Bite Me Softly

Chapter 5: Woodland Secrets

By Saturday afternoon, the tension in my body had grown unbearable. I kept glancing toward the tree line behind the house like it was whispering my name. Crescent Ridge wasn’t the kind of place with movie theaters or coffee shops on every corner. It was the kind of place where people stayed in their lanes, kept their heads down, and didn’t wander too far off the main road.

But something about the woods had always called to me.

When I first arrived, I thought it was just the quiet. The green. The hush of trees that didn’t demand anything from me. But now, I knew it was more than that.

Something was happening here. And I needed to know what.

So I put on my oldest boots, layered a hoodie over a long-sleeve shirt, and tucked a flashlight into my backpack just in case. I didn’t tell my aunt where I was going. She wouldn’t have cared either way, and besides, I didn’t want to explain why I felt compelled to roam through a forest that made my skin prickle.

The path started behind the school, a thin trail partially hidden by ivy and overgrowth. No signs. No warnings. Just a gap in the brush and the sense that once I stepped in, I wouldn’t be the same.

The forest swallowed sound. My footsteps turned soft on moss and pine needles. The sunlight filtered through the canopy in weak, dusty beams, and the deeper I went, the more the silence buzzed in my ears.

I passed rotted logs and crooked trees with claw-like branches. A broken fence, half-consumed by ivy. Evidence that someone, at some point, had tried to keep something in. Or out.

My breath steamed in front of me despite the warmth of the afternoon. It shouldn’t have been that cold.

I walked for nearly twenty minutes before I found it.

An old cabin, or what was left of it. The roof had partially caved in, and one side looked like it had been clawed open. Charred marks scorched the wood in irregular patches, black against the faded gray. Vines crept over the porch like skeletal fingers.

My stomach twisted.

I stepped carefully across the threshold, the wooden planks groaning under my weight. Inside, the air was stale and bitter, like smoke and mildew. The furniture was sparse: a broken table, a single chair missing a leg, shelves with empty jars coated in dust.

On the far wall, a set of scratch marks marred the wood. Long, deep, savage. I didn’t have to guess what made them.

And in the corner, partially hidden beneath a tarp, was something else. A journal.

I hesitated, then picked it up. The leather cover was cracked, and the pages inside were warped from water damage. I flipped through carefully. Most of the writing was illegible, but a few words stood out.

"change... full moon... dangerous... can’t control it..."

I swallowed.

Suddenly, a noise outside. Sharp, quick, unmistakable. A snap.

My body locked up.

I turned, inching toward the window. Fog had started to creep in, low to the ground. Movement flickered between the trees. A shape. Four-legged. Large.

Then another snap.

Panic surged through me. I backed away from the window, heart hammering. The forest outside no longer felt quiet. It felt alive.

And angry.

A sharp rustle came from the trees to the left of the cabin. Then another. Branches snapped with brutal force, not the random sway of wind or wandering wildlife. Whatever was out there was big and getting closer.

I turned to run but something growled.

Not like Kade’s soft warning back in the stairwell.

This was guttural. Feral. And close.

The kind of sound that came with teeth.

I bolted.

The front door flew open with a creak that barely registered. My boots hit the soft earth, and I launched myself toward the trees, desperate to put distance between me and that growl. Branches whipped at my face and arms, catching on my clothes like claws. Twigs snapped beneath my feet, the underbrush dragging at my ankles. My breath tore in and out of my lungs in panicked bursts.

I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see what was following me. But I could hear it, snapping twigs, the thud of heavy paws, the rhythmic, snarling breath that grew louder with every heartbeat.

I wasn’t going to make it.

The forest blurred around me, a spinning mass of greens and browns and movement. The low hanging branches clawed at my hoodie. My lungs screamed. My legs burned. Something howled again, so close it vibrated in my spine.

Then my foot caught on a root. I stumbled, arms windmilling

and hit the ground hard.

Pain exploded in my elbow as I skidded across dirt and leaves, the shock of impact knocking the breath from my lungs. The cold bit into my skin. My vision spun.

I tried to get up. Tried to scramble away. But I was too slow.

A low snarl echoed from behind me.

It was right there.

Then, a flash of movement.

A blur in the trees. Something impossibly fast.

Something slammed into the creature behind me.

A deafening roar filled the air, followed by the sound of impact: flesh against flesh, claws raking bark, the thud of bodies colliding and crashing to the forest floor.

I curled into myself, arms over my head, bracing for pain that never came. The forest roared with violence. Growls, snarls, the c***k of wood splitting. Birds screamed and took to the sky.

And then

silence.

Long and aching.

My breathing was ragged. The world spun.

Then… footsteps. Slow. Steady.

I looked up.

Kade.

He stood in front of me like something torn from a nightmare and a fever dream all at once.

Shirtless. Bloodied. Barefoot.

His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, steam curling from his skin like smoke caught in moonlight. His hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. A fresh cut ran down his shoulder, vivid and angry, but it didn’t seem to bother him.

His eyes weren’t just golden. They glowed. Not brightly, but enough to reflect something ancient. Something other.

He looked wild. Unhinged. Raw.

And beautiful in a terrifying, untouchable way.

He didn’t speak. Just stared at me like I wasn’t real. Like I was a hallucination he wasn’t sure he could trust.

"Kade…" I whispered, voice trembling.

He blinked, like waking up from something deeper than sleep.

“You’re bleeding,” I said, my voice thin and useless.

He looked down at his shoulder, then slowly back up.

“It’s not mine,” he said, and there was something final in his voice. Something that dared me to ask more but promised I wouldn’t like the answer.

For a second, neither of us moved. Then he stepped forward.

Gently, so gently, it broke me a little, he reached down and scooped me into his arms. The sudden contact made me flinch at first, but I didn’t resist. My limbs were jelly, my body still shocked from the fall and the fear.

His skin was warm. Fever-warm. And slick with blood that wasn’t his.

He held me like I weighed nothing, like he did this sort of thing often.

Then he turned and began walking back toward the edge of the forest.

Each step was quiet, measured. Like he didn’t want to startle the trees.

I buried my face in his shoulder, partly to avoid seeing the c*****e behind us and partly because I couldn’t bear the way his glowing eyes kept flicking around like he was hunting more shadows.

The silence pressed around us, thick and haunted.

Kade didn’t speak again. But I could hear the low rumble in his chest, a sound I’d only heard from wolves in cages, pacing, agitated.

Except he wasn’t caged.

And he wasn’t a wolf.

Not exactly.

I didn’t know what he was.

But I knew now he wasn’t normal.

And I wasn’t safe.

Even in his arms, even with him saving me. I wasn’t sure which part of him had done the saving and which part had scared off whatever hunted me.

Or if they were the same part all along.