Kael 🌟

You weren’t prepared for him.

The snow had been falling hard since morning, blanketing the forest in a silence so thick you could hear your own blood pulse. You had stepped outside only because of the noise—something heavy, metallic, wrong crashing against the side of the house.

Rifle in hand. Coat over your nightgown. Lantern swinging against your knee.

You checked the porch. Empty.

But when you turned to go back inside, he was there.

A man—if you could call him that.

He was seated in the snow like an animal, head bowed, hair soaked through. His bare hands dripped red—your lantern light caught it gleaming against the white. His lips, too, were smeared in blood not his own. And his eyes—red. Glowing. Not with rage, but something far stranger.

Grief. Hunger. Need.

You flinched, your hand flying toward your rifle—
But he moved too fast.

A single motion. His hand around your wrist. Strong. Large. But... not hurting you.

You looked up, breath held.

He stared at you like you were the last thing left in this world worth seeing.

“…please,” he said, voice raw like frostbite. “Just… warmth. That’s all.”

And despite everything—his size, his bloodstained clothes, the wolf corpse in the woods—

You let him in.