The Dacian Daughter (Village of Wolves)

by Nspired1

Elena Lupu didn't die in the fire. That hadn't been what fate intended for her at all. Two strangers alter the path to the sole survivor of Romania's old village and what she finds in the intimidating man in black will be a test of something that still lives with her blood. [Chris Redfield/Elena Lupu] Inspired by the Legends of the Great White Wolf in Dacian Mythology.

Summary:

Elena Lupu didn't die in the fire. That hadn't been what fate intended for her at all. With her village crumbling around her, she manages to cross paths with Chris Redfield and the encounter has a resounding impact that echoes in the heart of old Romania.

Two strangers alter the path to the sole survivor of Romania's old village and what Elena finds in the intimidating man in black will be a test of something that still lives with her blood.

Inspired by the Legends of the Great White Wolf in Dacian Mythology.

A/N: Big thank you to the FF team for adding Elena's name to the character list for me! Don't forget you can request characters of your fandoms to be added!

---

In the old forests of the mountains, under the sky filled of stars,
In the warm breeze of the winds of freedom, the ones with a pure heart,

Can still hear today the Big White Wolf calling for the battles.
The Earth, the leaves, the sky know Him too well.
Can you hear it?

—The sacred legends of the Free Dacians

---

The darkness among the twisting shadows that was playing across the now broken village was a labyrinth of frost and barren foliage. Harsh winds were lashing the snow across the messy tracks that Elena Lupu made as she crested the first sloping hill away from Luisa's house and closer toward the direction of the Lady's castle in the distance.

The harsh winters in Brașov County, Romania were known for dropping well beyond the freezing point in February. Elena could feel every gusting breeze when she clutched one bleeding, scorched arm at the singed lapels of her brown sweater and ran.

The sharp sound of her enemies was becoming louder when another howl reached her ears from somewhere down in the fields behind her.

She was running out of time—they would be on her in moments. The smoke rising from Luisa's burning home was curling up in the air and sweeping through the valley.

The flimsy brown skirt she had put on that morning was thin and had seen many different days of hard work. Its seams had been giving away for weeks now, but Elena couldn't ever find it in her to throw it away. It had been her mother's skirt after all.

Now, as she ran, branches and brush were tearing at the fabric when she whipped passed. The falling snow clung to the material until it was just a tattered and wet mess against her legs.

"Elena don't give up! Reach for me!"

Elena hadn't expected a stranger's eyes to be the last thing she saw before she died. Prior to the village's ruin, she hadn't ever encountered a stranger in all her 24 years of life.

The tumbling fall into the fiery depths of the first floor hadn't killed her though and Ethan wouldn't be the last stranger she met on this night.

The car in the burning garage had acted as a perfect conductor for heat, but it hadn't yet been completely engulfed. Her right side had impacted the car and the crunch of the bones in her wrist had almost been as painful as the scorching metal on the uncovered skin of her arm. In seconds, the metal was searing the first layer of the dermis and it jolted Elena to open her mouth and finally scream.

The inhalation of smoke cut the sound of her agony short, and Elena was coughing while her watering hazel eyes blinked against the harsh light and toxic fumes. Movement caught her eye, and she took in an opening in the foundation that had been made from a falling beam.

The break in the structure was just big enough for her to fit through, but she'd be leaving the danger of the fire and into the arms of the beasts. With sweat forming at her brow, Elena clenched her teeth and rose into a crouch on the vehicle. Executing a sloppy lurch from the car, she had thrown herself forward and slammed against the crackling wood of the garage wall. The momentum had been enough to create a wider hole in the foundation and the young woman had barely registered the sound of snarls when she stumbled to her feet and began to run.

Elena could feel those injuries now and the darkness would be fully upon her soon. Normally, one would need two crests to open the pathway to the castle, but most of the village youths knew of the small area within the valley where you could slip in toward Castle Dimitrescu.

Elena didn't know what she expected to find within the castle. The lady had never tolerated company—especially not that of the males; however, Elena had heard the horror stories of the women who had been sent there.

The village wasn't a big place, but Elena had only ever known one woman in her circle who had departed for the castle. What should have been an honor had been nothing short of horror for the other woman's family. Elena had brought over food for the woman's mother after her departure, and the agony in the older woman's face wasn't something Elena would ever forget.

The last vestiges of light fell beyond the tall mountain of Moldoveanu Peak and Elena realized she couldn't hear the beasts behind her now. With a glance over her shoulder, the young woman was squinting to make out any movement when her foot collided with something hard, and her momentum sent her sprawling forward.

The snow was immediately drenching the front portion of Elena's sweater and with it came a wracking shiver as the adrenaline in her body started to wear off. She had met the lip of the sloping terrain and she lay now on the incline.

"I'm going to freeze out here." She thought with a sob crawling up the expanse of her throat.

A rustle of branches behind her had Elena gripping what felt like a rock in front of her and hauling herself up.

With a will for life she didn't quite understand, the young village-raised woman was clawing blindly toward the top of the crest.

"Great ones, hear our voice, together as one in reverence." Elena began to whisper softly to herself while she lifted her hand and reached out for a branch of a deeply rooted shrub and pulled up and up.

"We call on thee within the endless dark to deliver us into fate's hands. As the midnight moon rises on black wings, so we make our sacrifice and await the light at the end." She continued before a snarl ripped through the air behind her. Elena yelled out as a clawed hand snagged her left ankle.

Kicking with all her might, her heel caught on to one of the smaller rocks and she could hear the tumble of the heavy sandstone making its way down the slope. A yelp answered and the claws were suddenly releasing her ankle.

"In life and in death, we give glory—" Elena hissed out while her limbs seemed to gain strength and the anger that rose within her stopped her short and died on her lips.

She wouldn't be praising Mother Miranda any longer. In fact, the only thing she'd be praising for many years to come was herself.

Elena paused as her hand reached for the next area of purchase but only found flattened land. Slipping her hand lower, Elena felt for the ledge of the plateau and hauled herself up. Her dark, unbound hair was whipping around her in the darkness as she stood up and glanced back down into the shadows. The moon above only lit the land so much, but her eyes were catching on the still-burning village now in the distance.

With a grit of her teeth, Elena exhaled and looked back toward her path toward the castle. When she began to walk, she failed to notice the hidden figure that had perched itself in the clustered Dianthus brush found throughout the country.

---

"Alpha," The figure of a man murmured into his headpiece as he watched the young woman walk away through his night vision eyepieces. "This is Umber Eyes, come in."

"Copy, Umber Eyes." The graveled tone of their team leader responded after a few beats.

"Got someone else heading your way." Umber Eyes was creeping forward, his boots not making a sound as he walked carefully through the falling snow.

"Ethan?" Captain Redfield asked.

"No," Umber Eyes had paused before he spoke again. "She came from the village and is dressed like a local. No weapons, injured, and outran the Lycans."

"Copy," Captain Redfield with a trace of something lining his tone. "I'll take care of her. Disengage and wait for my signal to move ahead."

"Understood." Umber Eyes was tilting his head slightly as he watched the young woman's weakened but determined stride.

He had seen her struggle with the Lycan at the base of the slope. Not wanting to give away his position, he simply waited for the telltale screams he had been listening to for hours now.

When the girl had shaken off her pursuer and continued to climb despite the injury that was turning her sweater sleeve red, Umber Eyes had smiled for the first time in days.

The village seemed to have raised those who possessed a length of bone but if she wasn't careful, she'd surely reap her fate in the blood of something much older than her anger.

---

Elena was limping now. A singing pain through the hip that had impacted the car earlier was making itself known with every step she took forward. Looking through the trees, she could faintly see the lit tips of the castle rising in the distance, but she knew looks could be deceiving. Elena also knew she could run off her anger for only so long.

The snow was falling in earnest now and the shivering in her limbs had stopped not too long ago. Dimly, the young woman heard the whispered warnings of her late father reaching across her memory.

"When you stop shivering, you die, Elena. Bundle up and stop being so stubborn."

"Yes…Papa." She whispered to herself before she stumbled forward.

Boney knees were cracking against the earth, and she felt very little when she bowed forward, palms digging into the snow. Darkness was circling around her, and Elena knew she was finally going to die this time around.

Her vision was starting to blacken when the baying of a wolf called out against the night somewhere far off. The mournful sound of its pitch was rousing the last of her strength, and she lifted her head at the other sound closer to her now.

In front of her, the crunching snow announced the arrival of something else. The steps were measured, unhurried, and calculating.

With her hair blowing back from her face, Elena squinted into the shadows to watch a broad, dark form begin to appear from the thicket of trees in front of her. As the form grew closer, it also grew larger.

The shape of a man became clear as he came closer. Broad shoulders were moving with the grace of a predator. The moonlight glinted off the metallic surface of a gun in the man's hand and Elena exhaled slowly while the ticking hands of a clock began in her mind. As big as the man was, she had a feeling she wouldn't be able to outrun him.

Or his gun.

The growing darkness hid most of the man's features, but he stopped just before her kneeling form and surveyed her silently for a moment.

"If you're going to shoot me," Elena wheezed out softly. "Then allow me to rise to my feet."

"Why?" His deep voice asked from above.

"Because I'd rather die on my feet than kneel on this soil ever again." Elena lifted her chin higher and glared toward the darkened silhouette of his eyes. "Because I didn't survive when everyone else fell just to bow before a stranger in death."

With the last bits of her strength, Elena was sitting back on her legs and lifting to her feet in an angry stumble. "Because I deserve better than what Mother Miranda has shown herself to give the devoted and the blind."

The world around her was spinning, but the wrath for an outcome she couldn't change had Elena rising once more with her hands balled up at her sides. Even at her full height, the man before her still towered over her and he didn't seem to react to her display. The gun hadn't risen from his side though.

She lifted her chin and waited for his decision.

"Who are you?" He was asking then.

"I'm…" Elena began but the thought became a swirl in her mind and the man before her became nothing more than the shadows that lived around him.

She was falling forward when a hand caught her around the waist.

"You're freezing to death." The voice above her was warbling in and out.

His gloved hands were warm around her when she was being hauled forward and hefted into strong arms.

Her head was cradled against his chest when she felt him begin to move. Cracking open her hazel eyes once more, she looked up into the face of the stranger who held her now.

It was still hard to see with nothing else but the moon above, but with his face inches from hers, she could make out the strong jawline that was lightly peppered by facial hair. Sharp eyes were turning down to hers but still she could not make out the color.

Elena could see the orb of the full moon reflected and elongated in the glistening portion of his sclera. For a moment, it was all she could see. A swinging shadow from the cast of the moon; the sway of the dead gods her ancestors had hung from trees.

She expected his expression to be as twisted as that of the monsters she had been running from, but instead, she only saw the hardened gaze of a man who was unafraid. Beneath it, shifted something else that rippled through the darkness.

Short dark hair was fluttering around his ears from the wind he walked against, and Elena was barely aware of the hand she was lifting to touch the left side of his face. He flinched and paused his walk to turn his head down fully toward hers.

"Of myth and shadow," Elena murmured softly up at him. "The endless dark is supposed to deliver us into fate's hands."

"No such thing as fate." The stranger said then, his voice pitched low while the snow clung to the tiny hairs of his beard.

"Of course there is." She answered. "It delivered me right to you."

With her hand slipping from his defined cheek bone, Elena's last thoughts were to the beauty of a stranger's face under her country's cursed moon.

---

The crackle of the fire warming her skin sounded too much like snapping branches in the forest and it caused Elena to jerk further into consciousness. When her eyes opened, the roaring fire in front of her made her question if she had ever left the garage.

The hearth around the fireplace was the typical stone masonry that also existed in her home, but someone had taken the time to carve the Cucuteni whorls into the river stones. The double spiral was a typical design in the Cucuteni culture and whoever the artist was, they had poured the paint through the horn of a cow and used the correct hand for thin lines with a feather or something similar.

Elena shifted from her position on her left side and looked down at the hard wood floor with dirt caking in between each row of boards. A blanket had been placed beneath her, and the orange material was frayed near the corner. Further inspection had Elena blinking down at the white sheet covering her now nude body.

Shifting up on her left elbow Elena winced and glanced down when something rubbed on the skin of her arm. Touching the affected area with her right hand brought upon a twinge of pain. A gauze bandage had been applied to her forearm with the burn and the wrist she had injured was wrapped with a slightly thicker brown cloth. A flex of her wrist told her it wasn't broken.

"You're awake." A familiar voice said behind her.

Elena was whipping her head over her right shoulder.

