Chapter 3
1129 Words
Light, then darkness. Then pain.
Elara gasped awake.
She was flat on her back, the forest canopy spinning above her. Her lungs burned. Her body throbbed like she’d been hit by a car—every bone sore, muscles trembling with strange fatigue.
Ronan knelt beside her, a gash across his shoulder leaking blood down his arm.
“You’re alive,” he said, breathless.
“I… think so.” Her voice came out like gravel. “What the hell was that?”
Ronan looked toward the tree line. The thing—whatever it was—was gone. But the way he stayed tense, shoulders coiled like a spring, told her it wasn’t over.
“That,” he said, “was a feral.”
Elara blinked. “A what?”
“A werewolf that’s lost its mind. No control. No humanity. They don’t reason. They just kill.”
She struggled to sit up, the pendant around her neck warm again. Almost humming. “How is that real? Any of this? This isn’t—none of this is supposed to be real.”
Ronan didn’t answer right away. He crouched near the edge of the clearing, scanning the trees. Only when he seemed sure they were alone did he look back at her.
“It’s real. You’ve known it your whole life, even if you buried it. It’s in your blood. In your bones.”
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head. “This is insane. My mom—she never told me anything like this. Just warnings. Stories. Like she was scared of something. But werewolves? I thought maybe she had… I don’t know. A breakdown.”
“She was protecting you,” Ronan said. “From the Order. From the curse. From what you are.”
Elara pressed her hands to her temples. Her head was spinning again. “I’m not cursed.”
He stepped closer, slowly, like approaching a frightened animal. “You are one of the last living bloodline wolves. That’s not just a curse. It’s a legacy. You’re not like me. Or the ferals. You’re something older. Stronger.”
“I didn’t ask for that,” she snapped. “I didn’t ask to be anything.”
“No one does,” he said softly.
They stood in silence for a long moment. The trees creaked gently in the wind.
Elara finally looked up. “You said feral. Like… like someone lost control. Is that what’s going to happen to me?”
“Not if you learn to control it first,” he said. “Your first full shift is coming. The blood moon is in six nights. When it rises, everything that’s been sleeping inside you wakes up.”
She swallowed hard. “And if I’m not ready?”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
They left the woods before sunrise.
Elara didn’t speak during the walk back. Her body ached in strange ways—like something inside her was stretching, reshaping itself. Her senses were still heightened, but now there was a rhythm underneath it all. Like she could hear the world breathing.
She kept glancing at Ronan when she thought he wasn’t looking.
He moved differently now. Quiet, precise. Always aware of his surroundings. There was something about him—untamed, but in control. Like a storm held behind a glass wall.
“How long have you known?” she asked him quietly as they crossed the edge of town.
“That I was like this?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Since I was ten.”
She frowned. “And you’ve been alone since then?”
Ronan hesitated. “It’s better that way. For everyone.”
He didn’t explain further.
They parted ways at the edge of the road behind Malcolm’s property. Ronan disappeared into the tree line like he belonged to it.
Elara slipped through the back door of the cabin just as the horizon began to glow with a pale orange dawn.
Malcolm was waiting in the kitchen.
Coffee brewed behind him, but he hadn’t poured a cup. He just sat at the table, eyes fixed on the door.
“You went out last night,” he said. Not a question.
Elara froze.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said carefully.
“I know where you went,” he added. “The Black Hollow Woods.”
Her breath caught.
“I told your mother we should’ve left this place for good,” Malcolm muttered, standing slowly. “But she thought hiding you here—under the town’s nose—was safer than running. She was wrong.”
“You know what I am,” Elara said. It wasn’t a question either.
He looked at her with something like pity in his eyes. “I know what you could be. That’s not the same.”
Elara stepped forward, voice low. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have believed me?” he asked. “You were a kid. You needed normal. School. Food. A roof. Not stories about monsters in the woods and curses in your blood.”
“They’re not stories.”
“No. They’re not.”
He finally poured himself a cup of coffee and stared out the window toward the trees.
“She left instructions. If the blood moon rose and you started to change, I was supposed to take you to her old safehouse in the eastern woods. There’s things there—records, relics. Truth. But I was hoping you’d never need it.”
Elara stood at the doorway, unsure whether to be angry or grateful.
“There’s something else,” Malcolm added. “A man came by yesterday asking about you.”
Her stomach dropped. “What kind of man?”
“Clean suit. Black car. City accent. Said he was with the historical society, doing a survey on old estate properties. But he asked about your mom. Her death. Your name.”
Elara’s mind raced. “He’s with the Order.”
“That’s what I figured. So I lied. Said you were staying in Asheville with a family friend. But if he’s sniffing around—” he paused “—you’re out of time.”
That night, Elara dreamed of the forest again.
Only this time, she wasn’t running.
She was hunting.
She could feel the earth through her hands, her paws. Hear the blood rushing in her prey’s veins. Trees blurred as she moved, faster than thought, the wind roaring past her ears.
She leapt—fangs bared—
And woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, nails digging into her sheets.
The silver pendant around her neck was glowing faintly.
Somewhere in the dark woods outside, something howled.
But this time… it didn’t sound far away.
It sounded inside her.
- Writer
