The Beta's Warning

Chapter Four – The Woods are Calling

The note burned in Vee’s pocket all day, as though it were alive.

Come to the woods. Midnight.

The words looped through her mind on repeat until they became louder than her teachers, louder than the chatter of her classmates, louder even than the noise of her own thoughts. Every time she touched the folded paper, her fingertips tingled. By evening, she had convinced herself she wouldn’t go. She promised she’d throw it away, ignore it, forget it existed. Yet when the house finally settled into silence and the clock on the hallway wall ticked steadily and accusingly, she knew she was lying to herself.

She couldn’t breathe anymore, not with that note in her pocket and the pull in her veins.

Every creak of the old house sounded like a countdown. When her parents’ door clicked shut and the hum of the refrigerator became the only noise downstairs, she slid off her bed. Her hoodie was draped across the chair. She tugged it on and pressed the sleeve tight over the strange glowing scratches carved into her arm.

She crossed to the window and forced it open. Cold night air rushed in, sharp and damp, and for a second she hesitated, caught between common sense and compulsion. Then her heart surged, and she swung her legs over the sill. The grass below was slick with dew as she landed, knees bent to soften the sound.

The yard lay quiet behind her, but the trees beyond seemed anything but still. They loomed under the swollen silver moon, shadows curling in the spaces between their trunks. Though no wind touched them, the branches swayed, and in the hush of the night, she thought she heard her name whispered, thin and coaxing.

Vee…

Her hands curled into fists. “This is insane,” she whispered, her voice shaking in the cold air.

But her feet kept moving.

The deeper she went, the heavier the silence grew. The forest felt alive, the kind of alive that pressed on the skin and crawled up the back of the neck. Leaves shivered without a breeze, branches creaked as if stretching toward her. Her arm throbbed beneath the sleeve, the scratches glowing faintly, their light just strong enough to show her the path forward.

Every rustle made her spin. Every shape in the shadows looked like teeth waiting to close around her.

Her voice was a low mutter, a poor attempt at courage. “If I die tonight, it’ll be because I was stupid enough to follow a creepy note into the woods.”

A sharp crack behind her split the air. A twig.

Vee whirled, heart clawing at her ribs. “Hello?”

Silence answered.

Her skin prickled. Someone was there. She could feel eyes on her, could feel the weight of their attention in her bones.

Then the air changed. It shifted suddenly, thick with charge, like the pause before lightning strikes. The hairs on her arms rose.

A low growl rolled through the darkness, deep and guttural.

Her throat went dry.

Another growl echoed from the opposite side, closing in.

She froze, caught between two unseen predators.

Yellow eyes blinked open in the trees. Not one. Three.

“Not good…” The words barely scraped from her throat.

The wolves stepped into the moonlight, each larger than any wolf she had ever seen in pictures or movies. Their shoulders rippled with muscle, their teeth glinted wet beneath curled lips, and their fur seemed darker than shadow itself.

Vee stumbled back. “Easy… nice doggies…”

One crouched low, ready to spring.

The attack came, but not from where she expected.

A blur slammed into the wolf mid-leap, throwing it sideways. The clearing erupted with snarls, claws striking earth, bodies colliding in violent rhythm. Vee stumbled backward, breath sharp in her chest as she tried to follow the chaos. The newcomer moved with speed so unnatural it was almost invisible, his body snapping between human and something else.

Another wolf lunged. A long, strong, frighteningly inhuman hand shot out and hurled it into the dirt.

Moonlight struck his face for the briefest moment.

Rio.

Except not Rio as she knew him in school, with his quiet stare and sharp edges. His eyes glowed molten gold, fierce and burning, his jaw carved like stone. His body twisted, caught in some half-shift, as though bone and muscle were fighting to choose what shape they belonged to.

Vee’s breath locked in her lungs.

He tossed one wolf aside like it weighed nothing, his chest rising with a predator’s control. His gaze cut toward her, blazing.

“Run,” he growled.

She couldn’t. Her legs refused. Fear nailed her to the ground.

“Vee!” His voice cracked like a whip, commanding.

Another wolf darted straight for her. Vee screamed and stumbled, but Rio was faster. He struck with claws that weren’t entirely human, tearing across the beast’s flank. The creature yelped, a high-pitched cry of rage and pain, before vanishing into the trees. The other wolves fled with it, swallowed by the dark as suddenly as they had come.

Silence fell. Heavy. Absolute.

Her chest heaved as if she had been running for miles. “What… what are you?”

Rio turned slowly. His chest was bare, streaked with dirt and blood. His half-shifted body trembled as though he were fighting the very shape of himself. His golden eyes burned, catching on hers with a force that pinned her in place.

“You weren’t supposed to see this.”

Her sleeve slipped. The scratches on her arm shone brighter now, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat, as if answering the fire in his eyes.

Rio’s gaze dropped to them. His expression darkened, fury cutting across his face. “Damn it.”

“What?” Her voice cracked, caught somewhere between anger and fear. “What’s wrong with me?”

He stepped closer, his voice low and dangerous, each word edged with restraint. “You’re marked.”

“Marked by what?”

His jaw locked, but he didn’t answer.

The silence stretched. The night pressed in, suffocating, as the glow of her arm bathed them both. The only sound left was the jagged rhythm of her heartbeat.

Then Rio stepped back, shadows wrapping around him as his form blurred. His body twisted again, shifting away from what she recognized.

His final words hung sharp in the air.

“Stay away from the woods, Vee. Next time, I won’t save you.”

And then he was gone.

Vee stood trembling in the empty clearing, the echo of his warning still rattling in her chest. The scratches on her arm flared with heat, glowing like fire beneath her skin, a reminder that whatever had happened tonight was only the beginning.