Chapter Three: The Wolf That Hungers

The runes beneath the slab dimmed. Not vanished, not gone—just waiting. I felt their absence like a breath held too long. The fae was gone too. Not vanished in smoke or shadow, but simply... no longer there. As if he'd never been. As if the weight he left behind was the only proof I hadn't imagined him.

I sat up slowly, muscles sore, throat still raw. My balance wavered. The air was thick, sweet, laced with something feral that prickled behind my teeth. I pressed a hand to the stone—it no longer burned, only pulsed faintly, a heartbeat I couldn’t name.

Something had changed.

A corridor stretched out beyond the pedestal, flanked by columns choked with ivy. The light was wrong—cool and gold at once, like moonlight smeared with blood.

The air changed as I walked—growing thicker, muskier. Shadows coiled tighter. Trees—real trees—twisted through the walls now, their roots breaching stone, bark glistening as if slick with breath. It felt like stepping into a den carved from instinct and hunger, where it was always night. The moonlight here wasn’t sky-born. It oozed from the stone itself, cold and silver, casting everything in the sheen of wild things just out of reach.

I stood. My legs trembled but held. The slab behind me pulsed once more, then quieted. I stepped off it.

And the prison... noticed.

The walls throbbed like lungs. The vines curled inward. The temperature dropped. Something ancient and waiting had stirred. I didn’t know where I was going, only that the corridor beckoned—and I wasn’t alone anymore.

The scent hit me first.

Earth. Musk. Heat. It wrapped around me like smoke, thick enough to taste. My pulse spiked. Every step forward felt heavier. Warmer. The air vibrated. A growl—so low it barely registered—thrummed through the floor. Not a warning. A promise.

Then I saw him.

A cell—or what might have been one. No bars. Just a yawning arch rimmed with claw marks and stone singed black. Inside: the beast. Half-man, half-wolf, crouched in a circle of chains that steamed where they touched his skin. His hands were claws. His chest heaved with ragged breath. Gold eyes snapped to mine—and something inside me flinched.

Not fear.

Recognition.

It hit like a shiver through my spine, low and certain. The kind of knowing that comes not from memory, but from marrow. He knew me. Not my name. Not my story. Something deeper. As if some thread of me had always belonged to him, even if neither of us had touched it before.

His nostrils flared. His shoulders tensed, massive and corded with muscle, trembling as though his body warred with itself. A low rumble brewed in his chest, not quite a growl, not quite a moan. His lips peeled back in a snarl, exposing fangs meant to tear—not in hatred.

Hunger.

And something worse.

Need.

The kind that made my skin tighten, my breath catch. The kind that felt like gravity had shifted, pulling me toward him whether I willed it or not.

The chains groaned.

The sound was wet and metal and unbearable. Steam hissed from the enchanted shackles as his muscles flexed against them. They strained, glowing red where they bit into him.

I took a step back, heart hammering.

He lunged.

The restraints caught him mid-snarl. Magic exploded—too bright, too sharp. His body recoiled, slamming backward into the stone with a cry that wasn't just pain. It was fury. Frustration. Desire denied. The howl lanced through the corridor like a blade, rattling my bones, scraping something raw inside me.

The air shook. Dust rained down. Still, he fought the pull of his bindings, body arched like a bow drawn too tight.

"Don’t," I whispered, my voice cracking. I didn’t know if I meant it for him or myself. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

His breathing slowed—just barely. The tension in his limbs didn’t ease. His chest still heaved like he was choking on restraint. But his eyes... they never left mine. Gold, bright and burning. Hungry. Haunted.

I could hear the rattle of the chains with every breath he took, the faint hiss where metal met magic and burned. Sweat slicked his brow, caught in the fur that lined his shoulders, and steam curled from his skin like he was some creature torn from the belly of the earth itself.

And then, in the space where breath becomes prophecy, he spoke.

"You smell like ruin."

His voice rasped through the silence; rough velvet dragged across bare skin. Smoke and gravel, dusk and desire. It wasn’t just a sound—it was a sensation. A caress of heat along the spine, a tremble low in the gut. A sound that made my knees ache to fold.

"You bled," he growled, heat curling around every syllable. "You woke us."

The word us echoed far too deep.

I swayed where I stood, knees threatening to collapse. My skin prickled. My breath came in shallow, high gulps, like I’d forgotten how to breathe in a room that suddenly felt far too small.

My mind reeled. Us. How many more like him? Like the vampire? Like the fae?

"What... what are you?" I asked, but the question left my lips broken, warped by fear and something stranger. Want. My voice came out small. Already defeated.

He smiled—if it could be called that. A baring of teeth, a flash of hunger. There was nothing kind in it. But there was recognition. As if he knew what I was really asking.

"The one who didn't stop."

The words wrapped around me, strange and sharp, like a collar of thorns. I didn’t know what they meant, but they dug in deep. My throat worked, trying to swallow the ache there, and I tried again.

