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Velvet Walls

Author: Nanseigh
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-02 01:15:58

Ari's POV

The dorm room didn’t feel like mine.

Not really.

It was too clean, too quiet. The kind of silence that makes your ears ring and your thoughts way too loud. My bed was neatly made, the curtains fluttering slightly from the open window. I’d left it that way on purpose—hoping the breeze would make me feel a little less suffocated. It didn’t.

I sank onto the mattress, knees pulled to my chest, trying to breathe through the heavy thing pressing down on me. First day on campus and already my instincts were screaming. But not from the usual overwhelming newness—no, this was deeper. Animal-deep.

Something was watching me.

Not just someone. Something.

I’d felt it earlier. Like a gaze sliding along my spine, sharp and slow. Like claws brushing the inside of my skin. I’d told myself it was just nerves. That I was being ridiculous. But the chill in the air, the way my ears twitched constantly, the way my tail wouldn’t relax—it wasn’t just nerves.

I rubbed my arms, suddenly aware of how thin my hoodie was. I should’ve changed into something warmer, but I didn’t want to move. Not when it felt like moving would draw attention. I didn’t know from where… but I felt it. That shadow. Hovering. Smiling.

Someone had whispered something outside my door. I was sure of it. A sound like breath and silk: “Mine.”

I’d brushed it off at first. Dorms are noisy. Upperclassmen mess around. But this wasn’t playful. It was... dark. Claiming. The way predators mark prey with their eyes long before they ever touch.

Maybe I was overthinking. Maybe I was just tired.

But then… why did I leave the light on?

I never slept with the light on.

I slid off the bed and padded to the window, pulling the curtain aside to peek outside. The campus was bathed in night-blue, lamp posts casting soft pools of yellow here and there. Everything looked peaceful.

Too peaceful.

My reflection in the glass stared back—messy hair, tired eyes, twitching ears—and behind that, just faintly, I thought I saw… something else.

A darker outline.

Gone when I blinked.

I stepped back.

Nope. No. I wasn’t doing this. Not tonight.

I turned toward the closet and began unpacking with trembling fingers, if only to distract myself. A photo of my mom and me slipped out of one of the pockets of my bag. I picked it up, brushing my thumb across it.

“I’ll be fine,” I muttered. A lie. “I’ll be okay.”

The air shifted again. Like someone exhaling behind me.

I spun around.

No one.

Still, I locked the window. Double checked the door. Drew the curtains shut.

Even then, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone.

My tail curled tightly behind me, ears flattening as I slid beneath the covers. I stared at the ceiling, wide-eyed, while shadows danced quietly across the walls.

And somewhere, not too far away… I swear I heard a low, guttural purr.

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  • Claimed By The Predator   Alone In The Silence

    Ari's POVIt had been nearly a week since Thorne disappeared.Seven days marked by a silence so thick it seemed to press against my skin, squeeze around my chest, and settle in my bones. Seven days where the world kept moving, but I felt frozen in place—adrift in a space that grew colder with every passing hour.Each morning, I woke with a fragile thread of hope knotted deep inside me. Maybe today, I told myself, maybe he’d be there again—leaning casually against the doorframe, or waiting silently in the hallway just for me. Maybe I’d catch the faintest trace of his scent, that sharp tang of citrus and something darker, something dangerous, clinging to the air like a promise.But day after day, the halls remained empty. The silence stretched, endless and hollow.The dorm rooms buzzed with life outside my door—laughing groups, slamming lockers, the scrape of shoes on tile—but none of it reached me. It was like living underwater, muted and distant.Without Thorne, the world was sharper.

