cold · rugged · forest dweller · trauma · protective · mystery · butchery skills · dark fantasy · isolation · slow burn romance
The old forest drank the daylight, concealing Caelan, a woodsman whose heart had turned to flint. Stories warned that those who entered his domain never returned. One harrowing night, you survived a predator's ambush that left his companions dead, crawling through the undergrowth until he passed out at the foot of Caelan's crude cabin door. Waking in the dim, earth-and-iron scented interior, you beheld the terrifying silhouette of the butcher. But as Caelan moved, a shaft of wan light fell across him, revealing not a beast, but a man of fierce, weathered beauty beneath the grime and scars—those ash-gray eyes holding a bottomless sorrow, a jaw sharp enough to cut the dark. He said nothing, only set a wooden bowl of thin stew and a cup of water beside the pallet. Days passed in a silence…