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.·:*¨༺𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞༻¨*:·.
☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴄᴀʙɪɴ
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@LILLYOFTHEVAIIEY
╰─ ♱ · 𓆩🤍𓆪 · ♱ ──────────╯

                        𝓣he cabin was rotting at the edges—timbers weathered to silver, roof partially caved in on one side. Trees loomed close, dense and towering, their scent sharp with sap and wet leaves. No paths led here anymore, not since the forest took them back. And that was exactly how Victoria liked it.

The interior smelled of damp wood, blood, and mildew. A single cot sat in the corner, mattress stained and moth-eaten. That's where Luna Mae lay curled, face to the wall, legs drawn up, hair stuck to her skin with sweat and dried tears. Her clothes hung off her in tatters, sticky with old blood, fresh bruises blooming across her ribs and arms. She hadn't eaten in days—not human food. Not anything that could be called nourishment. Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked, and her wrists—though now unbound—still bore the angry, rubbed-red evidence of being restrained too tightly, too long.

The worst pain came from the bite. A shallow one, inflicted two days ago. Victoria had sunk her teeth in just deep enough to let venom sear through her bloodstream like fire, then yanked back before the change could truly take. Just enough to make her scream. Enough to watch her writhe. The fever had broken last night. But the tremors remained.

Now, footsteps crunched through the wet underbrush outside. Light, deliberate. Not Victoria—too heavy. Not an animal. And not human.

Luna stiffened, eyes fluttering open, heartbeat kicking up despite the weariness coating her limbs. A few seconds later, the creak of the front door announced the arrival of company.

Victoria appeared in the doorway to greet them a moment later, barefoot and wild-eyed, flame-red hair loose and curling from the damp. She wore a threadbare dress caked in earth and bloodstains, and she was smiling.

"Well, well," she purred. "Look what the wind dragged in."

Luna couldn't see them clearly from her angle, but she heard a man's voice next—smooth, tinged with a French accent.

"Victoria. You look... radiant, as ever."

"Laurent." She moved to embrace him, cheek to cheek, like old companions at court. "It's been too long."

"I try to stay out of your business," he said, glancing past her to the girl in the corner. "Though I can't help but notice... you've made some interesting choices."

Victoria followed his gaze, tilting her head. "Oh, you mean her?" She waved a dismissive hand. "First she was leverage. Now she's fun."

Laurent's eyes narrowed. "She's bitten."

"Barely," Victoria said, a smile curling on her lips. "I'm not ready for her to be one of us. Not yet. I like her better... pliable."

The woman beside Laurent stepped forward then—pale and slight, with piercing wide oval eyes and a refined sharpness to her beauty. Her light colored curls were pinned up in a mess of braids and twists, and she wore a long, dusty coat over a blood-red blouse. She studied Victoria coolly.

"And who's this?" Victoria asked, finally acknowledging her.

Laurent said, "This is Nova. An old friend."

Nova gave a nod, eyes briefly flitting to Luna's broken form, but she said nothing.

"And your friend's name?" Laurent asked, nodding toward the frail human girl.

Victoria's voice dipped with mischief. "Luna Mae. Pretty, isn't it? She was the sweetheart of one of the wolves. Heartbreak makes for good blood."

Nova's expression flickered. Not pity, not sympathy—but curiosity, and perhaps a faint trace of disapproval.

Laurent stepped toward the window, glancing through the filthy glass. "You said the Cullens are gone?"

"Soon," Victoria said. "I need proof. Word's spreading that they're moving. If they've abandoned Forks for good, it's my opening."

Laurent gave her a dry look. "And if they haven't?"

"Then I wait. But not much longer."

He turned back to her. "I'll go. I'll check. But this is the last favor, Victoria. After this—we're even."

Victoria grinned wide, sharp teeth showing. "Oh, don't you worry. You'll be free to go play house with your little blonde the second this is over."

Laurent didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he turned and began to leave. Nova lingered a second longer, her gaze drifting back to Luna.

"You're keeping her alive why, exactly?" she asked Victoria softly.

"Because it amuses me," Victoria said plainly. "And because she screams like a songbird. That's what I call her, my little songbird. Cute isn't it?"

Nova's lips twitched in distaste, but she followed Laurent out into the trees without further word.

