DAPHNE
The forest was alive with magic.
Daphne had felt it the moment they crossed what must be the reservation boundary—a subtle shift in the ambient energy, a ripple of recognition that made her magical senses prickle with awareness. It was subtle enough that a less sensitive witch might have missed it entirely, but Daphne's family had always been particularly attuned to place-based magic.
What was remarkable was how closely it matched the unusual signature she'd detected on her maps—that same ancient, primal quality that defied standard classification. Being physically present within it confirmed her suspicions: this was old magic, tied to the land itself rather than channeled through wands or structured spells.
Fascinating.
Even more fascinating were their guides—particularly Paul Lahote, who had barely taken his eyes off her since their introduction. His intensity should have been disconcerting, perhaps even threatening, but strangely, Daphne found herself unbothered by his attention. If anything, she was intrigued by the raw emotion he seemed barely able to contain.
It was so unlike her usual interactions, where people maintained careful distance from her "ice princess" demeanor. Paul Lahote looked at her as if he could see right through her carefully constructed walls, as if whatever he saw there was something precious rather than disappointing.
Unsettling, but not unpleasant.
Now, as they moved deeper into the forest along a narrow trail, Daphne kept her senses alert for any trace of their target's magical signature. The vampire they were tracking had last been detected near the reservation border, according to their intelligence. If the local "unusual predator activity" Jacob had mentioned was related, they might be closer to their quarry than expected.
What she hadn't anticipated was the way the forest's ambient magic seemed to intensify around their guides. It was subtle—just a slight modulation in the magical frequency when either Jacob or Paul moved through a particularly strong node of energy—but to Daphne's trained senses, it was unmistakable.
These men were connected to the magic somehow. Not wizards, certainly—their magic didn't have the cultivated, channeled quality of wand-users. Something else. Something wilder.
"The trail forks up ahead," Paul was saying, his deep voice breaking into her thoughts. "Left goes deeper into the forest, right follows the ridge above the beach. Better views that way."
"I'd prefer the forest route," Daphne replied, keeping her tone professionally interested. "The canopy density appears to increase in that direction, which would align with our research parameters."
Paul nodded, something like approval flickering across his features. "Forest it is."
He moved with remarkable confidence through the underbrush, his footsteps nearly silent despite his size. Not the careful tread of someone who had learned woodcraft, but the natural movement of someone who belonged to these woods in a fundamental way.
Daphne followed, maintaining a careful distance behind him while mentally recalibrating her assessment of their guides. They were neither as simple nor as straightforward as their initial presentation suggested. There was depth here, complexity, secrets.
Just as she and Pansy had their own.
"These trees are ancient," she observed, placing her hand against the moss-covered trunk of a particularly massive cedar. Through her palm, she could feel the slow pulse of the forest's magic, steady and patient. "Pre-colonial, certainly."
"Some of them are over a thousand years old," Paul confirmed, watching her with that same intense focus. "Our stories say they remember the beginning of our people."
"Your stories seem quite important to your culture," Daphne noted, probing gently. If there was indigenous magic at work here, it likely manifested through cultural practices and beliefs.
Paul's expression grew more guarded. "They're everything. History, law, identity. The old stories tell us who we are and what we're meant to be."
Something in his tone caught Daphne's attention—a personal resonance, as if these weren't just abstract cultural concepts but deeply individual struggles. Interesting.
"Meant to be," she echoed thoughtfully. "Destiny is a significant concept in many indigenous traditions."
"Not just indigenous," Paul countered, surprising her with his insight. "Every culture has some version of fate or destiny. People want to believe there's a plan, that things happen for a reason."
"And you?" Daphne asked before she could stop herself. "Do you believe in destiny, Mr. Lahote?"
The question was unprofessional, irrelevant to their mission, and yet she found herself genuinely curious about his answer.
Paul's dark eyes met hers directly, with an intensity that should have made her uncomfortable but instead sent an inexplicable warmth through her chest.
"A week ago, I would have said no," he replied, his voice low and rough with emotion she couldn't quite identify. "Now... I'm not so sure."
Something passed between them in that moment—a current of understanding or recognition that Daphne couldn't rationalize. She broke eye contact first, unsettled by her own reaction.
"The scientific perspective would suggest that perceiving patterns and purpose is simply a human cognitive tendency," she said, retreating to the safety of academic distance. "We create meaning rather than discover it."
"Maybe," Paul conceded, still watching her with that unnerving focus. "Or maybe some things really are meant to be, and all your science and logic can't explain them away."
Daphne was saved from having to respond by Pansy's voice calling from further up the trail.
"Daphne! You should see this!"
Grateful for the interruption, Daphne moved past Paul, careful not to brush against him in the narrow space. Something about his proximity made her unusually aware of her physical self—a sensation she wasn't accustomed to and didn't particularly welcome.
She found Pansy standing in a small clearing with Jacob, both looking at what appeared to be claw marks scored deep into the trunk of a massive fir tree. The marks were at least seven feet off the ground and alarmingly large—each groove deep enough to sink a finger into.
"Your unusual predator, I presume?" Pansy asked Jacob, one eyebrow raised skeptically.
Jacob's easy smile had tensed slightly. "Like I said, larger than normal wildlife."
"What made these?" Daphne asked Paul as he joined them in the clearing.
"Bear, probably," he replied with practiced casualness. "We get some big ones around here."
It was a reasonable explanation, but Daphne's instincts told her it was a deflection rather than the truth. The marks were too high, too deliberate for typical bear behavior. And the magical resonance in this clearing was stronger than anywhere else they'd visited—a pulsing node of wild energy that made her wand hand tingle with sympathetic response.
She stepped closer to the tree, examining the marks with professional interest while surreptitiously extending her magical senses. There was residual energy in the grooves—not vampire, certainly, but not mundane animal either. Something else. Something that resonated with the forest's ambient magic in a way that suggested harmony rather than invasion.
"These seem quite fresh," she observed, noting the still-visible sap in the deepest cuts.
"Last few days, probably," Paul agreed, exchanging a quick glance with Jacob that confirmed Daphne's suspicion—they knew exactly what had made these marks, and it wasn't a bear.
"Do you often have predator activity this close to human trails?" Pansy asked, her tone making it clear she wasn't buying their explanation either.
"It's their forest," Jacob said with a shrug that was a little too casual. "We're just visitors."
Daphne noticed how neither man seemed concerned about the potential danger these "predators" might pose—another telling detail. Whatever had marked this tree, Jacob and Paul weren't afraid of it.
Because they knew what it was. Because it was connected to them somehow.
The pieces were beginning to form a pattern in Daphne's mind—the reservation's unusual magical signature, the men's strange connection to the forest energy, their careful deflection around certain subjects, Seth's comment about "weird stuff happening," and now these marks that were being deliberately misattributed.
There was old magic at work here. Tribal magic. Magic tied to the land and the people who belonged to it.
And somehow, it was connected to their vampire target as well.
Pansy caught her eye across the clearing, a subtle nod confirming that she'd reached similar conclusions. They would need to compare notes privately later.
"Well, I certainly hope we don't encounter whatever made those during our research," Daphne said, deliberately lightening her tone. "Our budget doesn't cover hazard pay."
"Don't worry," Paul said, with such firm conviction that Daphne found herself believing him despite the obvious gaps in his explanation. "Nothing in these woods would hurt you."
The way he said it—with absolute certainty, as if he personally could guarantee her safety—sent another of those inexplicable waves of warmth through her chest.
"Your confidence is reassuring, if perhaps slightly overestimated," she replied, working to maintain her professional demeanor. "Shall we continue? I'd like to see more of the interior forest before the light begins to fail."
Paul nodded, leading them deeper into the woods along a trail that became increasingly less defined. Daphne fell into step beside him again, while Pansy and Jacob followed behind, engaged in what sounded like a spirited debate about proper hiking footwear.
"You move differently than most people in the forest," Daphne observed quietly. "As if you know exactly where everything is without having to look."
Paul glanced at her, surprise and something like pleasure flickering across his features. "Most people don't notice things like that."
"I'm trained to observe," she replied simply.
"Is that part of being a researcher?" he asked, a subtle emphasis on the word that told Daphne he had his own doubts about their cover story.
Interesting. So the assessment went both ways.
"Observation is fundamental to any scientific endeavor," she said, neither confirming nor denying his implicit question. "As, I imagine, it is to living successfully in a place like this."
Paul's lips curved in a small smile—the first she'd seen from him. It transformed his face, softening the hard lines and revealing a glimpse of a different man beneath the perpetual scowl.
"You don't miss much, do you?" he asked, the smile reaching his eyes.
"I try not to," Daphne admitted. "Details matter."
"Yeah," Paul agreed, his gaze traveling slowly over her face as if memorizing every feature. "They really do."
Daphne felt her cheeks warm slightly under his scrutiny, an unfamiliar reaction that she attributed to the ambient magic affecting her usual composure. She looked away, focusing on the path ahead where the trail narrowed between two massive fallen logs.
And then she saw it—a flash of unnaturally fast movement through the trees to their left, there and gone so quickly she might have missed it if she hadn't been looking in exactly the right direction at precisely the right moment.
Vampire.
Her Auror instincts kicked in instantly, hand moving to where her wand was concealed in a disillusioned holster at her wrist. Before she could decide whether to risk revealing her magical abilities, Paul stepped in front of her with fluid grace, his body suddenly tense and alert.
"Get behind me," he said, his voice dropping to a low growl that sounded almost... inhuman.
Jacob was already moving as well, positioning himself protectively in front of Pansy with the same predatory awareness.
"What is it?" Pansy asked, her own hand drifting subtly toward her concealed wand.
"Nothing good," Jacob replied grimly. "We need to get back to the beach. Now."
Daphne caught Pansy's eye, a silent communication passing between them. They'd both seen it. Their target was here, now, within striking distance.
But revealing themselves as Aurors would blow their cover completely. And there was still too much they didn't understand about Jacob and Paul, about the reservation's magic, about how it all connected.
"Is it one of your unusual predators?" Daphne asked Paul calmly, though she knew perfectly well it wasn't.
His jaw tightened, tension radiating from every line of his body. He looked torn, as if caught between truths he couldn't reconcile.
"Something like that," he finally said. "Please. Let us get you out of here."
The genuine concern in his voice gave Daphne pause. These men might be hiding the truth about themselves and their connection to the forest's magic, but their protective instinct appeared entirely genuine.
"Very well," she agreed, making a quick decision. "Lead the way."
Paul visibly relaxed at her compliance, though his alert posture remained as he guided them back toward the beach with new urgency. Daphne noticed how he and Jacob positioned themselves on the outside of their small group, creating a protective formation that spoke of practiced coordination.
Not just friends or co-workers, then. Something more organized. A team of some kind.
As they hurried back along the trail, Daphne extended her magical senses to their limit, tracking the vampire's movement parallel to their path. It was keeping pace with them, just out of visual range but definitely following.
Hunting.
But who was the prey? Them—or Jacob and Paul?
The question added another layer to the already complex puzzle forming in Daphne's mind. By the time they emerged from the forest back onto the beach, she had formulated several possible theories, each more improbable than the last.
Yet one thing was becoming increasingly clear: whatever was happening in Forks involved more than just a vampire with stolen magical artifacts. The truth was stranger and potentially far more significant.
And Paul Lahote, with his intense focus and unexplained protectiveness, was somehow at the center of it all.