The first scream split the night before the clock struck twelve.
I was already awake — I always was, these days — sitting by my window with the curtains drawn just enough to let the moonlight bleed in. The town of Blackridge slept quietly beneath the pines, but the forest never truly did. The air here always felt… alive. Too alive. Like something was watching, breathing, waiting.
The scream didn't come again, but the silence that followed was heavier than sound. I pressed my fingers against the cold glass, eyes tracing the tree line at the edge of town. Nothing moved, yet the shadows seemed to pulse.
My grandmother used to say the forest around Blackridge was cursed — that the moonlight here "doesn't just shine, it listens."
Back then, I laughed.
Now, I wasn't so sure.
I'd been here three months. Three months since I'd left the city and everything I used to be.
Three months since the incident.
People in town didn't ask why I came. They just stared a little too long, the way small towns do when someone new appears. Maybe they noticed the faint silver tint in my eyes — the one I couldn't quite hide. Or maybe they sensed the restlessness in me.
The kind that doesn't belong to ordinary people.
I told myself I'd start over. Work in the café. Keep my head down. Stay human.
That last part was the hardest.
Because the moon was calling again.
---
The next morning, the air smelled of pine and rain. I pulled on a jacket and made my way down the hill to The Den — Blackridge's one and only café-slash-bar. Ironically named, considering half the locals acted like wolves themselves.
"Morning, Aria," came a voice from behind the counter.
Maya, the owner, was maybe thirty, sharp-eyed, always chewing gum. She'd taken me in when I showed up with a suitcase and no references, just a desperate look and a willingness to scrub dishes. She didn't ask questions, which made her my favorite kind of person.
"You hear it last night?" she asked as I tied on my apron.
"The scream?"
"Yeah. Word is, another hiker went missing near the ridge."
I froze. "Another?"
She nodded grimly. "That makes three this month. Sheriff says it's animals, but—"
"Animals don't scream," I finished.
Her eyes flicked up, curious. "You sound like you've seen something like that before."
I smiled faintly. "Just a feeling."
And I did have a feeling. Deep in my chest, where the pulse didn't quite beat like it used to.
---
By evening, the sky was bruised purple, clouds rolling over the mountains. The café buzzed with quiet talk — miners, hikers, locals sipping coffee like it could ward off whatever haunted the woods.
That's when he walked in.
The door opened, and the air changed — I swear it shifted, like the room was holding its breath.
Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair damp from the rain. A stranger, but not the kind who blended in. His eyes were a shade too sharp, his movements too precise. He didn't just enter the space — he claimed it.
Maya noticed too. "New face," she murmured, low enough for me to hear. "Good-looking trouble, that one."
He sat in the corner booth, back to the wall, gaze fixed out the window. I caught the faintest shimmer of amber when he turned his head.
And for a heartbeat, I forgot to breathe.
He ordered coffee — black — and didn't speak another word. But I could feel his attention when I passed his table.
Not a normal kind of attention.
Something in it prickled beneath my skin. Like recognition. Like… hunger.
---
It wasn't until closing that he spoke again.
"Aria Vale."
Hearing my name in his voice stopped me cold. I hadn't told anyone my last name since I got here.
I turned, forcing my expression neutral. "Do I know you?"
He was standing now, close enough that I could see the scar just under his jaw. He smelled faintly of rain and something wild — sharp, metallic, familiar in a way that terrified me.
"No," he said slowly, eyes studying mine. "But you should."
There it was again — that flicker of gold in his gaze. My breath caught; my heart didn't beat so much as snarl.
"You're not from here," I said.
"Neither are you."
He smiled — small, dangerous. "Name's Luca Varyn. I'm… the new man in charge of the ridge."
The ridge. The place the screams came from.
My stomach twisted. "You mean the land everyone's been avoiding since—"
"Since the killings, yes." He paused, voice softening. "And you shouldn't be there after dark."
"I don't go near it," I lied.
He tilted his head. "Liar."
Something electric passed between us — something that felt too old to be coincidence. His gaze dropped for a moment, to the silver charm I wore around my neck — a tiny crescent moon pendant. His jaw tightened.
"Who gave you that?" he asked quietly.
"My grandmother."
"Does it burn when the moon's full?"
The words froze me.
He knew. He knew.
I stepped back, pulse hammering. "You need to leave."
Instead, he stepped closer — not enough to touch, but enough that the air between us felt alive.
"I came here to find someone," he said, voice a low growl that sent a tremor through me. "A girl who doesn't belong to the human world. Someone the forest wants back."
"And you think that's me?"
"I don't think," he murmured. "I know."
My throat tightened. Every instinct screamed to run — but some deeper part of me wanted to stay, to understand.
His hand brushed the edge of the counter, and for an instant, our fingers nearly touched. The contact was brief, but heat rippled through me like a spark to dry tinder. I could almost hear the sound of my own blood — no, not blood — something else humming beneath it.
Then he pulled back, as if the moment burned him too.
"Stay out of the forest, Aria Vale," he said quietly. "The things that hunt there… don't care who you used to be."
And then he was gone.
---
When I stepped outside later, the night air was cold and sharp, the moon veiled behind clouds. I could still feel the ghost of his presence — the scent of pine and storm — clinging to my skin.
Somewhere in the distance, a howl broke through the silence. Low, mournful, familiar.
And for the first time in weeks, I felt it answering inside me.
The part I'd buried. The part that wasn't human.
Silver beneath the skin.
Sin in the blood.
And a stranger who somehow saw both.