A Tale Of Twilight: The Dawn Of Dark Ages

THE GHOST IN THE WOODS

The night was a velvet shroud, heavy and still. Silence, profound and absolute, was broken only by the periodic, mournful hoot of an owl and the constant, hushed sigh of the wind as it brushed through the canopy of ancient trees. The air was thick with moisture, clinging to the skin like a cold kiss. Above, the moon was a shy sliver of tarnished silver, offering little light; the stars were mere pinpricks in the infinite black, distant and cold.

It was a perfect night for the Full Breeds to roam.

Unlike their lesser kin, the Half-Breeds whose power was shackled to the lunar cycle, the Full Breeds carried the wolf within them always. Their transformation was a choice, a voluntary unleashing of a fury that simmered just beneath their human skin. Even in their bipedal form, they moved with the silent, ground-eating grace of a predator, their senses sharpened to a razor's edge, their strength a terrifying, constant companion to their human cunning.

For Yvonne Arne, trapped in her gilded cage, it was a night that sang a siren song of freedom and hunting. A thousand bloody scenarios played out behind her eyes, each one a delicious escape from the stifling reality of her confinement.

And that reality had a name: Matthew Garrett.

His presence was a constant, infuriating pressure at her door. An unmovable object to her irresistible force. Her attempts to be rid of him had been numerous, creative, and utterly futile. Contracting others was impossible; her father’s decree placed Matt under the royal protection, no vampire would dare touch him. That left only her. And every direct confrontation had ended the same way: with her disarmed, outmaneuvered, and staring into those calm, coffee-brown eyes that seemed to see right through her rage to the frustration beneath.

She needed to get out. Not just out of her room, but out from under his all-seeing gaze.

An idea, wicked and brilliant, struck her. A slow, predatory smile touched her lips.

She moved to her chamber window, the highest point in the castle. The drop was sheer, a plummet that would shatter bone and pulp flesh for any mortal. For her, it was a staircase. She leaned out, scanning the grounds with preternatural acuity. No sign of him. He would be at his post, a statue of patient vigilance outside her door. He was thorough, but he was predictable.

With the fluidity of shadow, she slipped over the sill and onto the narrow lintel. For a heartbeat, she was a silhouette against the bruised sky, a dark angel poised for flight. But true flight, would tear the silent night like sounding an alarm. Instead, she simply let herself fall.

The ground rushed up to meet her, a yawning maw of darkness. At the last possible second, she twisted her body, flipping to land perfectly poised on the balls of her feet. The impact was utterly silent, a feat of control so perfect that the settling of a dust mote would have been louder. She didn’t even allow her heels to kiss the earth, levitating a mere centimeter above the gravel to ensure her escape remained a ghost’s secret.

She was a wisp of darkness, flowing across the courtyard toward the forgotten side entrance, a rusted iron gate half-consumed by ivy that led directly into the waiting embrace of the woods.

The moment the ancient trees closed around her, a weight lifted from her shoulders. She was free. The castle was a birdcage no longer. And the bodyguard was a problem for future Yvonne. Present Yvonne had hunting to do.

As the distance between her and her prison grew, she let her feet finally touch the loamy earth. She stopped, tilting her head back, and inhaled deeply, drawing the night’s tapestry of scents into her lungs. Decaying leaves, damp moss, the musky trail of a fox, the distant smoke of a human heart. It was clean, wild, and blissfully absent of any unusual or threatening aroma.

Bliss.

With a laugh that was little more than a breath, she exploded into motion. Her speed was stupendous, a blur that wove between the thick trunks, leaving the stirring air as the only sign of her passage. As she ran, she let her mind wander, the rhythm of her flight loosening the chains on her introspection.

Her father. Arne. She loved him with the fierce, possessive love of a creature who knew no other family. But he didn’t understand. He saw her as a reckless child, a precious heirloom to be kept under glass. He’d never understood her need for chaos, for the visceral thrill of the hunt.

Her mother had.

Valerie Arne. The memory rose, unbidden and clear as crystal. A vampire’s memory is a perfect record, and Yvonne’s, sharpened by Lunar Clan blood, could recall every detail, every scent, every inflection of her mother’s voice as if it were yesterday.

***

She was small, curled on her mother’s lap in the solar, bathed in firelight. Valerie was gorgeous, not with the severe, masculine beauty of Arne, but with a radiant warmth that seemed to defy their cold nature. She had the largest heart in the world, a fact proven by her life’s work: a single-handed, relentless crusade for unity and equality among the races. She was a revolutionary dressed in velvet.

“Yvonne, darling,” Valerie said, her voice a melody, pinching her daughter’s cheek with gentle affection. “Your new flight instructor will be here soon. You’ll finally begin your lessons.”*

Even then, Yvonne’s small face had set into a stubborn line. “No, Mama. I’m not taking anything from anyone.”

