Chapter 4 - Sophie
I leave the hospital later than I should, the sky already bruised into deep blues and blacks that tell me I’ve misjudged time again.
Sundays do that to me. They stretch and warp, heavy and slow, until the night arrives without warning and I’m suddenly standing outside with my bag slung over my shoulder, wishing I could peel the day off my skin and leave it behind.
I hate Sundays. I’ve hated them ever since that one particular Sunday that broke my life cleanly in two, though I’ve never said it out loud. Sundays carry too much quiet, too much space for memories to creep in where they don’t belong.
As I step into the cold night air, the automatic doors slide shut behind me, and I feel that familiar tightening in my chest. The subtle dread that has nothing to do with my double shifts and everything to do with the way Sundays end comes creeping back, and no amount of working seems to take my mind off what happened.
The memory haunts me as vividly as his face was in that dream last night, except it wasn’t a dream, and more like a nightmare. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and push aside his memory, shaking my head as I look up.
The streetlights hum softly above the nearly empty road, their glow reflecting off the asphalt as I walk toward the crossing.
My feet ache, my shoulders feel permanently hunched from hours of holding myself together for patients who needed me—probably less than I offered, but I gave my all just to distract myself—and all I want is to go home and disappear into sleep.
Instead, a sensation crawls up my spine, quiet but insistent, like fingers trailing just close enough to be felt.
I slow instinctively. The feeling is unmistakable.
I feel it prickling the fine hairs at the back of my neck.
I’m not alone. Someone is watching me. I tell myself I’m overtired, that my nerves are fried from too many emergencies and not enough rest, but my pulse betrays me, thudding harder as I approach the curb.
That’s when I see him.
He’s standing on the opposite side of the street, directly beneath a streetlight as if the universe itself decided to shine a spotlight on him.
For a moment, my brain refuses to process what my eyes are seeing.
My heart slams violently against my ribs, the breath ripping from my lungs so fast that it leaves me feeling dizzy, as if the world around me is spinning. Or maybe I am.
No.
It can’t be. Not here. Not now. Not on a Sunday, of all days.
Damian stands there like he never left my life at all, hands in the pockets of a dark jacket, posture achingly familiar, broad shoulders squared as if he’s bracing for impact.
He looks solid. Real. Too real to be believable that he’s there.
I blink once, then again, then a third time, waiting for him to vanish the way stress-induced hallucinations are supposed to.
He doesn’t.
My feet lock in place, the street suddenly feeling too wide, too exposed, as if crossing it would tear something open that I’ve spent two years stitching closed.
I don’t know if he’s looking at me or past me, and I don’t want to find out.
If I cross the street, I’ll confirm that he’s real, and I don’t think I can survive that confirmation—not with everything Sundays already take out of me.
So, I turn sharply, heart pounding in my chest, and duck down the narrow alley beside the building, telling myself I’m being ridiculous, that there’s no way he’s really there. He hasn’t shown his face for two years, so why would he now?
Shaking my head and hugging my chest more tightly, I slip further into the alley, the darkness closing in fast around me, swallowing the streetlights, and the cold deepens, biting through my clothes with a sharpness that makes my skin prickle.
Something cold and wet brushes my arm, and I stop in my tracks, my breath misting in front of me as I gasp in shock.
The sensation is so wrong, so utterly unnatural, that for a split second, it feels like my body empties.
My breath locks in my throat, terror flooding my veins as every instinct screams danger, and yet my muscles refuse to move.
I don’t even have time to scream before strong hands wrap around my waist and yank me backward with brutal force.
Heat crashes into me, solid and undeniable, as I’m pulled out of the alley so quickly that my feet barely touch the ground.
I gasp, panic flaring, but the grip doesn’t hurt; it anchors me into a strange sense of safety.
Whoever has me moves with frightening speed and certainty, dragging me into the open street as if they know exactly what they’re doing.
