Chapter 2

AZALEA

A loud scream tore out of my throat, my voice ripping through the stillness of the night as I felt a searing pain in my neck like fire. The man’s teeth sunk deeper into my skin, and I grunted, trying to push him off. I thrashed roughly against him, but he was too strong, holding me in place as my body trembled under the agony.

In the distance, I heard my father shouting my name. His voice was faint, muffled by the pounding in my head and the my own voice blaring in my ears.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, the weight on top of me was gone. The man disappeared, slipping into the darkness of the woods as if he was a ghost.

I gasped for air, clutching at the wound on my neck, my fingers slick with the warmth of my own blood. Everything started to blur, the tall trees around me spinning. I tried to stay conscious, to hold on until my father found me.

“Dad,” I whispered, unable to even hear my voice and doubting that he had heard me.

“Azalea!” His voice was closer now, full of panic. He was running towards me. I blinked, trying to focus on his face as he knelt beside me. His hands were on my shoulders, shaking me gently, but I was already slipping away.

The last thing I saw before everything went dark was his worried face hovering above me for fear that he would not see me open my eyes again.

~

When I woke up, the air felt heavy and too dense to breathe in at first. I groaned, my neck throbbing with a dull, sore ache. Every movement felt like a struggle, but I forced myself to sit up in the familiar bed of my room. The room was dark, save for the faint glow of the moonlight filtering through the curtains.

I pressed a hand to my neck, wincing at the pain and tenderness. My fingers brushed against something strange—a mark.

Panic surged through me as I stumbled out of bed, my legs weak beneath me. I had to see what had been done to me. I turned on the light and headed towards the mirror with fear, each step slower than the last.

My hands trembled as I pushed my hair aside, revealing the mark on my neck. I made out the strange crescent shape etched into the skin of my neck, where I had bitten. It was something beyond an ordinary bruise or mark.

I stared at it, my mind racing. What had that man done to me?

Leaving the mirror behind, I made my way out of the bedroom to get answers. I could hear voices coming from the dining room as I approached. My father was there, sitting at the table with two of his partners, their faces grim and serious. Books and papers were scattered across the table, opened to pages filled with strange symbols and markings.

One of the books caught my eye. In the center of its page was a symbol almost identical to the one on my neck.

“Azalea,” my father said as he looked up, his voice tense as he closed the book. “You’re awake.”

The room fell silent as they all turned to face me. I could feel their eyes on me, studying me as if I were something fragile and broken and on the verge of breaking down.

“What happened? What did he do to me?” As I spoke for the first time, I realized just how hoarse my voice was from the screaming.

My father’s face hardened. “What do you remember about the man who attacked you?”

I tried to think back, to recall the face of the man in the woods. But the details were fuzzy, blurred by the shock and pain.

“His eyes,” I whispered. “They were… gold. And he had fangs. Whatever attacked me wasn’t human.”

The memory made my chest tighten, a strange sensation bubbling up inside me. I pressed a hand to my heart, trying to steady my breaths.

“That man, Azalea… he wasn’t just any man. You’ve been marked,” my dad announced as he leaned forward with his jaw clenched.

“Marked?” I echoed, confusion and fear twisting in my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a werewolf. The mark on your neck is proof of that. It’s his way of claiming you.”

The room seemed to tilt beneath me. Werewolves? It couldn’t be true. I didn’t know how to argue with him on this one because I knew what I saw, but I never wanted to believe it. It was impossible.

But now, with the crescent-shaped mark burning on my neck, those doubts I had pushed aside for years started creeping back in.

I took a step back, the walls of the room closing in around me.

“No,” I muttered, shaking my head. “This can’t be real. Werewolves don’t exist. What are the odds that the first time I go out into the woods, I get attacked by one? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“They do exist, Azalea. And that bastard marked you. He’s claimed you as his own, and I swear to God, I’ll find him and kill him for what he’s done.”

The rage in his voice was palpable, and it made my stomach twist even more. This couldn’t be happening. This has to be a horrible nightmare.

I turned and stumbled back towards my room with my thoughts racing. The walls were closing in on me, and the air was suffocating. I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to make sense of everything. My entire world had been turned upside down in a matter of hours.

Werewolves.

And the man who had attacked me… was one of them.

The mark on my neck throbbed with a dull, aching heat. My thoughts spiraled out of control. If werewolves were real, then what else was out there? What did this mark mean for me? What was going to happen next?

I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was staring back at me every time I touched the crescent shape on my skin and felt the pain. I hadn’t opened my eyes yet to realize that it was all a dream.

“This cannot be happening to me.” I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to steady myself, but it wasn’t working. I was on the verge of breaking down.

Suddenly, a light tapping sound broke through my thoughts. It came from the window, faint but persistent. My heart jumped into my throat as I turned to look. Someone was out there.

Fear gripped me, and for a moment, I thought about calling out to my father. I didn’t want to face anything else. I just wanted to close my eyes and open them in the morning to find that odd shape on my neck gone and the memory of how I got it wiped off.

But something stopped me. I slowly got up from the bed and moved toward the window. I grabbed on to the curtain, taking a deep breath as I assured myself that the glass would be there to protect me at least.

I pulled the curtain aside, and there he was.

The man from the woods. Staring at me.