The fire crackled softly between them, its golden light casting flickers across Ivy's face.
Jayden sat across from her, silent, his hands resting on his knees. He didn't push. He just waited.
And Ivy hated him for that. For being patient. For being here. For seeing her when she'd spent her whole life hiding.
But most of all, she hated that she wanted to speak.
The silence was unbearable. So she broke it, her voice like sandpaper.
"Do you know what it's like to have your entire world ripped away in seconds?" she asked, not looking at him.
Jayden didn't answer. He knew it wasn't a real question.
"I was eight," she said, her voice almost too quiet to hear. "One second, I was laughing with my parents and my brother. We were playing hide and seek. I was the seeker. I remember being so happy. So… innocent."
She swallowed hard.
"I counted to twenty, and when I opened my eyes… I was alone. I wandered the woods calling for them. And then I saw it."
Jayden saw her flinch, like the memory was hitting her all over again.
"They were on their knees. My mom. My dad. Jakee—my brother." Her hands trembled. "There were wolves. Tearing them apart. Ripping out their hearts like they were nothing."
Jayden's breath caught in his throat.
"I screamed. My father—he turned to me and shouted for me to run. But before he could say more… I saw it. I saw the life drain from their eyes."
Tears slid down her cheeks, but she didn't wipe them away.
"They shifted into humans after that. That was the first time I saw a werewolf. I didn't understand what I was looking at. I just knew that the people I loved most in this world were gone… and the ones who did it looked human."
Jayden felt like the air had been knocked from his lungs.
"I ran. I didn't even know how. But something in me—my power—it woke up. I blended into the trees. I disappeared. They couldn't find me. I survived."
She looked up at him then, and Jayden had never seen eyes so haunted.
"Do you know what it's like to survive when everyone else died?" she whispered. "To wake up every morning wishing you hadn't? To cry yourself to sleep every night for twelve years?"
Jayden didn't realize his own tears had begun to fall.
"I became a hunter because I didn't know how else to live. I trained until I couldn't feel. I killed because I thought it would make the nightmares stop. But it didn't. Nothing ever does."
She looked away again. "Then… I found Xander. I wasn't supposed to care. But when I held him for the first time… something broke inside me. Or maybe something healed. I don't know."
She paused, breath shaky.
"His parents were dying. They begged me to protect him. And I did. I swore I would. He became the one light in my world. The only thing keeping me from falling apart completely."
Jayden moved without thinking. He crossed the small distance between them and knelt in front of her.
"You were a child," he said, voice raw. "You shouldn't have had to survive that. You shouldn't have had to become a weapon just to protect yourself."
She shook her head. "But I did. And I don't regret it. What I regret… is thinking I could ever be loved after everything I've done. Everything I've lost."
Jayden reached out and gently took her hand. "You're wrong."
She blinked, startled.
"You're not broken, Ivy," he whispered. "You're human. You're strong because of what you survived. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you have to carry this alone anymore."
Her lips trembled. "You hated me."
"I was blinded by my own grief. I saw your strength and thought it was cruelty. I didn't realize it was pain."
He pressed her hand to his heart.
"But I see you now. All of you. And I'm not leaving."
The walls around her cracked.
Ivy let out a sob, the kind that came from deep within, years in the making. Jayden pulled her into his arms, and this time—she didn't fight it.
She let herself be held.
Let herself be seen.
And for the first time since she was eight years old…
She didn't feel alone.
---