Steam followed me out of the bathroom, curling around the edges of the dim light like it didn't want to leave. The mirror had been useless — fogged, accusing — bleak.
Jordan was by the window. Naked no longer. He'd found a way to not be.
The latch screeched softly as he pulled a black duffel from the sill outside. Like it was always there, like he'd done this a thousand times.
"You keep clothes in other people's windows?" I asked, dragging the towel over my hair.
He didn't turn. "You never know when it might come in handy."
I snorted. "Great. First I get to deal with you waltzing in naked all thanks to that cursed lupine nonsense. Next, you are stashing clothes at my window"
He ruffled his hair with all the absurdly cute nonchalance he was famous for "Well, Jordan does what Jordan wants".
He opened the bag and started dressing — a dark shirt, worn jeans, holster, the smell of steel and leather slowly drowning the room. There was nothing graceful about it, but something about the deliberate way he moved made it hard to look away. God. Why did he have to be so flawlessly stunning. Even half naked. Most especially, naked.
"It wouldn't kill you to respect boundaries ," I said.
He shrugged. "I have no boundaries with you, my pearl ."
I swallowed, letting the sweetness of the words wash over me like milk. He always knew how to say the right things.
He glanced back, eyes landing on me just long enough to remind me that he never missed anything. "You're coming with me tonight."
My stomach tensed. "To what, exactly?" I discarded the towel and reached for a nightdress.
"Hunt." He said it like he was inviting me for coffee. "And mind you, that flimsy scrap of silk is not exactly hunter's attire ."
"I'm not one of your hunters." The nightdress was already halfway through my head.
"No," he said, slinging a blade onto his belt, "you're worse. You are my headache. And you never do as you are told."
I stepped closer, pulling the dress down even if it's flimsiness was evident in the way my nipples peaked out, threatening to slice through the thin fabric . "So this is your idea of an apology?"
"For what?"
"For ruining my night. And my sanity. Possibly my moral compass."
He smiled — small, tired, the kind that knew too much. "You didn't have much of one to start with, Night Carter."
The rain outside had grown louder, like it was eavesdropping.
He zipped the bag, finally meeting my eyes again. "You can stay here and think yourself into circles, or you can see the world the way it really looks at midnight."
"Full of monsters?" I asked.
He passed me his spare jacket — heavy, smelling of rain and silver. "Orgasm giving monsters," he said.
"Tempting" I laugh, sliding into the warmth of the jacket.
"Is that a yes ? " His frozen eyes pinned mine in a full stare. What if there was magic hidden in those ethereal wonderful eyes because I was suddenly thinking of nothing else but him.
And yes, a night out hunting with a very stunning, infuriating werewolf didn't sound like a bad idea either.
__________
The forest began where the streetlights died.
Jordan led, boots soundless against the wet earth, the silver edge of his knife glinting every time lightning threatened to remember us.
I followed, clutching the jacket closer. It smelled like him — rain, smoke, and that clean danger that always felt one breath away from heartbreak.
"Do you always hunt at night," I ask in a low groan.
The smirk on his face was very much visibly beneath the glow of the waning moon "I wouldn't be much of a werewolf if I didn't."
"I see" My voice is flat "Amazing to know that you don't sparkle in the sun. "
"We are creatures of the moon" His voice is fluid. Too smooth. Like buttered bread. "The moon keeps us on a leash. The night feeds us but it also owns us".
I snort "That's oddly poetic for a carnivore ".
He laughs "You are too curious for a human. One would think you were a cat."
"Well my curiosity is the one reason I'm not tucked up in bed right now ".
Jordan shrugs listlessly "Touche. And I thought it was my charm."
"There's nothing charming about you" I lie.
The suddenness with which he turns to face me, lips only a half inch away from mine is enough to make me stumble backwards "Say that again, my girl "
His arms slip around me, thoughtfully preventing me from backing into a tree.
I defiantly pull his arms away after regaining my balance "Don't flatter yourself, Jordan . "
The path grew darker, and the air thickened with pine and rain. Every sound — branches sighing, something scuttling, the low hum of life — felt sharper. Louder. Like the world had finally decided to unmute itself.
Jordan stopped abruptly.
His head tilted slightly, like he was listening to a language I'd never hear.
Then he spoke, softer than breath. "There."
I saw nothing at first — just fog and trees. Then movement: a shadow gliding between the roots. A deer. Long legs. Too fluid. Its eyes reflected gold for a split second.
"What is that?" I whispered.
"Dinner," he said, and then — gone.
One blink and the man beside me was a blur of muscle and smoke. The shift wasn't cinematic; it was almost silent, horrifyingly organic — bones adjusting, breath hitching, a ripple of wildness made flesh. The air trembled with the energy he left behind.
I stood frozen, heart clawing at my ribs, watching the outline of him — now larger, faster — move through the fog. The creature fled, the forest itself seeming to recoil, and all I could hear was the rhythm of their chase: rain, paws, heartbeat.
When it ended, it ended quietly.
No scream. No brutality. Just the deep exhale of something ancient and satisfied.
When I found him, he was crouched low in the undergrowth.
The deer lay still before him, eyes open, already glass.
It wasn't the blood that caught me. It was the reverence.
He bent over it, not savage but solemn, pressing one hand to its flank like a prayer.
Then his mouth touched the wound.
The sound was soft — nothing monstrous, nothing cinematic — just the quiet, wet truth of hunger.
He tore into it, slow at first, like he was tasting something sacred. Every motion deliberate. Measured. Honest.
The wolf in him was not rage. It was ritual.
My pulse stuttered somewhere between horror and fascination.
There was something beautiful about it — terrible, yes, but true.
He didn't look human now, not in the way we measure it. The grace was wrong. Too instinctive. Too pure.
He fed like someone remembering what it was to need.
The forest held its breath. Even the rain seemed to pause for him.
When he finally lifted his head, blood trailed his jaw, gleaming darkly against his throat.
The sight should have disgusted me. It didn't.
Maybe because he didn't look like a killer. He looked like a priest taking confession.
I took a step closer before I realized I had. "Jordan…"
He turned — not all the way, just enough for his eyes to find mine.
Even in the dark, they burned that faint, eerie silver-blue that no human iris could hold.
"This is what we are, Night," he said, voice still rough from the change. "Not the legends. Not the curses. Just bodies that need. Souls that remember."
I didn't answer. There wasn't a word in the English language for what I was feeling.
He stood then, stretching, the motion a strange blend of man and beast — a ripple through muscle and sinew that reminded you he was both and neither.
The deer's lifeless body lay behind him, oddly peaceful, like it had just... yielded.
Jordan looked down at it once more, then at me. "Nothing dies in vain," he murmured. "Everything feeds something."
I hugged his jacket tighter. "You make it sound almost holy."
"It is." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "The first sin was forgetting that."
The silence between us deepened, dense as the fog.
For the first time, I didn't see him as just a man with secrets or a wolf with a temper.
He was something older — something the world had tried to name and failed.
"You scared?" he asked, catching the look on my face.
"No," I said, and it was true. "But I don't know if I should be."
He smiled — not smug, not cruel. Just knowing.
"That's the right answer, my pearl."
And then, as lightning shuddered across the sky, he reached out and brushed his thumb along my jaw — leaving a faint trace of blood.
It burned like a mark I wasn't sure I wanted washed away.