The wind howled through the pine trees, their spindly limbs clawing at the windowpanes like restless spirits. Rain lashed against the cottage roof, and thunder cracked the night wide open. Lily Arden stood at her kitchen sink, staring out into the darkness, her teacup growing cold in her hands.
Storms like this always stirred something in her. Memories, maybe. Restlessness. Or that creeping sense that she was meant for something more than pruning herbs and repotting rare orchids in solitude.
She reached for the lantern hanging near the door as the lights flickered. Power outages weren't rare this deep in the woods. The town of Silverpine might've been only a twenty-minute drive away, but out here, it felt like another world-untouched by time, cloaked in fog and whispers of old things that no one dared speak of aloud.
Then she heard it.
A crash. No-not thunder. Something closer. Heavy. Violent. Like a body hitting the earth.
She froze.
Another sound followed-a low, pained groan carried on the wind.
Lily set her cup down, grabbed the lantern, and pulled on her raincoat. Against all logic, her feet moved toward the door. It might be a deer, she reasoned. Or some poor hiker caught in the storm.
But in her chest, something deeper stirred. A pull. Like gravity, but stranger.
She stepped outside, her boots sinking into the wet earth. The forest swayed and hissed around her. She scanned the shadows, raising the lantern high. Its glow shimmered through the rain like a signal to whatever waited beyond.
Then she saw him.
A man-collapsed at the edge of her garden, shirt torn, blood streaking his chest and arms. His body was curled in pain, his breathing ragged. One hand clawed weakly at the soil.
She rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside him. His skin was fever-hot, slick with rain and sweat. His hair, soaked and wild, clung to a face that was too sharp, too beautiful-and marked by something... other.
"Hey," she whispered. "Can you hear me?"
His eyes fluttered open-golden. Not amber. Not brown. Gold, like molten sunlight. They locked on hers, and for a second, the world stopped spinning.
Then he whispered a single word before passing out.
"Run."