The return
The train hissed as it slid into Winterhaven’s lonely station, its lights carving through the early-winter fog like twin blades. Elara Whitney stepped onto the cold platform, her breath blooming into the air in soft white clouds. She stopped for a moment, letting the quiet settle around her.
Winterhaven was colder than she remembered.
Quieter than she remembered.
More alive than it should have been.
Snow drifted down in lazy spirals, catching the glow of the streetlamps like falling shards of glass. The wind carried a faint, eerie hum — not quite a howl, not quite a voice — but something that made her spine straighten in alertness.
She swallowed.
“Just tired,” she whispered to herself. “It’s been a long year.”
A long heartbreak.
A long escape.
She pulled her suitcase down the platform, boots crunching in the fresh snow. The sound echoed too loudly for an empty station. Winterhaven wasn’t the kind of town people visited in December. Most only came back because they had nowhere else to go.
She paused again.
Why did it feel like someone was watching her?
She turned slowly.
No one.
Only the snow. The shadows. The wide, silver moon hanging low over the mountains.
The moon was too bright.
Too full.
Too aware.
Elara wrapped her scarf tighter and walked toward the road, trying to ignore the prickling sensation along her skin. She’d grown up with these mountains, these trees, this sky. None of it should have felt foreign. And yet—
Her breath hitched.
A figure stood at the edge of the street, half in shadow, half illuminated by the drifting snow. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Still as stone.
Her suitcase wheels stopped turning.
The figure didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just watched her with unreadable intensity, as if he’d been waiting specifically for her, as if he recognized her—
Her heartbeat stumbled.
Elara took a step back.
Finally, the man moved — one step forward, boots muffled by the snow. Moonlight slid across his face, revealing sharp features, dark hair dusted with frost, and eyes she couldn’t look away from even as fear whispered inside her.
Eyes like winter storms.
Eyes that saw too much.
Eyes that made her feel… exposed.
“We haven’t met,” he said, voice low, controlled, with something dangerous beneath the surface. “But I know who you are.”
Her breath shook out. “Do I—should I know you?”
“No.” A faint twitch in his jaw. “But you will.”
The way he said it made something deep inside her tighten — a pull, a thread, a magnetic force she didn’t understand. Her chest warmed and froze at the same time.
He stepped closer.
Too close.
She should have been scared.
She was.
And yet she couldn’t move away.
“I’m Rowan,” he said, the name falling from his lips like a confession.
“Elara,” she whispered.
He inhaled sharply — a small, sharp sound, as if her name hit him physically. His eyes darkened, flickering with something intense, unspoken, almost hungry.
The wind blew between them, carrying the soft whisper of the forest behind him.
“Elara,” he repeated, softer. Too soft. Too intimate for a stranger. “You… came back.”
She frowned. “How do you know that?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, his gaze drifted to the moon overhead. The glow brightened, bathing them both in sharp, silver light. His pupils contracted, and something in his posture changed — like he was fighting something inside. Something primal.
“You should get home,” he murmured. “Tonight isn’t—safe.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You should be.”
A shiver ran down her spine.
The moonlight brightened again, flaring violently for a moment. Rowan’s breath hitched, jaw tightening, fists clenching at his sides like he was restraining himself.
“Elara,” he said again, voice deeper, rougher now. “Go.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Not a threat.
A warning.
A plea.
And behind it, something else:
Desire.
Recognition.
Obsession trying to break free.
Elara stepped back slowly, heart pounding, eyes locked with his until the snow curtain swallowed him.
She didn’t see him move.
One moment he was there.
The next — gone.
Only the whisper remained.
You came back.
You came back.
You came back.
As she walked through the empty streets of Winterhaven, the moon followed her every step.
And somewhere in the trees, Rowan watched.
Fighting the instinct clawing at him.
Fighting the need to go after her.
Fighting the curse that had just awakened.
She’s mine.
The thought slammed into him like a blow.
She came back for me. The moon brought her back.
He closed his eyes, breath sharp and shaking.
The pull had begun.
