TWO
The creature doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
Dust drifts lazily through the clearing, settling across shattered stone and broken branches while my pulse pounds so hard I’m convinced he can hear it.
Given everything I’ve witnessed in the last five minutes, that’s probably not even the most ridiculous possibility.
The thing standing opposite me looks like something dredged from humanity’s oldest nightmares.
Shadows coil around him like living things.
Smoke curls from wounds that should not be leaking smoke.
His eyes glow an impossible red as they remain fixed on mine with an intensity that makes it difficult to remember how breathing works.
The sensible thing would be to leave.
Unfortunately, I’ve never been particularly gifted at being sensible.
My gaze drops automatically to his injuries.
One arm is hanging wrong. Blood runs down his chest. Several deep lacerations score skin that looks almost charcoal beneath the shifting shadows.
The wounds are serious enough that concern rises before common sense can remind me that he could probably snap me in half without much effort.
“Well,” I mutter, mostly to myself, “you look like shit.”
The words are out before I can stop them. For one horrifying second, I wonder if I’ve just insulted an eldritch horror.
Then his head tilts. The movement is surprisingly human.
“You pushed the tree.” The deep voice rolls across the clearing.
I freeze. My brain immediately abandons every other thought.
He spoke.
In English.
“What?”
Excellent response, Iris. Truly groundbreaking.
His gaze never leaves mine. “You pushed the tree.”
The words are slightly strange, as though English isn’t his first language, but they’re perfectly understandable. Not only does he know English, but he apparently witnessed my spectacularly questionable decision-making.
A dozen questions collide inside my head.
Why does he speak English?
Who taught him English?
Where the hell am I?
What the hell is he?
Most importantly, why does my chest feel strangely warm every time he looks at me?
The last thought catches me off guard.
I’ve just been launched into another dimension, watched two monsters try to murder each other, and narrowly avoided being flattened by a landslide.
My body should be running exclusively on adrenaline and panic.
Instead, standing here beneath that unwavering stare, a strange sense of calm keeps trying to settle beneath the fear.
It’s bizarre. It’s also deeply suspicious.
“I did push the tree,” I admit cautiously. “In my defence, there was a lot happening.”
Something flickers across his expression.
Not amusement. Not quite. But it’s close enough that I find myself staring, because suddenly I’m noticing things that weren’t obvious before.
The shadows aren’t his body. They’re surrounding it. Beneath the smoke and darkness stands an actual male.
A very large male.
Broad shoulders. Powerful build. Skin so dark it almost blends with the shadows surrounding him.
Long black antlers curve back from his head like twisted branches, lending him an intimidating silhouette that would probably send most people running for their lives.
The red glow of his eyes remains unsettling, but now that I’m looking properly, they’re eyes.
Not glowing voids. Not supernatural fires.
Just eyes.
And they’re watching me with equal intensity.
Something strange twists inside my chest.
Recognition.
The feeling arrives suddenly enough to steal my breath.
Not familiarity.
Not attraction.
Something deeper. Something impossible.
For one disorienting moment, it feels as though a thread stretches between us. Then it’s gone.
I blink. The sensation disappears so quickly that I wonder if I imagined it.
Considering today’s events, hallucinations remain firmly on the diagnostic list.
His gaze narrows. “You are injured.”
I look down. My scrubs are torn. Blood stains one sleeve. Dirt covers most of the remaining fabric. “Occupational hazard.”
His expression remains blank.
Right. Probably not the time for jokes.
The silence stretches between us. Not uncomfortable exactly. Just... strange. As though both of us are waiting for something neither can quite define.
Then he sways. The movement is slight, but I catch it. My doctor brain immediately reasserts itself.
The arm. The blood loss. The wounds.
The patient.
“You need medical attention.” The words leave my mouth automatically.
His eyes narrow further. “I do not.”
I stare at him. He stares back.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I will heal.”
“Eventually.”
His jaw tightens. “Yes.”
I fold my arms. Well, as much as I can fold my arms while every part of my body aches. “Congratulations. You’re officially my least cooperative patient of the week.”
