Born Of Blood

Lydia was about to make a turn by one of the tallest pines in the forest and head toward the Coven’s sanctuary when she heard a quiet cry.

She stopped on the trail and listened.

The cry drifted through the trees, faint enough that she almost convinced herself she had imagined it.

It sounded like a wounded animal.

She hesitated for a second before continuing down the trail. Dry pine needles rustled beneath her feet, their orange tips catching at her dress, and she found herself stepping more carefully, tuning in to it.

Suddenly, the cry echoed again. This time, stronger and more desperate.

Lydia paused once more.

The hunt was underway.

Whatever had been caught in it was not her concern.

She took another step.

Then the cry echoed through the trees for a third time.

Lydia shook her head.

“Fine,” she muttered.

A moment later, she stepped off the trail and disappeared into the shadowed woods.

Pushing through the dense pine branches, she finally reached the source of the sound. Then she stopped.

She expected to see a trap. And there was one in front of her. Its steel jaws had snapped shut around the leg of its victim with ruthless precision.

What she didn’t expect to see was the human attached to it.

“Help me!” The man pressed both hands against his mangled leg, blood spilling between his fingers.

Lydia went still. For a moment, all she could do was stare.

He was young and scared. Smudges of dirt streaked across his pale face, revealing just how hard he had run. His dark hair clung damply to his forehead, slick with sweat. His clothes were torn, and he was barefoot.

“Please,” he said again.

Lydia took a step back.

The hope in his eyes faltered.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

His face tightened.

“Please.”

Lydia inhaled sharply.

His suffering tore at her heart, yet she forced herself to step back once more until the brush scratched against her arms.

The man gripped his injured leg, his blood-slick hands unable to stay still.

“You know what they’ll do to me,” he gasped.

Lydia’s throat tightened. Yes. She knew. She looked away all the same.

Every witch who lived in these woods would.

The forest was not theirs alone. Twice a month, during the hunt, it belonged to the vampires.

Humans knew the stories. They never knew when or where a hunt would begin, only that it always did. They watched for signs and left the forest when they found them.

This one hadn’t.

Lydia looked at his leg again.

The blood was still coming too fast. His breathing had turned shallow, each inhale catching as though the pain had hooks in his ribs.

She could feel him fading.

She had always been able to.

As a child, she had found dying birds beneath the eaves and held them until their small bodies steadied under her spells. When her attempts failed, she simply started over, whispering apologies to creatures that did not know her language.

Her Coven had called it sensitivity when she was young. Later, they called it weakness.

Now, shrouded in the forest’s shadow with a human bleeding at her feet, Lydia knew neither name had ever changed who she truly was.

“I can’t,” she said again, clinging to the last threads of reason.

This time it sounded less like an answer.

The man heard it too.

His eyes sharpened through the pain.

“You’re already here.”

His words were simple. But they settled exactly where she did not want them.

Suddenly, a branch cracked somewhere behind her.

Lydia turned sharply.

Nothing moved.

The trees stood dense and dark, their trunks rising like black columns through the fading daylight. The silence between them felt alive, as if something was watching and waiting.

Her skin prickled.

Lydia looked back at the man.

He was trying not to make another sound. His jaw trembled with the effort, his breath stalling in his chest. Sweat clung to his temples. One hand slipped from the wound and reached toward her, then fell short, fingers curling into the pine needles.

“Please,” he managed to breathe out.

That was worse than the begging.

Lydia closed her eyes.

Leave.

The command came from somewhere old and disciplined inside her.

Leave right now. Say nothing. Know nothing.

She opened her eyes.

The man was still there. Of course he was.

Still trapped and bleeding. Still looking at her as though the entire world had narrowed to the distance between her hands and the iron around his leg.

Finally, Lydia exhaled slowly.

“Do exactly as I say.”

The man blinked and hope moved across his face so quickly it hurt to see.

“Do you understand me?” she asked.

He nodded.

“When I open the trap, you do not scream.”

“I won’t.” He shook his head.

“You will want to.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.” Lydia then stepped closer. “But if they hear you before you can move, I won’t be able to help you again.”

Fear passed through his eyes, but he nodded once more.

She crouched beside the trap.

Lydia could feel the resistance before she touched it.

Iron had a presence of its own. Always cold and stubborn. Heavy in ways that had nothing to do with weight. It did not merely resist magic; it remembered a world before magic had learned to move freely through flesh and root and breath. It liked things fixed. Bound. Held in place. It proved to be a perfect and inescapable prison.

