Starlight (Legends)

Here's TJ Nichols's "Starlight." It's a novel in the multi-author series, Legends ("where National Parks hold secrets—and monsters steal hearts").

["A little stalking never hurt anyone…

Or at least that’s what Akai told himself every time he checked on the human building the cabin deep in the woods. Before that, the man had camped there alone. Akai wants to believe that he’s only making sure the human doesn’t injure himself and die alone the same way his sister did. But it’s more than that, even though he doesn’t know what to do about it. Monsters aren’t supposed to reveal themselves to humans, and he’d already done that once before and narrowly avoided trouble.

For months, Cole Denny has felt like he’s being watched. Sometimes, he’ll find things near his cabin that shouldn’t be there. Yet he’s never seen evidence of another person.

Until one night, under a meteor shower, he sees something in the shadows. At first, it looks like a man. Then a wolf. Then something else entirely. Cole is always armed at the cabin, but he doesn’t want to hurt it, so he fires two warning shots into the air.

Wolves should not grow wings.

Now the creature lies at his feet—bleeding and broken--and Cole is dragged back to the worst night of his life when he lay dying on the road with the same red eyes staring down at him."]

Whelp, talk about a meet-ugly. Times two. Some (Cole) would call that bad luck. Some (Akai's sister--therefore, eventually, him) would think their fates are intertwined. 

The tropes list Akai as an "overly dramatic mothman." Which...fits. But it meshed well with Cole's search for something new, something exciting. Akai helped Cole escape. Cole helped ground Akai. They helped each other escape that growing chasm of lonliness. 

Trigger Warnings: on-page car accident, on-page allusions to death/murder of not-so-loved family members, past death/murder of a loved one, gun injury, and more.

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