THE WARNING BENEATH HIS SKIN
817 Words
Aria hadn’t meant to follow him into the woods.
She didn’t know what impulse took over her—the sting of curiosity, the reckless pull of adrenaline, or the deep ache in her chest that whispered he was the only thing in this place more lost than she was.
The air in the forest was colder than it should’ve been. Damp soil crunched beneath her bare feet. Moonlight sliced through the trees like silver blades, painting her in shadows.
And Kaelen Duskborne—he stood at the edge of the clearing like he belonged to the night itself.
His back was to her. Muscles tense beneath his black shirt. His breath ragged, like he was fighting something beneath his skin. His hands were clenched into fists.
Aria stopped just feet away, heart hammering like she’d stepped into a dream too vivid to trust.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, voice hoarse.
“You said that already.” She took a careful step forward. “But I think you wanted me to follow you.”
He didn’t move.
“I can handle a warning, Kaelen,” she added, softer now. “But I need the truth.”
He turned slowly, and in the pale moonlight, Aria saw it—his eyes weren’t gray anymore.
They were glowing silver.
Not a reflection.
A glow.
And they were locked on her like she was the only thing holding him to this world.
“I’m not safe,” he said, his voice fraying at the edges. “Not around you.”
“Then why do you keep showing up?” she whispered.
Kaelen took a trembling breath. “Because you feel like gravity.”
The Reveal (Almost)
Before she could respond, he stepped back—sharply. Like something inside him snapped. His jaw clenched so tight she thought he might scream. His entire body trembled as if something was fighting its way out of him.
He turned away, hands braced against a tree.
Aria rushed to his side. “What’s happening?”
“Go. Please.”
“No. I’m not leaving you like this.”
Kaelen’s breath came in ragged bursts. “I can’t shift here. Not now. Not in front of you.”
She froze. “Shift?”
His head dropped.
And in that broken silence, Aria finally understood.
“You’re… you’re a…” She couldn’t say it.
He nodded.
“A werewolf.”
Secrets and Promises
The words felt ridiculous even as they left her mouth. But the look in his eyes, the way his body convulsed like it was cracking open from the inside—it wasn’t human. It wasn’t normal. And it wasn’t fake.
Kaelen was something else.
Something ancient and dangerous and heartbreaking.
“Does everyone here know?” she asked.
“No. And it has to stay that way.” He turned to her again, slowly. “You shouldn’t be part of this, Aria. There are things hunting my kind. There are laws against what I feel. Against what this is.”
“What is this?” she asked, voice barely a breath.
His eyes searched hers like he didn’t want to say it.
But he did.
“You’re my mate.”
The world shifted. Everything inside her fractured and reformed in the shape of those three impossible words.
Aftermath
They walked back to campus together in silence.
He didn’t touch her. Didn’t speak.
But she could feel him — the way his presence wrapped around her like heat. Like instinct. Like temptation wrapped in danger.
He stopped at the edge of her dorm.
“Sleep with your window closed tonight,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because the wind carries your scent farther than you think.”
Then he vanished into the shadows.
The Next Morning
Aria woke to the sound of scratching at her window.
Her breath caught.
But when she opened it, there was nothing outside—just the chill morning air and a single flower left on the sill.
A blue hyacinth.
I’m sorry.
That’s what it meant in the language of flowers.
The Next Morning — Fractured Normal
The flower sat on Aria’s windowsill like a whispered apology, delicate and surreal.
A blue hyacinth.
I’m sorry.
Aria stood frozen for a long time, her fingers grazing the petals. It was real. He had left it. Not a dream. Not some fevered imagining. The scent clung to her skin and to her thoughts like a secret she couldn’t shake.
She barely made it to her 9 AM ethics lecture. Every word the professor spoke blurred into white noise. She sat near the back, notebook open, pen idle, her mind still caught in the clearing, in the shimmer of Kaelen’s silver eyes, in the weight of what he’d said.
You’re my mate.
How could she go back to normal after that?
She wasn’t even sure what normal meant anymore.
- Writer
