The forest had fallen quiet.
The hunting party had made camp not far from the stream's edge, ringed in flickering light and strange smells—burning wood, salted meats, and the iron tang of sharpened metal. Anecia had watched them until the light dimmed and the laughter faded. Until their voices slurred into tired murmurs, and their bodies became still in strange cloth cocoons near the fire.
She waited longer still.
Patience came easy to her.
The wolves had taught her that the hunt wasn't in the chase—it was in the stillness before. The world grew slow and dark, and her breath slowed with it.
Then… she moved.
Low to the ground, silent as mist, she padded into their camp, each step deliberate and careful. Her head tilted with quiet curiosity as she examined the things they had left behind: a circle of cups made of dull metal that clinked when she tapped them, strange pelts folded near sleeping bodies, and a long stick—smooth and cold—strapped with leather and tipped with something sharp. She reached out and brushed it. It bit her.
She hissed softly, licking the blood from her finger.
She sniffed at a pair of boots near a tree. Leather. Salt. Sweat. Not animal, not wood—not anything she knew. These were the trappings of another world. She circled a bedroll and crouched beside it, staring at a face so soft in sleep. The man's nose twitched. She flinched. Still asleep.
Her fingers drifted to his necklace—metal hanging in the shape of a bird. She tugged it gently. It jingled.
She paused.
No sound from the sleepers. She relaxed again, eyes roaming across them, one after another. They were all so like her… and yet not. Their skin was clean. Their hair tamed. Their smell—too sharp, too sweet.
They were strange.
She didn't understand them.
She didn't understand why they had so many things. Why they wrapped themselves when the night was warm. Why they slept on the ground but didn't feel the earth.
Anecia crouched near the fire, mesmerized by the last glowing embers. She reached a hand close, curious. The heat licked her palm, and she yanked it back, baring her teeth in instinct. Fire bit. Like steel. Like man.
She backed away and shook out her hand, a low growl in her throat.
The wind shifted.
And so did the shadows.
A shape rose behind her, tall and still, cutting the moonlight clean in half.
She froze.
Eyes wide, she turned slowly—and found him watching her.
He did not shout.
He did not reach for a weapon.
He simply looked.
The boy—no, the man—stood with the moon behind him, blue eyes catching its light like water. His hair was raven-black, tousled, and moved softly in the night breeze. There was pain behind his gaze. Something old. Something lost. But his stance was calm, even gentle.
Anecia took a step back.
He moved slightly.
She crouched low, ready to run. Her muscles coiled like springs.
"Hey…" he whispered.
His voice was low. Soft. Not like the others.
She blinked at him, her ears straining to make sense of the sound. His mouth moved—strange, twitching things that meant nothing to her. Words. Human sounds. They echoed in her chest like thunder in a cave.
Confusing.
Too much.
She shook her head and snarled softly, her lip curling in warning.
He stepped forward.
Too close.
Wrong. It felt wrong. Too close. Too near. Too loud.
She did the only thing her blood knew.
She growled.
A sharp, guttural sound—low and fierce and wild.
Damien froze.
And Anecia ran.
Through firelight and shadow, past leather and steel and beds of snoring strangers, into the black trees she fled. Her feet pounded the soil. Her heart crashed in her chest.
She didn't stop until the only light was the moon above and the only sound was her breath in the dark.
Behind her, the camp slept again.
But he had seen her.
And something inside her knew… this wasn't over.