Secret Blood

Blood always smelled strongest before dawn.

Kyoka scrubbed harder, the rough brush biting into her palms as crimson water seeped through the grooves of the Pack training ground’s floor. The cold had settled deep into the stone overnight, turning the water in the bucket icy enough to numb her fingers, but she barely noticed anymore. Black Forest winters taught endurance before mercy, especially when you were as low down the pack’s heirarchy as she was.

Around her, the packhouse slept, or most of it did, as wolves still patrolled their boundaries whether it was day or night. The training grounds also never truly rested, if they weren’t echoing with the sounds of battle, they provided a short cut to other areas of the packhouse, or were being tended to by servants such as herself in preparation for the next round of fights after dawn arrived. The scent lingered everywhere now, sharp metal, sweat, wet earth, rage. She paused, her breath unexpectedly faster.

The rage was not her own, though she carried plenty within her and she frowned in puzzlement.

The emotion rolled through her so suddenly she nearly dropped the brush. For one dizzy second, she could almost taste it on her tongue, hot and savage. Kyoka frowned and looked around the empty space, but there was nothing to see but silence and shadows.

Her grip tightened on the wooden handle. Something was wrong with her lately, because for the past week, the world had become… louder, more intense, full of confusion. It wasn’t about being louder in sound, but in everything else.

Scents clung to the air too heavily, emotions pressed strangely against her skin. Even the Black Forest beyond the pack walls seemed awake in ways she’d never noticed before, creaking and whispering to her deep into the night.

It frightened her.

Because only wolves sensed things and Kyoka had spent nineteen years being told she was not a wolf, she was the worst of the worst, a shifter without a wolf to shift into.

A burst of laughter echoed from the upper courtyard, five young pack wolves returning from night patrol. Kyoka lowered her head automatically, immediately adopting a stance that would make her smaller, insignificant, hopefully invisible, then continued scrubbing the blood from the stone.

But she wasn’t invisible and she was an easy target for most pack members.

“There’s the Ghost.”

The voice came sharp, filled with disdain and amusement as the others sniggered at her name. The boys descended the steps, their boots crunching on gravel, as they exuded broad shoulders, strength and smug expressions with the careless confidence of wolves born into the rank of warriors. Kyoka recognised all of them, though none had ever bothered learning her real name, as to them, she was simply Ghost. The girl without a scent, the girl without a wolf, the thing the pack tolerated but never truly accepted.

One of them nudged the bucket with his boot, sloshing pink water across the stones.

“You missed a spot.”

The others laughed, and Kyoka kept her eyes lowered, though she silently seethed deep within. Never react. Never challenge. Never give them a reason. That lesson had been carved into her while she had been still young.

“I said…”

“I heard you.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them, and silence arrived instantly on a wave of stillness as the wolf nearest her stiffened. Oh God, her damn thoughts had escaped into her mouth! Kyoka immediately felt the change in the wolf who had spoken to her.

His expression darkened, nostrils flaring as dominance rolled off him in warning. A normal wolf would have lowered themselves instinctively beneath the pressure and bared their neck in submission, but Kyoka felt nothing so did nothing.

She never did.

That had always unsettled the wolves because she did not behave as a typical wolf would.

“Well,” he muttered, stepping closer, “the stray has found her claws.”

His hand shot out, gripping her jaw hard enough to bruise, and Kyoka forced herself not to flinch as he tilted her face upward, also remembering to keep her eyes empty of any emotion or thought.

“Careful, Ghost. Dogs that forget their place get put down,” he murmured.

His breath smelled like stale ale and blood. But blending with those odours she smelt something else… rot. The scent hit her so sharply her stomach heaved, and she jerked back instinctively.

The wolf frowned.

“What’s your problem?”

She stared at him as her senses were assaulted with the odour of rotting leaves, decay and wet fur. The smell poured from his skin so strongly now she could barely breathe around it.

Had it always been there?

“No, nothing,” she said quickly.

The boy released her with a shove.

“Freak.”

With her dismissed and forgotten, they moved off toward the packhouse, shoulders bumping as they laughed again. Kyoka stayed perfectly still until the sound faded, then she finally breathed and pressed trembling fingers against her temple.

