They say the blood moon awakens hidden truths, but I never expected mine to be seen by the one person who was never meant to look.
Time stopped. Wyatt stepped into the clearing, his tall frame silhouetted against the blood moon's crimson light.
Moonlight illuminated his face, revealing those silver-blue eyes that had haunted my dreams for five years. He looked exactly as I remembered—devastatingly handsome, powerful, untouchable.
I grabbed for my discarded clothes, but they were scattered across the clearing. Panic clawed at my chest as his footsteps grew closer.
"I heard howling," he continued, his voice cutting through the night air. "And saw someone running through the woods."
I pressed myself against the largest oak, my new body trembling with fear and adrenaline.
What would he do if he found me? What would he think of this impossible transformation?
"I know you're there," he said, his voice closer now. "I can smell you."
Of course he could. He was a trained warrior, an Alpha heir. My scent would be completely foreign to him, belonging to neither the broken girl he'd dismissed nor any wolf he'd recognize.
"I'm not going to hurt you. Please," he said, scanning the shadows where I hid. "Let me help you."
The irony was suffocating. Wyatt Sullivan, offering help to the girl he'd never truly seen, who he'd never recognize in this transformed state.
I closed my eyes and made a choice that would change everything.
I stepped into the moonlight completely naked, completely changed, completely unrecognizable as the broken girl who'd failed at his engagement party.
His gaze found mine, and froze the moment he saw me. I expected shock, maybe disgust, certainly the urge to look away as usual.
Instead, his silver-blue eyes fixed on mine with something that looked almost like wonder. Not judgment, not the careful avoidance I was used to, just... watching.
Taking me in like I was something worth seeing.
My heart hammered against my ribs as we stared at each other across the small clearing. The blood moon hung between us like a witness, casting everything in shades of fire and shadow.
"Who are you?" he asked, his gaze never leaving mine.
"Does it matter?"
"It does to me." He began unbuttoning his jacket with deliberate movements. "You're on pack territory."
I should have grabbed for my scattered clothes, should have covered myself. Instead, I stood there letting him look, drinking with hunger in his eyes.
"Are you going to report me?" I asked.
"That depends." He slid the jacket off his shoulders. "Are you a threat?"
"I could be."
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes. "I'd like to see you try."
The challenge hung between us like a blade.
The simple black material slid off his shoulders with a soft whisper of fabric, and he walked toward me, not rushed, not hesitant, just calm and steady like he'd done this a thousand times before.
When he reached me, he draped the jacket gently over my shoulders. His fingers brushed against my bare arm as he adjusted the fabric, and I shivered at the contact.
The jacket was warm from his body heat and smelled like a fireplace and something uniquely him, something that made my chest tight in ways I didn't understand.
"Better?" he asked quietly and I nodded, not trusting my voice.
The jacket was huge on me, falling nearly to my knees, but it felt like armor against the vulnerability of the moment.
Then, he just stepped back and gestured toward the forest path with a slight tilt of his head. "Walk with me?"
It wasn't really a question, but it wasn't a command either. Just an invitation, gentle and without pressure. I found myself nodding again, pulling his jacket tighter around my shoulders as we left the clearing behind.
We moved through the trees in charged silence first. I was hyper-aware of his presence beside me—every step, every breath, every subtle shift in his massive frame.
"I've never seen you before," he said eventually. "Are you visiting from another pack?"
"Something like that."
"The blood moon brought you out?"
"I couldn't sleep." Not entirely a lie. "You either, I'm guessing?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Too much thinking. Sometimes the forest is the only place that makes sense."
I understood that feeling more than he could know. "What do you think about?"
"Duty." His voice carried an edge. "Expectations. The difference between what everyone demands from you and what you actually want."
The words hit like physical blows. "That sounds suffocating."
"It is." He glanced at me sideways. "What about you? What keeps you awake at night?"
"Wondering if I'll ever be enough," I whispered before I could stop myself.
He stopped walking, turning to face me fully. "Enough for what?"
"For anything. Anyone." The confession tore from my throat. "For someone to actually see me instead of looking through me."
Something shifted in his expression. "I see you."
"Do you?" I challenged. "Or do you see what the moonlight wants you to see?"
"I see someone who's tired of being invisible." His voice was soft but certain. "Someone who's spent their whole life making themselves small to avoid disappointing people."
The accuracy of his words made my chest tight. "How could you possibly know that?"
"Because I recognize the feeling." He stepped closer. "The weight of never being allowed to be yourself."
We stared at each other across the small space between us, two predators recognizing shared wounds.
"I should go," I said suddenly, feeling the moon's magic beginning to ebb.
"Already?" He moved closer, his presence overwhelming. "We just started talking."
"Sometimes the best conversations are the ones that leave you wanting more."
"Is that what this is?" His voice dropped to something dangerous. "You leaving me wanting more?"
The question sent electricity through my veins. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" He reached out, his fingers grazing my jaw. "That's cruel."
"Life is cruel."
"It doesn't have to be." His thumb traced along my cheekbone. "Not tonight."
I leaned into his touch despite every rational thought screaming at me to run. "Tonight isn't real."
"It feels real to me."
"Because you don't know who I really am."
"Then tell me."
The simple words hung between us like a trap. How could I explain that I was the girl he'd never truly seen, transformed by blood moon magic into something worthy of his attention? "I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because if you knew, you'd stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm something precious."
His grip on my face tightened. "What if I promised not to stop?"
"You can't promise that." I stepped back, breaking the contact. "You don't even know what you'd be promising."
"Try me."
The temptation to tell him everything crashed over me like a wave. But dawn was coming, and with it, the return to reality.
"I have to go," I said, already backing toward the trees.
"Will I see you again?" The question carried equal parts hope and desperation.
"Maybe."
"Maybe is better than never," he said, watching me disappear into the shadows.
"Be safe, mysterious girl," he called after me.
By the time I reached the edge of our territory, the transformation was already reversing. My magnificent ginger hair faded to mousy brown, my curves melted away, my skin lost its supernatural glow. I was myself again—small, plain, forgettable.
But I still had his jacket, and the memory of how he'd looked at me like I mattered.
The next morning, hope bloomed in my chest like poison ivy—beautiful but deadly.
I stood at my bedroom window, watching the courtyard below where Wyatt stood with Mira. They were discussing wedding preparations, their heads bent together in intimate conversation. She looked radiant in pale yellow, her dark hair catching the sunlight.
They were perfect together. Beautiful, powerful, destined.
Wyatt was exactly as he'd always been with her—polite, distant, dutiful. Nothing like the man who'd touched my face in the forest and looked at me like I was something precious.
"Gail!" Mother's voice cracked like a whip from downstairs. "Get down here this instant!"
I dragged myself away from the window, but not before catching Wyatt's eye through the glass. He looked right through me, his expression blank and uninterested.
The mysterious girl he'd wanted to see again didn't exist in the daylight.
I stayed in the background, watching from the shadows as they finalized details for their future together.
My chest felt tight, like someone was slowly squeezing my heart in their fist.
The girl he'd talked to last night, the one he'd given his jacket to, the one he'd asked to walk with him, she didn't exist in the daylight.
Not to him. Not to anyone.