Chapter 2 : The Blood Beneath the Skin
The first thing Aria noticed when she woke wasn’t the sunlight. It was the dirt under her fingernails.
She stared at her hands for a long moment, heart pounding, mind grasping for logic that wasn’t there. Her sheets were streaked with mud, her window slightly open. A cold wind drifted through, carrying the scent of rain and something else—something wild.
She sat up slowly. Her heartbeat didn’t feel like her own; it drummed too fast, too heavy, as if another rhythm pulsed beneath it. The air felt charged, humming softly against her skin.
It’s not possible, she told herself. I didn’t go anywhere. I dreamt. That’s all.
But her bare feet told another story—scratched, smeared with dried earth. The faintest bruise curved around her ankle, shaped like a claw mark.
Her mother’s voice called from downstairs again, warm and ordinary, the sound grounding her in everything that should make sense. Aria forced herself to move, wash up, act normal. The mirror above the sink caught her reflection—paler than usual, pupils slightly dilated. Her eyes shimmered faintly gold for half a second before fading back to their usual hazel.
She blinked hard. “Nope. Definitely need more sleep.”
But deep down, she knew sleep wasn’t the problem.
Campus was alive with the buzz of students when she arrived, coffee in hand, her mind still replaying the previous night. Every step she took seemed to echo too loudly, every scent too sharp—the wet leaves, the ink of freshly printed papers, even the faint musk of the guy sitting beside her in literature class.
She tried to focus on Professor Grey’s voice as he read aloud from an old myth: “The Lost Luna was said to walk among mortals, unaware of her blood until the silver moon called her home…”
The words made her pen pause mid-note.
Her throat tightened. “Sorry, did you say—Lost Luna?”
Grey glanced up with mild interest. “Yes, an old Lycan myth. Symbolic, of course. The moon goddess’s daughter cursed to forget her own nature. It’s all allegory. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. But her pulse betrayed her, racing beneath her skin.
After class, she lingered in the corridor, staring at the faded poster on the noticeboard—a moonlit forest, advertising a local exhibition called “Legends of the Hidden Bloodlines.”
Something about it drew her in like gravity.
“You planning to go?” a familiar voice asked from behind.
She turned to see Rowan, her best friend—brown hair, warm eyes, the kind of smile that always felt like sunlight.
“I might,” she said. “It looks… interesting.”
“You mean creepy.” He grinned. “You’ve been spacing out a lot lately. Everything alright?”
“Just weird dreams. And… something else.”
He studied her carefully. “Aria, if someone’s bothering you—”
“It’s not that.” She hesitated, glancing around before lowering her voice. “Do you ever feel like… something’s watching you? Like there’s something out there you can’t see, but it can see you?”
Rowan’s expression flickered. For a second—just one heartbeat—his eyes looked sharper, darker, almost animal. Then he laughed it off. “That’s what you get for bingeing fantasy novels at two a.m.”
She smiled weakly, but she didn’t believe her own laugh.
Later that afternoon, the sky darkened too quickly for daylight. The storm rolled in from nowhere, swallowing the sun in bruised clouds. Aria hurried across the campus courtyard, clutching her bag to her chest.
Then she froze.
There it was again—that feeling. Not just being watched, but being hunted.
A shadow darted past the fountain—too tall, too fast. Her breath hitched. “Hello?”
No answer. Only the low growl of thunder.
She turned to run—and collided straight into someone.
Strong hands caught her arms before she could fall. The same hands from her dream. The same mercury eyes.
Kael.
Her breath stilled, her pulse quickening with recognition she shouldn’t have. His presence radiated heat even through the rain. His black coat clung to him, rain dripping from the edge of his jaw. He looked like he’d stepped out of a storm and brought it with him.
“You,” she whispered.
He frowned, scanning her face as if searching for proof she was real. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“You said that last time.”
He hesitated. “Last time?”
“The bridge,” she said. “You told me to forget you. Then you disappeared.”
Something flickered in his eyes—shock, then wariness. “You remember that.”
“I remember everything,” she said softly. “Who are you?”
The question hung between them like a static charge. Rain pattered against the pavement, each drop a heartbeat in the silence.
Then a scent hit her—iron, musk, danger.
Kael’s head snapped toward the trees. His voice dropped to a growl. “Stay behind me.”
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer. His pupils expanded, eyes glowing faintly. And then Aria saw it—something moving through the rain, fast and wrong. A shape too big to be human, eyes glinting red.
A wolf—but not like any she’d seen before. Its body shimmered with smoke and bone.
Kael moved before it lunged. The speed was inhuman—a blur of strength and precision. Claws met steel as the creature slammed into him. Aria stumbled back, her breath catching as Kael’s hand ignited with silver light. He drove his blade through the beast’s chest. It howled, a sound that cracked through her skull like lightning.
When it hit the ground, it dissolved into shadow.
Aria stood frozen, heart hammering. “What… was that?”
Kael’s chest rose and fell hard. His eyes still glowed when he looked at her. “Something that shouldn’t exist here.”
“Here?”
He hesitated, studying her. “You saw its eyes. You shouldn’t have been able to.”
“What does that mean?”
He stepped closer, rain dripping from his hair. His voice softened, rough and magnetic. “It means you’re not what you think you are.”
The words hit her harder than the storm. “I’m human,” she said, but it sounded like a lie.
Kael’s gaze lingered on her face—on the faint shimmer beneath her skin, the silver veins pulsing faintly under her collarbone. “Not anymore,” he whispered.
Before she could respond, he reached out—then froze. A mark burned on his hand, matching the faint pattern glowing through her skin.
Both of them gasped as silver light flared between them, coiling like living fire.
Kael staggered back, his jaw tight. “No. This can’t—”
“Kael!”
A voice cut through the rain. A tall man emerged from the shadows—a warrior in dark armour, his eyes sharp with command.
“Darius,” Kael growled, low and dangerous.
“You’ve broken the boundary,” Darius said coldly. “The Council will sense it. If she’s what I think—”
“She’s not your concern,” Kael snapped.
But Darius’s gaze had already shifted to Aria, his nostrils flaring slightly. Recognition dawned, horror flashing in his eyes. “Moonblood,” he breathed.
Aria stumbled back. “What did you just call me?”
Neither answered. The thunder roared, drowning out everything except the pulse in her ears.
Kael grabbed her wrist. “You need to leave. Now.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on!”
But before he could, lightning tore across the sky—and something moved in the clouds. A shadow vast and winged, howling as if the storm itself had a heartbeat.
Kael looked up sharply. “They’ve found us.”
The wind screamed through the courtyard, slamming her against him as the shadows descended.
The last thing Aria saw was Kael’s eyes turning silver and the world vanishing in a flash of moonlight—then nothing but darkness and the sound of her own name echoing through it.
