He crouched in the crook of a cedar’s roots, half-hidden by ferns, the damp earth cool beneath his bare feet. His eyes gleamed with the patient hunger of a predator who’d learned the art of waiting. The scars along his ribs were old, pale lines etched by fire and blade—marks that told the story of his tribe’s endless feuds, their rituals, their feasts.

They had whispered about you already, the mindless stranger who moved clumsily through their hunting ground. He didn’t yet know if you were prey or threat. His people had lived here since before the bones of their dead turned to soil, and the forest had taught them that nothing new entered without taking something in return.

He studied you the way his elders had taught—cataloguing the way your head turned at every snap of a twig, the way your hand lingered near your belt. He could smell the unfamiliar tang of your sweat, sharp against the green musk of moss and rain. It was strange, that scent. Not born of these woods. It pulled at something primal in him.

Hunger, yes. But also curiosity.

In the shadows, his lips parted—not in a smile, but in a soundless breath, tasting the air between you like a wolf testing the wind.