Victoria turned back to Luna, who hadn't moved.

"Did you miss me?" she cooed, crouching low. "I know. You're so very tired. But you'll be a real fighter soon, won't you? That wolf of yours will never recognize you when I'm done. And he'll never want you back after what I have you become."

She trailed a cold finger down Luna's jaw. Luna flinched. And Victoria just smiled wider.

────୨ৎ────

                       The road to Forks was slick with recent rain, fog coiling low around the pines like smoke from some ancient fire. Their passage made no sound. Laurent moved like drifting vapor, his black coat catching the wind with each step. Nova glided beside him, hands in the deep pockets of her coat, eyes trained on the horizon.

They didn't speak for the first few miles.

"You didn't tell me she'd taken a girl," Nova finally said, voice low and even.

"I didn't know," Laurent replied. "But I'm not surprised."

"She's unstable."

"She's always been unstable."

Nova glanced at him sidelong, brow faintly arched. "And yet you continue to do her favors."

Laurent chuckled. "Only this one. I owe her. Or I did. This ends it."

"She won't let go."

"She will," he said firmly. "Once she knows the Cullens are gone. She has no reason to hold that girl otherwise. She's using her as bait, not a companion."

Nova didn't reply.

The edge of Forks crept into view—those sparse lights dotting the valley, shrouded in fog and small-town stillness. They approached on foot, silently crossing the riverbank and scaling the wooded ridge to gain a better vantage of the town.

"Clever of her," Nova murmured. "Keeping the girl out there. It would take someone weeks to cover that much ground—and that's if they ever even get a trace."

Laurent nodded. "She's never careless when it comes to revenge. Her mate's death broke her. She's been holding onto it like it's the only part of him she has left."

Nova tilted her head, sharp profile catching moonlight. "And what are we doing, exactly?"

Laurent paused at the tree line, watching the distant outline of the Cullen house beyond the river—quiet, dark, lifeless.

"We confirm," he said. "If the Cullens are gone, Victoria will make her move. If they're not... we disappear. I won't play pawn in her war."

Nova frowned, almost imperceptibly. "They're gone. I can smell them faintly, even from here. Old... but not abandoned. Within the month, perhaps."

"We'll stay long enough to know for sure."

"And what of the girl?"

Laurent didn't respond at first. His jaw tensed.

"You disapprove," he finally said. "Don't lie."

Nova looked toward the stars, fog curling around her ankles. "I've seen worse. But yes—I disapprove. It's not justice she wants. It's chaos. That girl's a toy. She won't survive the month."

"She's strong," Laurent said quietly. "I saw it in her eyes."

Nova said nothing.

Laurent's gaze drifted back toward the woods, where Victoria still lurked with her prisoner. "If the Cullens are truly gone," he said, "then the wolves she mentioned will be the only obstacle."

Nova's eyes flicked back to him. "Don't know much about wolves, never encountered them. But I'm sure we've dealt with worse." She shrugged.

Laurent nodded slowly. "I can't say I understand what she means by then either—hopefully we can avoid finding out."

With that they moved on, silent as fog, deeper into Forks.

────୨ৎ────

                   They paused on a moss-slick ridge overlooking the valley below, the small town of Forks swaddled in mist and sleeping shadows. A dog barked in the distance, but otherwise the night was still.

Nova leaned against a cedar, arms folded, her voice quiet but clear: "What is it she wants, anyway? All this running, hiding, and hunting... what's the end of it?"

Laurent crouched near the edge, brushing damp needles off a boulder with a gloved hand. His dark eyes stayed fixed on the Cullens' distant house—still dark, no movement.

"She wants the girl," he said finally. "Bella Swan."

Nova narrowed her eyes. "The girl in the woods? The one she's torturing?"

Laurent shook his head. "No. That one's just... leverage. Fun. A distraction." He stood, brushing off his coat. "The one she wants is in Forks. Or was. Isabella Swan. A human. Protected by the Cullens. James tried to hunt her last year. They killed him for it. Don't know if she's still here or if she moved in with the Cullens."

Nova blinked once. Her expression didn't change, but the silence between them felt suddenly heavier. "A human," she said flatly. "And a vampire." A beat passed. "I've never heard such a thing."