The shadows around him ripple, and for one alarming second, I wonder whether I’ve accidentally offended him again.
Then his gaze drops briefly to my shoulder. The injured one. “You are also injured.”
“That’s different.”
His expression remains utterly blank, which is fair. It’s not different at all.
Before either of us can continue the argument, a distant roar echoes through the forest. Every hair on my body rises, and the creature’s entire posture changes instantly.
One moment he’s standing there looking exhausted and vaguely irritated. The next, every muscle in his body goes taut. The shadows surrounding him expand slightly, reacting before he does.
Predator.
Danger.
The message is obvious even without words.
I suddenly become very aware of how alone I am. Very aware that I have absolutely no idea where I am. And very aware that the terrifying monster currently glaring at me is somehow the safest thing I’ve encountered since arriving here.
The realisation should concern me. Instead, it feels strangely right, which is frankly ridiculous.
I’ve known this terrifying shadow monster for approximately five minutes. Less, if we’re excluding the part where he was busy trying not to become a permanent feature of the landscape. Feeling safer near him than I do alone in this forest should probably trigger several alarm bells.
Instead, all I can think about is the blood still dripping down his arm.
The distant roar comes again, closer this time.
My stomach tightens.
The creature’s gaze snaps towards the sound before returning to me. The shadows surrounding him shift restlessly, spreading across the ground like spilled ink. There’s something almost predatory in the way he moves, the way every muscle seems poised for violence.
Not towards me, but towards whatever might threaten me.
The thought arrives uninvited and somehow feels completely natural.
His nostrils flare. Then his eyes narrow at me. Specifically at my shoulder.
Before I can ask what he’s looking at, he crosses the clearing. Fast. Far too fast.
One second he’s standing twenty feet away. The next he’s directly in front of me.
I jump. A super dignified noise escapes my throat. “What are you—”
A clawed hand closes around my upper arm, and the world explodes.
A shockwave slams through me.
Heat floods every nerve ending at once, racing through my body so violently that my knees nearly buckle. My breath catches. The forest vanishes. The pain in my shoulder disappears beneath something infinitely stronger.
Awareness.
Not physical awareness.
Something deeper.
A connection.
A pull.
For one impossible heartbeat, I feel him.
The fury still lingering from the fight, the relief, the possessiveness, the absolute certainty.
Mine.
The word isn’t spoken. I hear it anyway.
The sensation crashes into me with enough force to leave me reeling.
Then it’s gone.
The forest snaps back into focus. Air rushes into my lungs, and the creature jerks his hand away as though he’s been burned.
I stumble backwards. “What the hell was that?” My voice sounds breathless.
His expression has changed. Gone is the wary assessment from earlier. Gone is the cautious curiosity. Something far more dangerous has taken its place.
The shadows around him ripple violently. His eyes burn brighter. “Mine.”
The single word rumbles through the clearing, and my brain immediately short-circuits. “What?”
“Mine.”
“Okay, no.” I point at myself. “Absolutely not. That’s not how people work.”
His gaze follows the movement of my hand, then returns to my face. “Mine.”
“Still no.”
The growl that follows seems to vibrate through the air itself. Honestly, if I weren’t busy trying to understand why touching him felt like being struck by emotional lightning, I’d probably be more intimidated.
Instead, I find myself glaring. “I just saved your life.”
The growl stops. “You pushed the tree.”
“I did.”
His head tilts slightly. “You saved me.”
I blink. Well, that wasn’t the response I expected. The certainty in his voice catches me off guard. There isn’t pride there or arrogance. Just fact.
The sky is green.
The forest exists.
I saved him.
The same simple certainty.
Something warm twists unexpectedly inside my chest, which feels dangerous.
The roar sounds again, much closer. This time I hear answering cries from somewhere deeper in the forest.
Plural.
The creature’s expression darkens instantly, and his attention shifts towards the trees. The shadows surrounding him surge. “Leave.” The command is sharp.
I immediately bristle. “No.”
