Chapter 2 What Lurks In The Pines

• The fire in the hearth crackled softly, but the warmth didn’t reach Ivy’s skin. She sat curled on the old velvet sofa, her mother’s dusty journal in her lap and Kael’s warning echoing in her head.
• You’re not safe here.
• Leave before dark.
• She looked at the window. Outside, the forest loomed, thick and endless, moonlight spilling through twisted branches like silver blood. The howling hadn’t returned, but the silence it left behind was worse.
• Ivy flipped open the journal. Her mother’s handwriting filled the pages—sharp, slanted, and quick, like she was always racing to write things down before they vanished.
• “The Blood Moon is coming again.
• The Thorne line must remain hidden.
• The marked one must never awaken.”
• “What the hell does that mean?” Ivy whispered, fingers brushing the page like it could answer her.
• She turned to the last entry, dated three days before her mother’s death:
• “Kael came to the house. He knows Ivy is close. I begged him to leave her out of it, but she’s already too near the edge. If she comes back… God help us.”
• The knock at the door last night hadn’t been a coincidence.
• Ivy closed the journal and stood, restless. The house felt too small, too heavy with things unsaid. She needed air. Maybe a walk. Just to clear her head.
• Despite Kael’s warning, she grabbed a flashlight and headed outside.
• The forest at night was quiet—but not still. Every leaf that shifted, every twig that cracked under her boots, sent a thrill up Ivy’s spine. The flashlight beam cut through the dark, revealing only more trees, more shadows, more questions.
• She wasn’t sure how far she walked before she saw it: a clearing, half-swallowed by mist. In its center stood a stone archway covered in moss, ancient and cracked, like something that belonged in ruins, not a small-town forest.
• Drawn by something she couldn’t name, Ivy stepped closer.
• Then she heard it—the growl.
• Low. Deep. Not far.
• She turned. Her flashlight flicked. Then went out.
• “Not now,” she hissed, smacking it uselessly. When it came back on, two glowing eyes stared at her from the treeline.
• Wolven. Yellow-gold. Intelligent.
• Ivy backed up slowly. “Okay,” she whispered. “You’re just a wolf. You’re probably more scared of me than—”
• The creature stepped into the clearing. She stopped breathing.
• It was massive—easily the size of a bear, with fur black as midnight and muscles rippling beneath its coat. But it wasn’t just a wolf. Its limbs were too long, its chest too broad, and its eyes… its eyes were human.
• It bared its teeth.
• She ran.
• Branches tore at her jacket as she stumbled through the woods, heart slamming in her chest. She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to. It was behind her. She could feel it.
• She tripped over a root and hit the ground hard. Pain shot through her elbow. The flashlight spun out of reach.
• Then a roar—not a howl, a roar—split the night.
• She covered her head and waited to be torn apart.
• But the sound that came next wasn’t claws or teeth. It was a struggle—snarls, growls, the crash of bodies colliding. Ivy looked up just in time to see two creatures locked in battle. The black wolf that chased her—and another, larger one, silver-gray with amber eyes.
• Kael.
• She knew it without needing to see him shift.
• He threw the black wolf back with a powerful snap of his jaws, sending it tumbling into the trees. It didn’t return. After a tense moment, the woods fell silent again.
• The gray wolf turned to her.
• Ivy blinked. Her breath caught in her throat.
• It stepped forward, slowly, until it stood a few feet away. Then—impossibly—it bowed its head.
• And shifted.
• The transformation was fast but brutal—bones reshaping, fur vanishing, limbs snapping back into human form. Kael rose from the earth like something reborn, breathing heavily, blood on his shoulder.
• He was naked, save for the shadows and the tension in the air. But Ivy didn’t look away.
• He looked at her the way he had last night—serious, conflicted, like she was a problem he didn’t know how to solve.
• “I told you to stay inside,” Kael said.
• Ivy stood slowly. “What… what was that thing?”
• “Not one of mine,” he said. “A rogue. Dangerous. You’re lucky I was close.”
• “You followed me?”
• “No,” he said. “I was watching the woods. For something like that.”
• She crossed her arms, still shaking. “What are you?”
• Kael hesitated. Then, quietly: “The only one keeping you alive.”