Fangs Behind Smile
919 Words
The healer’s lounge always smelled like mint tea and sharpened pens—clean, orderly, distant. Everything in it was placed just so: jars of salves lined up like soldiers, perfectly fluffed cushions in every seat, and a shared table that never seemed to empty, no matter how many charts they filed.
Aria sat in the corner by the window, sunlight slicing through pale blue curtains in quiet stripes. It painted faint shadows across her cheek, her braid resting like a loose thread over one shoulder. She clutched her clipboard, pen moving in fast, efficient loops: symptoms, dosage, follow-up care. It kept her hands busy. Her thoughts, less so.
The outside world moved on. Wolves limped in from drills. Children coughed in their mother’s arms. Someone yelled about missing gauze again. And Aria kept writing. She didn’t look up. If she didn’t look, the doubts couldn’t catch her.
She lived with the Alpha. But in that house, she felt like a visitor.
They shared a bed. But most nights, they didn't even share a word.
And yet, she stayed. Because some tiny flame inside her still believed something real might grow between the silences.
“Well, if it isn’t our resident ghost.”
The voice was light. Too light.
Aria looked up. Keira.
Lip gloss is perfect. Eyes bright with something more than amusement. She perched on the edge of the table, coffee mug in hand, like it was a sceptre.
“You’ve been quiet lately,” she said with a sugar-sweet smile. “New mystery man keeping you busy?”
Aria didn’t answer. Just finished her note and closed the clipboard.
“I’ve been working,” she said, her voice calm.
Keira hummed. “Sure. Fieldwork and… extracurriculars.”
Aria stood, slow and measured. “Do you need something?”
Keira leaned in. Her smile sharpened.
“Just a little advice.”
Aria didn’t speak.
“Don’t let your pretty little secrets distract you from your real job. The council watches healers closely. And not everyone gets second chances.”
It wasn’t cruelty. Not exactly.
It was worse: a warning disguised as concern.
Aria walked away, tray in her arms steady as her spine. But behind the closed door of the cabinet room, her hands trembled.
Pretty little secrets. Second chances.
The whispers had already started.
She knew this dance. The way people didn’t say your name, only hinted at it. The way meetings got missed and jokes cut deeper than they should.
She'd lived it once in a silver dress that didn't quite fit, at a festival where no one asked her to dance. She’d held a ladle all night, smiling like it didn’t matter.
She walked home barefoot.
Now, she was back there. A different dress, a different room. Same shadows.
She treated a warrior who’d dislocated his shoulder during drills. Her hands moved with surety, but her mind felt foggy.
“Looks like the Alpha has good taste,” he muttered.
She didn’t look up.
“Excuse me?”
He smirked. “Just saying. You live with him, don’t you?”
She tied off the last stitch.
“Ask about my work. Not my bed.”
Then she was gone.
Back in the lounge, Keira was laughing with two younger nurses. Aria didn’t need to hear the words. She knew the rhythm of that kind of laughter.
Their eyes flicked toward her.
Keira’s smile met hers.
Aria sat alone. At the far table. Even her shadow seemed to stay behind.
Maybe that was what it meant to almost matter. Just enough to mock. Just enough to question.
She thought of the cub in the woods. How it had trusted her without words. How it had let her help without permission.
She missed that kind of quiet. The kind that didn’t ask her to prove anything.
She sorted herbs with slow, deliberate care. Valerian. Feverfew. Silverroot. Locked away. Like everything else.
The door opened.
Xander.
She stiffened. Turned.
“You didn’t come home for lunch,” he said.
“I needed quiet.”
He frowned. “You’ve been working too hard.”
She faced him. Her voice wavered but held.
“That’s all I have, Xander. Work. Silence. Locked doors. And now whispers.”
He blinked. “Whispers?”
“About us.” Her voice cracked. “About me. About why someone like you would let someone like me into your house.”
He stepped forward.
“I didn’t start the whispers,” he said.
“But you didn’t stop them either.”
He opened his mouth. Then closed it. No words came.
“Exactly,” she whispered. “You didn’t.”
The silence stretched, taut.
Then, finally:
“Come home.”
She shook her head. “I am home. And I still feel like a guest.”
That night, she returned late. The estate was dim.
The study door: still locked.
But in the kitchen, a plate waited. Covered. Still warm.
Besides, a note: You don’t have to eat alone.
She sat down. Ate in silence. Didn’t cry. Didn’t smile.
She lay in bed, turned toward the wall.
The door opened. A familiar weight dipped the mattress.
No words. Just a touch.
His hand, light on her arm.
She didn’t pull away. Didn’t lean in.
Not yet.
Outside, the wind howled. The windows shivered.
And in the dark, her whisper barely carried:
“I’m not the girl who stays quiet anymore.”
But even she didn’t know what that truth would ask of her. Not yet.
- Writer
