The last light slipped behind the trees, bleeding orange into blue so deep it felt like the sky was closing.
Shadows stretched long and thin, curling between the trunks like dark fingers. The air turned sharp, each breath a bite.
Frost whispered across the branches, glinting faintly in the dim.
Lyra pulled her coat tighter all to herself, but the silver collar at her throat caught the cold and poured it straight into her bones.
The rogue collar which was given to her by the moonfang pack was not her new identity.
The cold of the border lands was fierce it was a cold that didn't just settle on the skin , it sank deeper, curling into her chest.
She kept walking regardlessly. The snow under her boots gave a loud, brittle crunch with every step. Louder than it should be. Too loud.
Each sound seemed to echo between the trees, thrown back at her as if the forest wanted her to hear herself coming.
Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow. The silence was too thick, the kind that made the hairs on her arms rise with goosebumps over her.
Somewhere above, a lone crow gave a single, short cry before vanishing into the dusk.
The path ahead blurred into the dark, every branch heavy with frost, every shadow stretching wider.
The smell of cold earth and pine filled her lungs, grounding her, but it did nothing to ease the weight of the silence pressing on her ears.
She swallowed and kept moving, the silver at her neck catching a glint of the dying light. The crunch of her steps seemed to grow louder, and somewhere deep in the trees, something else crunched back.
The forest held its breath. No wind stirred the branches, no rustle moved the frost-bitten leaves.
Yet every nerve in her body whispered that something was there. Watching. Waiting, she was not feeling comfortable.
Lyra's steps slowed. Her eyes swept the trees, carefully catching but only a flicker, quick as a heartbeat.
A shadow slipping between trunks, there and gone. The faint glint of eyes in the gloom, too high and too still to belong to prey.
Her wolf lay quiet inside her, the bond severed, the voice gone when she was rejected by her fated mate.
But something else rose to fill the space that was inside her it was the raw edge of survival, sharp and cold.
Her rogue instincts pressed against her skin, urging her to listen, to breathe shallow, to move like she belonged to the dark.
She turned her head slightly, ears straining. Nothing.
The silence pressed in, heavy enough to smother thought. Her breath clouded before her face, slow, careful, controlled.
The cold bit at her cheeks, but it was the weight of solitude that sank deeper, coiling tight in her chest.
No pack. No warm voices in her mind. No one at her back, but she knew she was lying to herself.
The gleam came again, closer now, between two black-barked trees.
Her fingers curled into fists for herself protection, nails biting her palms. The air smelled faintly of fur and frost, sharp and unfamiliar.
Every instinct screamed to run. And she was soon going to give in.
She stopped mid-step after the little episode which happened some moments ago. The air thickened, pressing against her skin.
Her breath caught as her eyes swept the treeline.
There was a glint between the branches. A pair of eyes, gold and unblinking. Then another. And another, she felt like she was being watched.
Her heart hammered hard enough to drown the silence for the time being.
Shapes moved in the shadows, low to the ground, slipping between the frost-bitten trunks. They didn't come closer. They didn't retreat.
They just… watched.
The snow crunched faintly somewhere to her left, then stilled. A faint exhale of breath misted from the undergrowth to her right. She turned slowly, her muscles pulled tight, every sense sharpened.
The wolves whish she felt here with her, she could smell them now with a sharp musk and cold fur mixing with the scent of pine.
The glow of their eyes shifted as they adjusted, silent but circling.
Her fingers closed around the rough bark of a fallen branch, lifting it like a staff. Her pulse roared in her ears.
One pair of eyes blinked, vanishing behind the darkness, only to reappear closer. Her grip tightened. She forced herself to stand her ground, though every muscle screamed to move.
A low growl rolled out from the treeline, deep and deliberate.
Snowflakes drifted down between them, soft and slow, while the air between predator and prey strained to breaking.
Then, all at once, the eyes vanished into the trees all gone as if they had never been there.
The silence they left behind felt sharper than teeth.
The sharp snap of a branch cut through the stillness. She spun, stick raised, her breath clouding in the cold.
"I hear you," she said, voice low but steady, but yet nobody came out from the shadows hidden.
Nothing moved. The eyes in the dark held their ground, unblinking.
"You think staring will scare me?" Her fingers tightened on the stick until her knuckles ached.
From the shadows came a low, deliberate growl, the kind that curled up her spine.
Her heart thudded so hard she could hear it in her ears, but she didn't step back.
"Come on, then," she whispered, more to herself than to them. "I'm not running."
The growl deepened, spreading into the air like smoke with it's sound as frightening as ever.
A second pair of eyes appeared beside the first. She shifted her stance, feet firm in the snow.
"You're testing me," she said, her voice sharper now. "Fine. But I won't break."
A shadow moved closely slow, deliberate, just far enough for the faint gleam of fur to catch the moonlight.
Her chest rose and fell in quick bursts, but her tone didn't waver. "You want to know if I'll run? I won't. You'll have to take me down."
The eyes narrowed. The growl stopped.
Snow fell in heavy silence, each flake thick enough to hear landing. She waited, stick still raised, every muscle locked in place.
Then, as if on an unspoken command, the eyes faded back into the dark, one by one.
She didn't lower the stick. Not yet.
The last scraps of daylight bled away, swallowed by the forest. The path ahead was gone, replaced by a wall of black.
The eyes that had held her in place only moments ago were gone too, melting into the dark as if they'd never existed.
Her breath came fast, loud in her own ears. She tried to slow it, but the air felt thick, clinging to her throat.
The silence was worse than the growls. Worse than the stares.
She turned her head slowly, the stick still clenched in her hand, but there was nothing but only shadows layered on shadows.
Her boots crunched softly in the snow as she took a step. The sound felt too loud, like a signal to whatever was out there.
The forest pressed close, branches leaning in, their shapes twisting into claws in the dark.
She swallowed hard, her lips dry. "I know you're still here," she whispered, though she wasn't sure if she meant to taunt or beg.
No answer came. Not a breath. Not a rustle.
But the feeling crawled over her skin — something unseen, circling, patient.
It didn't need to move. It didn't need to speak.
It was waiting.
A shiver slid down her spine, slow as a drop of cold water. Her grip on the stick tightened until it dug into her palm.
Snow fell soundlessly, each flake drifting into a blackness that seemed bottomless.
She kept walking, every step measured, every heartbeat a drumbeat of warning.
Whatever hunted her wasn't gone.
It was only choosing its moment.