MIDDAY
1154 Words
The wind had shifted twice in the last hour, each change bringing with it a new thread of scent—snow, pine, the faint smoke of a distant fire, and something else… something wild and sharp. Rowan paced along the tree line, boots sinking into the half-melted drifts as the late-morning sun strained through a bruised sky. The world was caught in the strange pause between winter's bite and spring’s thaw, everything too quiet, too still. Even the birds seemed hesitant.
Inside his mind, Asher prowled, restless and electric.
She’s close. Stop hesitating.
Rowan exhaled slowly, breath fogging the air. I’m not hesitating, he argued.
Liar.
push away both tension and irritation. “You’re being dramatic,” he muttered aloud.
Asher snarled in response.
Rowan turned his attention back to the path, letting his senses open wider. Holly had been avoiding him all morning under the pretense of cleaning the cabin—something he suspected was more escape tactic than actual need. She was trying to pretend nothing strange was happening. Trying to pretend the pull in her chest wasn’t real. Trying to convince herself she wasn’t going stir-crazy from being snowed in with him in a cabin miles away from civilization.
But the rogue’s presence complicated everything.
The young female wolf had been lingering around the territory like a shadow. No aggression. No challenge. No words. Just watching. Observing. As if waiting for some invisible cue.
Asher halted suddenly, muscles coiling.
There.
There. THERE.
Rowan froze.
A soft crunch broke the stillness—snow compacting under a cautious step.
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Then… a figure appeared between the trees.
A girl. Barely an adult. Long dark hair tangled by wind, clothes torn by running. Her cheeks were red from cold, and her eyes—storm-gray, wide—flicked between Rowan and something behind him. She didn’t drop into a defensive stance. Didn’t posture. Instead, she lifted her hands slowly, palms out.
“I’m not here to fight,” she said, voice hoarse from disuse or fear.
Rowan raised a brow. “You’ve been tracking us for two days.”
She bit her lip. “Not tracking. Following.” A pause. “There's a difference.”
Asher growled. Rowan ignored him.
“What do you want?” Rowan asked.
The girl swallowed hard. “The human.” Her voice trembled, but her scent didn’t spike with aggression—only desperation. “The girl in the cabin.”
Rowan stiffened instantly. “Why?”
The rogue hesitated. Her gaze drifted toward the distant roofline barely visible through the trees. “Because…” She stopped, eyes darting nervously. “Because she smells like someone I lost.”
The words struck Rowan like a physical blow.
“Explain,” he ordered, voice low.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Not fully. Not yet.” Her voice cracked. “But I need to see her again.”
Again.
Rowan’s pulse jumped.
Asher’s lunged.
She knows Holly. She recognizes her. She—
“Stay back,” Rowan warned, even as the girl shook her head fervently.
“I’m not here to hurt her. Or you. I just—” Her breath hitched, frustration and fear knotting in her voice. “Please. Let me talk to her.”
Rowan studied her closely, reaching out with both instinct and logic. She wasn’t lying. Her wolf wasn’t lying either—the scent of truth clung to her like frost. Still… she was hiding something. Something that twisted tightly under her scent like a second heartbeat.
“Start with your name,” Rowan demanded.
Her lips parted… but before she could answer, the snapping of a twig echoed from deeper in the forest.
She flinched.
Rowan’s head whipped toward the noise.
Another presence. Another scent.
Stronger. Older. Far less friendly.
The rogue girl’s eyes widened with panic. “No—no, no, no. They followed me.”
They.
Asher roared inside Rowan’s chest.
Rowan positioned himself between her and the incoming threat instinctively.
“You led them here?” Rowan hissed.
“I tried to lose them! I swear it!” she whispered fiercely, tears forming from fear rather than cold. “I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”
Rowan cursed under his breath.
The forest exploded with movement as two large wolves broke through the brush, snarling, eyes locked on the girl. Their intent was unmistakable—she wasn’t prey. She was quarry. They were hunting her specifically.
The girl stumbled back. “Please—help me.”
Asher surged.
Rowan didn’t hold him back.
His vision blurred as bones snapped and reshaped, fur rushing across skin, muscles swelling—his wolf breaking free with a feral roar that shook snow loose from the branches above.
The larger of the two wolves lunged.
Asher met him in midair, claws slicing, jaws snapping.
The forest became a storm of snarls, snow, and flying fur.
The rogue girl scrambled out of the way, shielding her head as another wolf circled her. She braced for impact—
—but he never reached her.
Asher slammed into him from the side, sending both tumbling across the frozen ground.
Rowan’s wolf fought with practiced brutality—every movement controlled, lethal, efficient. The two hunters were strong, but they were uncoordinated, reckless… desperate.
Asher reveled in it.
Too easy, he mocked, tearing into the shoulder of the second wolf.
The first hunter regained his footing, hackles raised, but his ears flicked back as a distant howl echoed through the woods. A signal. A retreat.
The two wolves exchanged a single look—then bolted.
Cowards in defeat.
Asher snarled after them, but Rowan forced control back into his limbs, shifting with a groan as he stood human once more. Steam rose from his skin in the cold air.
“Why were they chasing you?” Rowan demanded.
The rogue girl trembled violently, hugging herself.
“Because I left them.”
“Who?”
She hesitated… then lifted her eyes to his, gray irises swirling with grief.
“My pack,” she whispered. “Or what’s left of it.”
Rowan’s breath caught.
Asher’s fury turned sharply alert.
The girl swallowed hard before adding:
“And before you ask—I didn’t lead them to your cabin. I don’t know where you’re keeping her. But I can feel her. I know she’s here.”
Rowan’s stomach tightened.
She continued, voice shaking with raw truth:
“I’m not lying. I don’t know how I know her. I just…”
Her hand pressed to her chest.
“Something in me recognizes her. Like blood calls to blood.”
A chill crawled down Rowan’s spine.
Holly had no wolf.
No lineage.
No ties.
And yet…
Asher whispered, low and certain:
She’s connected to Holly.
And Holly is one of us… even if she doesn’t know it yet.
Rowan’s jaw tightened.
This changed everything.
- Writer
