Whispers in the Walls
1983 Words
The pack house is loud in the daytime.
At night, it whispers.
Old pipes groan. Floorboards creak. The wind slides through gaps in the shutters and carries scents from the forest—wet earth, pine needles, the metallic tang of distant blood.
I lie awake in the narrow bed they gave me, staring at the dark slice of ceiling above, and listen.
Somewhere down the hall, someone laughs, sharp and mean. A door slams. The mark on my wrist pulses once, twice, like a second heartbeat trying to sync with one that doesn’t want it.
I can’t stop replaying Damon’s words.
You breathe when I say it’s safe.
Arrogant, controlling, infuriating Alpha.
Who gripped my wrist like it was the only thing keeping him from drowning.
I roll onto my side, blanket twisted around my legs. The room still smells faintly of cleaning fluid and someone else’s soap—a leftover imprint from whoever used this space before me.
I’ve always been good at slipping into gaps. At becoming part of the furniture.
It didn’t save me tonight.
…
A faint scuff outside my room snaps me upright. My wolf lifts her head, ears pricked. There it is again—a soft, careful step, too light to be a warrior, too practiced to be an accident.
I slide out of bed and pad barefoot to the door. The handle is cool under my fingers. I c***k it an inch.
A young omega girl stands there, tray in her hands, eyes wide like she’s been caught stealing.
“Oh,” she squeaks. “Luna— I mean, Miss. I was just—”
“Luna is fine,” I say before I can stop myself.
The word tastes strange. Dangerous. A little bit like hope.
Her cheeks flush. “I… uh. I brought tea. And salve. Elder Rowan said you bruised your wrist.”
Of course he noticed. He notices everything.
I open the door wider. “Come in before someone sees you loitering in the cursed wing.”
She giggles nervously and slips inside. Up close, she smells like soap and flour and a hint of fear.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Maisie,” she says. “I mean, Omega Maisie, service rank—”
“Maisie is fine.”
We stand there, two awkward wolves in a too‑small room, pretending this is a normal visit and not quiet rebellion.
As she sets the tray down, her gaze skitters to my wrist. “Does it hurt? The mark?”
“Sometimes.” I flex my fingers. “Sometimes it feels like it isn’t mine at all.”
She hesitates. “My grandma used to tell stories,” she blurts. “About Silverbloods. Not the scary ones the elders repeat. Different ones.”
My heart stutters. “What kind of stories?”
Her eyes dart to the door, then back to me. “The kind that get you in trouble if you say them too loud.”
Outside, a floorboard creaks again—heavier this time. Not an omega. Not a wandering ghost.
Alpha‑weight.
Damon is in the hallway.
Maisie pales.
I grab her wrist gently and tug her closer to the bed, lowering both of us to sit like we’ve been here forever. “Then whisper,” I say. “The walls already know my secrets. Might as well feed them something true.”
She swallows, then leans in until her lips are at my ear.
“Grandma said Silverbloods weren’t curses,” she whispers. “They were… balances. The world’s way of… fixing things when they went too wrong.”
My skin prickles at that. Damon’s scent inches closer outside the door, dark and sharp.
If Silverbloods are meant to fix broken worlds… then why does everyone act like I’m here to end it?
The doorknob rattles.
Maisie jumps. I meet her gaze, some wild decision making itself in my chest.
“You should go,” I murmur. “Before your Alpha decides visiting the curse breaks one of his rules.”
She nods, scrambling up, but as she reaches the door, she glances back. “For what it’s worth,” she says, voice barely a breath, “I don’t think you’re a monster.”
The door opens to reveal six‑plus feet of irritated Alpha and a small omega trying to slide past him.
“Maisie,” Damon says, brow arching. “Breaking curfew?”
My wolf bares her teeth in my chest.
So do I.
Maisie ducks her head so low her chin nearly hits her chest. “Sorry, Alpha. I was just bringing tea. Elder Rowan said—”
“I know what Elder Rowan said,” Damon cuts in. His gaze flicks to the tray in her hands, to the bandage still peeking from under my sleeve, then back to her. “Next time, you clear it with me before wandering this wing after lights‑out.”
She swallows. “Yes, Alpha.”
He steps aside to let her pass. For a moment, she’s framed between us—small, trembling, caught in the crossfire of two storms.
“Go on,” I say, softer than I mean to. “Before the curse spreads.”
Maisie makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh and bolts down the hall.
Damon watches her go, then shifts his attention back to me.
It’s like being dropped into ice water.
“Inviting visitors now?” he asks. “Is that another rule I need to spell out for you?”
I cross my arms over my chest, aware of how thin my sleep shirt is and how close he’s standing. “If you’re about to tell me I’m not allowed to have friends, just say it. We both know you’re dying to.”
