Chapter 11 Tristan
TRISTAN
The cold hit Tristan like a wall the moment he stepped outside.
Wind tore at his coat, driving snow into his face with enough force to sting. He ducked his head and moved toward the small storage shed where the safe house kept emergency supplies. Boards, nails, a hammer, basic provisions for situations exactly like this.
The broken window couldn't wait until morning. Whatever had caused that wind might try again, and he wasn't about to let Maren sleep with a gaping hole in their defenses.
Their defenses. When had he started thinking of it that way?
He found the shed by memory more than sight, the storm reducing visibility to barely a few feet. The door stuck, frozen shut, and he had to shoulder it open with enough force to send snow cascading from the roof.
Inside, the wind's howl dimmed to a muffled roar. Tristan grabbed what he needed, working quickly despite numb fingers.
As he gathered the last things, a sound cut through the storm.
Not wind. Not the creak of frozen branches, but a soft, deliberate crunch of snow under weight.
Tristan went still, every sense sharpening. He set down the supplies and moved to the shed's door, peering out into the whiteout.
Nothing visible. But the sound came again, closer now. Footsteps that didn't quite match any pattern he recognized. Too light for a bear. Too heavy for a fox. Wrong rhythm for a wolf or any four-legged creature.
Something walking on two legs. Something that wasn't human.
Heat surged through him, the shift pressing hard against his skin. He let it come partway, feeling his eyes change, pupils elongating as tiger vision cut through the darkness. The world sharpened into contrasts of gray and white, movement becoming easier to track.
There. Near the treeline.
A figure stood motionless in the snow, barely visible through the storm. Tall. Thin. Shaped like a woman but wrong somehow, proportions slightly off, limbs too long, posture too still.
Tristan's hand went to the knife at his belt. The figure didn't move.
He stepped out of the shed, letting the door bang shut behind him. The sound should've startled prey, should've prompted flight or fight. The figure remained frozen, watching him with eyes he couldn't quite see through the swirling white.
Then it turned and walked into the trees.
No hurry. No fear. Just a calm, deliberate retreat that felt more like an invitation than an escape.
Every instinct screamed trap but Tristan followed anyway.
The tracks appeared almost immediately, pressed into fresh snow with unnatural precision.
Humanoid footprints, barefoot despite the freezing cold, each one perfectly formed with no sign of sliding or stumbling.
The stride was too long, covering ground that should've required running at a walking pace.
He followed the prints for thirty yards before they simply stopped.
No divergence. No sign of climbing or jumping. The tracks ended mid-stride as if whatever made them had simply ceased to exist.
Or had never been fully real to begin with.
Tristan crouched, studying the last print. His tiger eyes caught details normal vision would miss, like the faint shimmer of residual magic clinging to the impression and the way snow had melted slightly around the edges despite the cold.
Shadow signature. The same cold-burn he'd seen at the lake, at the forge, on the scorched mantel.
But Maren was inside. Had been inside when the window broke, when the supernatural wind hit, when whatever this was had started walking around the safe house.
Someone else was using shadow magic.
He committed the track pattern to memory and headed back toward the cabin, moving faster now. The storm seemed to press closer, snow falling so thick he could barely see the safe house lights until he was almost at the door.
The supplies were still in the shed. He retrieved them quickly, checking the perimeter as he went, finding no new tracks, no new signs of whatever had been watching.
Warmth rushed over him as he stepped inside the cabin, the contrast with the outside cold almost painful.
He shrugged off his coat about to say something to Maren before stopping himself.
Maren was fast asleep, curled up in the chair by the fire, her cloak pulled around her like a blanket. Her black curls had fallen across her face, and her breathing came slow and even. The stress lines that usually marked her features had softened, making her look almost vulnerable.
Her shadows had spread throughout the room while she slept, thin dark tendrils covering the walls and floor like a living security system. They stirred when Tristan entered, rising slightly before settling back down.
They seemed to recognize him and accept his presence.
