# BLOOD AND MOONLIGHT ## *A Werewolf Horror Romance Serial*# CHAPTER 2: WHAT BLEEDS IN THE WOODS
Elena didn't run.
That was the first thing she'd tell herself later, in the safety of her candlelit cottage, when her hands finally stopped shaking. She didn't run. She stayed. She stayed and she searched because that's what doctors did—doctors didn't panic, doctors assessed, doctors treated the wound before asking how it happened.
The wound, in this case, was the absence of her sister.
She searched the ravine for another hour. Every bush, every hollow log, every space between trees where a body might hide. Nothing. No footprints, no torn clothing, no blood. Just the locket, warm in her pocket, and the forest's patient breathing.
By the time she climbed back out of the ravine, the moon had begun its descent toward the horizon. Elena's medical bag felt heavier than it should, weighed down by something she couldn't name. Fear, maybe. Or hope.
She was halfway back to the village when she heard it.
A howl.
Not like any howl she'd heard before—not the mournful cry of a lost dog or the distant call of wolves that sometimes echoed from the mountains. This was closer. Much closer. And it wasn't mournful at all.
It was hungry.
Elena's feet moved before her brain caught up. She ran. Not toward the sound—away from it, toward the distant lights of Blackthorn that flickered through the trees like false promises. Her boots pounded against the path, her breath came in ragged gasps, and behind her, she heard the crash of something large moving through the underbrush.
Fast, her mind supplied. It's fast. Faster than you.
She veered off the path, crashing into thicker woods where the thing behind her might have more trouble following. Branches clawed at her face. Roots reached up to trip her. She stumbled, caught herself on a trunk, kept running.
The crashing sounds stopped.
Elena froze, pressing herself against the rough bark of an ancient pine. Her heart hammered so loud she was certain the entire forest could hear it. She held her breath and listened.
Silence.
Then—a voice. Low, human, close enough to touch:
"You shouldn't be here."
Elena's hand found the gun. She raised it, turned—
And saw him.
A man. Young, maybe thirty, with dark hair plastered to his forehead and eyes that caught the moonlight like an animal's. He stood ten feet away, completely still, dressed in clothes that looked like they'd been through a war—torn, bloodstained, hanging off a body that was all lean muscle and coiled tension.
But it was his face that stopped her. The sharp cheekbones, the full mouth, the way his brow furrowed with something that looked almost like pain. He was beautiful. Beautiful in the way a storm was beautiful—terrifying and impossible to look away from.
"Who are you?" Elena's voice came out steadier than she felt.
He didn't answer. His eyes dropped to the gun in her hand, then back to her face. Something flickered there. Recognition? No—that was impossible. She'd never seen him before.
"You need to leave," he said. "Now. Before—"
He stopped. His body went rigid. And Elena watched in horror as his eyes changed—the dark irises bleeding to gold, the pupils contracting to vertical slits.
"Run," he said. And his voice was different now. Rougher. Less human. "Run and don't look back."
Elena ran.
She ran until her lungs burned and her legs screamed and the lights of Blackthorn finally surrounded her. She ran through the village gates, down the main street, to her cottage door. She slammed it shut, bolted it, leaned against it with the gun still clutched in her shaking hand.
Only then, in the safety of her home, did she realize:
She'd dropped the locket somewhere in the woods.
End of Chapter 2
Next Chapter: The Wound That Wouldn't Heal—When Elena treats a mysterious stranger with impossible injuries, she discovers that some monsters wear human faces... and some humans carry curses in their blood.
