ANEICA
She didn't stop running until her lungs burned and her legs trembled.
The trees closed around her like a mother's arms—sharp, wild, familiar. Safe.
And yet… she didn't feel safe.
Anecia pressed her back against the trunk of a crooked ash tree, eyes scanning the dark. Her breath came fast, and not from the sprint. Her heart hadn't slowed. It galloped like prey.
She had seen many things in the forest.
But never him.
The boy with the black hair and sky in his eyes.
He hadn't moved like the others. He hadn't shouted, or lunged, or smelt like fire and steel.
He had simply… looked.
And something in his eyes made her stomach tighten in a way she didn't understand.
She growled low to herself, pressing her palm over her chest where the feeling still lingered. Wrong. Soft. Confusing. The wolves would scold her for such hesitation.
No — not the wolves.
They already had.
She'd gone back to the pack after watching the camp.
She had tried, in her own wordless way, to explain what she saw.
They had known.
Before she could even pant out her confusion, they had known.
The Alpha had bristled, ears flat, and the others circled her, growling low, hackles raised—not at her, but at what her scent carried. Smoke. Metal. Man.
Liri had whimpered and tucked herself against Anecia's leg, but even she turned her head when the mark on Anecia's shoulder began to pulse.
The wolves knew fear.
And they feared them.
The Alpha had snapped at her heels when she lingered near the forest's edge again.
The Beta had blocked her path when she tried to sneak toward the stream.
No.
Not again.
"Forbidden," their body language said. "Not yours. Not pack. Not safe."
And yet…
Anecia traced her fingers over the mark on her shoulder—the black cat curled into her skin like a secret always watching.
It was warm now. Faintly humming.
It had never done that before.
Her dreams that night were fevered things:
Hands that looked like hers reaching out toward flame.
A voice—his voice—echoing without words she could understand.
Eyes.
Blue and violet.
Looking.
Searching.
She jolted awake, damp with sweat, tangled in moss and leaves.
The forest was silent.
Still.
But the quiet no longer comforted her.
Anecia stood slowly and turned toward the trees she wasn't supposed to cross.
She didn't look back.
The pack would not follow.
She didn't belong to them anymore.
Not fully.
Something was calling her.
Not with sound—but with memory. With wonder. With a strange ache in her ribs.
Maybe it was him.
Maybe it was what he saw in her.
Or maybe it was the part of her that had never been wolf at all.
But whatever it was…
She had to see him again.