Chapter 15 Elara
ELARA
Elara sat at the desk in her room, staring at three pages of notes that refused to become an article. She'd been writing for two hours, and all she had were disconnected observations and questions without answers.
Protection charms. Flickering lights. A town that doesn't exist on maps. People who guard their secrets like lives depend on it.
And Alaric. Always Alaric, appearing in her notes more than he should.
She crossed out another paragraph and started over.
The door opened. Diana appeared with a tray. "Brought you lunch. You've been up here since you got back."
"Lost track of time." Elara accepted the sandwich Diana set down. "Thank you."
Diana glanced at the notebook, pages covered in crossed-out paragraphs and circled questions. "How's the writing going?"
"It's not." Elara gestured at the mess of notes. "I have pieces but no story. Details but no truth."
"Maybe some stories aren't meant to be told the way you're trying to tell them." Diana moved to the window, looking out at the town below. "Sometimes understanding comes from living in a place, not just documenting it."
Elara watched her. Diana had that same careful way of speaking everyone here had. Saying something without really saying anything at all.
"Alaric found something in the woods this morning," Elara said. "He lied about it being deer tracks."
"Probably had his reasons."
"That's not an answer."
"I know." Diana turned back. "Eat your lunch. Get some rest. You look exhausted."
After Diana left, Elara stared at the closed door. Everyone here had their reasons. Their secrets. Their carefully constructed walls.
And she was on the outside of all of them.
She picked up her pen again and wrote: Why does Alaric make me feel safe and threatened at the same time?
Then she scratched it out. That wasn't for the article. That was personal.
She tried again. This time focusing on facts. The layout of the town. The businesses. The way people moved through the streets like they were part of something larger than themselves.
But her mind kept drifting back to steel gray eyes and a deep voice that sent warmth to areas her body refused to ignore.
By evening, she'd filled another five pages. None of it useful. All of it circling the same questions she couldn't answer.
What are you hiding, Hollow Oak?
And why does it feel like I'm supposed to find out?
She closed her notebook and went downstairs. The sitting room was empty except for the fire crackling in the hearth. Diana had left a pot of tea on the side table with a note: Help yourself.
Elara poured a cup and settled into one of the armchairs. Outside, darkness had fallen. Snow started falling again, soft flakes drifting past the windows.
She should go to bed. Should try to sleep. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw those tracks in the snow. Saw the way Alaric had tensed when he'd found them.
Saw the way he'd looked at her in the truck. Like he wanted to tell her everything but couldn't.
Or wouldn't.
The tea was chamomile. She recognized the scent from the night before. Diana's remedy for cold nights and troubled thoughts.
Elara finished the cup and headed upstairs. In her room, she changed into pajamas and climbed into bed. The quilts were heavy, the mattress soft. She should have fallen asleep immediately.
Instead, she lay awake, listening to the wind outside and thinking about a man who followed directions without question and protected a town like his life depended on it.
Eventually, exhaustion won. She drifted off, notebook still on the bedside table, pen uncapped.
The dream started gently. Snow falling in a quiet forest. Trees heavy with winter. Her breath fogging in the cold air.
Then the eyes appeared.
Glowing. Silver-gray. Watching her from between the trees.
She tried to move closer, but the snow deepened with each step. Tried to call out, but her voice disappeared into the wind.
The eyes moved. Circling. Never blinking.
Not threatening. Watching. Guarding.
Other shapes appeared in the darkness. Human shapes. Moving wrong. Smelling of metal and smoke.
The silver eyes growled. Low and warning.
Elara reached toward them. Toward the wolf she knew was there even though she couldn't see it.
"I'm not the enemy," she tried to say. But the words wouldn't come.
The human shapes moved closer. The wolf positioned itself between her and them.
Protecting her.
She woke with a gasp, heart racing. The room was dark except for pale moonlight through the window. The clock on the nightstand read three in the morning.
Elara sat up, pulling the quilts around her. Just a dream. That's all it was.
But it had felt real. The cold. The eyes. The sense of something watching her with an intensity that bordered on possession.
She grabbed her notebook and wrote in the dark, not bothering with the lamp.
Dreamed of wolves. Of being protected by something wild. Why wolves? What does it mean?
Then she added: Alaric's eyes are the same color as the ones in my dream.
She stared at that last line. Circled it. Then crossed it out.
Ridiculous. She was letting this town get into her head. Letting the mystery and the warnings and the constant feeling of being watched mess with her sleep.
But she couldn't shake the image. Those silver-gray eyes. The way they'd looked at her with recognition. With claim.
With something that felt like… mine.
Elara closed the notebook and lay back down. Outside, the wind picked up. Snow tapped against the window like fingers asking to be let in.
She pulled the quilts higher and closed her eyes. This time, sleep came easier.
But the dreams returned. Silver eyes in the snow. A wolf's howl echoing through the trees. And the certainty that whoever was watching her wasn't just protecting the town.
They were protecting her.
From something she needed to understand if she wanted to survive whatever Hollow Oak was hiding.
When morning came, she woke tired but determined. The notebook lay open beside her, the circled and crossed-out line still visible in the gray dawn light.
She tore out the page and threw it away.
Some truths were better left unwritten.
Even if they kept her awake at night, haunting her with glowing eyes and the sense that she'd found something she'd been looking for her entire life.
Something that looked like a story on the surface but felt like destiny underneath.