His gaze swings back to me. The look he gives me suggests nobody has ever responded to him that way before. Unfortunately for both of us, I’ve spent twelve years arguing with surgeons who think they’re gods. One terrifying monster isn’t enough to break the habit.
“You are injured.”
“So are you.”
“Danger approaches.”
I gesture broadly at the forest. “I gathered that.”
His jaw tightens as the distant calls grow louder. Whatever is coming, there’s more than one of them.
For the first time, genuine concern flickers across his face. Not for himself but for me. The realisation lands heavily.
Then he does something unexpected.
The shadows around him part.
Not entirely.
Just enough.
Enough for me to see more of him.
The male beneath the monster.
The antlers.
The dark skin.
The hard line of his jaw.
The exhaustion he keeps trying to hide.
And suddenly I understand something.
The shadows aren’t who he is. They’re armour, protection, a weapon. The same way sarcasm is mine. The same way professionalism is mine.
Different tools. Same purpose.
The connection I’d felt earlier stirs again. It’s faint but persistent—a thread pulling taut between us.
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then returns to my eyes.
The moment stretches and neither of us move.
The sounds in the forest fade into the background. Everything narrows.
His voice drops lower, softer. Still rough enough to scrape over my nerves. “Mine,” he repeats.
The word should annoy me. It really should. Instead, heat floods my face. Because for the first time since arriving here, the possessiveness doesn’t sound threatening. It sounds protective. As though the idea of something harming me is personally offensive.
The ridiculous part is that I find that strangely comforting. Clearly, being transported to another world has damaged my judgement.
“You’re impossible,” I inform him.
A strange expression flickers across his face. Almost satisfaction.
Then the forest erupts with another roar, shattering the moment instantly.
His head snaps towards the sound, every muscle in his body tightening.
The shadows surrounding him surge violently, spreading across the clearing in thick tendrils of smoke and darkness that seem to swallow the light itself.
Whatever’s coming is close. Close enough that even he no longer looks merely irritated.
He looks dangerous.
Before I can ask what’s happening, his hand closes around mine.
The connection slams through me again.
Heat floods my body. Awareness crashes into me hard enough to steal my breath. My pulse stutters as something deep inside me responds instinctively, reaching towards him before my brain can catch up. The sensation is overwhelming. Terrifying.
Right. Definitely adding mysterious emotional electrocution to the growing list of things requiring explanation.
His fingers tighten, and then he growls. The sound rolls through me as much as around me. “Mine.”
The word settles somewhere beneath my ribs.
Before I can formulate a response—or an argument—the shadows explode.
Smoke pours from him in impossible quantities, thick black tendrils spiralling through the clearing. They curl around my legs first, then my waist, rising higher until darkness fills my vision. Every instinct screams at me to pull away, but his grip never loosens.
Instead, he does something infinitely worse. He tugs.
One sharp movement is all it takes. I stumble forwards with an undignified yelp and collide directly with his chest.
Solid.
Warm.
Alarmingly big.
One massive arm wraps around my waist before I can face-plant into the terrifying shadow monster currently manhandling me.
My hands instinctively clutch at him, which is unfortunate. Because touching him with more than a single hand somehow makes everything stronger.
The connection.
The awareness.
The impossible certainty that I know him.
Not his name.
Not his story.
Just him.
As though some part of me has been searching for him all along.
Holy fuck.
The thought barely forms before the world shifts. Not moves. Shifts.
The air bends around us. Reality folds like paper. The smoke surrounding us twists into a spiralling vortex that swallows everything beyond his body. Trees vanish. Sky disappears. The forest dissolves into darkness and motion.
My stomach immediately decides it hates this plan.
“We’re moving,” I blurt.
Brilliant observation, Iris.
His chest rumbles beneath my hands. Whether it’s a laugh or a growl, I honestly can’t tell.
The vortex spins faster. Pressure builds around us while the world stretches sideways.
And with one arm locked around me and shadows swallowing reality whole, the terrifying monster holding me against his body carries me straight into the impossible.