The fire on the ridge was eventually contained, but the fire in Oakhaven was just beginning to spread. It wasn't a blaze of heat, but a slow, suffocating frost. In a small town, a secret is a currency, and a truth like Reid Blackwood's was enough to bankrupt the community's sense of reality.
Clara brought Reid back to her father's cabin. He was too weak to protest, his body a map of shallow cuts and deep, purple bruises. The gunshot wound in his shoulder had closed a miracle of his biology but the skin was puckered and angry, a permanent knot of scar tissue that would always ache when the air grew cold.
By the third day after the hunt, the isolation was complete.
Clara went into town for supplies, and the shift was visceral. When she walked into The Rusty Anchor, the chatter died instantly. It wasn't the silence of respect; it was the silence of a vacuum. Evelyn, who had always had a warm word and a fresh pot of coffee, wouldn't look her in the eye. She set the bread and milk on the counter with a sharp thud, her lips pressed into a thin, white line.
"Is there a problem, Evelyn?" Clara asked, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the hushed diner.
Evelyn finally looked up, her eyes bright with a mixture of fear and betrayal. "My grandfather helped build this town, Clara. He told stories about the 'shadows on the ridge,' but we thought they were just stories. We thought we were safe."
"You are safe," Clara said firmly. "Reid is the reason the fire didn't reach the town. He's the reason the hunt didn't turn into a massacre."
"He's one of them," a man at a corner table spat. It was one of Miller's deputies. "He's been walking among us, wearing that uniform, acting like he's protecting us while he's got that... that beast coiled up inside him. How do we know when he'll snap? How do we know you aren't already his next meal?"
Clara felt a cold rage settle in her chest the kind of rage that comes when you realize the world would rather have a comfortable lie than a difficult hero.
"If he wanted to hurt you," Clara said, leaning over the counter, "none of you would be sitting here eating eggs. He has spent every day of his life fighting to keep you safe from a part of himself he didn't even ask for. If that's not a man, I don't know what is."
She grabbed her bags and walked out. On the sidewalk, she found her car had been keyed a long, jagged line running from the headlight to the trunk. Someone had spray-painted a single word in yellow on the driver's side door: MONSTER-LOVER.
She didn't cry. She drove back up the hill, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
When she entered the cabin, Reid was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his hands. He had heard her pull up, and he had heard the way she slammed the car door.
"They're not going to let us stay, Clara," he said softly. He didn't look up. "The town council met this morning. They're revoking my ranger commission. They're citing 'medical instability.'"
"They can't do that," Clara said, dropping the groceries. "We'll fight it. We'll get a lawyer from the city."
"With what money? And for what prize?" Reid finally looked at her. His face was tired not just physically, but spiritually. "Even if I win, I'll still be the man they lock their doors against. I'll still be the man whose name is used to frighten children. I've spent my whole life trying to belong here, and all it took was one night for them to remember I never did."
Clara walked over to him, pulling his head against her stomach. He leaned into her, his breath hitching.
"Then we leave," she said.
Reid pulled back, looking at her in shock. "Leave? This is your father's house. This is your life, Clara. You're a restorer. You're supposed to be surrounded by history."
"I am a restorer," she agreed, her voice softening as she ran a hand through his dark hair. "But I don't restore houses, Reid. I restore things that are worth saving. And you are the only thing in this town that matters to me. We can go north. Or east. Somewhere where the trees are just trees, and nobody knows the name Blackwood."
"Silas won't let me go," Reid whispered. "He's still out there. He's waiting for me to break. He thinks if the town rejects me, I'll finally realize he's all I have left."
"He's wrong," Clara said.
That night, as the fog rolled in off the coast, someone threw a brick through the cabin's front window. It shattered the glass, sending shards flying across the floor where Clara had been reading just minutes before. Wrapped around the brick was a note, the ink bleeding in the damp air: GET OUT BEFORE THE NEXT MOON.
Reid stood in the center of the room, his eyes glowing gold in the darkness. He didn't growl. He didn't roar. He simply picked up the brick and looked at the jagged hole in the window.
"They're afraid," Reid said.
"Fear makes people cruel," Clara replied, stepping over the glass to stand beside him.
"I can't stay here and watch them hurt you," Reid said, his voice cracking. "I can handle the stones and the names, Clara. But if they touch a hair on your head, the wolf won't be the one they have to worry about. It'll be me."
He looked at her then, and for the first time, Clara saw the true "human" danger. It wasn't the supernatural curse; it was the capacity for a man to lose himself in the protection of what he loved.
"We leave tomorrow," Reid decided. "At dawn."
But as they began to pack the few things they could carry, a low, rhythmic tapping sounded at the back door. Not the frantic beat of a mob, but the steady, patient knock of someone who knew exactly who was inside.
Reid moved to the door, his body tensed for a fight. He swung it open.
Standing on the porch was Deputy Miller. He wasn't wearing his uniform. He looked older, smaller, his shoulders slumped under a heavy rain jacket. He was holding a small, weathered wooden box.
"I'm not here for a fight, Blackwood," Miller said, his voice barely a whisper.
"What do you want, Miller?" Reid asked, his hand still gripped tight on the doorframe.
"My father... he was the sheriff before me," Miller said, looking down at the box. "He kept records. Things the town council wanted burned back in the sixties. He told me that if the day ever came when a Blackwood was being driven out, I should give this to them."
He handed the box to Reid. It was heavy, smelling of cedar and old earth.
"Why are you doing this?" Clara asked, stepping up behind Reid. "You were the one who shot him."
Miller looked at her, his eyes filled with a haunting regret. "I shot a shadow in the smoke, Clara. I've been seeing that shadow every time I close my eyes. This town... it's got a short memory for the good things and a long one for the bad. You're right to leave. But you should know your history before you go."
Miller turned and walked back into the fog without another word.
Reid brought the box to the table and opened it. Inside were dozens of old photographs and a map hand-drawn on vellum. The photographs showed men and women from Oakhaven names Clara recognized from the local cemetery standing side-by-side with people whose eyes reflected the camera's flash with a golden tint.
At the bottom of the box was a letter from Clara's father to Reid's father.
"Thomas, the town is turning. They've forgotten that we survived the great famine because your kin hunted for the village. They've forgotten the pact. I'm leaving to keep Clara safe, but know this: the blood in your veins isn't a curse to us. It's the original heart of this valley. Don't let them make you feel like a stranger in your own skin."
Reid stared at the letter, a single tear tracking through the ash still smeared on his cheek. "They didn't just forget," he whispered. "They chose to hate us so they didn't have to owe us."
"We're not staying to change their minds, Reid," Clara said, closing the box. "We're leaving so we can live."
As they prepared for their final night in the cabin, the woods around them seemed to hold their breath. Silas was watching. The town was waiting. And for the first time in his life, Reid Blackwood didn't feel like a monster. He felt like a man who was finally, painfully free.