The Blood Between
1494 Words
The second we pulled up to the Ashfang medical center, I practically jumped out of the truck—well, stumbled. My body was still stiff and tender like I’d been dragged across gravel, which, to be fair… I had been.
Koda said nothing as we walked inside.
The clinic smelled like antiseptic and exhaustion. Pack members lined the halls, bruised but breathing. No blood. No crying. Just relief.
My heart stuttered when I saw Benji.
He was propped up on a bed like he owned the place, his leg elevated and wrapped, smirking like he was nursing a hangover instead of a rogue-induced injury.
“There she is!” he called, arms thrown wide. “My favorite coma queen. Get over here and tell me everything.”
I tried to smile, sliding onto the edge of his bed. “You’re okay?”
“Werewolf healing,” he said, tapping his cast like it was a badge of honor. “Doc says it’s more of a glorified sprain. I’ll be walking tomorrow.”
Relief punched through me so hard I almost choked on it.
“Koda mind linked the Blood Vale side. No fatalities. Minor injuries,” he added. “Ashfang’s the same. We got lucky.”
I glanced back at Koda, who gave a barely-there nod. The room buzzed around us, but I couldn’t shake the hum under my skin—the feeling that none of this should have ended the way it did.
Benji narrowed his eyes. “So… what did happen to you?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
I remembered everything. The chanting. The eyes. The way my body was… taken. How I was healed from a wound that should’ve killed me.
Every cell in my body told me not to say a word.
“Rogue pulled me into the woods,” I said slowly. “I think they wanted to keep me alive. I passed out. Someone or something scared them off. I woke up later. No idea who or what helped me.”
Not quite a lie. But definitely not the truth.
Benji studied me. “Still a badass.”
I gave a weak smile. “I try.”
⸻
The hospital meeting room was crowded with Ashfang and Blood Vale members. The air buzzed with barely concealed tension, healing magic, and fatigue. Parents stood behind their children. Warriors stood shoulder to shoulder, bruised but unbroken.
Cassian stood tall at the front, arms crossed. “You all fought like wolves,” he said. “You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t fall. This is why we train everyone. And why we survive.”
Next to him stood Drake. Koda’s father. Alpha of the Blood Vale Pack. His voice was colder, but it carried just as far.
“Our enemies thought they could break us. They failed. Let them remember that next time they come for us in the dark.”
I couldn’t help it—my gaze slid toward Koda. He didn’t look back.
Maybe it was better that way.
⸻
After the meeting, I found my parents before they could find me.
They spotted me and rushed forward, arms wrapped around me in a blur of warmth and worry.
“Millie!” my mom whispered, hands skimming my face like she couldn’t believe I was really standing there. “We came with the Greys as soon as we heard.”
“I’m okay,” I murmured. “Really.”
They fussed anyway. And I let them. For once.
Maddy showed up next, her face bruised, hair pulled back in a messy braid. She gave me a little nod like we were both survivors of the same storm. I nodded back.
Together, we walked home.
⸻
That night, I collapsed into bed, my body begging for rest.
And I dreamed.
⸻
The trees were wrong.
Twisted silhouettes, branches creaking like old bones. Fog clung to the ground, thick and unnatural.
I was running. My legs burned. Breath came ragged. Something chased me—or maybe it waited ahead.
Then I heard it.
A cry.
Thin. High-pitched. Familiar in a way that scraped against something deep inside me.
I ran toward it, branches clawing at my arms. And there—on the forest floor—lay a baby.
Black hair. Blue eyes.
My breath caught. “That’s—me.”
I scooped her up. She stopped crying the second I touched her. Her little fingers gripped my shirt, eyes wide.
I stumbled forward, screaming into the trees. “Where are my parents?!”
The crying started again.
I looked down.
The baby wasn’t crying.
She was bleeding.
Blood soaked her shirt, smeared across her face. And then—she was gone.
Gone from my arms.
Gone from the world.
No. No. NO—
Rustling behind me.
I turned.
She emerged from the trees like a nightmare pulled from a buried memory.
A hunched woman. Skin like dried mud, hair in filthy ropes, joints cracking as she moved. Her limbs jerked, twisting unnaturally as she stalked toward me.
Her eyes—glowing blue. Too bright. Too wrong.
Her voice rasped through the dark, chanting something in a tongue that tasted like rust and fire:
Dá’ák’ehgo naaldlooshii dóó niłch’i bee adinídíín, “Bízhi’ doo yádaałti’ da, ha’ííníshą́ą́ baa ha’niih. Bits’íís yę́ę jį́į́hígo, bits’in yę́ę ts’inígo, Nááná łahgo ííł’į́, doo bééhózin da doo. Diyiní dííłdzid, bee ál’íní yę́ę deeshchiił— Náá’eeł dóó tł’ízí yázhí yę́ę baa ádahalyą́.”
“Blood of beast and breath of flame,
Name unspoken, born of shame.
Flesh to spirit, skin to bone,
Rise anew, become unknown.
Shift the soul, the mask shall tear—
Let the wolf beneath beware.”
I stumbled backward, feet slipping in blood. “What are you?!”
She grinned. Her teeth were cracked. Her nails black with something old and rotting.
“Yee naaldlooshii,” she whispered. “It’s in you now.”
I opened my mouth to scream—
And woke up choking on air.
I bolted upright, heart crashing against my ribs like it was trying to break free.
My breath tore out of me in ragged gasps. My skin was damp with sweat. The witch’s words still echoed in my head like whispers stitched into my bones.
Yee naaldlooshii.
“Millie!”
I blinked.
Maddy was leaning over me, eyes wide, hair tousled from sleep. Her hand was on my shoulder, firm but gentle.
“What—what happened?” I rasped, throat raw.
She stared at me for a second longer, then slowly pulled her hand back. “You were crying. Like, really crying. In your sleep.”
I scrubbed a shaky hand over my face, trying to ground myself. My fingers were trembling.
“Oh,” I murmured. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Your eyes,” Maddy said suddenly. “They were—” She paused, leaning in closer, her expression shifting into something I couldn’t quite read.
“What?” I whispered.
“They were glowing.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Like… blue. Bright. For a second, I thought—” She stopped. “It’s gone now. They’re not glowing anymore.”
My breath caught in my throat.
No.
That can’t be right.
I forced out a laugh—too sharp, too tight. “Maybe it was just a reflection from the window or something.”
Maddy frowned but didn’t argue. I could see the doubt in her eyes, though. The way she kept looking at me like I was something just a little too strange to make sense of.
“Sorry for waking you,” I said again. “It was just… a nightmare.”
Not just a nightmare.
It felt real. Like I’d lived it before. Or was meant to.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Maddy murmured, her voice softer now. “You sounded scared. Whatever it was, it must’ve been intense.”
It was. But I couldn’t say that out loud. Not yet. I didn’t want to sound crazy. I didn’t want to be crazy.
“Go back to sleep,” I said gently, shifting beneath the covers.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, even as my heart kept thudding, the image of the witch’s twisted body still fresh behind my eyes. “I’m fine.”
She hesitated. Then nodded and climbed back into her bed on the other side of the room.
I lay there staring at the ceiling. Every creak of the house made my skin prickle. Every whisper of wind outside the window made me wonder if someone—or something—was still watching me.
My eyes were glowing?
I squeezed them shut.
Maybe it was a dream.
Maybe it was nothing.
But deep down, I already knew the truth.
Something is changing.
And whatever it is…
It’s already inside me.
- Writer