"But what are you?" I whispered. The question escaped before I could stop it, more breath than voice, driven by something deeper than curiosity. I needed an answer. I needed something to name the thing staring at me like I was his last salvation—or his final undoing.

He didn’t answer.

Not right away.

Just watched me. Breathing hard. Chest rising and falling in ragged rhythm. Each breath dragged like it hurt, like even breathing around me was a battle he hadn’t prepared for.

The silence swelled—bloated, unnatural. It throbbed in my ears, pushed against my ribs, wrapped tight around my skull like it wanted to crush the thoughts forming there.

My lips parted before I knew what I wanted to say.

"You... saved me," I whispered, the words crumbling as they left me. "From the vampire. You pulled him off me."

He blinked. Just once. Slowly. That gold gaze didn’t soften—but something shifted. The rage in him didn’t vanish, but it... narrowed. Like he’d been a firestorm and now he was flame. Contained. Still deadly. Still wild.

I felt the change like the first exhale after drowning.

"Why?"

The question hung between us like blood in the air.

No answer.

But the chains creaked as he eased back. Not retreating—never that—but loosening his grip on the fury writhing inside him. His arms fell, knuckles grazing the stone floor. And for a heartbeat, he didn’t look monstrous.

He looked… tired.

Raw.

Wounded.

"Thank you," I murmured. The words felt brittle. Like glass warmed too fast. Too human for this place. Too small.

His eyes flared at the sound of them—something wild snapping into focus. Heat, yes. But more than that.

The silence swallowed the moment whole.

Then, slow as stone warmed by sun, he shifted. A tilt of his head. A movement barely more than breath.

When he spoke, it was almost a tremor. Not a growl. Not a threat.

"Ruarc," he said.

The name hit me like a wound I didn’t remember getting. It echoed—not just in my ears, but in my chest, in the bones of the stone beneath my feet. As if this place remembered him. Claimed him.

As if part of me did too.

I didn’t know it. But something inside me reacted—as if the stone beneath my feet recognized it, as if the name belonged to more than just the creature in chains.

"That’s what I was. Once. Before this."

The words came slow, guttural. Like they were dragged out from somewhere deep and ragged—scraped from behind fangs that didn’t belong in a human mouth. Each syllable sounded like it hurt to speak, like language was a thing barely remembered, barely endured. His voice shook—not with fear, but from the sheer effort of holding himself together.

The chains around his wrists sizzled again, reacting to the rise in his pulse. Magic surged along the metal like a warning. His body jerked once, shoulders straining before he stilled.

He didn’t explain what 'this' meant. He didn’t have to. I saw it written in the ridges of scarred flesh beneath the shackles. In the way he crouched—not like a beast waiting to pounce, but like something broken by waiting.

I followed the trembling line of his arms, the arch of his spine, the way his claws curled into the stone like he needed to anchor himself to this moment.

"Now?" I asked again, softer. My voice cracked on it.

His lips pulled back, breath shuddering through clenched teeth.

"Rage," he growled, the word dragged from the depths of his belly.

"Heat," he hissed, and his body shivered violently. The scent of him thickened—wild and sharp, like pine needles crushed beneath clawed feet, like sweat and smoke and iron.

A pause. Then, quieter. Harsher.

"Need."

That last word didn’t just fall—it landed, heavy and raw. And in it was everything he didn’t say.

How close he was to the edge.

How much of himself he’d buried just to keep from reaching for me.

I should’ve left then.

I should’ve backed away, turned around, let the fear do what it was meant to do. But I didn’t. I stepped closer.

Just one step. Careful. Slow. My bare foot touched the cold edge of his circle, just beyond the reach of the chains. The air here buzzed—thick, charged. Like breath caught in a throat too tight to release it.

He flinched. Not violently. Just a twitch of his shoulders. His claws scraped stone.

Something in me broke open.

He looked like pain. Like need so sharp it bled. And gods help me, I hated seeing it. Hated seeing him like this. Caged. Trembling. Suffering because of me.

My hand twitched at my side. I wanted to reach for him.

His head snapped up. The gold in his eyes blazed.

"Don’t come closer," he growled, but the threat in it was too thin. It shook at the edges. "I won’t stop. There’s no one to rip me off you."

He said it like a warning. But beneath it—raw, ragged fear. Fear of himself. Fear of what he’d do if I gave him the chance.

I froze.

Everything inside me screamed to leave, but I couldn’t. My chest ached. My fingers curled into fists to stop from reaching out.

He watched me. Breathing like a dying thing.

And then—he roared.

The sound tore through the corridor like a shockwave. It wasn’t rage. It was desperation—run. The ground vibrated. The vines recoiled. The chains sparked, smoke curling from his wrists.

I stumbled back, heart hammering, eyes wide. The world tilted—stone and shadow and sound blurring into motion.

I turned to flee—only to slam into something else. Solid. Cold.

Arms closed around me.

But they didn’t hold.

They cradled.

And a voice, low and too smooth, whispered into my hair:

"Careful, darling. The wolf isn’t the only thing awake."