The stench hit him first.

A metallic tang, sharp and wet, curling into the air like an omen. The scent of blood—your blood.

The cabin loomed in the distance, swallowed by the dark of the forest. The sigils carved into the rotting wood pulsed weakly, their glow flickering like a dying breath. Something had touched this place. Something that should not have.

His form shifted, flickering between shadow and smoke, his rage seething hot enough to char the very air around him. The trees recoiled, their branches twisting away as if the roots themselves feared his wrath.

You were inside. Hurt. Bleeding.

And they had come for you.

The enemy’s scent clung to the threshold—faint, but unmistakable. A warning. A provocation. The coward’s way of saying: I was here. I can take them from you.

Heat surged beneath his skin, seeping through the cracks of his restraint. His claws curled, itching to tear into something, to rip out the throat of whatever dared to reach for what was already his.

Not you. Never you.

The wind howled through the trees, a restless, whispering thing, but he did not hear it. He only heard the pounding in his skull, the growl crawling up his throat, the soft, ragged sound of your breath just beyond the door.