***CHAPTER THREE THE WATCHER IN THE DARK***
1023 Words
The walk home felt longer than it had ever been.
Amara wrapped her arms tightly around herself as she moved through the quiet Christmas Eve streets, the cold air sharp in her lungs. Everywhere she looked, she saw signs of warmth—families laughing through windows, soft lights twinkling on decorated trees, couples sharing late-night kisses.
She didn’t belong in any of it.
Not tonight.
Her cheeks still stung from the slap she never received but felt all the same—Tunde’s betrayal echoing in her chest like a wound that refused to bleed.
But worst of all…
Kael’s words followed her like the wind.
There are wolves in the city tonight.
Someone is coming for you.
She tried to shake them off, to convince herself he was just another toxic, possessive man using strange metaphors to sound powerful.
But she couldn’t forget the glow in his eyes…
The snarl that wasn’t quite human…
The way Tunde fell to his knees without being touched.
No normal man could do that.
Halfway down her street, a soft crunch behind her made her freeze.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Deliberate.
Her heart leaped painfully. She turned.
Nothing.
Only the gentle sway of Christmas lights on a neighbor’s balcony.
“Calm down,” she whispered shakily. “You’re imagining things.”
But the silence felt wrong.
Too thick.
Too watchful.
She picked up her pace, pulling out her key as her apartment building came into view.
Another sound.
Closer.
She turned sharply again—and this time, she saw it.
Not fully.
Not clearly.
Just a shadow.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Standing too still for any normal person.
Like it was waiting.
Her breath hitched.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.
But the shadow shifted.
Not toward her.
Around her.
Circling.
Her heart hammered violently.
She started to run.
Her boots pounded the pavement as she sprinted the last stretch to her building. She fumbled the key, her hands shaking violently as she shoved it into the lock and ripped the door open.
She stumbled inside.
Locked the door.
Then locked the second bolt.
Then the chain.
Her breaths came in jagged gasps.
Don’t open it.
No matter what you hear tonight.
Kael’s voice echoed through her mind.
She pressed her back against the door, sliding down until she sat on the floor, clutching her knees.
After a long moment, she exhaled shakily and forced herself to stand. She needed to calm down. Needed to think. Needed—
A soft tap came from the window behind her.
She froze.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Her blood went cold.
Amara turned slowly toward the living-room window.
A shape stood outside.
Something tall pressed against the fogged glass—dark, hulking, and wrong in all the ways a human silhouette could be wrong.
She stepped back, pulse in her throat, chest, skull.
The tapping grew deliberate.
Rhythmic.
Almost mocking.
She whispered, voice breaking, “Kael… what did you drag into my life?”
The tapping stopped.
Silence.
Then—
A deep, resonant growl vibrated through the window.
Amara screamed.
She backed into the hallway just as something hit the glass with terrifying force.
The window rattled violently.
A crack split across it.
Another impact.
The crack widened.
“No—no—no,” she whispered, covering her mouth with trembling hands.
A snarl—low, guttural, enraged—shook the frame.
Then she heard footsteps.
Fast ones.
Running.
Outside.
On the street.
Past her building.
Two sets.
No—three.
They moved with unnatural speed, heavy and predatory.
A fight?
She heard it before she believed it—snarls, growls, bodies slamming, the sickening crack of bone against pavement.
Something howled.
Not human.
Not close to human.
Amara stumbled backward, clamping her hands over her ears, shaking as the chaos erupted outside her apartment.
Glass shattered.
Furniture crashed.
Something heavy hit the wall beside her window.
Her heart screamed inside her chest.
“Please… please stop,” she cried to no one.
Then everything went silent.
Suddenly.
Completely.
It was worse than the noise.
The quiet wrapped around her like a suffocating blanket.
Until—
Soft footsteps echoed in her hallway.
Inside her apartment.
Slow.
Even.
Terrifying.
Amara’s breath hitched painfully.
She wasn’t alone.
Someone—or something—was inside.
She backed away, shaking violently. Her voice barely left her chest.
“Who’s there?”
The footsteps drew closer.
Her vision blurred with tears.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t hurt me.”
A shadow moved around the corner.
Tall.
Broad.
Covered in darkness.
Her heart stopped.
“Amara.”
She gasped.
She knew that voice.
Kael stepped into the faint glow of her hallway light—shirt torn, hair wild, chest rising with heavy breaths. A long gash trailed down his arm, dripping blood that wasn’t quite red.
His eyes glowed fiercely—dangerous, wolf-bright.
He took one shaky step toward her.
“You’re safe,” he whispered, voice rough and raw. “I got here in time.”
But behind the fierce protectiveness in his gaze…
something else lived.
Something ancient.
Claiming.
Irreversible.
Something that terrified her almost as much as the creature that tried to break in.
“Kael…” she breathed, backing up until she hit the wall.
He closed the distance in two swift strides and cupped her face gently—so gently she nearly broke.
“You are mine to protect,” he murmured. “And I will not lose you.”
His forehead pressed to hers, breath mingling with hers.
“You have no idea,” he whispered, “how close I came to slaughtering the entire street when I sensed your fear.”
Her knees weakened.
She was shaking.
Not just from terror anymore.
From something deeper.
Something she didn’t want to understand.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why me?”
Kael’s voice dropped to a possessive, intimate murmur that made her entire body tremble.
“Because, Amara…”
His lips brushed her temple.
“…you were born for me.”
The room spun.
And in the distant, broken silence…
she realized her life would never go back to normal again.
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- Writer
