The forest was alive at night. Not with the gentle rustle of leaves or the songs of birds, but with something deeper. Something breathing. Watching.
Waiting.
Scarlett had been warned never to stray from the path. The villagers spoke in hushed voices about the Wolf, the creature that ruled the shadows of the Blackwood Forest. It was no ordinary beast, they said. No mere animal.
It was something else entirely.
And yet, here she was—walking alone beneath the blood-red moon, the hood of her cloak slipping from her shoulders.
The whispers of the wind carried his name.
The Wolf.
She should have been afraid.
She wasn’t.
The Hunt Begins
The first sign was the silence.
The nocturnal chorus of the forest had vanished. No crickets. No owls. Nothing but the sharp sound of her own breathing.
Then—the snap of a branch.
Scarlett froze. Her heart pounded. Slowly, she turned, her pulse thrumming like a caged thing in her throat.
A shadow moved between the trees. Huge. Stalking.
Golden eyes glowed from the darkness.
Her breath hitched. It wasn’t just a wolf. It was him.
The villagers had only ever called him The Wolf, as if his name alone was too dangerous to speak. But this was no ordinary predator.
This was a beast shaped like a man, towering and primal, his body half-swallowed by darkness. A thing of muscle and hunger, of claws and fangs that could tear flesh from bone.
And yet, he didn’t strike. Not yet.
Instead, he watched.
Studied her.
Breathed her in.
Scarlett shivered—not from fear, but from something else. Something darker.
“Lost, little lamb?” His voice was deep, rough, as if shaped by growls instead of words.
Scarlett’s lips parted, her pulse hammering in her throat. “No.”
A lie. A challenge.
The Wolf laughed, low and predatory. “Then why do I hear your heart racing?”
She swallowed. “Because you’re hunting me.”
His golden eyes flashed, and then—he moved.
Fast. Too fast.
One moment, he stood between the trees. The next, he was behind her, his breath hot against her neck. His claws traced the edge of her cloak, slow, deliberate.
“You came here on purpose,” he murmured, his voice a velvet growl. “Didn’t you?”
Scarlett’s breath was shaky. “No.”
Another lie.
His claws slipped beneath her hood, pulling it back, exposing the bare skin of her throat.
“You smell like temptation, little lamb.” His lips ghosted the shell of her ear. “Like you want to be caught.”
Her body betrayed her, leaning into his touch, her breath shallow. She had always been warned about the Wolf, about his hunger.
But no one had told her that hunger could feel like this.
The Devouring
Scarlett didn’t resist when he spun her around, pressing her against the rough bark of a tree. The forest caged them in, the air thick with something primal. The Wolf loomed over her, his massive frame blocking out the moonlight.
His gaze burned into her. Waiting. Testing.
“You should run,” he murmured, his clawed fingers tracing the curve of her jaw. “You should fight.”
Scarlett’s fingers curled into his chest, feeling the heat of his skin beneath fur and muscle.
“I don’t want to.”
His breath hitched—a sharp, feral sound.
“Say it again,” he growled, his grip tightening at her waist, pulling her flush against him.
She gasped at the heat, the strength of him, the way her body fit against his like she had always belonged here.
“I don’t want to run,” she whispered.
The Wolf’s restraint snapped.
His mouth crashed against hers, his fangs grazing her lower lip, his growl reverberating in his chest. He kissed her like she was something to be devoured, something to be claimed.
And Scarlett?
She let him.
She wanted him to.
Because maybe the real danger had never been the Wolf.
Maybe it had always been her—and the way she had walked into the forest knowing exactly what she wanted to find.
The villagers would say the Wolf took her. That he stole her away.
But they would never know the truth.
Scarlett had never belonged to the village.
She had always belonged to the Wolf.
