Instinct & Ash

They found her in the snow, cradled in roots and silence. No name. No past. Just silver eyes that watched the world like a wolf in waiting.

For eighteen winters, Runa has lived on the edge of Bramblehollow, tending herbs by day and fighting a fire beneath her skin by night. She doesn't know what she is-only that the villagers keep their distance, and the wind whispers her name like a warning.

When mutilated bodies begin to appear and howls echo from the forest, Runa's careful life starts to unravel. Something ancient stirs in her blood... and it's waking up.

Then he arrives.

Adrian was raised among wolves, trained to destroy the girl hidden among humans. But the creature he finds is not what he expected-she's raw magic and aching loneliness, a threat cloaked in innocence. And something about her calls to the part of him he's been taught to cage.

But the forest keeps secrets older than both of them, and Runa's past was never meant to stay buried. As tensions between rival packs boil over and the line between human and beast thins, one truth becomes clear:

The monsters in the dark aren't always the ones with teeth.