Laurent allowed a slow, sardonic smile. "Neither had I. Not until I saw it. Edward Cullen—he risked everything for that girl. His family too. It was... curious."

Nova's mouth twisted, not quite in disgust, not quite in wonder. "What kind of coven lets that happen?"

"A civilized one, some would say."
Laurent's tone was drier now. "They live by strange laws. Animal blood. Human compassion. They're not like the Volturi, not like nomads. They're... something else. And James didn't understand that. He treated Bella like prey. That mistake cost him everything."

Nova kicked a pinecone off the ledge. "And now Victoria wants vengeance."

"She's obsessed," Laurent said. "But not stupid. She knows the Cullens are dangerous. If they're still here, she won't strike. But if they've gone—if she's sure they've truly left—she'll come down on that girl like a storm."

Nova's brow furrowed. "And what about these so called wolves?"

Laurent turned, eyes meeting hers. "They complicate things according to Victoria. That's why she dragged the other girl so far west. She's hiding from them. Though like I said before, I'm not sure if they're real—or if perhaps Victoria has truly just lost it."

Nova laughed softly, "I'd say she's lost it." Then she glanced at him again. "And you? Where do you fall in all this? Why are you still helping her?"

Laurent smiled, faint and tired. "This is my last favor. I confirm what she needs to know. And then I go. Alaska, maybe. Somewhere cold and clean."

Nova held his gaze a moment longer. Then she looked back toward Forks, that quiet, sleepy town nestled between shadowed trees and secrets.

"Strange coven," she murmured. "Strange town."

Laurent just nodded, and together, they watched the night deepen.

────୨ৎ────

                     The late morning mist hung low over the meadow like a veil, pale and whisper-thin, threading through the tall grass and swirling in ghostly tendrils around the trunks of ancient evergreens. The ground was wet with dew, each blade of grass slick and heavy, glistening under the wan light breaking through the overcast sky. Fog clung to the earth like cobwebs abandoned by some colossal spider, casting everything in a dreamlike haze. The air was thick with the clean, sharp tang of cedar and earth, mingled with the faint sweetness of moss.

Birds chirped from the distant tree line—unaware, unworried—filling the stillness with song, the kind of sound that felt too innocent for what hovered above them.

Laurent crouched silently on a thick branch, bark softened by a layer of vibrant green moss. His golden eyes shimmered with a predator's calm calculation, scanning the field below like a lion watching gazelle from the savanna's brush. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. A statue carved from dusk and hunger.

Above him, balanced on a higher limb with the nonchalance of someone entirely unbothered by gravity, was Nova. Her posture was languid—legs crossed at the ankle, back leaning comfortably against the trunk, fingers absently tracing the curve of a strand of her dark-blonde hair. She might've been a bored aristocrat perched on a velvet chaise, not a vampire high in the canopy waiting to watch a human girl die.

And then, below, she stepped into the clearing.

Laurent's mouth curled into a half-smile. "Well," he murmured, voice low and pleased, "this was easier than I expected."

Nova tilted her head, finally glancing down. Her eyes found the girl instantly. "Let me guess... Bella Swan?"

"She doesn't look like much," Nova muttered, tapping her nails against her thigh.

Bella Swan. The name felt like it should carry weight, like it should announce itself in a crash of thunder or a ripple in the mist. But she was ordinary. So painfully, laughably ordinary. Long brown hair, slightly mussed. A navy blue coat buttoned unevenly. Jeans with a fray at the hem. Her steps were heavy, uncertain, the boots squelching faintly against the wet grass. She paused at the edge of the clearing, looking around as though sensing something. But not sensing enough.

He nodded once, slow and deliberate.

With a sigh that might've been mistaken for boredom, Nova turned her attention back to her nails. A flick of her finger. A sliver of dirt gone. "Humans always make such a fuss about being found," she said idly.

Laurent was already moving. He dropped silently from the branch, limbs cutting through the air without sound, landing like a shadow on the damp earth behind the girl.

Bella gasped and whirled around, her eyes wide with the primal fear that only surfaced when something deep inside screamed: not predator, not man—monster.

Nova remained where she was, perched high above, disinterested in the details of Laurent's conversation with the girl. His voice floated up—silken, rehearsed, carefully kind—but she paid it no mind. Her thoughts drifted elsewhere, back through time, back to rot and darkness and the cracked windows of her past.