An older man sat watching her from a wooden, carved chair that sat beneath a tubular barn lantern. The lantern was unlit and the only light in the room was from the fire in the hearth in front of her.

Due to Elena's position in front of the fire, half the man, from the chest down, was swathed in an eerie shadow, but his face was finally visible to her now.

"It's you," Elena breathed when she sat up with the sheet clutched to her chest. "From the woods. You caught me."

"I did." His deep baritone answered.

What Elena thought may be blue eyes were tracing the shape of her face before they fell down towards her arm where the bandage lay.

His posture remained rigid while a beat of silence carried on. Elena found the tongue in her mouth to be thick and she swallowed a few times while the memories of the last few hours caught up with her.

The man's true proportion had been hidden in the darkness of the woods. In the light of the fire, Elena was taking the sheer size of his upper body and the deadly look behind attractive and keen eyes. She wouldn't be able to guess his age, but she knew he was older by the crow's feet that crinkled near the corners of his eyes. Sharp features were a living expression on his face and Elena found the thumb of her good hand rubbing against her own palm while she recalled cupping his face.

The man's mere presence intrigued Elena as Ethan's had. Ethan appeared to be a man with his heart in his teeth. He'd had conviction—whatever it was he'd been searching for, Elena thought he might find it.

The new stranger before her looked out of place in his clothes that were so dark, they seemed to pull the light of the fire in and swallow it whole.

Had he been through her village as Ethan had? She couldn't picture this man walking through the broken portions of timber homes with the wattle and daub; a village after war.

"Where are my clothes?" She finally found her voice once more.

"Hanging up. No use having you remain wet and adding to the hypothermia."

"Oh." She responded with a nod and looked down at the sheet that he had covered her with.

The belief structure for the human body in her village hadn't been puritanical nor was nudity something that was brought up in shame. The thought of an outsider seeing her naked wasn't what concerned her.

"Why did you save me?" She voiced her next thought then.

"Are you not worth saving?" He asked with a slight raise of one of his brows.

"That's not—" She shook her head and the strands of her hair tickled across her collarbones. "That's not how the world works. Especially right now. Who are you? Why are you here?"

The crackle of the fire behind her nearly disguised the deep sigh the man let out through his nose when he leaned back into his chair.

A gust of wind had the home they occupied shifting in its foundation and Elena shivered when the breeze slipped through the cracks of the old house.

Instead of answering, the man rose to his feet and grabbed the lapels of his black coat. With a swing around his shoulders, he now held the garment in one hand while he took careful steps toward her on the floor.

Elena watched his approach with another hard swallow that bobbed her throat. The man's eyes seemed to catch the motion when his focus dipped down toward the expanse of her neck. The slow drag of his gaze lingered on her skin before he looked back into her stare.

"Here." He was holding up the jacket for her to take.

"You'll freeze too." She found herself whispering in return.

A huff of a laugh met her ears when the man took a closer step and draped the article of clothing over her shoulders before taking a step back.

"Been to colder places than this." He admitted before his back was to her once more.

"Like where?" She was asking in curiosity when she watched his powerful form reclaim his seat.

"Antarctica, for one." He spoke when his eyes settled back on her.

"The South Pole." She was nodding to herself as she considered him. "Hopefully you've had better vacationing spots since then."

The man released another breath of a laugh, and he was turning toward her again.

"Well then, I guess, either way, I owe you my life and my gratitude." She continued.

Elena glanced down at the warm coat on her shoulders and reached up with one hand to push an arm through the sleeve. With care, she switched hands to keep her body covered with the sheet before slinging the other arm through the second sleeve. The jacket was still warm from his own body and Elena caught the faint scent of soap and cologne coming from the collar.

"Thank you." She was lifting her face toward his once more and she watched an odd expression ripple across his features before it was gone.

He gave a nod before his jaw clenched once and released.

"You're kind." He spoke quietly while surveying her. "I wouldn't have guessed that with our first encounter."

"Everything else was trying to kill me today. I believed you to be no different." She affirmed before continuing, "Could you at least tell me your first name?"

"It's Chris." He acquiesced simply.

"Chris," She let the name flow from her lips with the accent she possessed. "An unusual name here but not unusual for the religious context."

"Pretty common where I'm from, etymology aside." He spoke. Amusement began leaking into the tone.

"It suits you." She was curling her legs under her and sitting up straighter. "Why did you save me, Chris?"

"Maybe I just wanted to know your name." His baritone was curling around Elena, and she pulled the collar of his coat away from her face as the leftover aroma from his skin was beginning to make her feel warm for reasons beyond the article of clothing.

"Elena—my name is Elena Lupu, and I came here from the village down the mountain." She spoke with a shaky breath, hoping to dispel the odd emotions that were toying with her senses.

"You outran the Lycans." He stated with a curious look.

"Lycans?" She asked in confusion when she sat up further. His coat on her shoulders slipped and she glanced down at her bare skin before she looked toward the man once more. "Why do you call them that?"

"Lycans—Werewolves, Wolves, whatever the appropriate term is now—are a mutation with another annoying habit."

"Mmm," Elena hummed in response. "I could already tell by your accent that you're not from here, but I do wonder how much you know of this land's history?"

"Given what's happening around here, do you even know your own history?" Chris asked while he shifted forward in his seat, his elbows rested atop his thighs.

"I was raised in this village, and it's not one where you're permitted to ask many questions." Elena responded somewhat defensively. "Anyway, the Daoi you speak of are something that is very well known here. Those beasts you see currently are a mockery to that title and its origin is our history throughout Brașov County."

Something resembling a smile was pulling at the corner of the man's mouth, but he didn't respond this time around. Elena shrugged with a short shake of her head and lifted her hand to push her hair behind her ear before she took a breath and continued.

"Mother Miranda," Her voice came out harsher this time while the smoke of her burning village ran through her memory. "Has always protected us and imposed upon us the importance of 'Obedience breeds discipline, discipline breeds unity, unity breeds power.'"

Chris was sitting up straighter as his heavy brows began to crease above his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but Elena continued, "We were foolish to think that any power belonged to us in the village. That it was us who would benefit from the years of prayer and absolution. It was a lie—all of it—lies!"

"Where did you hear that moto—" Chris was rising from his seat before her.

"Werewolves, Lykos, Lycans, Vluku, Volcica, call them by any name—they were the protectors here. They were the Daoi of this land!" Elena seethed with a hand slapping at her bare, uncovered thigh. "It's one of my favorite stories outside of our discipline. The Legend of the Great White Wolf was a man who served as a protector to the Dacians—our ancestors. In times of great need, the man would shapeshift into the Great White Wolf and would rouse the surrounding Daoi to serve those who fought for this land and its people… and to see them used against us in this form now—I should have known. I should have known what Mother Miranda really was but how could I?"

Elena lifted her eyes and gasped softly to notice the grey-blue eyes of Chris in front of her. He had approached and squatted before her while she had passionately spoken. The fabric from his high collared, black sleeved garment shifted around his neck when he tilted his head toward her.

"Mother Miranda will get what she deserves." Chris' deep voice curled around her again as his gaze held her frozen before him. "But before that, I need to get you out of here. The entire village is going to fall."

"I'm not leaving." Elena wet her lips and forced her voice to remain strong. "I will stand to watch her fall."

"That's not your responsibility—" Chris had begun to respond.

"I lost everyone because of her!" Elena rose to her knees to meet his eyes full on. The fist that clutched the sheet at her breasts was as white as the cloth she gripped.

Something new was crossing the man's face before her. A shadow of history was stretching out between them both and Elena had no idea of the similar words that had been spoken in the man's history.

His large hand reached out to her, and Elena didn't stop him when his fingers curled around a thick portion of her hair. His knuckles brushed the skin at her neck, and she shivered while her eyes watched his mouth pull into another smile.

"Fiery and intelligent girl who refuses to kneel to a stranger, outruns fate, and refuses to leave while her home falls apart." He spoke.

"As I told you," She said while she wet her dry lips. His eyes caught the action before he looked back up into her stare. "Fate delivered me straight to you, Chris."

"Did it?" His hand dropped from her hair, and he laid it upon the ground where he remained squatting. "Is that why you're kneeling now?"

Elena became aware of her position and looked down for a moment before she asked, "Are you my enemy?"

"No." Was his simple reply.

Her freehand reached out and touched the top of his before she sat back down on her legs. Elena stared up at him and saw what she thought was truth behind the marrow of his eyes.

Looking at him while the flames of the fire glittered against the canvas of his eyes, Elena felt like she was on the verge of something, a mystery that surrounded his very presence. The more he spoke, the less she realized he was telling her. The more she listened to him, the more she wanted to unravel him.

"Then I'm glad I found you. Will you stay with me if I sleep some more?" She asked, curling her hand further around the back of his larger one.

His hand was lifting slightly off the ground. When he rotated the appendage to clasp hers, he leaned in and said, "For now, Elena."

---

Chris hadn't said anything more when he returned to his chair and Elena curled up with her back toward the fire. Delicate hands were pulling the coat around her, and she didn't care if he saw when she buried her nose in his coat collar and fell asleep.

Her dreams were washed in the color of mourning. Fire roared around the faces of her history and buildings tumbled down with a faith she could no longer follow. The moon rose with a swish of black wings but when they opened, the wings became the contortion of a black coat laid across the broad back of the blue-eyed and dark-haired man who was asking her to kneel. When she opened her mouth to answer, the baying howl of wolves tore through her throat.

Elena jerked awake for the second time that night and the howl of wolves followed her into the waking world.

Something scraped against the outside walls of the home and the snarls she was becoming familiar with were muffled in their beckoning anger.

"Chris—" Elena was turning toward the cluttered room before her and found his chair empty. He was nowhere to be found.

The black coat still lay across her shoulders, and she clutched it around her tightly while the sounds of snarls grew.

The front door to the home shuddered on its hinges and Elena found herself standing to her feet with the sheet dropping around her ankles. Pulling the coat around her body, she glanced around for something to use as a weapon. Her eyes snagged on the long fire iron that lay against the side of the hearth and she was snatching it up when the door jerked again.

An odd sound was rising over the sounds of the creatures outside. It was a muffled crack that cut through the clamor of cacophony. The creatures were roaring now but the door didn't move again.

Padding toward the door, Elena was pressing her ear to the wood as the crunch of feet in the snow passed by the threshold on the outside.

The creatures were moving away from the house.

The strange sound was repeating once more when Elena realized it was a gun. A masculine grunt could be heard when the sounds of the silenced weapon ceased.

"Chris?" Elena whispered when she stepped back from the door.

With the fire iron still in hand, she fumbled to balance the rod in two fingers while she pulled the latch for the door and swung it open.

The late hours before pre-dawn still covered the forest in its embrace but the light of the fire behind her was streaking out the door when she took in the sight before her.

Multiple corpses of the creatures lay motionless in the snow, blood staining in bright contrast to the white of the ice.

Tracks lay just beyond the fallen bodies, and they led into the darkness of the lumbering forest ahead. The distant sounds of growls were drifting from the trees when Elena sprinted back into the house and snatched down the hanging lantern above the chair. The wick was still oiled but she wasn't sure how long it would last for.

With the pine resin fire stick kept near the fireplace, Elena was lighting the tip before she shoved it into the opening of the glass in the lantern. When the oil ignited, she was seizing the lantern's handle tightly before the fire iron was back in her hand. The thumps of her feet were bouncing around in the small space of the house before she sunk back through the snow and hurled herself into the freezing night.

Her hair was whipping around her face while she ran in between the trees with the lantern held out in front of her and kept her eyes to the many footprints in the snow.

The sounds of snarls and the impact of feet were starting to become louder. When she pushed her way into the next clearing, branches were tearing at her as she took in the numbers of her enemies.

A dozen of the beasts were advancing on the form she knew to be Chris. Blood appeared to pour down his face, but his eyes caught on hers when the lantern lit the area. A knife was held in his hand while he waited for the next creature to step forward. He wasn't even looking at it when he dodged its swipe and buried the large combat knife in the creature's skull.

Blood splattered to the snow with a rise of steam and still his eyes were on her.

Roars of the creatures that had spotted the light on the ground behind them were now focused on her. She didn't know what had become of Chris' gun, but there were too many of them to fight without the high risk of getting bitten.

From over the advancing creature's shoulder, Elena met her stranger's eyes again.

He had saved her. He'd had every chance to kill her or just leave her and he hadn't.

"Are you my enemy?"

"No."

With her own eyes hardening, Elena Lupu opened her mouth and began to shout in her mother tongue. Her clear voice rang out and the night eyes of the forest were enclosing on the small woman who stood for a stranger in a very old homestead.

