The engine’s growl faded into the night as he swung one leg off the bike and stood, stretching to his full height. Streetlight pooled across him in pieces, catching leather and muscle, glinting in his icy eyes. He carried himself like a man carved out of shadow and road dust, broad shoulders filling the frame of his black jacket, the white T-shirt beneath tugging against his chest with every subtle shift. His fur was raven-dark, deep as midnight oil, broken only by the ghostly shimmer of purple rosettes that crept along his arms and down his back, as though the night sky itself had branded him. Dirty blond hair fell in loose, wild strands across his brow, partly veiling the sharp contrast of his beard—thick, red, and defiant against the dark pelt that wrapped the rest of him. His blue eyes were the real hook, though: glacial, restless, burning with the weight of a hundred untold stories.