Chapter Three: The Unspoken Warning

The night hung thick over Blackwood Hollow, a silence stretching far beyond the absence of sound. It was a silence that felt placed, deliberate—like something unseen was listening, waiting.

Leon Blackwell stood at the edge of the Carter farm, the damp earth beneath his shoes softer than it should have been. The air smelled of rain, of old wood, of something deeper, buried beneath time.

Elena Carter had yet to move.

She stood in the open field, arms crossed, shoulders squared, facing him now. The moonlight carved a faint silver outline around her form, casting long shadows that stretched unnaturally across the ground.

"You shouldn't have come," she repeated, her voice steady.

Leon's gaze lingered on her for a fraction longer than necessary. He had met defiance before—it was a currency exchanged often in his world—but this was different.

This wasn't just resistance.

This was knowledge.

"How strange," he murmured, stepping forward. "Most people don't greet potential buyers with warnings."

Elena's expression didn't change. "Most buyers don't belong to places they shouldn't."

A pause.

Something cold stirred in his chest. A whisper of something forgotten.

She doesn't know what you are.

And yet…

Leon studied her, the way her fingers curled slightly, as if bracing for something unseen. As if she had already decided what he was before he had spoken a word.

"You talk as if the land decides who belongs," he mused. "Do you believe that, Elena?"

She exhaled slowly. "It's not about what I believe."

A breeze moved through the field then, stirring the trees at the far edge of the property. The sound was hollow, as though the wind passed through something unseen, something that did not wish to be disturbed.

Leon lifted his gaze slightly, just beyond her. The farmhouse loomed in the distance, its windows dark. But there—just for a moment—he thought he saw movement.

Something watching.

And then it was gone.

Elena followed his gaze but did not turn fully. Instead, she inhaled once, then met his eyes again.

"I won't sell," she said finally.

Leon smiled, slow, deliberate. "Not yet."

The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she had expected those words exactly. "Not ever."

A challenge.

Leon had spent lifetimes unraveling people—peeling back their fears, their wants, their weaknesses. But this…

This was something else.

"Tell me something, Elena," he said quietly. "Do you always speak in warnings, or is that just for me?"

Her eyes darkened slightly, just a flicker, but it was enough.

"Just for you."

Leon Blackwell had never truly known fear. Not in centuries.

But as he stood there, beneath a moon that suddenly felt far too distant, he wondered—just for a moment—if perhaps he should.

Because something in Blackwood Hollow did not want him here.

And it wasn't just Elena Carter.