Won't Save You
The grey mist still hung thick around Sera after the creature vanished. It swallowed the part of the forest where the hoof-prints had been, leaving only the faint smell of crushed leaves and the residual heat of its breath fading from her skin. She looked down at her wrist. The green mark had dimmed to a thin pale line under the surface, barely visible even when she turned it toward what little light filtered through the canopy. Her shoulder ached where she had fallen. The torn dress clung wetly to her back and the mud had already begun to stiffen at the knees.
She pushed herself upright on shaking legs and wrapped one arm around her shoulder. Her eyes searched the dark between the trunks. Nothing moved. The mist pressed close enough that she could feel the damp of it against her face. “Wait, come back!” The call came out hoarse and thinner than she intended. Only the wind answered, sliding through the high branches with a sound like distant water moving over stone.
Her shoulders dropped. She turned and began to walk without direction, keeping one hand against the black trunks so she would not lose the ground under her feet. The mist closed behind her as she moved. Every few steps she glanced back, half expecting the amber eyes, and saw only grey.
Later, under the roots of an old tree that rose like a low wall, she sat with her knees drawn tight to her chest. Her fingers clenched the torn hem of the dress until the fabric cut into her palms. She kept her eyes open on the dark. If I fall asleep here, I might not wake up. Fine. Then I won’t sleep. The thought was steady. She counted her breaths and listened for anything that was not the forest itself: no bird, no insect, only the occasional soft settling of leaves.
Farther off among the trunks, a pair of amber eyes watched her from the undergrowth and did not come closer. The creature’s furred ears stood upright. Its body remained motionless as stone. One front hoof scraped a short line in the soil, then stopped. It did not advance.
Dawn came thin and grey. Sera walked unsteadily, the hem of the dress heavy with mud and the cold of the night still sitting in her bones. Her lips were cracked. She licked them and scanned the ground for water. When she found a shallow pool caught in a rock cleft, she knelt and cupped her hands. The water tasted of stone and leaves. A thin thorny vine slid out of the cleft and wound lightly around her submerged wrist. She jerked back. A fine line of blood welled where the thorn had cut. She stood quickly and stepped away, breathing hard, looking for the creature from the night before and finding nothing but trunks and mist.
Of course. It only shows up when it feels like it.
The bitterness sat sharp in her chest. She tore a strip from the ruined hem and bound the cut, then kept walking. The mark on her wrist remained quiet.
In Greywick the tavern was empty at midday. Gideon sat alone at a corner table with an untouched glass in front of him. His fingers turned the rim slowly, the glass making a soft sound against the wood. Camille crossed the room and sat opposite him. She laid her hand over his.
“She’s gone, Gideon. Sitting here won’t bring her back.”
He pulled his hand free and did not look at her. “I know exactly what I did.”
Camille withdrew her hand. Her jaw tightened, but the careful smile stayed in place. She glanced toward the door where two villagers were whispering and watching their table. He won’t look at me like that again. Not after everything I gave up for him. The thought was cold and precise. She kept her expression soft and waited.
Back in the forest, Sera rested under a large rock and re-tied the makeshift bandage. A voice called her name from very far away, distorted by the mist but recognisably human. “Sera! Seraphine!”
She stood at once. Hope flared hot and sudden, bright enough to hurt. “Here! I’m here!” She ran toward the sound, between the black trunks, not noticing that the ground was sloping gradually toward the edge of the wood. Branches caught at her sleeves. She did not slow.
From a higher moss-covered slope the creature watched her pass below and did not move. One front hoof stamped once, then stilled. Its jaw clenched. The amber eyes followed her until she disappeared behind a stand of trees. It remained where it was.
Sera broke out of the last line of trunks onto open grass. Daylight, true daylight, lay across the field beyond. No one waited there. Only wind moved through the empty meadow. She hesitated one second, then stepped forward anyway, teeth set. Maybe I imagined it. I don’t care anymore.
The green mark on her wrist began to glow and burn under the skin. She winced but took another step. The heat climbed her arm. “I don’t care if it kills me.”
The instant her heel crossed the stone boundary line the mark flared into green flame. A shape exploded out of the trees faster than she could track. A furred shoulder struck her chest and drove her backward across the line. She hit the leaf litter hard. The flame on her wrist died the moment her body touched the ground inside the boundary. The creature’s weight came down over her, heavy and warm.
The world blurred. The forest light shifted to a strange amber haze. There was no beast. Above her was a man, tall and broad, bare to the waist, his skin sheened with sweat. His chest pressed against her through the thin wet dress, the heat of him unmistakable, the weight of muscle and bone settling between her legs where the skirt had ridden up. A large hand, knuckles sharp, dragged firmly down the line of her collarbone and left a hot red path that made her breath catch. His face lowered close. His throat moved. Hot breath struck the hollow of her neck. His mouth brushed the edge of her ear. The tendons in his neck stood out as he held himself back from biting. Sera’s eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell hard. Her hand rose and closed on the bare muscle of his arm, fingers digging in, feeling the give of skin over hard flesh. Heat pooled low in her belly, sudden and unwelcome and sharp.
The vision shattered. Her fingers were buried in thick silver-grey fur, not bare skin. She opened her eyes. Instead of a handsome man there was a long muzzle close to her face, wet breath heaving. The creature pulled back at once. Its amber eyes fixed on her trembling hand still raised between them. It was breathing hard, sides moving.
“Let me go!” Sera shouted, panic and pain mixed, the strange heat still burning under her skin. “You don’t get to decide that for me!”
The creature did not answer. It stood still, chin slightly lowered, amber eyes reading the confusion and the wild hammer of her pulse. Then it turned and walked several steps into the deeper shadow and was gone.
Sera remained sitting on the damp leaves. Her chest had not stopped heaving. One hand pressed against her breast as if she could quiet the strange heat that had flashed through her and the memory of bare skin under her fingers. Even the thing that just saved me won’t look back.
The mist closed. Only the sound of her own breathing remained, and the low persistent ache where the mark had burned.