He is Ghost

Gold

Blind.

It was a mantra in her head. Over and over, that one word thrummed just under her skin.

Blind. Shade was blind.

All the tension in her body that had just screamed for her to run now pulsed in the opposite direction. Like a magnet, it pushed her forward, called for her to take a step towards him - that thing casting a dark shadow on the ground, on the forest. Two steps. He was a beacon, the drum of a song beating against her body. It rattled her fur, her bones.

She almost didn't feel it, that step ahead she made - her body made. It was as if she were gliding, floating - as if she wasn't here at all. She was detached from herself, watching from somewhere else. She cowered in the back seat, his eyes on her now. Staring as if he could actually see her. But there was the hollow edge, the part that was undeniably unfocused. He could hear her take another step through the brush. Hear her racing heart. His nose twitched. He could smell her, her heat-wracked body.

He would smell the claim on her skin, too. Ripe as she was.

Yet, he did not move — not even an inch. It was as if he wasn't even breathing, a statue. Was his heart even beating in his hollow chest?

She took another step ahead, head cocking to the side, examining him.

Somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, something thrummed run.

But Neira wasn't in control anymore; she was shoved into the back as something else made her body take one step after another towards a thing she could only describe as death. Her skin was crawling, her blood was pounding, and yet she kept moving, unable to stop herself.

As the distance between her and the wolf grew smaller, his sheer size sent her thrashing behind her eyes. He was horrifyingly clear to her now, massive, larger than anything she'd ever seen. He dwarfed her. He was tall, broad, lean - everything and nothing all at once. His black pelt was shining, gleaming black as his eyes flared white. They punctured her, anchoring her with a searing emotion she couldn't place.

It burned.

His ears tracked her, his nose taking in her scent. His paws tensed and relaxed in the earth, feeling for the smallest vibrations.

He may be blind, but he wasn't helpless. His other senses picked up the slack, revealing information that someone with sight may never know how to do. How long had he been like this? Blind?

Long enough to build up those other skills with brutal efficiency. He's sharpened his other senses into tools and weapons. Just how much of her could he take in without his vision? Could he smell just how deep her fear ran? What lay underneath? The other things that lurked in her scent? Could he hear her hammering heart?

She barely remembered the standoff from moments earlier between this male and Judd. Not the parts that truly mattered at this moment. Most wolves were a duplication of their human forms. Neira was mountain blue eyes and auburn hair as a wolf and as a human. The characteristics transferred from one body to another, such as scars or other marks, come through in many different ways. A patch of darker fur along Neira's wolf spine showcased the tattoo on her human skin. Even now, there was a piece of scabbed-over skin along her throat from a copper and grey wolf - a wolf with molten eyes and a scar on his leg, much like the one she had just given to Jaro. It was there on his leg as a human, and it was visible through the fur on his wolf as well. Nothing grew there now; it was a blank stain amongst the shimmering copper and silver.

But she knew, much like Aja, that this wolf was not a match to its human form. Neira could remember the haunting black eyes on the human, and as dark as they were, he could see out of those bottomless things. Even the silky black fur was not a match to his human side. Neira vaguely remembered what he looked like and there was no comparison between the two. The human side had been tanned skinned, much like Judd's. But his hair had been golden. Golden hair, golden skin and obsidian eyes.