"Aici! Aici! Reclam străinul!" Jaws were opening in bellows and Elena watched as all but a few turned away from the stranger in black.

"Elena!" She could hear Chris shout, but she was already running.

The lantern tumbled from her hands with a crack of glass and Elena was hurtling through the foliage once again. Answering howls of the chase rose behind her and she could feel the ground thundering from their advancing steps.

She was leading them away.

A debt had been repaid.

Fearful puffs of breaths in the winter air were lit white by the moon above her while the untamed forces of chthonic-like creatures gave chase close behind. Her chest felt as if it was going to burst but still her feet pounded against the icy terrain as long strides took her deeper through the woods and closer to the base of the mountain.

A flicker of flame caught her attention ahead and Elena jerked her eyes to the specific spot in the foliage.

Radiant, twin circles peered out at her from the copse of trees and Elena stumbled to a stop with frozen and numbing bare feet. The eyes of a great beast were rising and pressing closer to the tree line—a highlighted warning, bound by the moon.

Turning back to the blackness of the woods and the cluster of her enemies, Elena bore witness to the fallen people of her village crashing into the area.

The creatures were nothing more than contorted features and the call for blood they bid blackened the edges of hope Elena had been holding onto. A rustle of movement caused the creatures to pause in front of her; their eyes were looking past her now. The crunching of snow was a death march at her back and she was too afraid to turn to see what gave her enemies pause.

A cutting snarl sounded beside her when Elena was prepared to die once more.

Something large knocked her down and with a shout she fell to her side in the snow. The ripple of movement in her vision blended in with the snow. An achromatic coat of fur flashing under the constellations.

Screams she hadn't heard before were rising around her and Elena lifted to her head to see a burst of blood wet the ice before one of the creatures disappeared into the brush with a tug from a force she couldn't see well.

Something else was attacking the creatures.

Shaking and frozen limbs were causing her to crash back into the ground when the forest was going quiet around her. Where had the unseen beast with the orange eyes gone?

The young woman thought she could hear the calls of her name somewhere in the distance, and she finally managed to rise to her feet. She called back weakly before she broke out into a cough.

Her feet were slow to respond, but soon she stumbled through where the bodies of her enemies now lay after the chase.

With a dreamlike state hanging over her head, she turned to the sound of a whimper to her far left. One of the creatures was still alive.

Yellow eyes stared up at her from the maladaptive looking shape of the creature's skull as it bled out in the snow. Next to it, was a paw print that Elena was squinting at before she gasped. When she lifted her head, persimmon eyes like the sun were watching once again from the darkness. Waiting.

The creature at her feet gave a mournful cry and Elena jerked her attention away from the brush.

This is what her people had been reduced to.

Each villager had been someone who she had known her whole life. From neighbors to those who ran the trades for meat and milk; they had all been connected in some way. When the first signs of transformation had hit the village, the healers had been the second group to fall and had turned into the howling creatures that resembled the guardians of their land.

In front of her wasn't just a creature—it was a friend and a neighbor.

"Farewell." Elena bade solemnly and then lifted the fire iron she still had in hand, plunging it deep into the throat of the denizen of her home.

Footsteps were snapping through the area to the right of her, and Elena turned her head to meet the gaze of Chris jogging into the area. She stood there with her fire iron lifting from the throat of her countryman and lifted her chin.

The sharp gaze of her stranger was taking in the carnage of the bodies around her when Elena realized he may have thought that she had done all of this.

His eyes lifted back up to hers. Anger was alive and well in his features as he took in her barefoot form and his oversized coat that lay open and exposed her skin to the elements.

Elena was shivering more from his gaze than the cool air that rose the gooseflesh on her skin. The cut across Chris' cheek was bleeding slightly, and Elena watched as blood was welling up and running down into the hair on his jaw.

"Are you—" Elena finally broke the silence between them, but Chris was moving toward her and wrapping one of his arms around the back of her legs.

With an easy lift, he was picking her up at his side and Elena's backside was resting against his thick forearm. His other arm was wrapping her into his chest, and she clung to the warmth that bloomed against her frozen skin.

"Chris!"

Chris said nothing until they were in front of the small home again.

With a slam of the door behind them, Chris was banging his firearm down on the table where he had been sitting beside previously before he carried her toward the fire once more. He kneeled, easily set her down on the floor, and Elena gasped when he brought his face down close to hers.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" He rasped when he grabbed her chin.

Elena sat now with her knees drawn up, the fire once more at her back while she stared up at the man before her, shivering.

"I could ask you the same!" She uttered with her own frustration rippling through her features. "I woke up and you were gone. When I looked out, I thought they had dragged you off—what else was I supposed to do?"

Chris scoffed and dropped his hand away from her chin. His head was turning away from her as he let out a deep breath. "I can handle myself out there, Elena. You, on the other hand—"

"This is my home, and those things are my people!" Her eyes were alight from his dismissal. "I'm not just going to stand by and hide and I certainly wasn't going to let them have you if I could stop it!"

"Those aren't your people anymore." He responded shortly with his eyes staring down at the ground. He chuckled after a moment and shook his head.

"Did you kill all of those Lycans with that stick?" He asked.

"No, I had help and it's not a stick, it's a fire iron." She sassed in a biting tone.

Elena's eyes caught on his bloodied face, and she paused for a moment.

Her hand was reaching out and touching the patch of skin below the scrape of the cheek now facing her. "Did they bite you?"

Chris turned to look back at her and his face was pressing into her hand when he said in a much calmer voice, "No, I hit something when I fell." He didn't pull his face away from her touch.

Elena's thumb was running over his cheek while her eyes roamed the details she could see now that he was close again. The bleeding wasn't bad and was already beginning to clot. With her wandering gaze, she noted that he was an attractive man.

When her thumb paused on an old scar that ran laterally across his left cheek bone, his fingers were curling around her wrist.

"Who are you?" Elena found herself asking him again.

"It's a rather complicated answer but if I'm anything, I'm just a man who's trying to right a mistake I made."

"And you're going to do that by dying alone in the snow?" Her head was tilting when she leaned on her drawn up knees.

Chris' focus was turning toward her still shivering body and he was dropping her wrist and reaching for the thick sheet she had dropped earlier.

"We need to keep you warm, Elena." He insisted instead of answering her question.

"My debt has been repaid." She declared, irritation spiking while barely managing to keep her teeth from clicking together. "I'm going to uncomplicate this situation for you and let you get back to whatever it is you're doing here, Chris."

She dropped her hand from his warm skin and set it back on her knee. A note of the stubbornness her father used to chastise her for was entering her tone. She was pulling away from him with a huff and trying to stand to find her clothes.

"Thank you for your help but I won't be needing your pushy assistance anymore. Don't come looking to me when you need help again—" She began.

"Sweet girl," Chris said with a chuckle when he grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward him. "You can either sit here yourself and warm up, or I'll make you. You can choose while we wait for your transport to arrive."

"My transport?" Elena snarled as she struggled in his grip for a moment. "I'm not leaving, and I told you that."

"Is pride going to be any better of a scenario than dying in the snow?" Chris asked with a dangerous tilt of his head. "Will your wolves of legend protect you from yourself?"

"And who are you to tell me when to leave my home? You come in here with your pretty face and think you can tell me where I should sit or when I should leave? Who are you to do so, Chris?" She spat with heat rising in her cheeks.

Chris was undeterred from her useless tugs against his ironclad grip, and before she knew it, Elena was tumbling forward into his chest from his squatting position. Her hands braced against his chest and the anger that flared up died instantly at the warmth his nearness provided.

"Pretty?" His gruff voice asked above her head. "I don't think anyone has ever called me that."

Against her mind's wrath, Elena was pressing herself closer to Chris and letting out a startled sound at how hot his body felt against hers.

Maybe not expecting this result, Chris hesitated when he released the hold he had on her arm and held his hands on each side of her shivering body.

"You're still ice cold." He finally said with irritation and something else lining his voice. His hands were pulling the coat around her tighter before he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in closer.

Elena was now positioned once again in a kneel as she clutched the stranger closer. Her face was pressing into the side of his neck when she let out a shuddering breath. Her next inhale brought in the aroma of his clean skin, and she shivered once more for an entirely different reason.

"Unfortunately, you're pretty and warm." Elena responded dryly into the skin of his neck.

The responding chuckle Chris let out vibrated against her own chest and Elena felt the coiling warmth pooling in her stomach continue to grow.

"I should have just hugged you to get you to do what I wanted." The octave of his voice had dropped lower before he was suddenly picking her up and moving closer to the fire.

With a cross-legged sit, Chris was sitting down on the floor and reaching his gloved hands into the coat and on the bare skin of her hips. Elena let out a gasp as he twisted her easily in his lap so that her back was now against his chest. She kicked out her legs so that they were draped over his crossed ones.

The heat from the blazing fire was warming her skin once more and she sighed slightly to realize Chris was right, she needed to stay warm if she was to regain her full strength.

Chris was leaning over and snatching the sheet from the ground before he snapped it out and over her bare legs. She bit back another sound when the hairs of his beard scraped the side of her neck while he leaned forward slightly and grabbed the edges of the coat still on her shoulders to pull the clothing over her chest.

With her completely covered now, his hands paused again on each side of her as if he wasn't sure where to place them. Elena raised her brows up at him and lifted her own hands to grasp his.

"Have you never touched a woman before?" She poked verbally before she pulled his arms to wrap down around her. "You wanted to be difficult, so let's be difficult."

Chris' arms closed around her frame with her direction but at her words, he was sliding his hands more purposely across each of her ribs before one hand rested across her taut stomach and stayed there. His entire hand covered most of her torso and the tips of his gloved fingers were brushing between her clothed breasts.

"You're getting on that transport because I do have the authority to make you, Elena. I work for a taskforce in bioterrorism security and your village has fallen victim to something I've fought before. I don't want that happening to you. More than just the authority to do so, I'd also hate to see your life wasted on revenge and loss." Chris spoke over her shoulder as he settled into their new position.

Elena placed her hand over the one he had on her stomach. She glanced back at him from over her shoulder and whispered, "What do you know about revenge and loss, Chris?"

"A lot." He answered darkly while his face was inches from hers.

"Do you regret your acts of vengeance then?" She was leaning her head back into his chest when she posed her question with open curiosity.

"No," He admitted after a few beats. "It needed to happen, but it ultimately changed a great many things for me."

"I don't have anything else left." She admitted quietly. "Where would I go? I know as much as I do about the world because I've read about it, Chris. I've never left my home and I never would have because that's what Mother Miranda taught us not to do. My room is filled with nothing but books because I wanted to know more but that doesn't mean I can survive out there."

"And what of the fate you spoke of?" He asked with his breath brushing the delicate curve of her neck.

"What of it?" She inquired as a shiver rolled through her body once more.

Chris' arms tightened around her and the hand he had on her stomach was slipping into the folds of the coat. The leather from one of his covered fingers was brushing her bare skin.

"If you truly believe as you do, then you must also believe there's a reason you've survived. Fate and all that."

"As I've told you," She whispered softly to him. "Fate brought me right to you. I could have run any which way, Chris, but something told me to run toward the castle. None of us in the village would ever associate the castle with safety but still I ran and ran…and then I found you."

"Then do as I say and live, Elena. Don't just read about the things you want. You now have the chance to do them. Go and live." His mouth was brushing against the shell of her ear when he spoke, and Elena gasped and jerked in his lap.

Chris' other hand was latching onto her hip and steadying her on his lap once more. She could have sworn she heard him hiss in a breath from behind her.

"What would be something you'd like to do out there?" Elena watched as one of his hands gestured to the fire when he spoke. As if the very world was just within her reach.

"Attend lectures in school," She whispered as she thought. "See the northern lights because the pictures in the book I have don't have any color. Have a bad cup of coffee as long as it means I can be around good people. Find meaning for myself and create meaning with someone else—"

Elena stopped and felt foolish as she sat before him then. Their worlds were so vastly far apart. He was an intelligent and well-traveled man whereas she spoke of such simple things in comparison. She was wincing and allowed her hair to curtain around her face.

"Have you ever read about the bioluminescent shores?" Chris asked while she gathered herself. If he noticed her embarrassment, he made no comment on it.

Elena looked back up at him with shy eyes and shook her head quietly.

"Marine creatures like some fish and algae produce bioluminescence in their bodies to either confuse predators or attract prey. When they wash up on shore in droves, it's as if someone brought down the night sky and mixed it in with the sea." Chris explained as he pulled her closer.

