The werewolf hunter

Elena's POV:

The forest was endless, the moon a sliver of bone in the black sky. My bare feet slapped against the cold, dead leaves, each step a gasp for air that my burning lungs couldn't find. This was the dream. The same one, every full moon, for five years.

It was the reason I’d left. The reason I’d traded the wild scent of pine and earth for the sterile anonymity of a human city.

Behind me, the hungry panting of three rogues grew louder. I could hear their saliva dripping, a wet, slick sound that echoed in the suffocating silence. They were close. Too close.

*Faster, Elena, they're gaining on us!* My inner wolf, Lyra, shrieked in my mind, her panic a blade against my own.

I pushed harder, my legs screaming in protest, but a gnarled root snaked out from the forest floor, catching my ankle. I went down hard. The sharp edge of a rock sliced into my knee, but I felt no pain. Only the deep, seeping cold of the earth and a soul-deep exhaustion.

I was tired of running.

They were on me in an instant, a triangle of matted fur and feral hunger. Their eyes glowed a feverish red, stripped of all reason. Low growls rumbled in their chests, a promise of the violence to come.

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the tear of teeth and claw. Let it end.

But it didn't come.

Instead, a pressure slammed down from above, so immense it felt like the air itself had solidified. It carried the scent of an oncoming blizzard and ancient pine trees. The three rogues transformed from predators to prey in a heartbeat. They whimpered, tails tucking between their legs as they flattened themselves to the ground, trembling.

I dared to open my eyes.

A tall figure stood between me and them, his back to me. The pale moonlight carved out the shape of his broad shoulders and long limbs. He didn't turn, didn't even look at them, but a voice echoed directly in my skull, cold and absolute.

"Get lost."

The rogues scrambled to their feet, tripping over each other in their haste to obey, and vanished into the darkness.

The man turned slowly. I couldn't make out his face, the shadows clung to him like a shroud, but I could see his eyes. They burned in the dark, two pools of molten gold.