Chapter Three: Beneath the Skin
The forest had always been dangerous, but that night, it felt alive.
King Aldric stood in the middle of a clearing, the full moon broken into pieces by the branches above. Mist clung to the ground like memory. His breath came in slow, measured exhales, but inside, his heart thundered like a war drum.
She was late.
Or watching.
He didn't know which unnerved him more.
It had been three nights since he last saw her—Elara. The name had taken root in his mind like a song he couldn't stop humming. He kept replaying their last encounter: the way her golden eyes flickered in the dark, the tremor in her voice when she said she didn't trust herself. There had been something in her gaze—not just wildness, but sorrow. A kind of deep, old pain.
He understood it more than he wanted to admit.
He'd been born a king, but not a free man.
He had scars too—just not the kind that bled.
Then came the sound. A step—not crunching leaves, but the soft sweep of motion. Deliberate.
He turned, not drawing his sword this time.
She emerged from between two ash trees, the hood of her black cloak pulled low. The mist didn't part for her—it seemed to follow. Her posture was guarded, but her steps were steady.
He didn't speak.
Neither did she.
Only when she stood a few paces away did she lift her head, allowing the moonlight to catch the side of her face. Aldric saw the faint purplish bruise at her collarbone, the dried cuts along her wrist.
"You're hurt," he said softly.
"I've been worse," she replied, voice low and dry.
"I imagine you have."
She looked away. "You came alone."
"I had to," he said. "If anyone sees you…"
"They'd kill me," she finished. "I know."
"No," he said. "They'd be afraid. And when men are afraid, they destroy what they don't understand."
She looked at him sharply. "Do you understand me?"
Aldric stepped closer. "No. But I want to."
Her breath caught.
He noticed then how pale she looked—paler than before. Her hands trembled ever so slightly, hidden beneath the sleeves of her cloak. And when the wind shifted, he caught it—the faintest scent of iron.
Blood.
"You're still healing," he said.
"I'm always healing."
He frowned. "From what?"
Her silence was louder than any scream.
"I was cursed," she said at last. "That's the word people use when they don't know where pain comes from."
"I don't believe you're cursed," he said.
She raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "Then what do you think I am?"
"Haunted," he replied. "Like me."
That caught her off guard.
Aldric sat down on a fallen tree trunk, placing his lantern beside him. He looked up at her, not as a ruler addressing a subject—but as a man offering stillness.
After a moment, Elara stepped forward and sat beside him. Not close. But not far.
"The night I saved you," she said, "I didn't plan to. I was just… drawn there."
"Instinct?" he asked.
"No. Something deeper. I heard a voice in my mind. Not words—just... urgency. I thought I was going mad."
He looked down at his hands. "What do you become, when you change?"
She swallowed. "Something with no name. A beast. But not mindless. Just... angry. Hungry."
"For what?"
"For freedom," she whispered.
He turned to look at her. "From the curse?"
"No," she said, her voice breaking slightly. "From myself."
The silence stretched.
Then she spoke again, softer this time.
"When I was twelve, my village was raided by bandits. I ran into the woods to hide. They burned everything. Everyone. I thought I'd die in those trees. But I didn't. I woke to find a woman standing over me—old, wild-eyed, dressed in bone necklaces and dried flowers. She said the forest had chosen me. That its spirit had passed into me to keep me alive."
"She turned you?"
"She saved me. But at a cost."
Aldric didn't speak. He just listened.
"That woman… she's gone now. But her magic lives in me. And every full moon, I feel it twist my blood." Elara looked up at the sky, her face unreadable. "I've lived alone for fourteen years. I don't remember the last time someone spoke my name without fear."
"I wasn't afraid," Aldric said. "Not of you."
"You should be."
"Maybe. But I'm not."
They looked at each other.
Something moved between them—not just tension, but recognition. A shared ache.
Then, without thinking, Aldric reached into the front of his tunic and pulled out the silver pendant. He held it out to her.
"You dropped this," he said.
She hesitated before taking it. Her fingers brushed his, and for a second, the air between them changed—thicker, like the forest itself was holding its breath.
"I thought it was lost," she said, clutching the pendant. "It's the only thing I have left of her."
"The woman who saved you?"
Elara nodded. "It was hers."
"Why give it to me that night?"
"I didn't mean to. It slipped off during the fight. But… maybe it wasn't a mistake."
They sat in silence again.
"I've read every book about creatures like you," Aldric confessed. "But none of them spoke about kindness."
She smiled faintly. "That's because kindness doesn't make good stories."
"No," he said. "But it makes good rulers."
Her eyes softened. "You're different than I thought a king would be."
"And you're different than I thought a monster would be."
She flinched at the word.
"I didn't mean that," he added quickly.
"No," she said. "You did. But it's the truth."
He leaned in. "Not to me."
Her breath hitched.
Suddenly, a branch cracked in the distance.
They both stood at once, her senses flaring. Her eyes darted to the trees.
"Stay behind me," she whispered.
"No," Aldric said. "I'll stay beside you."
A shadow moved in the underbrush.
She growled low in her throat, her fingers already lengthening, bones shifting slightly beneath her skin. He saw the flicker of the transformation—just a glimpse—but it was enough to raise every hair on his neck.
The intruder stepped forward.
A deer.
It bounded off the path, startled by their presence, and disappeared into the night.
Elara sagged slightly, her nails shortening, her body calming.
Aldric touched her arm gently. "You control it."
"Not always."
"But you did tonight."
She looked down at his hand on hers. "You shouldn't touch me."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to want this."
He looked at her. Really looked.
"Elara."
Her name on his lips made her close her eyes.
"I've lived half my life on a throne made of stone and blood," he said. "I've buried brothers. Betrayed friends. And for the first time in years, I don't feel alone."
She stepped closer. "But I'm not what you think I am."
"Then show me."
She hesitated.
Then she removed her cloak slowly. Beneath it, the scars on her skin were visible—some old, some fresh, like pale brushstrokes across her shoulders and collarbone. Her arms were bare, and around her wrist, the runes that matched the pendant glowed faintly under the moonlight.
She was beautiful.
Not in the polished, perfect way noblewomen were taught to be. But raw. Real. A reminder that pain could shape something wild and still leave it worthy of love.
He lifted a hand to her cheek.
She didn't pull away.
"Then let me carry some of it with you," he whispered.
And when she leaned into his touch, something inside both of them shifted.
Not just trust.
But the start of something impossible.
A king and a creature.
A man and a woman.
Something fragile, yet unbreakable.
And in the depths of the forest, where monsters and men had long been at war, the first seed of something new was planted—
A story not of fear…
But of love.
To be continued.....
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