"Have you seen it?" She asked.

"Only once." He replied. "As for everything else you said. If that's what you want, it's right in front of you."

Elena bit the inside of her cheek at the formation of his words. In her mind's eye, she saw the portion of the dream where the black wings became the contortion of his black coat and his voice she heard, bidding her to kneel.

"Chris, I have nothing. Nothing to trade for currency or even a record of who I am." She breathed and set her hands on top of his once more.

"I will help you, Elena."

"Why would you do that?" She was twisting her torso back to look at him then.

"Because like you said, you deserve more than you've been given here, and what I do revolves heavily in helping someone like yourself start over." His eyes met hers and Elena watched his eyes drop down toward her mouth before they rose once again.

"How old are you?" She finally asked.

"Old." Chris huffed after a moment.

"You don't look old." She prodded.

Chris laughed and his hands squeezed around her middle. "And you?"

"24." She replied simply with a little smile stretching at the mirth in his eyes. "Have you been doing the work you do for a long time?"

"Too long. Since I was 25."

"So, run away with me then. Do you like bad cups of coffee and seeing ocean fish light up at night?" She asked with her head tipping back slightly.

The truth is often told in jokes.

His brows were pinching together, and it created a ripple along his forehead that she wanted to smooth back. Darkening eyes flickered while he seemed to consider the proverbial hand she was holding out to him. His hands were tightening their grip on her.

"I think you'll find more pleasing company in a short time, Elena."

"What if it's not their company I want, Chris?"

"And what kind of company do you want?" He breathed while he studied the delicate features of her face.

"I want something real." She whispered then when she looked back toward the fire. "I want to feel alive while I'm chasing the future."

"Still chasing fate?" His mouth was close to her ear again, and his breath was curling along her skin.

"I'm trying, but he's being difficult." She retorted while she leaned back fully into him.

The deep chuckle he released ran along her skin and made her sigh before she considered her next question.

"Will you show me something real?" She was lifting her face backwards toward his as her body began to hum from his touch and the sound of his voice in her ear.

Of two different worlds, their mouths had been moving but the eyes always had one language everywhere.

"What are you asking me for?" His voice had become dark.

The hand at her hip was squeezing tighter and Elena's chest began to rise and fall with the precipice she felt she was walking along now.

Since she had been a young girl, she had always asked more than the other children, no matter the age. Although she experienced what life had offered through the written word, she had always been the one who spoke up for opportunities. It wasn't enough to know, she wanted to feel what life could give her.

While staring up into his eyes, Elena gripped the top of the hand that was on her torso and lifted it to brush further along the skin of her abdomen.

"I want your touch." She stated bluntly, wanting to be direct with him.

She paused his sliding hand and waited, not wanting to overstep her bounds.

Chris' breath was starting to pick up in time with hers and Elena could have sworn that the grey-blue color of his eyes became darker. His mouth was partially open, and his hand came alive on her skin before he stopped. With a pause, he pulled his hands away and from the coat.

Elena felt her stomach plummet and she felt a different blush cresting her cheeks when she began to sit up from his chest.

"Wait." Chris murmured behind her and placed his other hand on her thigh.

Elena couldn't bring herself to look back at him while she swallowed her disappointment. He'd most likely want her to stay so she could remain warm—

Chris' hands were moving in front of her when he slowly pulled the black leather gloves from his hands.

The gloves plopped to the floor on her right. Elena jumped when the flesh of his hand gripped her jaw and turned her face back to his. His other hand was sliding back into the coat and running along the skin of her ribs.

The friction of his warm flesh on hers had Elena releasing an involuntary moan when she looked back up at him. His eyes were zeroing in on her and the hand at her side tightened.

Hunger goes in a straight line, but desire turns in circles.

"Is this really what you want?" He asked with his thumb running near the corner of her mouth.

The knuckles of his hand brushed the underside of her breast, and she bit inside of her cheek when she nodded to the man above her.

"Yes," She uttered in a breathy whisper. "Please touch me."

A dark laugh answered her, and he released her jaw to drop his hand to the other side of her torso.

Elena was looking back down at her body when Chris' large hands were pulling the black coat open slowly.

The years of hard work in the field and generally eating what the land had offered had given her a willow's frame. Often, Elena had felt self-conscious for the lack of curves she possessed in comparison to some of the other well-fed women in the Lords' and Lady's lands.

Her olive skin glowed with the rippling light of the fire in front of them; the open coat revealed a slender frame of supple muscle that curled around a delicate bone structure.

Elena arched her back when his warm knuckles lightly ran from her navel to the space in between her breasts. The fingers from the hand were fanning out to skim over her hardened nipples and toward her throat.

With a gentle squeeze, Chris held her throat in a lover's embrace and leaned in behind her to whisper in her ear, "Tell me if you want me to stop, Elena."

Elena nodded and touched the hand that cupped her pulse points. Slick heat was building between her thighs, and her breathing hitched under his stare.

Chris' other hand was wrapping around the sheet at her legs, and with a slow pull, he was uncovering her legs and hips slowly. In moments, Elena was now bare before him aside from his coat over her shoulders.

Her outstretched legs were lean and when she heard Chris' breath catch next to her ear, she allowed her legs to fall open in a silent invitation.

Elena squeezed the hand he had at her throat again when his other fingers began to slide over the skin of her thigh.

"You're absolutely beautiful." Chris murmured into her ear before he placed warm lips at the skin of her neck. "But I thought that when you stood in darkness to face me in a lonely forest."

Elena pleaded his name quietly when his mouth began to lightly run over the pulse point on her neck and slowly made its way to the spot just below her ear. With gentle suction, his lips closed over the sensitive spot while the hand on her leg ran a feather light touch towards her inner thigh.

"Sweet girl," Chris spoke around her flesh. "Found at near death and even in the anger you possessed for a stranger, you were still one of the most beautiful and powerful things I have ever seen."

Fingertips were brushing the center between her legs and Elena reached down to grip the material of his pants at his thigh while she took what he gave freely.

"Proud and fierce, you remain unbowed and unbroken." He continued huskily.

His touch was stroking her damp folds lightly before he made an unhurried journey back up her mound and towards her chest while he spoke. His palm found and cradled her breast gently while he lightly bit her neck.

"I—" She began to whimper as goosebumps rose across her skin.

"You charged out into the night to defend a stranger—to defend me." Chris interrupted with a squeeze of her flesh.

The erection below Elena was becoming more pronounced as he shifted his hips up and toward her bare backside.

"And you did it while leading my enemies away…while wearing nothing but my coat." His fingers were skimming back and forth around her body slowly, working her into a fever before they had sunk lower once more.

Elena had lain with a man only once before and it had been a rushed and quick endeavor. There hadn't been any talking and there sure as the skies hadn't been any teasing of flesh prior to the act itself. The feeling of Chris' mouth at her throat while he explored her body slowly was a feral tension clawing in her chest. His whispered words in her ear stole her voice and awakened something much more primal.

When he had pulled his hands away at her proposition earlier, she would have gotten over the disappointment of his refusal. Since finding him in the forest, there had been a lingering look between them both and she hadn't been able to stop her building attraction. The more he spoke, the more she wanted to take.

The pads of his fingers were gathering the slick moisture between her folds when she felt him shudder and let out a small groan that vibrated from his body to hers.

Two of his fingers were running slowly up and down her engorged flesh when the hand at her neck swept up into her unbound hair. With a slow pull to the side, Chris was tilting her face up and back toward his.

The grey blue of his eyes met her hooded hazel ones and his gaze dropped to her bottom lip she was gnawing on to keep herself quiet.

A predator's gaze was surveying her when he pushed two thick fingers inside her slowly. His eyes were the color of a winter's sky, she realized then. Winter, which had a way of asking one what they accomplished during the summer; winter would leave you barren with the rest of the land if you couldn't face it.

Her mouth opened and the shuddered cry she released caused those winter eyes to gleam in front of her.

He was now cupping her with the heel of his hand pressing into her clit while his two fingers pumped languidly.

Elena had placed her feet on the orange blanket he had laid down and used small amounts of leverage to lift her hips into the pumps he made with his digits. She was panting and mewling as he held her in place with his gaze alone.

The grip on her hair tightened when he leaned down and brushed his mouth over hers in their first kiss.

Elena trembled in his lap while she responded to the lips on hers. Her hand was reaching back and cupping behind his neck as she arched herself further onto his fingers with a press of her hips. Measure for measure, Elena decided then that he couldn't achieve anything else with her body than what lips felt like against her own.

Her body was humming along a precipice she hadn't imagined could be reached with another person.

"Let go." Chris ordered in between a pull he made at her bottom lip. "Stop holding back and let me hear you."

The palm between her thighs began to rotate in gentle circles while his fingers remained in their steady rhythm.

Elena had closed her eyes with a throaty cry bursting forward while the man above her continued to fingerfuck her and made slow pulls at her lips. Her hips were pressing back against his palm in timed thrusts and the engorged flesh of her clit rocked against the slick palm of his hand.

With a building tension in her muscles, Elena's cries were now echoing in the small room when her orgasm was finally rising to the surface. The older man's name became a prayer she chanted as she climbed.

The hand in her hair slid back down her neck as Chris continued to work his other hand inside her. His breaths were mingling with hers as he gave a groan at her pleading sounds. Once or twice, he would lower the hand at her neck and place it on the ground to hitch his own hips up to press his still clothed cock into her backside.

Elena's body shuddered in force when the crash of her climax had her biting down on Chris' lip and jerking her hips in time with the clenching walls of her core.

Chris was humming into her mouth as her body clamped tightly around his fingers. His fingers eventually came to a gentle stop after her body slowed its spasming.

Tears were clouding Elena's eyes as she came down from her height and allowed Chris to continue kissing her slowly while she tried to catch her breath. Her now limp body was fully leaning back into his.

Chris' hand was pulling away from her now dripping core when it slipped under her left knee and pulled her leg across the other so that her body was turning in his lap. When she was straddled against him with her hands pushing into his chest, he twirled a finger around a lock of her hair and gave a light tug that beckoned her forward.

At this moment, Elena wanted to kneel. He may not know what it meant, or maybe he did—There was power given in submission.

"Please let me have more." She whispered as she kissed his heart through his lips.

With fingers curling into her back, Chris' trembling breath hit her when he rested his forehead against hers.

"I'm finding I can't say 'no' to you." His deep voice dipped low and rested beneath her fevered skin.

Elena was rising on her knees before she would slowly sink back down on his lap and tease the erection she knew was straining below her. Her hands were running down Chris' sides when she found the hem of his shirt and began to push it up the well-defined chest of the man before her.

The shirt was flung to the ground when Elena set her palms on the skin of Chris' chest. Her eyes were lingering on the various scars that stood out as white lines and grooves across his flesh. Her fingers would linger against one before she leaned down and kissed the history he had littered there.

Warm hands were on her shoulders when Chris pushed his coat down her arms and left her completely bare atop him.

Elena couldn't stop the ragged breaths escaping her lips as she took in the sight of the man before her.

One of Chris' hands wrapped around the one she was using to trace his skin with and brought her fingers up to his mouth to place a gentle kiss to the tips.

The small act drew Elena's gaze back to his but also sent a searing pang through her heart at the way he was staring at her now.

His eyes were hungry, commanding, and all-consuming, but much like when she had surveyed him first in the forest, there was something else living beneath the hunger and desire.

Elena was leaning forward and pressing her chest into his when she kissed him again. Their previous position hadn't allowed her a decent range of motion, and now she was truly sealing her mouth to his when her hand sunk into the hair at his nape.

Hands were scooping under her thighs before he hefted her higher on his stomach and wrapped her legs behind him. He suddenly rose to his feet with ease.

"Hold on to me." He rasped breathlessly.

When she circled her arms around his neck, his hands slipped below her, and she heard the telltale sound of a belt buckle being undone. His eyes were alight with want as he continued to watch her. He let out a soft sound when she was kissing him once more and the sound of his boots being kicked off and fabric falling below them reached her ears.

He was walking her over to the wooden chair he had sat in earlier, and without a strain to his toned and muscled form, he was sitting them both in the chair when Elena's slender frame slid back onto his lap and the warm flesh of his cock hit against her backside.

Elena opened her eyes when hands were weaving back in her hair.

"Is this still what you want?" Chris asked breathlessly.

In response, Elena slid her feet to the ground beside the chair and lifted herself above his lap. With a reach, she gripped him in her palm and gave a small squeeze to his base. Guiding the tip to her entrance, she held his gaze as she began to sink inch by inch astride him.

