Chapter2:The-Scar
1043 Words
The cabin looked like it had been built for ghosts.
Weatherworn wood. No lights. No sound but the wind slipping through cracked windowpanes. Elias didn’t wait for her to catch up. He disappeared inside like the dark was home.
Calla hesitated on the threshold, one boot on the porch, the other still planted in the wild. Her body screamed at her to turn back. Run. Find a different path, a different mountain, a different life.
But her scar was burning.
She hadn’t told him that.
She hadn’t told anyone.
She stepped inside.
The air was warmer in here—but only just. A fire flickered in a stone hearth, more ash than flame. Weapons lined the wall, most of them old, some rusted. She saw a cracked map nailed above a desk covered in parchment, claw marks scoring the wood.
It wasn’t a home. It was a war room.
Elias stood in front of the fireplace, shirtless now. He moved with the kind of control that made her uneasy—like he was always half a second away from violence. His back was scarred, long silver lines slashing across muscle and ink. There was a tattoo on his shoulder, something circular and runic, partially burned away.
He didn’t turn to face her.
“You’re not normal,” he said.
Calla snorted and shut the door behind her. “Neither are you.”
“That mark on your side,” he continued. “I’ve seen it before. Once. When I was a child.”
She blinked. “Where?”
He turned now. Those amber eyes hit her like a punch to the ribs.
“On a corpse.”
Her mouth went dry. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” he said quietly, “you’re not just some wanderer who got lost in my woods.”
“I’m not anybody,” she snapped. “I’ve spent the last decade making sure of it.”
He stepped toward her. “And yet fate still dragged you here.”
“No. I dragged myself here.” Her voice cracked. “Because I had nowhere else left to go.”
Something flickered across his expression. Not pity. Something deeper. Something broken.
He nodded toward the scar. “It’s not just a mark. It’s a sigil. Blood magic. Ancient.”
Her fingers hovered over it, heart pounding. “Then why don’t I remember anything?”
“You’re not supposed to.”
Elias crossed the room in two strides and stopped inches from her. “People like you are erased.”
The fire crackled behind him, casting golden light on his chest, his arms, the dark tattoo on his ribs. He smelled like cedar and smoke—and something colder underneath, something that didn’t belong to the human world.
“You’ve been hunted before,” he said, like he already knew.
She nodded once. “And I will be again.”
“You don’t know what you are,” he said.
“No.”
He tilted his head. “Then why come here?”
Calla looked away. The fire snapped louder.
“I had a name,” she said finally. “Someone whispered it in a border town when they thought I was asleep. Vexley. The Wolf Who Walks Alone. Said you weren’t real.”
“And yet here I am.”
“I figured if anyone knew what I was… it’d be you.”
Elias studied her like she was something carved in stone, something dangerous but too ancient to destroy without consequence.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said again, but softer this time. “My wolves are already restless. The scar, the blood… they can smell it on you.”
“I’m not scared of wolves.”
“You should be scared of me.”
He stepped closer.
Too close.
Calla’s breath caught in her throat. She wanted to move—back or forward, she didn’t know—but her body was frozen between instinct and curiosity.
Then he reached out and touched the edge of her scar.
She flinched, but didn’t pull away.
His fingertips were rough, warm, and when they brushed her skin, the scar pulsed—glowing faintly beneath the surface.
He drew back sharply.
“That’s not dormant,” he muttered. “It’s waking.”
Calla swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”
“It means you didn’t just walk into my territory, Calla. You were summoned.”
She shook her head. “No one summoned me. No one even knows me.”
“Something does.”
He turned, grabbing a black shirt from the back of a chair and pulling it over his head. “You need to stay here tonight.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What? Why?”
“Because the moment you crossed my border, you became a target. And if what I think is true, you’re not just marked—you’re claimed.”
“By who?”
His eyes met hers. “We’ll find out.”
She laughed once, sharp and bitter. “Great. So I came here looking for answers and walked straight into another mystery.”
“You came here for survival,” he said. “The truth was just a bonus.”
She sank into the chair near the fire, exhaustion finally crashing over her. Her body throbbed with pain. Her side was still bleeding. But now that she wasn’t running, the fear started to fade.
And that’s when something else settled in its place.
A pull.
Not desire, not yet—but awareness. Of the way Elias’s presence filled the cabin. Of the way her pulse jumped every time he looked at her. Of the way her scar ached when he got too close.
Like it remembered something her mind didn’t.
He didn’t speak again. He just watched the flames.
Calla sat in the chair, the fire warming her skin, and tried not to wonder if she’d made a mistake coming here.
But deep down, something told her she hadn’t.
Something told her her real story hadn’t even started yet.
Perfect—here’s Chapter Three of Blood Eden. The story deepens: truths unravel, trust is tested, and something begins to simmer between them—dangerous and undeniable.
- Writer