Vampires knew that too.

She placed her hands on either side of the trap. Pain needled instantly into her palms.

The man saw her flinch.

“What is it?”

“Quiet,” she hissed.

He went silent.

Lydia lowered her head and drew a careful breath. Pine sap, blood, damp earth—her heightened senses absorbed it all as the forest pressed closer, answering the quiet magic she breathed into the air.

Her power stirred beneath her skin. It moved reluctantly through her body. Not because it resisted. It always came for broken things, but because iron made it painful.

First, the magic gathered in her wrists, then her palms, warm and bright beneath the cold bite of the metal. Carefully, Lydia pushed it into the hinge, searching for weakness. The trap held.

Her jaw tightened.

The man’s breath came faster.

“Don’t move,” she said.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

The words were sharper than she intended, but fear had made her cruel.

She pressed harder. The trap groaned. A faint tremor moved through the steel.

The man’s body jerked, and he clamped one bloodied hand over his mouth to smother a cry. His eyes squeezed shut. Tears washed the clean lines through the dirt on his face.

She grounded herself in the presence of nature. The roots beneath the soil. The white cap mushrooms feeding on what the roots released. The velvety moss spreading over fallen bark and stone. Everything connected on this forest floor. She felt a gentle wave of living energy wash over her and then the stark contrast of the iron trap. It didn’t belong here. It had been brought here and forced into earth with intent. The forest did not love such intrusion.

Neither did Lydia.

That was what she focused on.

Then the hinge gave a sharp crack. The jaws opened.

“Now,” she urged.

The man dragged his leg free.

A choked, strained sound escaped him and his body collapsed sideways, his shoulders hitting the ground. Blood surged immediately.

Lydia caught his ankle before he could pull away from her.

“Don’t move.”

She shifted closer and pressed both hands over the wound, the heat of his blood soaking into her palms.

For that one moment, Lydia forgot the hunters. Forgot the Coven’s cardinal rule to never meddle in vampire affairs. Forgot the trap lying open beside them like a mouth interrupted mid-bite.

There was only the body beneath her hands. And she was the only one who could mend severed vessels and the torn flesh. The wound wanted to keep bleeding because the body hadn’t yet registered just how much life it was pouring out.

Lydia reminded it not to.

That was how she thought of healing, though the Elders disliked when she phrased it that way. They preferred language of discipline and command. Lydia had never understood that. Bodies did not need to be ordered back into health. They needed to be reminded.

So she reminded this body that its blood belonged inside the veins and the skin meant to be closed.

Pulsating warmth gathered beneath her palms, soft at first, then brighter. The man shuddered. His fingers dug into the earth. Lydia felt him watching her, but she did not look up.

She could not heal him fully. That would take too long. So she did only what was necessary. She slowed the bleeding and dulled the worst of the pain, though not enough to let him forget the danger.

Then, Lydia pulled her hands away.

The man stared at his leg.

“What are you?” he said, looking up at her.

“You don’t need to know that,” Lydia answered, standing up quickly.

He swallowed.

His gaze dropped to her bloodied hands, then lifted again. There was fear in his face now, but not the same kind as before.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Find out.”

He tried.

The first attempt failed. His injured leg buckled beneath him, and he nearly hit the ground again before Lydia caught his arm. He cried out, quieter this time, and leaned heavily against her.

“Listen to me,” Lydia said, her voice low.

He nodded, breath shaking.

“You’re going south.”

His eyes flicked toward the trees. “Which way is south?”

Lydia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he did not know.

“Behind you. Slightly to the left. Do not take the trail,” she said calmly.

“I don’t know this part of the forest.”

“No,” she said. “Clearly you don’t.”

“Go south until the pines begin to thin,” she continued. “You’ll see a stretch of birch after the ridge. The ground drops there and turns to marsh. It will be wet, but you’ll leave fewer prints.”

His face paled further.

“I can’t cross a marsh like this.”

“You can if being eaten is the alternative.” She glared at him.

That seemed to convince him.

“Go,” she whispered.

He staggered through the woods, one hand frantically catching at branches as his injured leg dragged heavily behind him. He was too loud and too visible. Everything about him said prey. But at least he was moving.

That was all she could give him.

Lydia watched until the forest took him.

Then she turned and spotted the trap. It lay open in the pile of dry leaves mixed in with moss and dirt, slick with blood and magic.