The broken window gaped cold and jagged behind her chair. She'd positioned herself between it and the door, he realized. Guarding both entry points even in sleep.
Tristan moved quietly, setting down the supplies and examining the window frame. The damage was worse than he'd thought. It wasn’t just cracked glass, but splintered wood too. Like something had tried to force its way through rather than simply break it.
He quietly boarded up the window with practiced efficiency. Hammer strikes muffled by the storm outside, nails driven deep into aged wood. The safe house groaned but held, accepting the repairs like a patient accepting medicine.
Maren’s shadows continued their slow patrol of the room, occasionally brushing against Tristan's boots as he worked. Each contact sent a small pulse of warmth through him of her magic recognizing his presence even while she slept.
When the window was secured, Tristan checked every other potential entry point. Door solid. Shutters holding. Wards still humming despite the strain. Nothing else broken, nothing else compromised.
He should wake her. Tell her about the tracks, the obscure figure in the storm, the shadow signature that didn't belong to her.
Instead he pulled a chair close to the fire and sat, positioning himself between Maren and the newly boarded window. His coat was soaked, his fingers still numb despite the heat, but he couldn't bring himself to move further away.
The tracks bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Shadow magic required a shadow witch, and shadow witches were rare. Bloodline rare. The kind of rare that got recorded and tracked by councils across every supernatural territory. If another one existed near Hollow Oak, someone would know.
Unless they didn't want to be known. Unless hiding was the entire point.
Maren's shadows shifted in her sleep, responding to some dream he couldn't see. They curled tighter around her, protective, then reached out toward him in thin tendrils that wrapped around his wrist before retreating.
Even unconscious, her magic sought him out.
The fire crackled, logs settling into embers. Outside, the storm continued its assault, wind and snow battering the cabin with relentless fury. But inside felt almost peaceful, the warmth and the quiet and the soft sound of Maren's breathing creating a sort of serenity.
Tristan watched her sleep and tried to ignore the growing certainty that whatever was targeting her wasn't going to stop. The incidents were escalating from the lake to forge to wards to this, a direct attack on the safe house itself. Each one more bold, more aggressive, more focused.
Not random magical accidents. Not unstable power bleeding through old wards.
He knew that whatever this was wanted something. He just hoped it wasn’t what he was beginning to think it was.
But it could be exactly that. A hunt.
Something was hunting Maren Pitch, and it had just proven it could find her even here, even protected, even with him standing guard.
The dark figure in the storm had looked at him without fear. Had retreated without hurry, leaving tracks that vanished into nothing as if mocking his attempt to follow.
Confident. Patient. Playing a game whose rules Tristan didn't yet understand.
And right now, it was toying with her, or them. He wasn’t entirely sure yet.
His hand found his knife again, grip tightening around the hilt. Whatever this was, whoever this was, they'd made a mistake tonight. They'd shown themselves, left evidence, proven they were more than just magical interference.
They'd made it personal.
Maren stirred slightly, shadows rippling across the walls. A soft sound escaped her lips. Her face tightened, peaceful sleep giving way to something troubled.
Nightmare, maybe. Or her magic sensing what he'd found outside.
Tristan leaned forward without thinking, hand hovering near her shoulder. He didn't touch her, but something in him needed to be closer. Needed to guard against whatever darkness was pressing in from outside.
The fire dimmed momentarily, flames flickering as if something had passed between them and the hearth.
Tristan's eyes cut to the shadows on the walls. They'd gone still. No lazy movement of sleeping magic but the frozen tension of something listening, waiting, preparing.
He turned slowly, scanning every corner of the cabin.
Nothing visible. Nothing out of place. But the feeling remained, crawling up his spine with cold fingers.
The sense of being watched by something that existed just outside the edge of perception.
Something dark and patient and hungry. And that something was stalking her even through walls and wards and the protection of a tiger shifter who'd already failed to save someone he loved once before.
He wouldn't fail again.