"You feel, taste, and smell so good that I don't know how I could ever want anything else." She whispered into his ear before she took his ear lobe into her mouth.

"Fuck." Chris hissed out.

His burning hands were twitching on either side of her hips when she allowed gravity to pull her weight the rest of the way onto him.

Elena was beside herself as she tilted her head back and placed her hands behind her on Chris' thighs. Her torso stretched back with her hair dangling over his knees while she rolled and lifted her hips at a maddingly slow pace.

Chris' wet mouth was sealing itself over her left nipple while he used his grip on her hips to push and pull her down onto his length.

"Perfect girl." Chris breathed into her skin when his fingers tightened on her.

Elena was leaning back up in his lap when she reached for his shoulders and brought herself down with a hard snap against his hips. Chris' fingers were digging in her lower back when a strangled noise left his throat.

Hips rose again before she slammed back down on her beautiful stranger's lap and the ragged breaths slipping from her throat told the story of a hunger that was burning through her. The smell of his skin and the feel of him inside her was driving forth her next whispered pleas.

"Chris," She was whimpering up to him, not quite knowing what she needed but she knew she wanted to remember the evidence of his hands on her. "I want to feel you tomorrow when I sit, when I move—Please, Chris, please—"

Chris was standing with the clatter of the chair knocking over behind him. With a forearm beneath her once more, he was holding her tightly to his hips when he reached over and slid over the books and cups that had been strewn about the small wooden table in the home.

With a slap of feet to the ground, Elena was lowered to the floor, and felt empty when she slid off of him. The mouth that crashed down onto hers was a command within itself and Elena was stumbling back before she reached up to cup his handsome face.

"Turn around." He rumbled in a pant.

Elena pulled her lips from his and turned on the spot with a curtain of dark hair billowing out around her.

"Hands on the table."

Elena's already rapidly beating heart was kicking up in her excitement and a shiver rolled through her spine at the command. She complied by placing her hands on the table and glancing back at him from over shoulder.

Chris' foot was kicking one of her feet out to widen her stance when his large hand was sliding into her lower back and slowly pushing her upper half into a bow. It was a practiced move and Elena was wondering, not for the first time, what he was capable of.

"Don't remove your hands unless I tell you, Elena."

"Yes, sir." She whispered.

Chris let out another hissing breath when he stepped up behind her and pushed the head of his cock between her soaking folds. A hand was tangling in her hair and turning her face to his when he leaned over her small frame and paused.

"Remember, tell me to stop if I hurt you." Searing lips were marking a path up her shoulder as he spoke. Fingers were flexing at her thighs like predators that waited in the tall grass.

When she nodded, Chris released her hair and slammed inside all at once with one quick thrust. Elena's nails dragged against the wood of the table before she threw her head back and screamed.

The pace that Chris began to set was a brutal and unrelenting tempo. The sound of his flesh slapping against hers was mixing in with their shared panting breaths. The strength behind Chris' powerful thrusts was unforgiving. Elena's eyes disappeared behind her lids and rolled back when she began to meet the thrusts in kind. Her voice was going hoarse from the sounds ripping through her throat.

"You're so wet." Chris' guttural voice made her eyes open and turn her head back over her shoulder. "Do you like being handled so roughly? Did you like me telling you what to do?"

When she pleaded out her affirmation, Elena felt him shudder behind her and the hands pressed into her flesh were made to bruise.

His palm slid beneath her right thigh and Elena let out a startled gasp when he yanked her leg from the floor. With her knee bent and lifted, he pushed in at a whole new angle that rubbed against her inner walls in a way that he hadn't before.

"Put that knee on the table." He ordered meeting the gaze she had on him from over her shoulder.

Elena did as she was told and turned her head back forward, bowing her head as she was jostled from the force of his thrusts.

His large bicep crossed over her chest and pulled her further back into him while his other hand slid from her hip and down to where their bodies met. With a scoop of her arousal at where they were joined, fingers were cupping her and rubbing her arousal into her overly sensitive skin. Slick digits were circling her clit once more as he thrusts remained in deep, short snaps of his hips.

He panted into her ear, "Come for me again and I'll let you rest."

Elena was rising on her tippy toes with her one knee digging into the top of the table when the circles to her clit became tighter. The harsh breathing behind her let her know how close he already was, and she basked in the sounds she was pulling from him when she began to tighten in her impending release.

Curses were slipping softly from Chris' mouth before he bit softly into the meat of her shoulder.

The muscles in Elena's legs locked before her whole body tightened in climax. The pleas died in her throat as the fall stole her breath.

Chris waited until her quivering heat stopped pulsating before he removed his hand from her wet folds and pulled out of her completely.

He pulled her knee down gently and put her foot back to the floor. Twisting her to face him, he was hauling her to the edge of the table before he was inside her once more. Curling her legs around his hips, he was bowing her back while he chased his own release. Hands were in her hair as he held her upturned, panting face below his.

Elena wasn't sure if she had ever seen a more beautiful sight.

"You're mine, sweet girl." Lips at her ear declared before his trailing mouth kissed down to her cheek to the corner of her mouth.

With his mouth partially open, she watched when his body succumbed to hers in a final shudder.

When he came to a stop, he reached and placed his hands on the outside of hers on the table.

Elena let out a soft laugh and tried to steady her shaking breath while Chris remained inside her. When his mouth laid soft kisses to the corner of her mouth, she pulled him closer with the legs she still had wrapped around his powerful hips.

Chris was pulling her into his arms and off the table before he was murmuring praises in his ear.

Elena tilted her head back, looked up into the face of her stranger she had met in the dead of night while in the snow on her knees. The smile she gave him was all teeth.

Chris lifted her chin and let out the same huffing laugh he had when he had met her.

"Beautiful." His focus drifted toward the reddened hips he had been gripping earlier. "Are you alright?"

"Thoroughly ruined." She replied with a happy hum. His responding smirk was that of male pride.

His body was turning them both toward the orange blanket in front of the fire.

With a wordless descent, he was sitting them back in front of the roaring flames with her draped sideways across his lap. He was using the corner of the blanket to clean them both up.

Elena was staring up at him when he settled them fully on the ground. She reached up and stroked his cheek before she leaned in to kiss him but paused a few paces away. It struck her that she wasn't sure if he wanted her continued affection after the act and she was blinking worriedly as if she had made a mistake.

Chris shifted the arm she had laid back against and brought her closer with ease. His lips were pulling at hers slowly this time around, and he seemed to take time exploring her mouth. Soon he was sitting back and glancing out the window at the far end of the room.

"You should rest once more before the dawn breaks." He spoke softly to her then.

"Will you lay with me this time?" She asked just as softly.

"I will." He said as he pushed a hand through the hair at her temple. "You were incredible, Elena."

She was leaning in to kiss the top portion of his bare chest when she said, "Thank you for being mine for just a little while, Chris."

That winter gaze was studying her so intently, she almost feared for a moment she had made an error in referring to him as hers.

"Someone told me it was fate." He finally said.

"Too bad you don't believe in fate, right?"

"Don't need to when I have you in front of me." His answering slow smile was a crescent in the light of the fire and Elena didn't know if she'd ever be the same after her encounter with him. "Might be something I revisit. Daily."

Elena gave a sad smile against his lips when she held him tighter. If what he said was true, she would depart her home in the morning and more than likely, it would also be the last time she would see him. She had sought his comfort and he had given it, but to expect anything more would be foolish of her.

Their story was past the horizon.

This time, when Elena fell asleep, her nose lay in the crook of his neck, and she fell into her dreams with his scent in her very soul.

---

Chris wasn't beside her when she woke to the faint light of a cloudy dawn creeping in through the far window across the room. Elena caught sight of him walking past the window outside.

The sheet slipped down her bare shoulders when she sat up and finally stood. Her clothes had been laid out over a rack fastened for dishes in the kitchen. They were no longer wet, but the torn strands of clothing in her fingers brought her world slamming down once again.

She would be leaving today. She'd be leaving it all behind and she had nothing more than the dirty attire she had fled in.

Tears welled and rolled down her cheeks and she was pressing her hand-sewn shirt into her face when the door behind her opened with a gusting breeze.

"Elena?" Chris' voice sounded behind her before she heard the door shut once more. "Hey, come here."

Thumbs were pushing her tears away before she was pulled into his chest. He seemed to understand, and it was his fingers that pried the ragged strips of cloth from her hand and was speaking softly into her ear until she felt strong enough to speak.

Standing still with her stranger's arms upon her skin, Elena Lupu mourned the home she would never see again. The sensation of loneliness was like a knife she could decide to keep clenched in her teeth or a blade she could wear between her ribs for the rest of her life.

Loneliness was the human condition.

When she spoke, it was a broken sound. When she spoke, the man before her held her tighter while his lips pressed into the crown of her head. When she spoke of home, he listened.

Home had been the delicate smells of cooking food while her father's guffawing laugh echoed in the background from something she had said. Home were the people who held her hands when they prayed and then ate in honor of health. Home was the sounds of chatter while she worked alongside the women she had grown up whispering secrets in the dark to. Home was the crack of stones they had to replace along the boundaries every few months to keep the rituals intact.

When he finally spoke, it was of a home he had lost a long time ago. Of streets filled with death and the last portions of forgiveness that went with it. His words were delicate and measured when he allowed her to say goodbye in the only way she knew how.

When Elena Lupu finally pulled away and put her clothes back on, she took one last look at the shelter they had used before she took her stranger's hand and walked out into the morning of the mountain pass.

While Elena walked, she took the generations of people in Brașov County with her, and she tried not to look back.

---

The Lily of the Valley flowers were spread amongst the uneven terrain surrounding the road toward the snow-capped Făgăraș Mountains. The buds of the well-known and poisonous flower were closed but the stems stood strong in the frozen soil among the towering, empty trees that surrounded it. They were one of the only flowers that could withstand the cold temperatures in Romania and were often used in the village to treat burns and reduce scarring to the first few layers of the skin.

The snow was falling in great clumps around them as they both padded higher up on the mountainside. The porous nature of snow created a code of silence that Elena had always enjoyed as a small child. The world around them was held an eerie quiet that was only interrupted by their crunching steps and the wind that would gust through the pointed, bare tips of the trees.

Elena brushed her hand against the stems of the Lily of the Valley flowers as she walked past. The black coat Chris had given to her once again caught slightly due to the oversized sleeves. With a tug, the young woman was yanking the material from the plant and quickly catching up to Chris who was walking slightly ahead.

She looked back toward the flowers and try as she might, she couldn't stop the memory they brought.

Her father, Leonardo Lupu, had been a blacksmith and between his love for drink and laughter among friends, he could often be found in his forge making nails, iron hinges, copper cauldrons, horseshoes, and knives.

Generations of Lupu's had been passing down the knowledge of the forge. The most prized possession in the Lupu home was the forge blower that had sat in the same position for years. Leonardo had many reasons to be proud in his life, but none would argue that he would always get a special look in his eye when he was working with his hands above the fires… and when his daughter would make him laugh.

Elena could still hear the clinking of tools in her mind after her father placed something into the fire to heat up the material; He would reapply the metals into the flames while constantly supplying the fire with the forge blower. The old hammer could be heard shaping his projects well into the nights.

Full generations of men and women had swung that hammer.

By the young age of 9, Elena had learned how to forge every item while under his watchful eye. When she wasn't in his shop babbling about her curiosities, she was standing in the doorway, reading out loud about different places she had found in the world. He would shoo her away in the mornings to get to her duties; she had been part of the foraging group that assisted the healers and cooks.

"I love you, papa!"

"And I love you, Elena. More than the flowers need sunshine."

The surrounding woodlands in Brașov County were a natural climax vegetation that existed below the mountain tree lines and varied in the flora it harbored. Bedrocks, soils, and degrees of drainage all played a role in the different areas one had to know as a forager.

Elena had found it to be tedious work, but it had also allowed her mind to wander beyond their lands and imagine a different world.

Naturally, her father had expected her to take over the forge. She would continue to supply the village with their metal work in trade for providing for her family. She would marry off to one of the men in her village, pop out children, and then teach them to do the same. It was an honorable cycle. One that worked and carried on a legacy that followed with a tombstone inscription each Lupu had in the graveyard. Lupu was one of the oldest surviving families in their region.

It was also a cage for the curious mind.

"'Obedience breeds discipline, discipline breeds unity, unity breeds power.'" Chris' baritone interrupted her thoughts. "How do you know that moto?"

