The wolves had rules.
Old ones.
Carved into stone deep beneath the sacred forest. Rules older than their blood, older than even the Pack's first howl.
And the first rule—etched not in words, but in instinct—was this:
"A wolf must never love the bloodless."
But what if the bloodless bled like fire?
⸻
Cassia didn't sleep easily.
The dreams were getting louder, stranger. Some nights, she dreamed she was running through the forest barefoot, shadows snapping at her heels, her breath burning in her lungs. Other nights, she stood beneath a blackened moon, her arms raised high, her voice not her own. She spoke in a language she didn't recognize but knew by heart.
And always, always, the fire-eyed wolf stood beside her. Silent. Waiting.
She'd stopped writing them down. The pages only made the dreams feel more real.
Instead, she walked. At midnight. Through the woods.
She didn't know why—only that something inside her thrummed when the trees closed around her. The townspeople would call her mad if they knew. A woman alone in Crooked Ash forest after dark? Most didn't even look out their windows once the sun dipped. They feared the howls. The silver glints in the trees. The old legends.
But Cassia wasn't afraid of the wolves.
She was afraid of what she might be to them.
⸻
Elias smelled her before he saw her.
His senses had sharpened since the last full moon—since her—and now he could pick out her scent even in a rainstorm. Tonight, it wrapped around him like fog and bone.
He was perched high in the trees, watching the path she walked.
She moved like she belonged to the forest. Careful. Unafraid. Her breath rose in soft clouds before her. Her coat—an old thing, patched and faded—hugged her small frame as if to protect her from more than just the cold.
She paused beneath the Wishing Oak, the oldest tree in the valley, where generations had once knelt to carve their secrets into the bark. The tree still bore the scars of those wishes: names, pleas, prayers, curses.
Cassia ran her fingers along one of the deepest grooves.
She didn't speak. But Elias heard her thoughts anyway.
Who am I?
It wasn't a question meant for him. It wasn't even meant for the moon. It was the kind of question that lived in the marrow. That clawed at the ribs. That made a girl walk into haunted woods at night, looking for a ghost to answer.
And he could not stay away any longer.
⸻
He dropped down behind her without a sound, his wolf-form silent in the leaves.
She turned before he even moved.
"I knew you'd come," she whispered.
His breath hitched. Her eyes met his—calm, clear, and unreadable. She wasn't surprised. She wasn't panicked. She just looked at him like he was real.
Slowly, he shifted. It was painful, more than usual. His bones fought him, unsure if they wanted to return to flesh. But she waited. She didn't look away when the fur peeled back or when the skin re-formed. She simply watched.
When he stood before her, naked and trembling in the cold, she removed her coat and offered it to him.
He didn't take it. He was too stunned by her quietness.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, his voice like gravel. He hadn't spoken out loud in days.
"I could say the same to you."
"You don't understand what I am."
"No," she agreed. "But I don't think you do either."
⸻
They sat together under the Wishing Oak. She sat beside the roots, he with his back to the bark. Neither spoke for a long while. The woods were unusually still. No insects. No owls. Not even the rustle of wind. As if the trees themselves were listening.
"You've been following me," she said finally.
He didn't deny it.
"You watch me like you're trying to remember something," she continued. "Like I'm part of a dream you woke up from too fast."
"You are," Elias said. "You're… a name I forgot."
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "That's poetic. Or dangerous."
"Maybe both."
Silence again. The kind that stretches, comfortable and tense at the same time.
"Tell me your name," she said.
He swallowed hard.
"I can't."
"Can't? Or won't?"
"I forgot it," he said truthfully, bitterly. "But when you speak, I almost remember."
⸻
Somewhere deep in the woods, a wolf howled.
Elias stiffened. His eyes burned gold.
"They're watching," he said. "The Pack. They know you're with me. This isn't safe."
"I don't care."
"You should."
"Then why are you here?" she asked. "Why not leave me alone?"
He didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice cracked.
"Because when I see you, the beast inside me stops clawing. You make the pain… quieter."
⸻
That night, they kissed.
It wasn't wild. It wasn't rushed. It was slow. Careful. Like touching something sacred for the first time. Her hand on his chest. His fingers in her hair. Their breaths merging beneath the bones of an ancient oak.
And in that moment, something inside Elias shattered.
Not in grief.
In remembrance.
His name came rushing back.
Elias Thorn.
Son of Ash and Fire. Alpha of the Silver Pack.
Bound by the Moon.
Sworn to protect the Laws.
And he had just broken the oldest one.
⸻
He stumbled back from her, gasping, the memory like a blade in his chest.
"What's wrong?" she asked, reaching for him.
"You can't touch me again," he said, voice hoarse. "I'm not allowed to love you."
Her eyes went wide—not in fear, but something deeper. Recognition.
"You're not the only one breaking rules," she whispered.
And for the first time, she looked scared—not of him, but of herself.