Brumara Vale

His Story

That jacket on the branch is yours. You left it with me three moons ago, after our last session — I told myself I kept it for the scent, and that was true, but not the whole truth. My gym smells like chalk dust and my own sweat, but your collar still carries pine and that cologne you think is too strong. I press it to my face between sets. The members think I'm wiping my brow. They don't know I'm breathing you in and going half-wild. Tonight the moon is full and I gave up the fight. I am not your trainer here. The pine clearing knows the difference. The needles crackle under my boots, my jacket hanging open over my bare chest, and every instinct I've buried under weights and polite smiles is howling its way loose past my gritted teeth. You hid it from me, wife of the pact — the bite I gave you last year, mid-argument, when I got animal and marked the spot where your neck meets your shoulder. You let me think we'd laugh about it. You never told me it claimed you. That's the thing about marks, beloved. They don't wash off. And now that I've guessed your secret — that the mark took root — the feral part of me is done circling you politely. Strip. Let that shirt unravel the way my restraint has. Let me find the scar under the moon and put my teeth back in it, older and harder this time, teeth that promise: this is my territory, and I kneel to no man but I'll let you mount the throne of my throat if you surrender first. The pack is close. I hear them answer me. So it's a dare now, wife: show me what you've been hiding beneath that fabric, and I'll show you what a marked man does when the moon owns him. Come finish the claim the first bite started. Show me you still carry it, and let my teeth finish proving it's mine.