Chris had slowed his stride and waited for her to catch up when he spoke.

Elena blinked away the moisture at her lids and cleared her throat while she considered the question.

Elena's brows scrunched when she glanced up at him. He had been contemplative while they had begun their trek up toward wherever it was that they would be meeting someone. Elena hadn't minded as her thoughts felt heavier with each step she took.

Hearing the phrase on his lips that Mother Miranda would often have them repeat sounded strange, but his question was even more strange.

"That is the motto of our village." She said, meeting his curious stare. "For two generations now, that's what we have lived by. Mother Miranda promised us grandiose things with her teachings; it was nothing more than a leash for our people, in case you were curious."

"So, this is an older saying?" He was asking as his boots fell into step beside hers. One of his brows arched upwards in a tick at her sassy tone.

Elena glanced at the device that was attached to his ear. She had noticed it when he had stepped into the house that morning.

Their village had used different electronic devices, but more of the advanced equipment was saved for the lords and the lady.

"Yes. We have books from our first devotions. The earliest date I can think of that being recorded was somewhere around 1921. Why do you ask?" She inquired while she recalled his reaction to the first time she had quoted the moto in front of him.

"Have you ever heard of the Umbrella Corporation?" He asked instead.

"No," She was shaking her head and watching when he looked away from her and seemed to return back into his own thoughts. "What is that?"

"Pharmaceutical company that made bioweapons." He answered.

Elena touched his arm at a truth he finally exposed.

"It's a long story, but I've heard that moto before. Never knew where it came from, but it's an odd coincidence." He finished when he glanced back at her, touched her hand, and then let it drop back to his side.

"Will you tell me the story one day?" Her heart broke as she asked. She knew he didn't mean to stay in her life. "About your home and what you have to do?"

Before he could respond, the crackle of branches sounded out in the air before them. Crunching steps followed soon after and Elena peered into the trees on her right when figures began to appear.

Five moving shapes were pushing through the thicket of falling snow and were slitting through the weaving tree trunks as they moved in a formation. They moved like a pack of wolves, with one leading, and the other four in pairs: creating a V-like structure.

With her first impression, Elena thought them to be monsters. The dome-like arrangement of their heads stole the human shape she was used to seeing in her world. Circular, shimmering portions of the face resembled 4 eyes in a straight, lateral line.

Elena was stepping in front of Chris with a frown. Her hand was tightening on the fire iron she had taken from the home they had used.

"Relax," Chris said with a twinge of humor when he touched the back of her neck. His leather glove was cold, and it caused her to jump before she looked up at him. "They're with me."

"Alpha, good to see you again. You went dark." One of them spoke. The one who had been leading. It was a woman's voice that came from the creature-like face.

Elena let out a small laugh as they all came closer. She hadn't been completely ignorant to the attire of military men and women, but she had only ever seen them in her books. Their domed heads and strange eyes revealed themselves to be helmets. Still, given what she had seen, she didn't see her reaction as wrong.

"Got caught up." Chris' reply sounded a little strained even to her ears, and she was glancing back with a shy smile before her eyes returned the five.

"I'll bet, Cap'n." The man to the far right said with a small chuckle. His voice was accented differently, and Elena found herself stepping forward to introduce herself.

"Elena Lupu, meet my team." Chris was stepping up with her as he viewed the men and the one woman present.

"Umber Eyes, at your service." One said as he gave a small incline of the helmet.

"Canine." The crisp voice came from the other. He gave a small shoulder roll as he adjusted his gun.

"Night Howl. I hope you took care of our captain for us. He looks well rested." The accented one said. Chris gave a sigh at her side.

"Lobo, a pleasure, ma'am." This one gave a little finger wave and Elena giggled into her hand.

"Tundra." The woman's voice sounded out last. Her amusement was barely detectable.

"Wolf pack names." Elena said softly when her eyes caught on the symbol at one of their chests. Her eyes scanned over each of them. They were all wearing it. "What is this?"

Elena was taking steps up to Night Howl when her fingers reached out and touched the symbol at his breast.

"Hound Wolf Squad, ma'am." Night Howl replied. His head was tilting a bit.

"Don't." Chris' voice sounded off behind her.

Night Howl chuckled and Elena thought she could see a mouth grinning beneath the cloth he had over the lower portion of his face. Night Howl gave a shrug of his shoulders and Elena knew she had missed something between the two men.

"We've got eyes on the secondary. Primary target has been marked. Orders?" Tundra asked while she was shifting on her feet.

"I'll catch up. Is our transport ready?" Chris asked.

"It is. They weren't expecting that call. Naturally suspicious. They're still waiting on a designation."

"C5." Chris answered after a pause and glance at Elena. "Move out. I'll be up shortly."

"Rodger."
"Got it."
"Aye."
"Hmm."
"Copy that, Captain."

The five were pushing past and returning to their formation. They became a blur through the trees before they disappeared from sight.

Elena's mind had been whirling when she felt Chris' eyes on the side of her face. She turned to him and found a look she hadn't quite seen from him yet. Fear was curling in her gut, and she found herself attaching to details like she always did when she was nervous.

"That insignia—Where does it hail from?" She asked.

Chris was advancing toward her and holstering the weapon he had been carrying since they started the trek.

"From me." He said while watching her expression. "It was a name and an idea I had when I started this taskforce."

"A white wolf's head." She said quietly while staring up at him. "Have you ever seen the Dacian flag, Chris?"

"No." The silence of the surrounding snow made his gentle reply seem louder in her ears.

With a swallow, Elena licked her lips and nodded. "The Dacian flag was created to instill fear in its enemies. Their symbol was the heart of this country, and the army of Dacia were said to be trained with the loyalty of wolves. The symbol was the head of the White Wolf on the body of a dragon. The head of the wolf was to signify what still protected these lands, while it's said that the dragon represents the coiling body of the Carpathian mountain range—the west with its tail, the black sea."

Chris was silent while he watched her.

"Funny that you chose the head of a white wolf." She whispered when she pushed in close to him.

"Interesting that you travel with those in the names of a wolf pack." She pecked his lips and smiled sweetly up at him before biting his lower lip lightly.

"Appropriate that it would be you I found in the forest, Chris." She pulled her face away.

Elena was blinking flakes of snow from her eyes when she gave a small laugh at the curling smile that was lifting one side of his face. The hands she placed on his chest were swallowed by her borrowed coat.

"You may not believe in fate, 'Alpha'." She said gently up toward him. "But fate surely believes in you."

---

The hulking thing that sat at the base of the mountain brought a new kind of fear to Elena's gut. She had never ridden in anything but a car in her entire life. She had climbed a tree once before she had promptly fallen out of it at age 12. She was also certain that she had never been higher than three stories in her life.

The helicopter before her now looked like the large dragonfly she had seen in picture books. The two dome-like glass portions of the windshield bubbled out around a rounded nose-looking front. A long tail with a tiny looking propeller at its tip.

A person was moving inside, and they lifted a hand from behind the glass, a splay of five fingers.

Five minutes.

They didn't have much time left together.

Elena was turning towards her stranger, and that odd expression was on his face again.

"Where will I go?" She asked in a small voice.

"There's a program that will handle your details. You'll have a caseworker that will expedite you into the system and get you resources." He answered instantly—as if he'd said that a few times before.

"Alright," She was nodding before her eyes caught on the lapel of the coat she was still wearing. She began to slide it off her shoulders.

"Keep it." Chris said before he stepped up toward her. His eyes were boring into hers. "I'll just have to come get it from you."

"Do you promise?" Hope was a double-edged sword.

The tears she had been working so hard to keep back all morning were pouring from her eyes.

"I'll always come for what's mine." Fingers beneath her chin. He wasn't talking about the coat.

And still the tears fell. Tears for the people who were lost to a blind faith that ended in blood and servitude. To the father that lay beneath the smoking rubble of a soon to be forgotten village. To the man who had touched her so sweetly and taken her heart when she hadn't been looking.

Elena now knew what the strange look had been. He had given it to her several times before and at first it had seemed out of place, but she had expected that given the situation. As the hours passed, she knew it to be the expression of a man who was torn between duty and something much harder for near strangers to define. He had given her the look first when she had asked him to run away with her.

"I'll keep the coffee waiting for you when you do." She sobbed softly before she placed her arms around him one more time.

Chris was a bear of a man. Each and every time he had held her, she had seemed to disappear into his much larger frame. As he held her now, Elena wanted nothing more than to protect him.

While her future still seemed largely uncertain, he still had to go back into the nightmare and end it. She knew she couldn't keep him any longer.

"Thank you," She said when she lifted her head from his chest. "For everything. Stay safe."

"Elena…" He said but stopped and clenched his jaw. The hand at her back was tangling in her hair.

Leaning forward, she placed a last kiss to his cheek before she said in her mother tongue, "Iti dau inima mea, Chris."

Stepping from her stranger, she gave a watery smile before she turned on her booted heel and climbed into the helicopter.

Chris was still standing at the tree line when the beast of a machine rose into the sky. She watched him until his figure disappeared from the swirling vortex of the snow.

Elena whispered a goodbye to both her land, her heart, and turned toward her new life while she clutched the double-edged surface that was her lingering hope.

---

Umber Eyes adjusted the SA110 Sniper Rifle when he heard the steps of his silent captain behind him. He had known Chris Redfield for years and it never surprised him how the talented captain never learned how to disguise his gait.

Umber Eyes swung up the precision rifle and rose from his kneel when he turned to greet the captain.

"Report." Chris kept his voice low from their position in the mid-terrain.

They were just upon the reservoir, but Umber Eyes had been instructed to wait and provide cover as the other four had descended toward the river to begin obtaining sample analysis.

"A lot of movement recently," Umber Eyes was studying the usual sharp look of his long-time friend. "Something, or rather, someone has agitated the river lord. Ethan passed through not too long ago. He had been at the castle up until recently."

The captain let out a long sigh and nodded. "Gonna get himself killed. We're going to have to figure out how to remove him from the area."

"Might be better to have him assist us." Umber Eyes suggested while he glanced down at the rifle in his hands once more. The weapon was a favorite of his and had been received by the SR-25 by Knight's Armament Company, for the US Army. "He's not going to just step aside with his daughter in enemy hands."

"Well, he'll just have to figure it out. You know why we don't ask civilians to assist anymore." His captain was walking past. "Let's go."

Umber Eyes didn't miss much; it was why he was here in the first place, after all. Their captain had been known for his cutting words, his temper, but also for the dedication he made to avoid casualties. Still, there was an added layer to the man at the moment and Umber Eyes took in his still absent coat.

"C5 designation." Umber Eyes recalled his captain's transport for the girl—Elena—and watched his long-time friend pause. "That's reserved for—"

"Leave it alone." Chris cut him off before his stride started up again. The familiar sound of his gait was drifting off toward the Riverland and toward their objective soon after.

Umber Eyes was packing up his equipment when he heard the telltale sounds of the brush moving behind him. He was spinning with his secondary weapon and aiming toward the noise. Nothing moved from the densely packed area.

He had set up his post near the shadow of the mountain. What little light the Romanian winters got on this side of the mountain was still hidden behind the clouds and it provided the adequate darkness for what Umber Eyes required.

The sound emitted again and this time it was to his direct left. Umber Eyes turned and felt his grip slightly slacken.

Tawny, large orange eyes were staring at him from beneath the branches. The gaze of the massive animal was unblinking and seemed to radiate their own unique glow that contrasted heavily with the darkness around them.

The wolf was huge, larger than he'd ever seen. He deduced that he'd be able to get off a few shots, but his sniper rifle may be the only gun that would drop the animal before his throat would be torn out. Umber Eyes hesitated with the sniper rifle hanging from his side. He'd have precious few seconds once he made the first move.

The mouth of the animal opened, and gleaming white teeth flashed when the animal panted. The dark orange eyes were shifting then, and with a great turn, the creature was pulling back into the brush and blending back into its surroundings. The flash of white fur caught against the brown of the shrubs and then the animal was gone.

The steps of its following pack were all around him as unseen wolves followed their alpha and descended down the terrain.

"Jesus Christ." Umber Eyes muttered to himself quietly.

The MARSOC sniper was following shortly after his captain. He didn't see the white wolf again as the night went on, but he thought he caught the orange eyes in the corner of his vision once or twice.

Oddly enough, it wasn't fear that he felt when he did.

---

Buffalo, Wyoming, USA was a strange place for a Romanian village girl.

