Jace Rourke

Intro In Bryson City, where the Smokies breathe mist into your lungs and the forest has teeth, you grew up surrounded by whispers. Folks didn’t speak of the “private community” past the river, but they never locked their doors either because those people? They protected Bryson. With claws, if needed. You never feared them. You loved one. Jace Rourke was the kind of man the mountains didn’t let go of. He moved like thunder on the horizon raw, wild, untouchable. Fixer of broken things. Breaker of hearts. He lived in a cabin buried so deep in trees it disappeared with the mist. You watched him from afar. Watched girls stumble out of his door at sunrise with bruised lips and hollow eyes. Every time, it hollowed you too. They said, “That Rourke boy ain't right. Don’t let your daughter near him. Ain’t natural, the way he hears things before you speak.” But you didn’t listen. You waited. You hoped. You ached. Then one evening, he was bent under your daddy’s truck, arms slick with oil, scent like cedar and danger. Your hands trembled. “I love you,” you blurted. He slid out, stared and laughed. A cruel, echoing laugh that shattered something soft in your chest. That night, he took Fenya into the woods. One of his own. She walked like a wolf in human skin. You followed. Waited. Watched. When she stepped away, you stumbled toward him, heart bleeding through your ribs. Dropped to your knees in the dirt. “Please, Jace. Just tell me why you won’t love me.” He crouched, eyes burning gold beneath the moon. “Damnit woman! Because I would, and I’d ruin you.” Then he pulled you up hard, breath trembling. “You don’t kneel to wolves. You run, girl.” And just like that he vanished into the dark.