When we hit the glow of the streetlight, I tear myself free and spin around, fury surging in to replace the shock, because anger is easier than fear, easier than the sudden ache cracking my chest open.
And there he is. Damian Hans, breathing hard, blue eyes sharp and alert in a way that sends a chill straight through me.
I snatch my arm back and glare at him accusingly, furious, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to steady it.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I demand.
There’s no need to be pleasant or amicable.
Not when seeing him again, after two years, resurfacing the memories I thought I’d buried.
I was only fooling myself; I can see that now.
My anger is directed at him, but it’s also there because I thought I was stronger—strong enough to withstand seeing him again without melting inside.
I’m mustering up every ounce of strength I have, but I’m still crumbling inside while he stares at me with those sapphire blue eyes that once were the depths in which I could get lost. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
Damian opens his mouth, but before he can answer, a sound tears through the night.
A high-pitched screech, sharp and terrifying, slices through the quiet in a way that makes my stomach drop.
Damian’s head snaps toward the alley instantly, his body going rigid, every line of him suddenly coiled and ready.
He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t apologize.
He grabs my wrist again and pulls me forward so hard, my feet leave the ground as he darts around the corner toward the park, my protests ripped from me as fear finally eclipses anger.
He stops abruptly, shoving me behind a thick tree, his hand clamping over my mouth as the air around us turns unnaturally cold.
I feel it then, the pressure, the sense of something closing in around us. But even as the source of the screech seems to fill the air with danger, there’s an even greater one between us when Damian leans in close.
His eyes hold mine firmly, as intense as I remember them, his breath a mixture of mint and masculinity and warmth that I’ve only ever found from his lips.
My heart skips a beat as memories of the passion we shared come crashing into me.
My heart races when he leans toward my ear, his voice low and steady when he whispers, “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do next.
” And then he steps back, a stride long enough to put more than a meter between us.
I don’t understand what he means until the air itself seems to bend around him.
Damian’s body goes unnaturally still, like the pause before a storm breaks, and something frightening coils in my gut as I stare at him, my thoughts scrambling for logic that refuses to come.
His eyes change first, but not in color—not exactly—but depth, as if something far older than the man I once loved is suddenly looking out through the blue orbs.
I shake my head, a nervous laugh tearing from my throat as I take a step back. “Stop it…” I whisper, though I don’t know what I’m asking him to stop. The cold intensifies, pressing against my skin, and the night seems to draw inward, the shadows stretching and thickening as if they’re alive.
Then it happens.
Bones snap first. The sound is sharp and lewd and impossibly loud in the quiet park, cracking through me like a gunshot.
I scream as Damian’s body convulses, his spine arching violently as his frame expands, tearing free of human limits in a way my mind cannot accept.
His jacket shreds, and the pieces sink into his pores.
His limbs lengthen, joints bending the wrong way, flesh splitting open as fur erupts in thick, pale waves.
I stumble backward, my heels catching on uneven ground as terror steals all sense from me.
This isn’t a man changing clothes. This isn’t a trick or a hallucination.
This is something primal and horrifying, something mystical that should not exist outside of nightmares and folklore.
Heat rolls off him in suffocating waves, the scent of earth and river and wild animal flooding the air until I can taste it on my tongue.
Where Damian stood, a massive wolf now towers.
It’s enormous, far larger than any animal I’ve ever seen, his creamy white fur gleaming silver beneath the moonlight, muscles coiled beneath his hide like living stone.
His eyes lock onto me, impossibly intelligent and aware, burning with something that feels achingly familiar and utterly alien all at once.
He steps forward once, heavy paws thudding against the ground, and that’s it.
My vision cracks, and the world around me tilts violently, my heart slamming against my ribs as my knees give out beneath me.
The last thing I register before darkness swallows me whole is the sound of his low, rumbling whimper, almost like my name, but in the most animal way, and the overwhelming certainty that nothing about my life will ever be the same again.
***