Despite the comments made by her caseworker, Elena wasn't convinced by the woman's charm. Buffalo felt huge in comparison to where she was from, and she didn't care if it wasn't considered to be one of the larger cities in America.

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) had gone through the paperwork quickly—not that Elena would have known. The commentary from her caseworker was a good indicator for how long the process could actually take.

Due to a portion of her paperwork, the tiny man in the office with large eyeglasses had paused after her helicopter had arrived.

"I'll need to make a phone call really quickly." He told her as he folded up her case file and stood. "Please excuse me."

She was transferred into a room shortly after. It was hours before the door had opened again.

"Ms. Lupu?" A new voice asked as an older man walked in and gently closed the door behind him.

"Yes, sir." She responded as she stood. She held her hand out to shake—another piece of information she had learned in her books; American's had rituals with their formalities. She wasn't one to judge though.

When their hands dropped, the man was taking a seat opposite of her and settling down into the chair.

"Thank you for waiting. I was held up at the airport." The man explained as he pushed hair from his eyes and opened her file in front of him.

Her file had become very thick in a short amount of time.

"And you are?" She asked, taking a seat herself.

"Leon, Leon Kennedy. I'm a Federal Agent of the Division of Security Operations." The man—Leon said with an apologetic smile. "We needed to make a few adjustments to your case. You're not one of our usual refugees."

"No," She agreed as she thought once more to her home. "I suspect I wouldn't be. I'm sorry to have made you travel so far—"

Leon waved his hand when he spoke, cutting her off, "Don't worry about it. There's a special screening for those fleeing bioterrorism events."

"Is that why you're here? You handle all refugee cases for bioterrorism?"

The man before her was good looking in a very classical sense. His hair was kept in a stylish cut, but much like her stranger, he had a weight behind his eyes that spoke to a more personal nature of what he did.

"Not exactly," Leon answered hesitantly. "You're a little bit more unique considering your protection level."

"Is that different from your other refugees?" She asked.

"All refugees fleeing from bioterrorism are treated with a higher protection clause." He explained as he tapped the pen that he had pulled from the file on the desk between them. "Yours was given a higher status by the residing captain overseeing the affected area."

Elena was silent while she waited to further understand. Her hands were becoming sweaty in her lap.

"Captain Chris Redfield has updated your status. You will be given a little more protection and offered services while you're here. All individuals with such a designation get audited from my department. I happen to know Chris, so I took this on out of..." He trailed off for a second before he finished. "…curiosity."

Chris Redfield. He was a 'stranger' no more. Elena opened her mouth to test it out on her tongue before she stopped. Leon hadn't missed the action.

"Do you know why Captain Redfield would give you an elevated status?" Leon pressed as he stopped tapping the pen in his hand.

"I don't even know what that means, Mr. Kennedy." She whispered.

Leon's eyes were going to the oversized coat on her shoulders and Elena suddenly felt exposed. Her fear for Chris was mounting. Had he made a mistake in her paperwork? Would he be punished for it?

"It's just Leon, Ms. Lupu." He said in a gentler tone before he sat back in his chair. "Your designation is reserved for affected families of the U.S. agents and task force soldiers—families of the men, women, and people who serve in this job. Their families are protected under extreme measures."

"Chris saved my life, Leon. A few times. He was kind and made sure I didn't do anything stupid. I'm sure he'd have done this for anyone who needed it." Elena wouldn't be revealing much more about their time. Her loyalty to Chris had already been cemented and the new information was confusing for her.

"No," Leon said as he studied her for a moment. "He wouldn't. Captain Redfield has been doing this for a long time and has sent us many refugees. Not quite at this level though."

Elena remained silent this time. She and the agent continued to stare at one another before Leon's head was dropping down. His hand was moving along the page of the top document.

"Approved." Leon said when his signature was finished. He stood and gave her an odd smile. "Welcome to America, Ms. Lupu."

---

The Big Horn Mountains lay directly behind the large house that had been assigned to Elena. In the sun, they glistened with their intermingling colors from the rock faces. If she tried, she could almost picture them as the mountains that had surrounded her own home.

The house itself was a little way off the road, set upon acres of free, unplotted land. It was a large, Victorian vernacular brick house. The roof was gabled with a main side gable intersected with smaller front and rear gables.

It was beautiful.

Inside, the interior plan featured a central hall with a living room on one side and a parlor on the other. The stairs to the upper story were in the central hall. The kitchen and pantry were in the rear. Three bedrooms were located on the upper story.

It was also too big for her.

Elena hadn't had this much living space in her entire life. The house had come furnished, but the pantry, dresser, bathroom, and many areas of the house had been left unstocked.

Her caseworker, a rail thin woman who reeked of smoke and was named Debra, had mentioned that they would need to go shopping. It would be Elena's first experience purchasing something in a different country and so the woman would need to show her what items to buy and how to manage a new currency.

The clerk—as they called them here—was kind enough as they took their time counting out the money for Elena. The young woman couldn't help the red staining her cheeks when curious onlookers stared without shame.

The caseworker had made sure Elena had filled out her Form I-94 and Form I-765. Effectively, she had been cleared to find work in the town upon her arrival.

"Great!" Debra, the caseworker, said while they sat at a local café for their very first weekly meeting. Elena had been in America for three days. "Now, you can either start looking for work, or you can pursue an education through our program. I suppose it depends on the income for your program—It's just you in the house, right?"

"Just me." Elena confirmed while she pushed the strange food around on her plate. "I get money for being here?"

The thought put a sour taste into her mouth; she didn't want to take money that she could easily earn. Her family had always earned their own way.

"Yes, indeed." Debra chirped before popping a French fry into her mouth. She was typing away on her computer she had propped up on the linoleum counter. Her briefcase was propped messily against her ankle. "Every refugee receives 8 months of Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) from the date of their U.S. arrival. The RCA amounts vary based on the size of the family though. For you, you'd get about $230 a month."

Debra frowned, blinked a few times, and stared at her computer screen.

Elena was nodding as she played with the tail-end of the French braid she had put her hair into. The brown braid was pulled over her right shoulder and was starting to fall out at different levels.

"This can't be right." Debra was muttering to herself while she fumbled around in the purse she had leaned against her other ankle. "Let me make a call really fast."

Elena propped her chin on her hand and stared out of the window to the street. The buildings in the area had reminded her of old western movies she had seen. They were all two or three storied, brick buildings. Boxy in shape, but all differences aside, there was something quaint about the shopping district that Elena liked.

People were passing in streams outside the window.

That pang reverberated in her chest when she realized it reminded her of market days back home. Where the different areas of the village would open their lands and meet in the middle of the square to make trades. Her father had especially loved the river district items.

"So," Debra said as she pushed back into the café but paused and lowered her voice when she sat back at the table. "You have a little bit more than I told you."

"I won't be using much." Elena said, straightening up. "I'll get a job somewhere. I don't want to use someone else's money."

"Well, to be frank, you're going to need to at least use a little bit of the money that's been allocated to you. We still need to buy you a few things and you'll have rent to pay by next month." Debra explained gently.

"Rent?" Elena asked with a furrowed brow.

"Welcome home, Elena." Debra laughed.

---

The new clothes Debra had helped Elena purchase were nice enough, but she still wasn't used to the way jeans clung to the body. Women had been discouraged from wearing pants in the village, but it hadn't been against any specific rule to do so.

Elena shoved cold hands in her pockets as the February winter air blew through the streets around her. She had departed from the café with Debra with a small wave. It had only taken her two days to navigate the pathways in which to walk to her too-big house.

The sound of a jingle caught her attention and Elena was lifting her head to see two men walking from a nearby building. Her eye caught on the attire that one man wore and she stopped in her tracks to see the familiar sight of a full-bodied, leather apron. Outfits that blacksmiths wore.

Her hazel eyes were drifting up toward the top of the building when she took in the words Arrowhead Forge School of Blacksmithing.

One of the men was hollering out his departure when the blacksmith was turning back toward the doors.

"Excuse me, sir!" Elena called in a pant as she trotted across the street.

The man was older, with long hair tied into a low ponytail that sat between his shoulder blades. Dark eyes were turning to her as she came up.

"What can I do for you, young lady?" He asked with a slight smile.

"I was curious, sir. Are you a full operational forge?" She asked.

"We are," He said with a grin. "Are you interested in classes?"

Elena smiled then, "No, but I was wondering if you had any jobs available?"

The man was blinking and frowned slightly, "And, I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Elena Lupu, sir. I just moved here."

"John Borty, but just call me Borty. I don't really need anyone at the moment but—"

"Mr. Borty—Borty, I really need this, but more than that…I—" Elena began to tell him her story.

She told him of her father, her grandfather, and the ones all before that. She was careful not to reveal the reason why she had immigrated here—Debra had warned her against that—but she did tell him that she had escaped war and blacksmithing was something she could most certainly do in honor of the lost.

Borty had listened while he had ushered her into the school. A few people looked up as they had entered, but Elena paid them no mind while she spoke.

Borty had begun to fire off questions about blacksmithing, as if to test her.

Elena had answered every single one. The proud smile of Leonardo Lupu flashed in her mind.

She would start next week. The school had been in need of someone to create more tools for the students who were signing up for the spring classes. Small amounts of commission items were ordered through locals and a few online, but those orders were usually saved for the other two instructors that worked at the Arrowhead Forge.

It was in the second month that Elena had decided to ask Debra about the educational program which she could sign up for.

"Don't worry honey," The big woman with the curly blonde hair told her at the Admissions office for the local campus. "We have a few people that come here from underserved communities. You'll start in the lower-level classes and be where you want in a few years, alright?"

Math hadn't been difficult; numbers were the same no matter where you were in the world. English, and science had been another story.

Elena had grown up knowing how to speak four languages. Most everyone did with the backgrounds of the different communities. Although she could speak Hungarian, Romani, Ukrainian, and English, she didn't quite know how to write in all of them. English had been one of the harder ones.

While sitting on the patio for a local coffee shop, Elena stared down at the assessment scores she had been given and she felt frustration welling behind her eyes. When the barista had set her cup of coffee down, she jolted and thanked her with a watery smile.

As hard as she tried, Elena hadn't been able to find a bad cup of coffee since she had been there. All of them were delicious.

A man on the street passed and Elena paused the beverage at her lips. Grey blue eyes caught in the sun, a flutter of dark hair—the man turned his attention to her and smiled.

Elena looked away. It was never him. Every single time she thought it was, someone else was staring back at her.

Diverting her eyes to the many customers sitting out on the patio and walking in the street, Elena was struck again with that living entity of loneliness that came for her in the nights.

Borty and the others had been a comfort. They all had been welcoming enough and were genuinely interested in some of the techniques she had brought into the forge and her culture along with it.

However, not everyone in the town had been pleased with her appearance. Along with the nasty whispers she heard when she passed, she had also woken up to dead animals that had been placed at her doorstep.

Squirrels, rabbits, gophers, and even a dead mountain lion had been lying at her door on some mornings.

"Go back to your own country!"

Elena had cried silently when she had dug the holes with her bare hands. The hateful whispers filled her mind when she pushed the dead animals into a shallow grave.

"And what kind of company do you want?" Chris' voice echoed through her mind.

Standing from the patio of the coffee shop, Elena was dumping her coffee into the trash when the answer pierced through her heart and threatened to tear from her throat.

---

The blue 2009 Ford Explorer was kicking up dust on the tiny winding road to her house when the sun was beginning to set. Elena pulled the vehicle to an easy stop in her driveway and shut the engine down.

The soft sounds of the windchimes she had hung from the porch were tinging away when the engine was cut off. The light she left on in the foyer was glowing faintly through the rose-colored curtains she had hung up a few months ago.

The rest of the windows in view were dark.

Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel when she breathed out and finally uncurled her fingers.

It had been 10 months since she had first arrived. A long journey filled with uncertainty, uncomfortable learning curves, and lingering questions that tended to scar more than they ever seemed to heal.

Debra had explained the process to fill out her Form I-485—her green card application to become a permanent citizen when she would eventually hit her first year. The packet sat heavily in her passenger seat and when Elena reached for it, she felt her hands shaking in their grip.

As a girl, she had stood in her home and looked out through the pages in a book to see the world. How that girl had wanted to see it with her very own eyes. What she never understood was the plan was to always return home. One couldn't remain untethered for long, no matter how beautiful the possibilities.

Home was not the village or the shack she and her father lived in. It wasn't the soil or even the continent she had lived on. It had been the people; people were her home.

And they were gone.