What is happening to me?

The training grounds suddenly felt too close, too warm, too full of smells she couldn’t separate from one another… rain, mud, smoke, old blood.

Oh God! The blood.

Her eyes drifted unwillingly towards the dark stain near the centre of the floor. One of the younger wolves had broken his arm during training yesterday and there had been blood everywhere after the fight turned ugly.

Kyoka swallowed as she had the weirdest feeling that the stain almost seemed to be pulsing beneath the torchlight.

’Don’t be ridiculous,’ she berated herself, but she couldn’t help it, and she instinctively reached out towards it.

As her fingers stroked across the dried blood, pain exploded behind her eyes. A snarl tore through her skull, not an actual sound, but what felt like a memory of fury, fear then agony. A wolf crashing into dirt, bones snapping, and someone screaming “Yield!”

The vision shattered violently and Kyoka recoiled, gasping for air. The fighting ground was empty again, no one was there except the darkness of the shadows. The only sound was her ragged breathing as she stared at her hand in horror.

What was that all about?

Footsteps sounded overhead, breaking her focus on what had just happened. Footsteps that were heavy, rhythmic and dangerous. Every instinct inside her body went taut with fear as she somehow managed to recognise who it was by her senses alone. The entire courtyard seemed to quiet down in submission before he even appeared.

Tael descended the stone steps slowly, black coat damp from patrol, dark hair pushed back carelessly from his rugged face, and blood streaked across one knuckle, fresh enough to still glisten beneath the torchlight, hinting of recent events. The pack’s Enforcer had arrived. Even full-grown wolves stepped aside when he walked through Black Forest. Kyoka lowered her gaze immediately, fearful of his attention, but of course, she felt him stop beside her, such was her luck. He was watching her far too closely for her liking, and she shifted uncomfortably under his eye.

A strange tension coiled suddenly beneath her skin as Tael’s silence stretched.

Then he spoke. “You’re bleeding.”

Her eyes flicked downward to where the brush had torn open both her palms, and thin ribbons of blood ran across her skin and dripped soundlessly onto the stone. She hadn’t even felt it happen, not even noticed. A chill crawled up her spine as she sensed Tael stepping closer. Every nerve in her body screamed danger in her mind, though she wasn’t certain why.

His gaze lingered on her hands, then lifted slowly toward her face. For one impossible second, confusion flickered across his expression, as if he’d noticed something he didn’t expect to see. His nostrils flared slightly and Kyoka’s heart leapt into her mouth.

Panic rose hot and fast and she turned abruptly, grabbing the water bucket before he could step any closer.

“I need to finish before morning meal.”

Her voice sounded wrong to her own ears, too breathless, too scared, waiting for the rebuke that would surely come, but Tael said nothing.

She hurried past him toward the servant entrance, forcing herself not to run. Wolves noticed prey traits, especially running as it was in their nature to chase. At the doorway, she risked one glance back. He still stood in the center of the arena, watching her, but surprisingly not with cruelty as she had expected… but with suspicion.

****

By nightfall, the fever had started. Kyoka curled herself up tightly beneath the thin blanket on her narrow cot, teeth clenched against another wave of pain twisting through her body. Something was moving beneath her skin, at first she thought she was just imagining it, but now it felt real.

Her spine arched sharply as agony ripped through her legs and a cry caught in her throat as it felt like her bones were trying to split apart from the inside.

The cramped servant quarters were silent around her, and she was grateful that they all had their own rooms. Sweat dampened her hairline and her heartbeat thundered harder and faster than it ever had before.

Everything felt wrong inside her.

Then… crack.

Pain shot through her jaw and Kyoka bit down hard on the blanket to smother the sound of her cries, and terror flooded her chest.

Another crack.

Her nails sharpened briefly into claws before snapping back, and the room spun violently. Suddenly a growl echoed through her mind… deep, ancient and female.

Kyoka froze as the sound continued to vibrate through her very soul. This had to be impossible, a side effect of her fever as she had no wolf, but then another growl, closer this time.

Then a commanding voice spoke, low as distant thunder:

Run!

The candle beside her bed shattered as darkness swallowed the room.