Jade
The night air was sharp against my skin as I made my way down the deserted path that led back toward campus. My boots crunched softly over the gravel, the only sound in the heavy stillness. The party had fizzled out hours ago, but I had stayed longer than I should have, lingering at the edges, trying to forget the way Zade’s almost-kiss had set my entire world on fire.
Now, under the eerie glow of a half-hidden moon, everything felt different. The woods, once vibrant and filled with laughter, were silent and watching. The trees pressed in close, their shadows long and twisted.
I pulled my jacket tighter around me and quickened my steps. Something about the silence wasn’t natural. It wasn’t peaceful. It was expectant.
I didn’t realize I was being followed until it was too late.
A sharp snap of a twig made me whip around, my heart lodging itself in my throat. A man stepped out from between the trees, his face half-hidden by the shadows. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight, dark and hungry.
“Where you headed, sweetheart?” he drawled, taking a slow, deliberate step toward me.
Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my feet were frozen in place. I took a shaky step back, only to find another man behind me, blocking the path. My breath caught painfully in my chest.
Panic surged through me, cold and paralyzing. I opened my mouth to scream, but one of them grabbed my wrist, squeezing hard enough to make me cry out.
“Shhh,” the first man said, his smile a cruel twist. “No need for that. We just wanna have a little fun.”
I struggled against his grip, but he was too strong. Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away furiously. I refused to be helpless. I refused to give them that satisfaction.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the air around us shifted. It was subtle at first, a low vibration that seemed to hum through the ground. Then it grew, pulsing with a force that made my skin crawl.
The men hesitated, glancing around nervously.
That was when I saw him.
He emerged from the darkness like a nightmare, his eyes gleaming with a light that was anything but human. His body was tense, his hands curled into fists at his sides. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.
The man holding me sneered. “Look who’s here to play hero.”
Zade moved so fast I barely saw it. One second he was standing still, and the next he was a blur of motion. He hit the man with a force that sent him sprawling into the dirt. Before the second man could react, Zade was on him too, a savage growl tearing from his throat.
I stumbled back, watching in frozen shock as Zade fought with a brutality that was terrifying and awe-inspiring. He wasn’t just defending me. He was destroying them.
When it was over, the men lay groaning on the ground, too broken to move. Zade stood over them, his chest heaving, his body trembling with barely contained rage. His eyes burned with a feral light, his teeth bared in a snarl.
And then he turned to me.
I took a step back, fear twisting in my gut. This wasn’t the Zade I knew. This was something darker, something untamed. His eyes locked onto mine, and for a moment, I saw the battle he was fighting within himself.
He took a shaky breath, trying to calm the beast inside him. But something in him snapped.
In a blur of motion, he was in front of me. His hands gripped my arms, holding me firmly but not painfully. His breathing was ragged, his eyes wild.
“You are mine,” he growled, his voice raw and barely human.
Before I could react, before I could even understand what was happening, he lowered his head to my neck.
I felt the sharp sting of his teeth breaking my skin.
A cry tore from my throat, more from shock than pain. My body stiffened, my hands pushing weakly against his chest, but it was useless. A fire spread from the mark, racing through my veins, igniting something deep and primal inside me.
When he finally pulled back, his eyes were heavy with emotion. He touched the spot where he had bitten me with a gentleness that broke my heart.
“You’ll understand soon,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
Then, as quickly as he had come, he disappeared into the shadows, leaving me standing alone under the cold, indifferent stars.