Chapter Three: Teeth in the Dark
“Elena, step away from the window.”
Jonah’s voice was low, edged with command, almost a growl.
I startled, jerking back as if the glass might splinter beneath my breath. My hands had been braced against the cold frame, fingers trembling so hard they left fogged streaks across the pane. Jonah closed the space between us in two strides, his hands seizing my shoulders.
His grip was steady. His eyes were not. They flicked toward the shadows beyond the cabin again and again—the same shadows where Seraphina’s warning still coiled in my head like smoke.
“I heard it,” I whispered. My voice was thin, frayed at the edges. “I swear there was something out there.”
Jonah’s jaw flexed. He hesitated before admitting, “I heard it too.”
The confession hollowed me out. If Jonah—the unshakable, unflinching Jonah—looked unsettled, then this wasn’t in my head. This was real.
He guided me to the chair near the fire and crouched low in front of me. His palms pressed lightly to my knees, grounding me. “Look at me. Breathe with me. In… and out.”
I tried. My chest heaved against its own refusal. My breaths came ragged and uneven. Seraphina’s whisper kept unraveling in my skull. The forest has teeth.
Jonah caught the faraway look in my eyes and squeezed gently. “Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll check outside.”
“No!” Panic spiked through me, sharp as lightning. I clutched his arm so tightly my nails dug crescents into his skin. “Whatever it is… it’s waiting for you.”
His eyes softened, though his body stayed coiled with tension. “If I don’t, we’ll never know how close it is.”
“I don’t want to know,” I whispered.
But he pulled free from my grip. His hand reached for the dagger above the mantle, the firelight catching along its silvered edge as he slid it into his palm. His shoulders squared. He cracked the door open, one hand outstretched as though he could shield me from whatever waited beyond.
The night air spilled in, sharp and damp with pine and earth. Jonah leaned out, scanning the trees. I held my breath, every muscle locked, heart drumming so hard it hurt.
Seconds dragged like hours. Then he eased the door shut again, bolting it with slow precision. His face was a mask, unreadable.
“Nothing?” My voice broke on the word.
“There was movement,” he admitted after a long pause. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Not close. But not far enough either. And whatever it was—it wasn’t moving like a wolf.”
A cold twist coiled in my gut. “Then what was it?”
He didn’t answer. The scrape of metal as he slid the lock home was louder than any response. He was hiding something, and I hated that I already knew it.
Tears pricked my eyes. I pressed my palms to my face, hot against my skin. “This is because of me. Damien knew. He knew something like this would happen.”
Jonah’s footsteps thudded across the wood, then he was crouched before me again, dragging my hands from my face. His thumb brushed against my knuckles, steady and gentle. “Don’t. Don’t you dare blame yourself for his choices.”
“He humiliated me in front of everyone!” My voice cracked apart. “He didn’t just walk away—he destroyed me. And for what? To protect me from this?” I gestured wildly toward the door, toward the silence pressing in from the trees. “From a nightmare none of us even understand?”
Jonah’s grip on my hands tightened. His eyes burned into mine. “You think rejection defines you. It doesn’t. You’re still you, Elena. And whatever is out there—it isn’t after a weak girl. It’s after someone strong enough to survive being cast out.”
The conviction in his voice flickered like a spark inside me. But before it could take root, another sound cut through the cabin.
A scrape. Slow. Deliberate. Claws dragging against wood.
My body locked. Jonah surged to his feet in an instant, dagger raised. The scrape traveled across the far wall, patient, circling. The air in the cabin thickened until every breath tasted like dust.
“It’s surrounding us,” I breathed.
Jonah didn’t look back. His body was taut as a bowstring. “Stay behind me.”
The scrape ended. Silence fell—too heavy, too still.
Then—
“Elena…”
My name whispered through the walls, guttural and low. Not Jonah’s voice. Not any voice I knew. It wrapped around me like cold hands at my throat.
I staggered back until I hit the chair, clutching its armrest to stay upright. My knees threatened to give out.
“Don’t answer,” Jonah hissed, deadly serious.
“I wasn’t going to,” I whispered, though my lips trembled.
The voice came again, closer, as though the walls weren’t there at all. “Rejected. Forsaken. Alone. You are mine now.”
My wolf snarled inside me, furious and afraid. My heart hammered until I thought it might break through my ribs.
Seraphina’s voice stirred sharp and clear this time: “It knows your name.” That makes it dangerous.
Jonah moved toward the window, lantern in one hand, dagger in the other. The light cast wild shadows as he lifted it high. The trees outside stood silent and ordinary, betraying nothing.
“Elena,” the voice dragged, savoring every syllable. “Your pack does not want you. But the forest does.”
I clamped my hands over my ears, but the whisper slid inside anyway. It seeped into me, curling like a parasite.
“Leave her alone!” Jonah roared, his voice shaking the walls.
The reply was laughter. Hollow, broken, like echoes torn apart and sewn back together. Then the window rattled violently. The glass shivered in its frame. Shadows lurched across the cabin walls as the lantern flickered in Jonah’s hand.
I couldn’t breathe.
The whisper faded, but its final words clung to me like claws: Run, little wolf. Run… or be devoured.
Silence slammed down again, suffocating.
Jonah turned back, his chest heaving, dagger raised. His voice was raw when he spoke. “It wants you, Elena. And it won’t stop.”
My throat burned, and the words tumbled out broken. “Then what do we do?”
His gaze locked on mine, fierce and unyielding. “We fight.”
The answer had barely left his mouth when the cabin door buckled inward with a thunderous crack. Splinters rained across the floor. Something massive slammed against it again. And again.
The bolt screamed under the pressure, wood groaning like bone. Jonah grabbed me, pulling me back behind him, dagger flashing in the firelight.
The door split down the center. One more strike and it would shatter.
And then—finally—we would see what waited in the dark.
