Episode 08
1275 Words
The Door Between Them
The door handle twisted, and Isla froze.
Her breath caught in her throat as the metal creaked slowly, the sound far too deliberate to be a gust of wind. Her fingers clutched the blanket at her chest, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the silence of the room.
She had locked that door. She remembered it clearly. Turned the bolt, checked it twice before crawling into bed.
So why was it turning?
The overhead light flickered. Once. Twice. Then steadied.
Isla’s eyes stayed locked on the handle as it completed its turn.
With a click, the latch gave way. The door creaked open an inch.
A cold draft spilled into the room, brushing her skin with invisible fingers. Her mark began to pulse beneath her collarbone, a low, throbbing sensation that felt like a warning or a call.
She forced herself to move.
Slowly, she rose from the bed, feet bare against the cold floor, body trembling.
"Hello?" Her voice came out softer than she meant. Fragile.
No answer. Just silence. Dense and watching.
Isla reached the door, her palm pressed flat against the frame as she eased it open fully.
No one stood outside.
But the hallway wasn’t empty.
A scent clung to the air. It was smoky, wild and familiar.
Kael.
Her lungs seized.
He was here, somewhere close.
Her body responded before her mind could catch up. The mark on her chest burned hotter, like it was trying to guide her. With a shaky breath, she grabbed her flashlight from the nightstand, stepped into the hallway, and quietly closed the door behind her.
The air felt different this morning. It was heavy, thick with static, like the whole facility was holding its breath.
She padded down the corridor, each step echoing louder than it should. Most of the lights were off, save for the emergency strips running low along the floor. Red and white glows blinked slowly, painting her skin in shifting hues.
Then she saw it, a shadow.
Too large, too still to be normal, standing just at the corner where the corridor split.
Her hand shot up, the flashlight beam slicing through the dark. Everything was empty. Her breath left her in a rush.
No… not empty.
The gold of his eyes flashed once.
Then vanished.
“Kael?” she whispered.
No answer. Just the distant thud of something unseen.
Her pulse quickened. Fear coiled in her gut, but curiosity—need—pulled harder.
The mark throbbed again, as if saying: He’s this way.
She kept walking, following the unseen thread binding them. Her feet moved of their own accord. Past the medical wing. Past security.
Toward the forbidden floor.
The remnants of Cell Nine’s destruction had been sealed off with metal plates and caution tape, but the scent lingered—burnt concrete, blood, and him.
He was nearby. She stepped under the caution tape. The flashlight beam wavered.
And then she heard it. A deep, rough exhale.
She spun—and there he was standing in the shadows.
Barefoot, shirtless. Covered in half-healed wounds.
Kael.
His chest rose and fell with barely contained energy, like a dam holding back a flood. His hair was a mess of curls, his jaw clenched tight, and his eyes, those cursed, beautiful eyes, burned with a shade between gold and red.
“Isla,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She backed up a step on instinct, but her feet stopped as he stepped into the light.
The chain around his wrist was still attached to a broken shackle, dragging behind him with a soft clink.
“What are you doing out?” she demanded, voice firmer than she felt.
“I shouldn’t be,” he admitted. “But I had to see you.”
Her pulse jumped. “You escaped.”
He didn’t deny it.
“The bond’s growing. I can feel it,” he said, his eyes locking onto her chest where the crescent hid beneath her shirt. “It’s burning through me. Through you.”
Isla took another step back. “You marked me. Without permission.”
“No,” Kael growled. “I didn’t bite you. But the bond… it’s older than both of us. It’s choosing for us.”
Her throat went dry. “I didn’t choose this.”
His jaw clenched. “Neither did I.”
They stared at each other, the space between them thick and charged.
“You said I smelled like home,” she whispered.
Kael nodded once. “You do.”
He took a step forward. She didn’t move.
“Why me?” she asked, voice cracking. “Why now? I don’t even know who I am or what you are.”
“You’re the only thing that’s ever silenced the beast inside me,” he said quietly. “That has to mean something.”
She shook her head. “That’s not love. That’s survival.”
“It’s more than that,” he said, his voice nearly breaking. “When I’m near you, I remember who I was before all this. Before the chains. Before the curse.”
She looked up at him, eyes glossy with fear and frustration. “And what happens when I can’t fix you?”
Kael stepped closer. “Then I’ll burn with you.”
His hand reached for her, slow, hesitant.
She didn’t stop him. His fingers brushed her jaw. Her heart slammed into her ribs.
“I’m going to hurt you,” he murmured. “Not because I want to. But because everything inside me is broken.”
“Then why come closer?” she whispered.
“Because even broken… I still want to be yours.”
She let out a shaky breath, torn between running and leaning in.
His fingers slid to her wrist, gentle but possessive. His thumb traced over the vein there.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, because she didn’t need to.
The truth was in the silence between them.
Kael leaned in, his lips brushing her temple, then lower, until they hovered near the hollow of her throat.
His canines lengthened, breath warm against her skin.
One bite, in a split second.
That’s all it would take. Isla’s eyes fluttered closed.
Immediately she fell to the floor.
Kael slammed his fist into the wall beside her, breath ragged, body trembling.
“No,” he growled. “Not like this. Not when you’re afraid.”
She gasped as he pulled away, dragging a hand through his hair like he needed space to breathe.
“I want to mark you more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” he admitted, his voice rough. “But I won’t take you out of fear.”
Tears pricked Isla’s eyes. “Then why does it feel like I’m being claimed anyway?”
Kael didn’t answer. Because he couldn’t.
Everything about their connection was unnatural.
Too strong, happening too soon.
She backed up slowly, the emotional charge between them fraying like an over-wound string.
Soon they heard voices.
Shouting, boots pounding on metal.
The guards.
Kael’s eyes snapped toward the sound, then back to her.
“Go,” she whispered. “If they catch you…”
His face twisted with emotion. “I’ll come back for you.”
Immediately he vanished. One second he was there. The next he was gone.
The only thing left behind was a deep, vertical claw mark burned into the metal wall where his fist had landed.
Isla stared at it, breath shaking.
Then her mark flared white-hot, pulsing once….And for the first time…
She felt a strange feeling stirring within her.
- Writer
