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The woods were alive with whispers.
Alex moved silently beneath the canopy, moonlight splintering through the leaves like silver daggers. Each step felt guided, not by instinct alone, but by memory—deep, ancient memory. He knew these paths even though he shouldn't. His boots barely touched the moss-covered ground as he followed the call pulling him forward.
A twig snapped behind him.
He spun—eyes flashing gold, breath still.
Nothing.
Or so it seemed.
Then came the hum—low, mechanical, unnatural. Not an animal. Not a shifter. A trap.
He dove to the side just as a steel cable whipped from the ground, snapping tight where his leg had been. It recoiled back into the underbrush.
Alex growled softly, crouched low. Someone was hunting. And they weren't amateurs.
A flash of light—then pain. Something stung his shoulder.
He ripped the dart out and sniffed it. Wolfsbane. Enough to make a regular werewolf drop like a stone. He staggered for a moment, but his system burned it out, his mark glowing faintly in response.
Footsteps approached—measured, deliberate.
Then he saw them: three figures in black gear, crossbows and rifles slung across their backs. One wore a red scarf, half-covered face, the symbol of the Argent family stitched into her shoulder patch.
Hunters.
Alex ducked behind a tree. His pulse steadied. The forest bent around him like a shield. He could hear them whisper.
"He moved faster than expected."
"Did the dart land?"
"Barely slowed him."
"Alpha?"
"No. Not like the others."
They didn't understand what he was. That made him dangerous—and a target.
Alex waited until one of them moved closer, then sprang from the shadows, disarming the first hunter with a fluid motion and slamming him into a tree. Not hard enough to kill. Just enough to send a message.
"I'm not the one you want," he hissed.
Another hunter raised her crossbow—too slow. Alex vanished between the trees, the woods wrapping around him like smoke.
He didn't stop running until Beacon Hills was in sight.
Later, in the sanctuary of his room, he pulled off his jacket and looked at the wound on his shoulder. It was already healing. The mark on his wrist pulsed with heat, like it had absorbed the venom and burned it away.
Hunters were in Beacon Hills again. And they weren't just hunting wolves—they were hunting him.
Whatever he had been in his past life... someone remembered.
And now, the shadows were moving.
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Chapter 7: The Pack Remembers?