her.
Small betrayals at first. Quiet things, whispers in the wrong ears, favors traded under the table, lies softened with good intentions. She told herself she was protecting Natalia. Protecting the family.
But protection and power wore the same mask sometimes.
The forest thickened, swallowing the edges of the moonlight. Maren’s breath curled in the air, every exhale a fleeting ghost. Her thoughts kept circling back to Natalia—sweet, unsuspecting Natalia. So much like her mother, it made Maren’s chest ache.
Her sister would hate her if she knew.
No—if she remembered.
She could still picture her face, the way it looked the night everything changed. The night Maren chose survival over loyalty.
A branch snapped ahead.
She froze, hand sliding into her coat. But the silhouette that emerged wasn’t a threat.
Dorian.
He leaned against a tree like he belonged to it, shadows clinging to him like old lovers. Dorian never looked like he aged, but there was something older than time in his eyes. Something ancient and endlessly tired.
“You’re late,” he said, his voice low, edged with amusement.
Maren gave a dry smile. “You’re lucky I came at all.”
“Lucky?” Dorian pushed off the tree and stepped into the clearing. His coat flared with the movement, dark as pitch. “I don’t believe in luck, Maren. You know that.”
“I remember,” she said softly.
There was a pause. The forest seemed to still around them.
“You look different,” he noted, eyes sweeping over her.
Maren arched her brow. “I’m older.”
He tilted his head. “Not older. Heavier. Like you’ve been carrying something too long.”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she looked up at the trees. “Do you ever feel like the past never leaves this place? Like it just…waits?”
Dorian smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “The past doesn’t wait. It hunts.”
Maren flinched, but only slightly. She’d forgotten how sharp his words could be. Like claws under velvet.
“I didn’t come here to talk about the past,” she said.
“No,” he murmured. “You came because you need something.”
Silence settled between them again. Insects buzzed faintly in the distance. An owl hooted once, then fell silent.
“I need your help,” she said finally, the words bitter on her tongue.
“I figured,” Dorian said. He studied her for a long moment. “Does this have to do with your niece?”
Maren’s eyes flickered. “She’s…more important than she knows.”
“She’s not the only one who doesn’t know things,” he said pointedly. “You’ve kept her in the dark. All of them. Even now.”
“I’m trying to protect her.”
“You’re trying to protect yourself,” he said, stepping closer. “Don’t lie to me, Maren. Not here.”
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t ask for any of this. The prophecy. The curse.”
“But you chose everything else,” he said quietly. “You chose silence. You chose the wrong side.”
Her eyes snapped to his. “The wrong side saved lives.”
“For now,” he said. “But what happens when the truth comes out?, When she learns what you’ve done?”
Maren turned her face away. “Then she’ll hate me.”
“Will she?” Dorian asked. “Or will she become you?”
That hit harder than it should have. Maren took a shaky breath.
“What do you want from me, Dorian?”
He smiled faintly. “I already told you. I don’t want anything. You’re the one who came looking.”
She hesitated, then reached into her coat and pulled out a folded piece of parchment, creased from being read too many times. She handed it to him.
He opened it slowly, scanning the symbols inked in blood-red strokes. His eyes narrowed.
“Where did you get this?”
“I had to trade for it,” she said. “More than I should have. It’s old magic. Something is awakening beneath Hollowridge. Something tied to her.”
“To Natalia?”
She nodded. “She’s part of it. Whether she wants to be or not.”
Dorian folded the paper and slid it into his coat.
“You’re playing with fire.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“And the fire’s getting closer.”
Maren turned toward the darkness again, back the way she came. “So are the consequences.”
Dorian watched her go, his voice like gravel in the wind.
“You can’t outrun the truth forever, Maren.”
She didn’t look back.She didn’t tell him about the Alpha, it’s not yet time.
- Writer
