Chapter 7: The Trap in the Shadows

"I can't stay here with a monster."

The words tasted like bile in her mouth, whispered into the cold darkness as she clutched the torn, damp linen of her dress to her chest.

She turned her eyes away from the silent figure lying in the mud. Whether he was a dead corpse or a sleeping demon, it did not matter anymore. Staying beside him meant death, dishonor, or something far worse if whatever cursed spirit inhabited his body decided to wake again. Every second spent breathing the air near him felt like tempting a sleeping beast that could snap her neck with a single twitch of his fingers.

On her hands and knees, she began to crawl away backward into the deep shadows of the brush. The sharp stones and jagged pine needles bit into her bare knees, leaving thin trails of dark blood behind her on the damp leaves, but she ignored the sting. Her breath came in quiet, terrified hitches, her chest heaving as she put inch after inch between her trembling frame and the giant lying beneath the fallen oak.

Five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen feet.

The dense thickets at the edge of the tree line reached out to greet her, offering a blanket of pitch-black shade. Relief flooded through her chest, a sharp, ragged sob catching in her throat as she reached out to grab the rough bark of a young pine tree to pull herself up onto her feet. Freedom was right there, just past the shadows of the woods. If she could only stand, she could run down the mountain path and never look back.

She never made it to her feet.

A sudden, unnatural sound shattered the quiet of the forest—a sharp crack like a snapping iron spring, followed by the heavy rush of displaced air.

Before she could scream, a massive, stone-cold arm shot through the darkness with impossible speed. His huge, long-fingered hand slammed around her bare ankle in a grip like an iron shackle. The sheer force of the sudden snatch jerked her legs out from under her, slamming her front hard onto the damp ground and knocking every last drop of air from her lungs in a breathless gasp.

"No!" she choked out, her fingers digging wildly into the loose soil, tearing her fingernails as he dragged her across the dirt.

He pulled her effortlessly back through the mud, dragging her small body over roots and sharp rocks as if she weighed no more than a fallen leaf. She clawed frantically at the grass, leaving bloody furrows in the dark earth, but her small weight meant nothing against his brute power. Before her vision cleared from the dust and rain, he hauled her sideways, pinning her right back against the broad, solid wall of his chest.

She gasped in horror, expecting the stone-cold, lifeless flesh she had touched moments before.

Instead, a sudden wave of scorching, unbearable heat rolled off him, hitting her skin like an open furnace door swinging wide. His body was no longer cold or motionless. The black, rotting wound on his waist was gone—completely closed into a long, silver scar right before her eyes, healed by some dark, unnatural force in the quiet of the night. But it was his chest beneath her ear that brought a wave of pure, paralyzing terror to her mind.

A deep, violent rhythm hammered against her cheek. It was not one pulse.

It was two completely different heartbeats pounding side-by-side inside his ribs. One beat slow, heavy, and resonant like a massive war drum, while the second beat fast, light, and frantic—pounding in precise, unnatural sync with her own terrified heart.

The realization struck her like a bolt of lightning, freezing the blood in her veins. He was not just holding her captive; his cursed body had somehow latched onto her very life force, stealing her heartbeat to resurrect his own cold flesh. The moment she had tried to pull away from his side, his body had drawn on her living energy to snap itself back to life, anchoring his soul to hers.

"Stay," he rasped into her damp hair.

His voice was thick and dark with sleep, completely unconscious, yet his massive arm wrapped around her waist like a solid iron bar, locking her flush against his burning skin. His hand pressed firmly into the small of her back, holding her so tightly she could feel the unnatural double pulse vibrating straight into her stomach.

She stopped kicking. She stopped breathing.

Her whole body went completely stiff in his embrace, her eyes wide with unadulterated terror as she stared out into the dark woods. His chest rose and fell in deep, heavy gulps of air above her head, his hot breath brushing over her scalp in steady, hot waves. Every time she twitched even a toe, his fingers tightened around her hip, his sharp nails pricking through her thin dress just enough to warn her.

She lay trapped against his chest, every muscle in her body strained to an absolute breaking point. The woods around them were thick with silence, broken only by the eerie, synchronized pounding of those two heartbeats beneath her cheek. The night air grew colder, frost beginning to form on the grass blades inches from her nose, but his body remained a wall of fire, pinning her to the dirt.

Her mind raced in terrified circles. If she stayed trapped in his grip until morning, the villagers searching for missing cattle would find her wrapped in the arms of a naked beast. But if she tried to pry his iron fingers off her waist, those glowing golden eyes might snap open again, and his wild, primal hunger would consume whatever remained of her life.

She tried to slowly ease a single breath into her lungs, making her ribs expand by a fraction of an inch. Instantly, his hold tightened, his massive forearm pressing her ribcage so hard against his chest that a small whimper escaped her lips.

He did not wake, but his sharp teeth grazed the crown of her head as he pulled her deeper into his mass, burying his face into her hair with a possessive growl that vibrated through her bones.

She froze in place, locked in the arms of a sleeping monster, utterly terrified that any sudden movement would wake his violent instincts again.