Chapter 4: First Blood
1300 Words
POV: Aria Chen
The quarry was dead silent at 11 PM.
Ryan called it neutral ground. Kiera called it where we wouldn’t get caught.
I called it cold. Too quiet. Like the woods were holding their breath.
The moon was too bright. My skin felt too tight. Like something under it was trying to get out.
“Stop pacing,” Kiera said. She was leaning against a boulder, arms crossed, watching me like I was a live wire. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m not pacing,” I said. “My bones itch.”
Ryan didn’t look up from the treeline. He was laying salt in a circle, hands moving fast and automatic. “That’s normal. First shift feels like your body’s trying to leave you.”
“That’s reassuring.”
He stood, wiped his hands on his jeans, and walked over. His eyes stayed on mine.
“When it starts, don’t fight it,” he said. “The harder you fight, the worse it hurts. Let it happen. I’ll be right here.”
“And if I lose control?”
“Then I stop you.”
No drama. No doubt. Just fact.
I stripped to my tank top, folded the hoodie, set it on the rock. The night air hit my skin and the itching turned to burning. My heart was too loud.
“Okay,” Kiera said. “Here we go.”
The shift didn’t start with a bang. It started with pain.
Like someone was pulling my bones out and putting them back wrong. My spine bowed. I dropped to my knees, hands clawing at the dirt.
“Aria,” Ryan said, voice low and steady. “Breathe. In through your nose.”
I couldn’t breathe.
My vision tunneled. My teeth felt too big. My nails split, grew, turned into claws. Smells hit me like a truck—dirt, blood, Ryan’s cedar-and-rain scent, Kiera’s gun oil.
Sounds too. A mouse in the quarry fifty feet away. Ryan’s heartbeat. Fast. Steady.
Mine was erratic. Terrified.
“Don’t fight it,” Ryan said again.
I tried not to.
The pain crested, and something else took over.
My back arched. Fur tore through my skin in waves. It hurt less than I expected, but it felt invasive. Wrong. Right. All at once.
I was taller. Heavier. Stronger.
When it stopped, I was on all fours.
Paws. Big, black, clawed paws.
I looked down at them, then up.
Ryan was kneeling in front of me, not an ounce of fear on his face. Just focus.
“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re in control. I can smell it.”
I didn’t feel in control. I felt hungry. Angry. Like I wanted to run and tear and not stop.
“Run,” Ryan said. “Get it out. I’ll run with you. Stay in sight.”
I didn’t answer. Wolves didn’t talk.
I took off.
The speed was insane. The forest blurred. My lungs didn’t burn. My legs didn’t ache. I felt alive in a way I never had as a human.
Ryan ran beside me, black fur gleaming in the moonlight. Bigger than me. Faster.
He wasn’t chasing me. He was running with me.
For ten minutes, it was just us and the night.
The wolf in my head settled. The rage faded.
Then I smelled it.
Smoke. Metal. Gun oil.
Not Kiera’s.
I skidded to a stop. Ryan stopped too, nose to the ground. His hackles rose.
Low in his throat, he growled.
Footsteps. Deliberate. Circling.
A man stepped out from behind a tree. Mid-40s, scar across his jaw, eyes that had seen too much killing. He wasn’t wearing pack colors. He wasn’t wearing anything that marked him as one of us.
He was wearing a hunter’s vest, and he was holding a rifle with a silver blade under the barrel.
He looked at me and smiled.
“Well,” he said. “Thought you were a ghost story.”
My fur bristled. Ryan stepped in front of me without thinking.
“Cedar Falls,” the man said. “Two years ago. Kid breaks a doorframe with her bare hands, sprains an ankle, and it’s healed by morning. CPS never found her. Figured I’d missed my chance.”
His eyes flicked to Ryan. “Guess I just had to wait for you to find her for me.”
“You’re on North Ridge land,” Ryan said. “Leave. Now.”
“Can’t do that, wolf,” the hunter said. “She’s not safe. None of you are safe when they start blooming this late. You know what happens.”
“I know what happens when hunters start shooting first.”
The man raised the rifle.
Ryan moved before I could think. He threw himself between me and the gun.
The shot went off.
Silver hit flesh. Ryan went down with a choked sound.
The wolf in me saw red.
I lunged. The blade grazed my shoulder on the way in. It burned like acid, like the scratching in my head. I hit him hard enough to snap ribs. He went down with a wet crunch.
I pinned him, teeth bared, ready to tear his throat out.
“Aria!” Ryan’s voice. Human. Strained with pain. “Don’t kill him!”
I stopped. Snarling, drool dripping onto his face.
He stared up at me, no fear now. Just grim satisfaction.
“Told you,” he rasped. “You’re not like them. You’re worse.”
“What are you talking about?” I growled. My voice came out wrong. Too low. Too guttural.
“You’re not a wolf,” he said. “You’re something older. I’ve been tracking you since Cedar Falls. You don’t show up on any pack registry. You shouldn’t exist.”
Kiera appeared behind him, gun drawn.
“Who hired you?” she demanded.
“No one,” he said. “Lone hunter. Been watching packs for 20 years. Saw the signs. Thought I missed her. Then she showed up with the Alpha heir.”
He coughed blood. “If I can’t kill you, the packs will. They always do.”
Ryan was on his feet now, stumbling, blood soaking his side.
“Get back,” he snarled.
The hunter’s hand moved. Too fast.
A second shot cracked through the night.
It hit me in the shoulder. Silver.
Pain exploded through me. The forced shift ripped a scream out of me and I hit the ground human again, skin smoking where the bullet tore through.
“Get to cover!” Kiera yelled, firing into the trees.
Ryan was beside me in a second, hands pressing against my shoulder. His face was pale, blood running down his side from the first shot.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Aria, stay with me.”
I couldn’t answer. The pain was the same as twelve, when I’d dented Mr. Calloway’s doorframe and he’d gone white. The same as last night, when the feral called me kin.
The scratching was back. Louder.
Blood kin. Come home.
Ryan’s voice cut through it. “Fight it! That’s not you!”
The hunter was dead. Kiera had made sure of it.
But he hadn’t been alone.
In the treeline, something moved and vanished.
Someone else had been watching. Someone he’d told.
Kiera grabbed my arm, hauling me up. “We’re moving. Now.”
Ryan nodded, swaying on his feet. He shouldn’t be standing.
I let them drag me back toward the quarry.
My shoulder was healing. Too fast.
But the scratching in my head wasn’t stopping.
And now I knew why.
I wasn’t just unclaimed.
I wasn’t just a wolf.
I was off every registry. Off every record.
And someone had been hunting me long before I ever met Ryan.
- Writer
