Silver's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Silver had walked for an hour before the wolf in him stopped pulling at his ribs. He'd done the right thing. Someone who lied to get what they wanted wasn't worth staying for, no matter how their touch had felt on his fur. He kept moving through the trees, putting distance between himself and the stranger. But the scent hit him before he reached the ridge. Blood. Not animal. Not human either. The sharp tang of vampire blood mixed with something else, something that smelled like burnt metal and decay. Silver's wolf surged forward, pulling him toward the tree line where a massive blackened tree twisted up from the earth. Eyes carved into its trunk wept red, the liquid pooling at its roots. At the base of that tree, the stranger lay crumpled in the dirt. Silver approached slowly, scanning the clearing. Shattered glass glittered in the moonlight near the stranger's outstretched hand. The vial. Broken. Dark red liquid soaked into the ground, already half-absorbed by the earth. A trail of blood led from the far side of the clearing, thick and glistening like spilled garnets. Whatever had hunted them here had left its mark and moved on. The stranger's chest rose and fell in shallow gasps. Their mismatched eyes opened, gold and blue meeting his own, and something passed between them that Silver didn't have words for. He could walk away again. Should walk away. The stranger had lied, had tried to trap him into an agreement with fake coins and hidden terms. But they'd also run here, to his territory, bleeding and hunted. They'd lost the vampire blood trying to reach him. Silver knelt and slid his arms under the stranger's shoulders, lifting them carefully. The wolf in him didn't howl this time. It settled, watchful and uncertain. He didn't know if this person would stay or leave again when the danger passed. But right now, they needed him. And despite everything, he wasn't built to walk away from that.