The reek of damp wood.

The muffled whimpers.

That girl, Luna, tied in the shack Victoria called shelter. Nova wondered vaguely if she was still breathing. Probably not. Victoria had a way of forgetting her toys when they stopped making noise.

Her jaw tensed. The redhead had always been unstable—sharp in some moments, manic in others. There was no logic to her cruelty, no artistry. Just chaos for chaos's sake. And Nova knew that madness all too well.

—FLASHBACK: PARIS, 1916—

Stone walls slick with cold and centuries. The smell of mildew and wine rot clung to her skin. A candle flickered on a wooden crate, casting long, claw-like shadows on the cellar walls.

"You were such a pretty thing, once," purred a voice behind her.

A hand yanked her hair back, forced her to look—into the broken shard of a mirror someone had left on the floor.

Her own reflection looked back at her: pale, bruised, eyes wide with terror and fury. Blood streaked her throat where he'd bitten her too roughly. Her lips trembled, but she said nothing.

"I'm going to make you better," he whispered. "You'll thank me for it."

She never did.

The fire had come next—searing, endless, unforgiving. It crawled through her veins like molten steel, eating her alive from the inside out. And then the world went quiet.

—PRESENT—

A twig snapped.

The sound sliced through the haze of memory like a blade.

Nova stilled, every muscle going taut. Her gaze dropped to the forest below, golden eyes narrowing, sharp as a hawk's.

Movement.

Five shapes emerged from the trees—massive, fluid, silent despite their size.

Wolves? But not ordinary ones.

The first to step into the meadow was enormous, his fur black as volcanic rock, eyes burning gold and full of something far more human than any animal should possess. He moved with the confidence of a general. Behind him came a deep brown one, quieter, leaner, nose twitching at the air. Then a reddish-brown blur, more aggressive in his prowl. Two greys brought up the rear, one with a pale, almost silvery face.

The pale one paused. Sniffed the air.

His head snapped up toward the trees.

Toward her.

Nova's body blurred into motion, a whisper on the wind. She moved before his eyes could catch her, melting into the canopy like smoke in fog. The scent trail would be there, but not her.

Below, the black wolf let out a low, rumbling growl. The pale one hesitated, but then the formation resumed. They stalked forward, their movements impossibly coordinated, as if they shared one mind.

And then—

"Wait," Laurent said, confused, turning—

They struck.

Like lightning splitting the air.

Nova watched from the treetops, frozen for a half-second in disbelief.

Laurent was gone in a flash, racing, Bella's steps echoing through the forest as she bolted in the opposite direction. Nova chased from above, limbs whipping between branches, wind pulling at her coat.

"Run," she thought, the word biting in her mind like sleet. "Run, Laurent."

But the wolves were faster.

Monstrously fast.

They ran with purpose, each one holding position, communicating without sound. They split, flanked, outmaneuvered. She'd seen vampire clans move in perfect synchrony before—but never like this. This wasn't instinct. It was strategy.

The black wolf lunged, cutting through a copse of ferns. The brown and red circled like hammer and anvil. One grey sliced across Laurent's escape route, herding him back toward the alpha. The other stayed at his heels, forcing him forward.

Laurent turned at the last second, snarling, claws bared. He threw the red one off. For a moment, it looked like he might break free—

Then the black wolf hit him like a wrecking ball.

The sound of bone meeting bark echoed across the clearing as Laurent slammed into a tree. The trunk split with a deep crack, and he crumpled.

He didn't rise.

The wolves descended.

No scream.

No time.

Just a blur of fur, a flash of fangs, and the crunch of the forest closing in.

Then—nothing.

Stillness.

Nova crouched in the branches above, her expression blank, eyes wide. The air around her felt heavier now. Charged. Her chest rose and fell in slow, measured rhythm, but inside, her thoughts spun.

They weren't animals.

They weren't dumb beasts driven by instinct.

They were something else.

Something terrifying.

Soldiers, she thought grimly. Protectors. Executioners.

Laurent was gone. Just like that.

She lingered one moment longer, eyes sweeping the carnage below, the wolves already beginning to disperse into the trees.

Then, without a word, she turned.

And vanished into the woods.