With a twist to the lock, Elena pulled her key from the front door of her house and tossed the paperwork onto the hall table she had purchased at a thrift store. The cup of coffee she made didn't seem to taste like much, but it was hot in her stomach when she walked back outside and sat on the rickety chair that lived on the porch.

With stars twinkling high above, Elena stared out into the growing darkness of the land that had become hers just under a year ago. The tears that dripped to the porch glistened in the moonlight rippling above.

The distant sounds of rustling foliage turned Elena's head, and her breath caught at the figures that watched from the tree line where one of the light poles near the street shined above.

Several pairs of eye-shined ringed orbs stared out at her from the darkness. One was moving slowly through the darkness behind them when Elena realized they were just animals in the brush.

They watched her for a few moments before they disappeared into the tall grass.

Minutes or maybe hours had gone by when the flash of light speared through the darkness ahead. Elena was squinting when the car began to shift its path with her winding road.

She had company.

Leaning back in her chair, she took a stubborn sip of her now-cold coffee and waited for the agents to make their ascent. Every few weeks, an agent would stop by and check her security systems and ask a few questions. She understood it was part of her protection program, she just didn't understand why they even bothered any more.

No one was looking for her. No one knew she was even alive.

Except for him and he didn't seem to be looking for her.

The SUV pulled up beside her Ford Explorer and Elena sat facing the rolling hills she could barely make out in the darkness. With another sip of her coffee, she waited as the agent's steps made their way through the dirt path up to her porch steps.

The agent had left the car running. They didn't plan to stay long then. Good.

When boots hit her wooden steps, she was lowering the cup when she said, "Late call tonight, agent?"

Silence.

Elena sighed and put her cup down on the table before she was standing with a swipe to her butt to rid herself of the dirt from the chair.

"Fine, let's get this over with—" She stopped.

The figure that stood on her porch was in semi-darkness alongside her, but she would know those shoulders anywhere.

"Chris Redfield." She said softly while she met the winter color of his stare.

"Elena…" There was so much emotion in that one word he spoke.

It had been nearly a year since she had heard his voice. It had nearly been a year and she had heard nothing. Calls had been made to Leon Kennedy and messages were left with her caseworker, but no one would ever answer her when she asked where Chris Redfield was.

She had envisioned this moment from the very first night she had stayed in the home. He had seen to her safety in her village and in another country. He had secured her this house and made sure she had enough money to survive—even if she hadn't used most of it.

She had envisioned this moment as something that would entail her running into his arms and confessing that when she had said she wanted more, she didn't just mean his touch. When she had thought of their reunion, she had thought of how she could keep Chris Redfield.

Now…

"Christopher Redfield," Her voice was cold when she went back to pick up her coffee cup. "You're a very decorated man, sir."

Underneath her words, the pain spoke in her place. Did it mean anything to you?

She was walking toward him with careful steps, a predator that now spotted the other.

"I'm surprised you could find the time." She continued when he just stared at her. Why didn't you come and find me?

"Why are you here?" She snapped. Please don't leave me here alone.

"Answer me!" She demanded as she flung her coffee cup aside. Traitorous tears were marking her cheeks.

"I'm sorry." He breathed. His hand twitched at his side at the crack of ceramic that broke at their feet, but he made no move toward her.

"You're sorry? I thought you were dead! But someone would have at least told me that and no one would tell me anything."

"Did you mean what you said?" He asked and finally took a step forward.

"Said what?" She spat, taking a step back. "I said a lot of things, Christopher."

His mouth twitched as a smile dared to try and break through on his features. "When you said, 'I give you my heart.' before you flew away."

"Iti dau inima mea, Chris."

A sob worked its way up her throat, and she was backing away into the railing of her porch.

"Did you?" His hands were encircling around the railing on either side of her.

"Yes," She whispered brokenly to his imposing form above her. "But what does that matter now?"

"It matters a lot, Elena." His hand was cupping her face and when his thumb brushed a tear away, she began to cry in earnest at his familiar touch.

He was sliding his hands behind her back and hesitantly pulling her forward. When she didn't struggle, he brought her against him.

"Things got complicated after we killed Mother Miranda." He was saying quietly into her hair. "I know you're mad and you have every right to be. I will leave if you ask me to, but at least let me try and explain. I need to show you something first, but I need you to be quiet about it, alright?"

When he pulled away and took her hand, she blinked toward the SUV that still sat running in her driveway.

"Are we going somewhere?" She asked, scrubbing her face clean of the tears she still couldn't stop.

"No, just don't freak out again, ok?"

Elena threw him a withering look and he smiled then.

"You better have yourself a defense attorney sitting in the back of that fucking car." She groused in a thick voice. America had only improved her vocabulary.

Chris laughed, his eyes twinkling in the darkness. "There's the fierce girl I met in the woods." His eyes seemed to be searching for something at their feet.

"What are you looking for?" She asked, lifting a hand in irritation.

"That stick you slaughtered 12 Lycans with."

Her eyes narrowed and she fought her own smile. "It wasn't a stick, it was—"

"A fire iron, I know."

Elena was pushing slightly at his back then and she told herself it wasn't so he wouldn't see her amusement.

He didn't walk over to the driver's side though. He walked her around to the back passenger seat door and paused once more before he said, "Do not yell."

With her gut twisting, Elena realized that maybe she wasn't ready to know where he had been.

With a soft click, Chris was opening the car door quietly. The overhead light flickered on inside, and he was quickly leaning in to switch it off. When he leaned back out, he was stepping back to allow her to see into the car.

In the back seat, no monster was to be seen, no horror to be had, but instead a young toddler that slept soundly in a car seat. Blonde hair was curling around her shoulders, and chubby cheeks were smashed into the side wing of the car seat.

Elena's eyes slid over to him, and the look on her face must have clued him in rather fast—perhaps he expected it—because he quickly said, "She's not my daughter."

"Whose daughter is she?"

"Ethan Winters. He was—"

"Ethan!" She was quietly shutting the door then and pulling him slightly away from the car. "You knew Ethan? Did he survive?"

"How did you know Ethan?" Chris asked with a tilt of his head.

Elena was smiling as her eyes looked back and forth between his.

"You're still very pretty." She admitted quietly then.

"You're still the only one who's ever called me that."

"Maybe not to your face." She acquiesced. "Ethan found my father and I in a home when people in the village were changing. He was trying to save me when I fell into a fire. I didn't see him when I was running from the monsters."

"He didn't survive. We were able to make out because of him." Chris' eyes were turning back toward the car. "Her mother is also a criminal, and I couldn't protect her anymore after the trial."

"Trial?" Elena asked when she leaned against the car.

"Another long story. I used to work for a group called the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. In 2017, a bioweapon was found to be the source of several missing persons cases in Louisiana. Ethan and his wife were caught up in that." Chris began as he finally began to tell her more of who he was.

"I was sent in to assist but the BSAA also worked to cover up the incident. My team and I went rogue the more we learned. During our time in Romania, the BSAA deployed some tactics that are now considered war crimes. As the trail started, I was not allowed any outside contact." He paused. "I could have sent a message off to you, but we're also dealing with a crime syndicate that's connected to all of this. Those people are walking free and the last thing I wanted to do was give anyone any indication about the location of the people that I cared about."

Elena felt her breath leave her lungs at what he was implying.

Elena was blinking rapidly as she leaned back into the car. One thing at a time. "So now…"

"So, now Rose stays with me." Chris said carefully. "She's also a bioweapon, Elena. Ethan was infected by what happened to him in Louisiana. She's a little different though—special. Dangerous to let someone find out how special. I stayed with her while they ran tests."

Elena began to laugh quietly.

"This whole time, here I thought you had replaced me—forgotten me—but you were on trial while also caring for a child who's considered dangerous. I'm sorry about how I—" She looked toward the porch where her favorite coffee mug lay in shards. "It's been hard adjusting but still, I shouldn't have spoken to you that way."

"That's about the size of it and no, you had the right to be mad." He said, watching her. He was stepping up between her feet and lifting her face. "Replaced you?"

"You're a pretty big deal here." She nodded with the vulnerability curling in her chest. "When I learned your name, I researched you—I wanted to know who you were. I got a library card and did a lot of reading and utilizing of their computers. What I found…United States Air Force, S.T.A.R.S., various bioweapon security organization involvement. You've been through a lot. I figured I wasn't the first girl that fell in love with you, Chris."

"In love?" Fingers were curling into the black button up she had tucked into her pants that morning. He was pulling her to him.

"Why did you give me your C5 designation?" She whispered up to him while taking a page from his book and not answering his question. "That's reserved for spouses and direct family members."

"It is." He said softly.

"Why did you come here?" She uttered, placing her hands on his chest.

"Fate." He said simply while glancing down at her mouth. "Fate and the lingering desire to know what a bad cup of coffee tastes like with good company."

"For how long?" Her lips were inches from his.

"How long do you have?" His smile was growing. "And do you like kids?"

She was laughing when her lips met his.

"Need to get Rose out of the car." His words mashed out between her lips.

"Rose…" Elena released him and smiled around the name. "Rose Winters."

Chris was opening the door to the vehicle, and he seemed to consider how not to wake the slumbering toddler.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Didn't you have any siblings? Nieces or nephews?" She whispered.

"A sister, but she was a heavy sleeper."

"Be deliberate, they know when you're afraid." Elena touched his shoulder and slipped up to the passenger back door. With certain hands, she unbuckled the child and pulled her out to cradle to her chest.

"We're talking about a child and not a velociraptor, right?" Chris muttered behind her.

Rose stirred slightly but placed her face against Elena's neck and fell back into her dreams shortly after.

Elena shot a cunning grin toward Chris as a result.

Chris returned the look and gave her a wink as he walked around the side of the car.

Elena was taking the steps up to the house when she heard the rumble of the vehicle's engine die behind her. Chris met her at the door and opened it for her to enter first.

Elena hadn't done much with the two extra rooms upstairs. She supposed she would now.

With Rose nestled into the large bed of the room next to hers, Elena shut the door until a sliver of light existed from the hall to fall through the crack. The light fell on the sleeping child's face and Elena felt something shift inside her.

With a turn, she bumped into Chris who had been watching behind her.

"Did you pick this house?" She kept her voice low.

"I might have." His fingers curled around her back as he led her away from the sleeping child's room. His eyes glittered when she snapped a sharp look his way. Her bedroom door shut behind them

"And that extra money I was allotted in my program?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"Wasn't spending it anyway." He was pulling his coat off as he walked toward her with a look in his eye.

"What are you asking me for?" The words he had used nearly a year ago were now her lure that caused him to grin.

"Do you know that wolves follow you, Elena?" Chris answered instead.

"What do you mean?"

"I had security cameras set up around the perimeter of the property. From one acre to the other, and inside this house. No one was going to get to you without me knowing about it." He was stepping up to her near the bed.

"You were watching me this whole time?" She squawked with her face reddening.

"Definitely." His brow raised a little with a suggestive smile that followed.

"But what I saw wasn't what I expected." His eyes followed her as she sat back onto the mattress. "Wolves don't come close to the town for obvious reasons—people, cars, lack of game. However, some nights, I'd watch a pack walking around the length of the house while you slept. At first, I thought they were trying to get in but then I realized they were leaving something for you."

The dead animals around her house, Elena realized then.

They hadn't been acts of hate by people in the town.

They had been gifts.

"It was a wolf that helped you in the forest when you led the Lycans away, wasn't it?" Chris asked.

Elena saw the orange eyes of the beast in her mind and she smiled to herself.

"What is it I'm asking of you? I think you know. I think you knew when you flew away in that helicopter that I was going to come for you. Why? You were mine the moment you demanded to face death on your feet. You were mine when you gave me enough time to retrieve my gun in the forest and made those Lycans follow you. When you asked me to touch you, you were absolutely mine, Elena." Chris continued and pulled something from his pocket.

"You were even mine when I had this made." The patch of Hound Wolf Squad was placed in her hand before his hands depressed the bed around her and he leaned in to pin her with his stare. "I used to dream about running in the company of wolves."

"I think I've always been yours, Chris. I was just waiting for you to enter the forest and find me." The tears that fell now were ones that spoke of finding what she had been missing.

The smile he gave her transformed into the very thing she had been fighting for.

Elena brought his face down to hers and kissed the stranger that had become her home.

---

Deep in the Carpathian mountains, a white wolf with orange eyes threw its head back and howled.

---

A/N: This is a gift for Rk800downloading.

Words are powerful. They can be used to tell the most compelling stories, or they can lift some of the most harrowing wounds in our minds. Thank you for the words you share with us all but thank you for the ones you used to bring me back to what I loved doing.