Chapter1
1192 Words
Lena
The cemetery smelled of wet earth and flowers.
The rain had stopped before we arrived, but water still dripped from the trees, and the path between the graves had turned into mud.
I looked down at my shoes.
Ruined.
My aunt had insisted I wear them.
“They’re appropriate for a funeral,” she’d said.
I should have known better than to argue with her.
I stood near the back of the crowd, trying not to sink into the ground while the priest said the final prayers.
I didn’t know Elias Rowan well enough to stand with his family.
In fact, I barely knew him at all.
When I’d asked my aunt why we were here, she’d only said, “He was important to someone I knew.”
That was all.
She hadn’t explained who he was to her, either.
Normally, I’d have let it go.
Today, something felt wrong.
My aunt had barely spoken since we’d arrived. Every few minutes, she looked toward the trees.
Not casually.
She was watching them.
I leaned closer.
“Auntie?”
She looked at me.
“What?”
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No.”
Too quick.
I frowned.
She looked away.
At the cemetery entrance, two men stood beside the gate. They weren’t talking to anyone. They weren’t mourning.
They were watching the road.
I looked back at my aunt.
She was rubbing her thumb over the side of her knuckle.
She always did that when she was nervous.
“Auntie.”
“Stay close to me.”
Her voice was low.
“Why?”
“Just stay close.”
Before I could ask anything else, the priest stepped away from the grave.
The coffin bearers moved forward.
I stepped aside.
The coffin passed in front of me.
Then the white cloth covering it slipped.
I saw Elias’s face.
And the blood beneath his ear.
My stomach turned.
“Auntie…”
She had gone completely still.
The coffin shifted.
Someone shouted.
It hit the ground hard enough to make the lid c***k open.
Then Elias Rowan sat up.
I screamed.
His eyes were black.
Not dark brown.
Not cloudy.
Black.
People started running.
Someone shoved past me.
Another person fell.
The priest dropped whatever he’d been holding and ran toward the gate.
I stumbled backward.
The coffin tipped sideways.
I tried to get out of the way.
My foot sank into the mud.
I reached for something to steady myself.
My hand landed on Elias’s.
Cold.
So cold it felt wrong.
Then the cemetery disappeared.
Fire.
A house burning.
A woman running through smoke with a baby in her arms.
A black wolf standing in the flames.
Someone shouting.
“Find the child!”
Another voice screamed back.
“She can’t have survived.”
The woman stumbled.
The baby cried.
The fire swallowed everything.
Then—
“Run.”
I gasped.
The vision vanished.
Elias’s fingers closed around mine.
His body jerked violently.
I screamed again and pulled backward.
Something cracked.
His skin stretched.
Bones shifted beneath it.
A howl tore through the cemetery.
A wolf stood where the dead man had been.
It was enormous.
Black fur.
Black eyes.
Blood around its mouth.
I couldn’t move.
The wolf lowered its head.
Then it charged.
I ran.
I didn’t get far.
A child’s cry stopped me.
I turned.
A little boy was trapped beneath a fallen wooden frame near one of the graves.
People were still fleeing.
Nobody was coming back.
The wolf was getting closer.
“Come on.”
I ran toward the boy.
He looked up at me, crying.
“Get up.”
“I can’t.”
I grabbed the wood.
It was heavier than it looked.
“Try again.”
The wolf growled behind me.
My hands slipped.
“Come on!”
The boy crawled free.
I pushed him toward the path.
“Run!”
He ran.
I turned.
The wolf lunged.
Something black crashed into it from the side.
The impact sent both wolves rolling across the wet ground.
I backed away.
The second wolf was larger.
Faster.
It pinned the first one down.
There was a flash of teeth.
A violent struggle.
Then silence.
The black wolf stood over the body.
For a moment, it didn’t move.
Then it shifted.
I forgot how to breathe.
A man stood where the wolf had been.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and covered in mud. His shirt was torn, and blood ran from a cut near his temple.
He looked at the dead wolf first.
Then at me.
His expression changed.
He walked toward me.
“Are you hurt?”
I shook my head.
He stopped a few feet away.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
His eyes moved over me, checking for injuries.
Then he looked toward the path where the boy had disappeared.
“Did it touch you?”
“No.”
He nodded once.
I should have been terrified of him.
A man who could turn into a wolf had just killed another wolf in front of me.
Instead, I couldn’t stop staring.
Maybe because he was the first person who had stopped to make sure I was okay.
Maybe because there was something about him that felt strangely familiar.
His eyes dropped to my neck.
He froze.
I followed his gaze.
My pendant.
His expression changed.
“What is that?”
I touched the small silver pendant.
“My aunt gave it to me.”
“Where did she get it?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared at it.
For the first time since he’d approached me, he looked genuinely unsettled.
“What?”
He looked up.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t a nothing face.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“A what?”
“A nothing face.”
He stared at me.
I stared back.
For some reason, that almost made me laugh.
Almost.
Then shouting came from behind us.
People were returning to the cemetery now.
The man looked toward them.
“We need to leave.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“My aunt.”
His attention returned to me.
“She was here?”
“Yes. I can’t find her.”
He glanced toward the crowd.
“What does she look like?”
“Short. Dark hair. She was wearing a black dress.”
He looked toward the cemetery entrance.
“What’s her name?”
“Amira.”
He nodded, taking in the information.
Then his eyes returned to me.
“And you?”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Your name.”
“Lena.”
He went still.
“Lena.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not surprise exactly.
Something deeper.
The way he said my name made the back of my neck prickle, as if the name meant something to him that it had never meant to me.
He stared at me for another second.
Then he looked away.
I had no idea what had just happened.
It didn’t feel like it had anything to do with the pendant.
It felt like it was me.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD