Firefly Glen this love it is a distant star

The chuckle slithered through the silence, twisting its way into Elowen’s chest and settling there like a shard of ice. Her ears flattened as she whipped her head toward the source of the sound, wide eyes catching on the shadowed form as he stepped from the underbrush. He looked dark as a nightmare pulled from the depths of sleep, his presence melding with the darkness as though he’d been born from it. She felt her heart quicken, each beat a pulse of tension urging her to flee.

The soft venom in his voice cut through the quiet, each word a subtle taunt. Careful what you summon, darling. The endearment slipped through her like poison, setting her nerves alight. She swallowed hard, feeling the tremor rise in her chest, her breaths coming quick and shallow. Every instinct screamed for her to be silent, to melt into the underbrush before he closed the distance between them. But she hated the idea of looking weak, of proving to him that she was the very thing he mocked.

With a delicate but defiant lift of her chin, she managed to find her voice, though it was barely more than a whisper. "I wasn’t… summoning anything." The words tumbled out shakily, her pulse betraying her. She faltered, realizing too late that she had no escape plan, no exit if he chose to close in. 

Gathering what little courage she could muster, she forced herself to hold his gaze, a flicker of defiance sparking within her even as fear prickled along her spine. "Besides," she said, though her voice shook, "you’ll find that I’m… not that easy to catch." It was a bluff—a thin one, frayed at the edges—but it was all she had.