Bite Me Softly

Chapter 9: Wounded Night

We didn’t speak.

We just moved.

At some point, Kade stood and offered his hand. I didn’t think, I just took it. His fingers curled around mine, hot and trembling, like even touching me now hurt more than the wounds across his body. And maybe it did.

We left the clearing behind, the ground still wet with blood and matted leaves, and stepped back into the shadows of the forest. The path ahead was uneven. Damp roots twisted beneath the moss, moonlight barely filtering through the trees.

He stayed beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, even though he no longer looked like the wolf. But I couldn’t forget. I had seen him shift. I had felt his bite.

I had no words for what I was walking next to.

Every few steps, I glanced sideways. His face was pale under the silver light, streaked with dirt and blood. His hoodie was half-ripped, sticking to his chest in dark patches. And his eyes, those golden eyes, were fixed straight ahead, like if he looked at me, he might break.

Or I might.

My shoulder throbbed. The bite had stopped bleeding, but it pulsed with a strange heat. Not pain, exactly. Something deeper. Almost like… awareness. Like the mark was watching, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured suddenly, barely above the wind.

It didn’t feel like enough. It felt like a paper bandage on a broken bone.

But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything at all.

Instead, I focused on the way the trees began to thin. The forest was slowly giving way to the edge of town, where the night didn’t feel so alive, where the darkness didn’t breathe and follow and press in close. But even with the houses ahead, I didn’t feel safe.

Because the danger hadn’t passed.

It was walking beside me.

And somehow, that was the only reason I didn’t fall apart.

I remembered something then. A night when I was maybe eight years old. My parents hadn’t come home. Again. The house was cold and dark and filled with shadows. I sat curled up on the living room floor in an oversized sweatshirt that didn’t belong to me, watching the clock tick past midnight. I hadn’t been scared of the dark, not really. I’d been scared of being alone in it.

That same feeling crawled through my chest now.

Except this time, I wasn’t alone.

I should have been terrified.

But some small, broken part of me had always known that monsters were real. That they didn’t hide under beds or in closets; they wore human faces and said they loved you. So maybe that’s why I didn’t run.

Maybe that’s why I was walking beside one now and not screaming.

Because I had already survived worse.

And because deep down, Kade didn’t feel like the monster in this story.

He felt like the warning.

When we finally reached the tree line, he stopped.

“I can’t go farther,” he said, voice frayed at the edges. “Someone might see.”

I turned to face him. “And if they do?”

He shook his head. “It’ll make everything worse.”

I stared up at him, taking in the blood still drying on his cheek, the way his jaw clenched like he was holding something inside that might shatter him if it got out.

“You already made it worse,” I whispered. “Didn’t you?”

He looked away.

The silence between us stretched so long it hurt.

I almost asked again what the bite meant. What I was now. What would happen next. But the words stuck in my throat. Because I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers.

Not yet.

So instead, I just nodded once and stepped away.

I didn’t say goodbye.

I left him standing at the edge of the trees, swallowed by moonlight and shadows.

With each step I took toward the sidewalk, toward home, my legs grew heavier, like the weight of everything that just happened had finally caught up to me. My shoulder ached, each pulse of pain blooming deeper now, curling down my arm, up the side of my neck. It wasn’t just soreness. It was something else. Something alive beneath the skin.

I pressed my fingers against it, flinching as my shirt stuck to the bite. The fabric had soaked through with blood. The cold air stung where skin had torn, but I barely felt it anymore. I was numb.

The houses came into view, spaced out and quiet in the late hour. Porch lights glowed like small beacons, but they didn’t comfort me the way they used to. Everything looked the same, but I wasn’t.

My feet dragged across the cracked pavement. A dog barked in the distance. A car passed, its headlights briefly washing me in gold. I didn’t even flinch. Let them see me. Let someone notice. Part of me wanted someone to ask what had happened. Part of me wanted to scream it at the night.

I’d been attacked by something not human. Saved by a boy who turned into a wolf. Bitten by him.

And I had no idea what came next.

My house came into view like a mirage. The porch light was off. No movement inside. My aunt must have gone to bed hours ago, and I was thankful for it. I didn’t want her to see me like this. Torn. Bloody. Shaken.

Broken.

I slipped through the gate and crossed the yard on stiff legs. My hand trembled as I reached for the door.

It took three tries to get the key in.

When I stepped inside, the silence was immediate and thick. Every creak of the floor sounded like thunder beneath my feet. I paused just past the threshold, closing the door softly behind me, holding my breath like the air might shatter.

My aunt’s shoes were still by the door. Her keys still in the bowl. Normal. Familiar.

But I didn’t feel like I belonged here anymore.

I crept down the hall, bypassing the light switch. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing myself in full brightness. Not yet.

In my room, I shut the door and collapsed onto the bed, clothes and all. The moment I hit the mattress, my body finally let go. I shook. Silent, trembling shakes that came in waves, like my bones had been holding still for too long and forgot how to stop.

I curled on my side, pulling the blanket over my body, even though I was already sweating. My skin felt tight and hot, my pulse loud in my ears.

I wanted to cry. I thought I might. But nothing came. Just that awful ache in my chest and the raw sting of the bite on my shoulder.

I stared at the wall, breathing shallow, heart still thudding in uneven beats.

I was home. I was safe. The door was locked.

But nothing about this felt over.

Because something had changed tonight.

And I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to come back from it.

I didn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment I was staring at the wall, the next, light was spilling across the floorboards, thin and gray, the kind of morning light that feels more like fog than sun.

I blinked up at the ceiling, dry-eyed and sore, my mind lagging behind my body. For a second, I forgot. I forgot the woods, the blood, the bite.

Then I moved.

A sharp pain flared in my shoulder, and it all came rushing back.

I sat up too fast. The room tilted. My stomach twisted. Cold sweat clung to my skin, and my shirt stuck to my shoulder, the fabric dried stiff against the wound. I peeled it away slowly, wincing.

The bite was… worse now.

The edges were red and raised, the skin hot to the touch. Angry. Throbbing. There were faint marks around it too, like the veins beneath had darkened. I didn’t know if that was just bruising or something else entirely. Something wrong.

I stood and stumbled toward the mirror.

And froze.

My reflection looked… off. I didn’t know how else to describe it.

Same girl. Same tangled hair. Same shadows under her eyes. But the look behind them? That wasn’t the same.

It was sharper. Wilder.

I leaned closer. My pupils were dilated, rimmed in gold.

No. Not gold.

Just the light, I told myself. Just a trick of the light.

I turned away, heart pounding too hard to think straight.

My mouth was dry. My skin felt like it didn’t fit right. My hearing was... off. I could hear the soft click of the ceiling fan from the living room, the ticking of the old wall clock in the hallway. Every sound stretched too far, too crisp.

I pressed both palms to the wall beside my desk to steady myself. It felt cold. Too cold. And I realized my hands were shaking again.

What was happening to me?

I wasn’t a werewolf. That wasn’t possible. Kade had said it wasn’t supposed to happen. He hadn’t meant to bite me. Maybe that meant it wouldn’t… take.

But something inside me whispered that it already had.

Something slow and ancient and alive, curling under my skin like smoke, changing me molecule by molecule.

I wasn’t the same girl who’d walked home last night.

And I didn’t know who I was becoming.