His gaze drags over my face, down to the mark on my wrist, back up again. “Friends don’t sneak around in the middle of the night whispering Silverblood stories.”
“No,” I say. “They bring tea and pretend I’m not radioactive. That qualifies as friendship in this place.”
His jaw flexes. “You shouldn’t encourage them.”
“Encourage them to what?” I step forward, heat rising under my skin. “To treat me like a person instead of a walking omen? To think maybe I’m not going to explode and take the tower with me?”
“To get attached,” he snaps.
The word hangs between us. Attached. Not just the omegas—me. Him.
“Is that an order too?” I ask quietly. “Don’t let anyone get attached to the girl you keep insisting doesn’t matter?”
He drags a hand through his hair, the movement sharp with frustration. “You twist everything I say.”
“Maybe stop handing me pretzels, then,” I shoot back. “Try saying what you actually mean once in a while.”
“What I mean,” he says through his teeth, “is that your existence is a beacon for every enemy we have. The more people hover around you, the more targets I have to defend. That is math, not cruelty.”
“You keep saying ‘your existence’ like I chose it.”
Silence stretches, taut as wire.
The hallway is narrow. Too narrow. Heat rolls off his body. His aura presses close. His wolf paces under his skin.
“Elder Rowan sent her,” Damon says finally. “Because he thinks you’re… rattled.”
“That implies I was ever not rattled,” I mutter.
His mouth twitches, then flattens again. “I’ll tell him to keep his concern to himself.”
“Don’t.” The word is out before I can stop it.
He goes still. “What?”
I swallow. “Don’t punish him for caring whether I sleep. Or for… believing whatever Elder Rowan believes about Silverbloods.”
“You don’t even know what he believes.”
“No,” I say. “But I know what the rest of you do.”
His eyes darken. “And what is that?”
I take a breath that tastes like dust and old paint. “That I’m a problem you haven’t figured out how to fix yet. That I’m useful as long as I’m contained. And that if anything goes wrong, the easiest story to tell is that it was my fault all along.”
For once, he doesn’t argue.
The quiet grows heavier.
Up here it’s the two of us and the soft whisper of the old house settling.
“You think I enjoy this?” he asks at last.
“Yes,” I say, because it’s easier than the truth.
His gaze cuts like a blade. “You think I like watching half my pack flinch when you walk into a room? That I get some kind of thrill out of counting how many ways tonight could have ended with you dead?”
The rawness in his voice steals my next retort.
He steps closer, close enough that I have to tip my head back again. Close enough that I can see the faint shadows under his eyes, the tension bracketed around his mouth.
“You are a risk I can’t calculate,” he says quietly. “I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know how far the hunters will go to get you. I don’t know what the Moon is playing at binding us like this.”
His hand lifts, hovers near my mark, then drops without touching.
“So until I do know,” he finishes, “I will control every variable I can.”
“Including who brings me tea?”
“Especially who brings you tea.”
Despite everything, a sound escapes me that might be a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m alive,” he says. “So is my pack.”
“What about me?” I ask. “Do I fall under that plan, or am I just the variable you keep trying to solve for?”
He stares at me for a long moment.
“Go to sleep, Evelyn,” he says finally. “That’s an order.”
Anger flares, hot and bright. “You really have a thing for controlling my basic bodily functions.”
“Start with sleep,” he says. “We’ll work up to breathing.”
I flip him off before my brain can remind me that he’s technically my Alpha.
His mouth twitches again, almost a smile, and for one dizzy second I wonder what he’d look like if he ever actually laughed.
“Lock your door,” he says, turning away. “And if you hear anything that doesn’t sound like old pipes or drunk wolves, you call for me. Not Rowan. Not Maisie. Me.”
“Yes, Alpha,” I drawl.
He pauses, glances back, eyes raking over me one more time like he’s checking for cracks.
“And Evelyn?” he says.
“What now?”
“Next time you want stories about Silverbloods,” he mutters, “ask Elder Rowan or someone who’s read the archives. Not a girl with bedtime tales.”
Then he’s gone, footsteps fading down the hall.
I shut the door, turn the lock, lean my forehead against the wood. The house creaks.
I pad back to the bed, pick up Maisie’s tea—lukewarm, but the sweetness steadies me. Balances, she said. Fixing things. If that’s what Silverbloods are meant to do, I have no idea where to start.
Outside, the forest is a black mass against the sky. Somewhere out there, hunters watch and wait.
“If you wanted a fixer,” I tell the ceiling, “you picked a strange tool.”
The mark on my wrist warms, a slow thrum.
Sleep sneaks up in pieces.
- Writer
