Chapter three - When prey strikes

By nightfall, the city’s ruins bled into the forest. Cracked streets dissolved into dirt paths, and half-toppled buildings gave way to trees that clawed at the sky. Nova’s boots sank into damp soil, each step heavier than the last. She told herself she should turn back—return to the shadows she knew, to the dangerous comfort of anonymity.

But she didn’t. Something pulled her forward, insistent and invisible.

Every sound magnified in the darkness: the rush of wind through leaves, the snap of twigs beneath her weight, the cry of some unseen bird. The deeper she went, the less it felt like entering unknown territory and more like crossing a threshold she had always been destined to breach. Her senses sharpened, every rustle and distant echo taking on weight, meaning. She could almost feel the earth beneath her feet remembering her passage, guiding her.

And then she felt them.

Eyes in the dark.

Silver glints among the trees, low and steady. She slowed, hand drifting to the dagger at her belt, though she knew steel wouldn’t save her if they decided to close in. Wolves. Not Hunters this time. Not prey. Predators—his predators.

Her throat tightened.

“Show yourselves,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure if she meant it.

The forest answered with silence.

Then, from the treeline ahead, he stepped into view.

Kilian.

He moved with a quiet power that silenced the woods around him. His presence filled the clearing as if it belonged to him, as if he were carved from the very shadows. Broad shoulders, steady stride, eyes that burned in the moonlight. Alpha in every sense of the word.

Nova froze.

“You’re trespassing,” he said, low and steady, each word cutting through the night like a blade.

Nova lifted her chin, pulse hammering, and let her dagger hang at her side. “Maybe I’m done running.”

He tilted his head, eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Maybe. Or maybe you just want to be caught.”

Her chest tightened. Normally, she would have been the one in control, the hunter. Now, the pull beneath her skin, the bond thrumming, made her feel exposed—prey to him in ways she hadn’t expected. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she snapped, trying to regain command. “I’m still the one who decides.”

Kilian’s lips curved—not a smile, but something darker, teasing. “Funny. Tonight, the hunter hesitates, and the prey is calm.”

Nova’s hands clenched at her sides. Every instinct screamed to strike, to assert herself—but he wasn’t the prey tonight. And that… unnerved her. It made her heart race in ways that had nothing to do with fear. “Stay out of my way,” she hissed, though her knees threatened to buckle.

His gaze held hers, unblinking, burning. “You already know I won’t.”

The wolves shifted, tense, yet unmoving—sensing the silent battle of will between them. Nova’s pulse quickened, not just with tension, but with a thread of something she refused to name. The hunter and the hunted, roles reversed, and she was dangerously aware of it.

Her voice was a whisper, sharp with defiance. “Don’t think you can read me.”

“I’m not trying to read you,” he said softly, voice low, almost intimate. “I’m just… reminding you who’s really standing in this clearing.”

Nova swallowed, every muscle coiled, every sense alert. The bond thrummed beneath her skin, echoing through her veins. She hated the way it made her body betray her, hated the longing she could not voice—but she could not step back. Could not break free from the gravity of him, even as she told herself she had to.

A breeze rustled through the trees, carrying the faint metallic scent of blood and pine smoke. Nova inhaled sharply, heart hammering. She realized with a jolt that the wolves were watching her every move, mirroring her tension, waiting, but bound to him. Even in the dark, surrounded by predators, she felt herself both hunted and protected, torn between fear and an unfamiliar thrill that made her chest ache.

She swallowed again, forcing herself to focus on the sounds around her—the whisper of leaves, the distant call of an owl, the soft crunch of earth under boots that weren’t hers. Yet no sound, no movement, could drown the bond. It hummed beneath her skin, unrelenting, unyielding, drawing her closer whether she willed it or not.