*And she hadn’t. Tutor after esteemed tutor had been sent away by a tiny, imperious vampire child who would rather wreak havoc in the halls than learn to harness her birthright.*

Until one day, she had bounded into the room, her small face alight with a new idea. “Mom! I’ll take the flight lesson… if you teach me.”

The joy that had bloomed on Valerie’s face had lit up the entire castle. It was all anyone could talk about. Finally, the stubborn princess had relented.

But Valerie didn’t teach like the others. There were no tedious drills in the great hall. Instead, she had simply swept her giggling daughter into her arms and shot into the sky, a rocket of pure joy piercing the clouds.

Yvonne remembered the scream tearing from her own lungs not of fear, but of pure, unadulterated exhilaration. Her trust in her mother was infinite, an unbreakable cord tethering her to safety. High above the world, where the air was thin and cold, Valerie stopped, holding her daughter out at arm’s length.

*“You can open your eyes now, Yvonne.”*

*Trembling from head to toe, Yvonne had obeyed. Her small hands were vises around her mother’s wrists. Below her feet was nothing but a dizzying expanse of world, a patchwork of green and brown and blue.

“All you need to do, my dear, is find your balance,” Valerie’s voice was calm, a anchor in the vast sky. “Make yourself one with the air. You don’t fight the wind, you ride it. Ready? I’m letting go.”

*And she did.*

Yvonne fell. Like a stone, like a shot bird, she plummeted, the wind screaming in her ears, the ground swelling to meet her. Terror was a lightning bolt—brief and shocking—before it was washed away by a wild, surging thrill. Just before she became a stain on the forest floor, strong arms caught her, swooping her back into the safety of the sky.

“Again! Again, again, again!” she had shrieked, her joy knowing no bounds.

“There, there now, little bat,” Valerie had laughed, holding her close. “This is no funfair.”

But it was. It was the greatest game. And she got better. Each fall lasted longer, her panic replaced by a dawning understanding, until the moment, high above the world, when the falling sensation ceased. She hung, suspended, cradled by nothing but her own will and the currents of the air.

“Mom! I’m doing it! I’m doing it!”

The memory was so vivid, so warm, that a genuine smile, a rare, unguarded thing, touched Yvonne’s face as she ran. But bliss in her world was a fragile thing, forever stalked by its shadow.

The beautiful memory shattered, replaced by a vision so brutal it was a physical blow.

Her mother’s body, strapped to the execution seat in the pitch-black chamber. The only light, a single, cruel shaft of sunlight blazing through a hole in the ceiling, directly onto the seat. It was a method reserved for the most monstrous of their kind—vampires who killed for sport, for pleasure. Her mother, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, was being executed as one.

The sun’s rays did not cause a vampire to burst into flame. That was a human myth for children. It was a slower, more agonizing death. Desiccation. Her beautiful mother’s skin had cracked and blackened, her body withering, mummifying alive under the relentless glare. A sun-dried corpse, her eyes wide with silent agony.*

The humans and werewolves she had sought to unite had betrayed her, tried her under their laws, and delivered her to that monstrous end.

Valerie had taught love. That day had taught Yvonne only hate. All her cheer had died in that dark room, replaced by a cold, hard knot of vengeance. Every human, every werewolf, was not a person but a walking reminder of that loss, a potential outlet for the bottomless rage that now fueled her.

The woods thinned, the artificial glow of streetlights bleeding into the natural dark. She emerged onto a service road that ran parallel to a major highway. The night was alive here with the roar and buzz of mortal industry—cars speeding past, their occupants oblivious to the predator now in their midst.

Finally. The past receded, burned away by the urgent need of the present. She needed to hunt. To feel warm blood on her tongue, to feel a life fade under her hands. It was the only balm that ever soothed the ache.

She sniffed the air again, filtering out the stench of gasoline and asphalt, searching for the scent of a lone individual, a quiet, dark corner where an unsuspecting soul might wander.

Her eyes scanned the periphery, discarding the well-lit gas stations and crowded roadside bars, seeking the perfect, isolated ambush point.

And that’s when she saw him.

A figure, standing perfectly still just off the road, half-shrouded in the shadow of a large oak. He wasn’t hiding. He was just… waiting.

There was an odd, terrifying familiarity to his silhouette, a calmness in his posture that froze the blood in her veins.

Her instincts screamed at her to attack, to obliterate this witness, this obstruction.

But her body refused to obey.

Every limb was locked, seized by a paralyzing dread she had only felt once before. Her breath hitched in her throat.

The figure took a single, silent step forward, out of the shadows and into the dim ochre glow of the streetlight.

It was Matthew Garrett.

He wasn’t smiling. His expression was neutral, but his eyes held a depth of knowing that was utterly terrifying. He looked at her not as a pursuer looks at prey, but as a guardian looks at a wayward charge. Disappointed. Resigned.

And he had let her run all this way, just to show her how truly, completely trapped she was.

A single, silent word formed on her lips, a breath of sheer, undiluted terror.

“You…”