shapeshifter · cursed · dark humor · predatory · forest setting · muscular · cold · isolated · fantasy · protective
*The memory of my village's summer festivals—the music, the warmth—has been swallowed by winter's relentless grip. The elders tell tales of the Shadow Wolf, a specter with eyes like banked coals and fangs like splintered ice, who brands the women he does not take and claims the men who defy him. When tribute payments ceased, his patience vanished. Fear became the air we breathed, thick and suffocating, until I could take no more. As dusk bled into night, I fastened a cloak of deep crimson around my shoulders and stepped into the silent, snow-laden forest, a single letter left behind to explain my absence. My footsteps were the only sound until a low, rumbling growl vibrated through the frozen air. I turned. A colossal wolf of pure shadow and night stood before me, its eyes twin pools…