Her stomach tightened.

Evidence remained everywhere.

There was blood beneath the iron jaws and all over the ground. A broken hinge where there should have been an intact mechanism. A trail south, imperfectly hidden by uneven ground and desperation.

She should have done something. She knew that.

Scattering dirt over the blood or bending the growth back and confusing the scent might have hidden the signs of the man’s escape.

Suddenly, her awareness of the hunt had shifted. It was closer now.

Lydia lifted her head.

Somewhere beyond the trees, a crow called once and then fell silent.

She had stayed here too long.

She wiped her hands against the inside of her skirt, where the blood would not show unless someone looked closely. Then she stepped away from the trap and retraced her path toward the trail.

The trail narrowed as it climbed, curving between the oldest pines in the forest. Their trunks rose high and straight, vanishing into a canopy dense enough to catch the last of the evening light. Charms hung from some of the lower branches, bits of bone and thread and polished stone woven together with dried herbs. They moved slowly in the faint wind, though Lydia could no longer feel a breeze.

The sanctuary revealed itself in stages.

First by pressure. A subtle tightening in the air, like the moment before thunder. Then by scent. Smoke. Rosemary. Beeswax. Old stone after rain. Then by sound. Low voices somewhere beyond the trees. A door closing. The distant crackle of fire from the main hearth.

She was home.

The Coven’s boundary was marked by a row of two ancient pines whose trunks had grown toward each other over centuries until their top branches intertwined. No stone wall circled the sanctuary. No metal gate barred the way. The witches had never needed human defenses. Their warnings were older than walls.

Lydia slowed as she approached.

A guard stood between the pines.

Odin.

His gray cloak hung straight from his broad shoulders, the hood pushed back to reveal intense, observant eyes framed by a well-groomed beard. He was not much older than Lydia, but he carried himself as if disappointment were his most trusted companion.

His gaze settled on Lydia before she reached the boundary.

“You’re late.”

Lydia kept walking, her eyes fixed ahead.

“Am I?”

Odin did not move aside.

Lydia stopped.

“I lost track of the light,” she said.

“In the woods?” he asked, a flicker of doubt crossing his face.

“That is where light is easiest to lose.”

Odin’s expression did not change.

For a moment, Lydia thought he might simply let her pass.

Then Odin’s gaze swept over her. Lydia followed it and noticed the dark stains seeping through the front of her skirt. Another smeared the cuff of her sleeve. A thin streak of blood still clung to her wrist.

Damn it.

His eyes lifted again, studying her.

“What happened?”

Lydia drew a small breath.

“A fox.”

Odin raised an eyebrow.

“Large fox.”

“Very,” Lydia said quietly.

“You healed it?”

“Would that be surprising?”

“No,” he admitted.

Odin shifted his weight and stepped aside to let her through.

“Don’t get careless out there,” he muttered as she walked past him, “especially right now.”

“I know,” she exhaled.

For a brief moment, she wondered if he somehow knew everything. If he had already seen through the lie she had offered him. If he could still smell the human blood on her skin despite the forest and the healing magic.

“Lydia,” his voice suddenly interrupted her thoughts. “Stay out of their way.”

Without turning back to face him, Lydia said,

“I always do.”

Then she continued down the path toward her cottage. The sanctuary welcomed her with the usual warmth, smoke, and familiar voices.

Witches moved between the scattered buildings carrying baskets and lanterns. Candlelight spilled from open windows. Somewhere near the main hearth, someone laughed loudly enough to draw several irritated looks.

Lydia almost reached her front door when a fragment of conversation drifted through the evening air.

“…found just after sunset.”

She slowed and continued to listen.

Two witches stood near the herbalist’s shop, speaking in low voices.

“A trap?”

The older woman nodded.

“It was tampered with.”

Lydia felt her stomach drop.

The witches went on.

“The vampires are not pleased,” the older one said. “They’re already asking questions.”

A short silence followed. Then the younger woman laughed.

“Why are they coming to us? No witch would be foolish enough to involve themselves in that.”

Lydia looked away before either of them could notice her listening.

Her pulse began to pound again and she hurried to her cottage. The moment she stepped inside, she shut the door and with her back pressed against it, slowly slid down to the floor.

The truth dawned on her piece by piece.

Somewhere beyond the boundary, in the darkening forest, a broken trap lay beneath the pines.

And someone had seen it.

Lydia closed her eyes.

She could only hope they had not seen her.