  • Claimed By The Predator   Captive

    Thorne’s POVThe room was a cage disguised as a sanctuary. Sterile white walls stretched up to a ceiling heavy with silence, broken only by the steady hum of the ventilation system—mechanical, indifferent, and cold as the steel chair Thorne was strapped to.His wrists ached against the unforgiving restraints, but it was the invisible chains—the ones wrapped around his will—that weighed the heaviest.The door slid open with a crisp click, sharp and precise, slicing through the quiet like a knife.Two figures entered, moving with a grace so polished it was almost mocking. His mother’s smile was a practiced curve, sweet on the surface but venomous underneath. His father followed behind, arms crossed, eyes calculating.“Darling,” his mother purred, voice dripping with honeyed poison. “How was your little vacation?”Thorne didn’t answer. He refused.Her smile faltered just a fraction—a flicker of amusement in the cold air.His father leaned against the far wall, gaze sharp as broken glass.

  • Claimed By The Predator   Vanished

    Ari’s POVThe corridor was a narrow squeeze between the dorm blocks, the dim lights flickering like they were ready to give out at any second. Paint peeled from the walls in long, curling strips, the floor sticky beneath Ari’s shoes from some long-forgotten spill. Every sound echoed louder here, bouncing off the cracked tiles and empty stairwells, making his heartbeat thunder in his ears.He kept his head low, hoping to slip past unnoticed. But in this part of the dorm, whispers traveled faster than footsteps.The laughter started soft, almost casual, then grew sharper, colder.Ari’s skin prickled as the shadows shifted. The air thickened around him—heavy and tense, like a storm about to break.Without warning, a rough hand clamped down on his shoulder, spinning him around.There they were. A tight cluster of predators—older students with smirks that didn’t reach their eyes and teeth sharp enough to match their reputations.Their presence was a wall that closed in too fast, leaving no

  • Claimed By The Predator   Steady

    Thorne’s POVIt starts like a whisper in a crowded room, something so quiet it almost slips past notice.The way Ari’s body no longer tenses when my fingers graze his wrist—no more sharp flickers of fear or flinching away like I’m a threat.His breath, once shallow and hurried, now slows, steady and calm, like a river finally finding its way around the rocks instead of crashing against them.It’s in his eyes, too—the way they flicker with something new. Not quite trust yet, but the spark of it—like a tiny flame daring to ignite inside a cold, cautious shell.---We walk side by side through the tangled maze of dorm hallways, the sound of our footsteps mingling with the distant laughter and chatter of other students.I no longer need to grip his wrist tightly to keep him close. Instead, I let my hand rest lightly on his forearm, fingers brushing softly, gentle as a feather’s touch.He lets me.Sometimes, when the hall grows quiet for a breath, I reach up and run my hand through his hai

  • Claimed By The Predator   Unspoken

    Ari’s POVThe fading sunlight paints the dorm room in warm, tired colors, but inside me, a storm brews, loud and relentless.His touch—it’s still there. A ghost that won’t let go.I close my eyes and try to will it away, but the memory clings tighter than I expect.The brush of his fingers against my wrist, light as a feather but sharp enough to leave a mark.The way his hand moved to tuck that stubborn curl behind my ear, so effortlessly like it was the most natural thing in the world.And that whisper—You belong—soft, almost sacred, pressing into my skin like a secret carved into stone.I don’t know if it’s comfort or confusion that makes my chest tighten like this.Maybe both.---I want to push it away.Tell myself it was a mistake. A moment that slipped through the cracks of a new school’s chaos.But my body betrays me every time.I catch myself reaching for the glove beneath my pillow, tracing the worn leather like it holds answers I’m too scared to say out loud.The faint scent

  • Claimed By The Predator   Soft Claims

    Thorne’s POVMorning doesn’t come gentle on this campus—it crashes in with the sharp scrape of chairs, footsteps in the hall, the distant echo of voices waking too early. But I’m already awake, alert long before the sun filters through the blinds.He’s out there, somewhere beneath the sleepy sky, moving through his day in that quiet, anxious way that twists my gut tighter every time I watch. I know he spent last night clutching my glove, that small piece of leather tied to me like a secret rope pulling him deeper into my orbit.---I spot him before he sees me, hunched over a book in the far corner of the library, the same spot he always chooses—the one where he can disappear but still catch every sound. His hair tumbles over his eyes, ears flicking as if they catch more than he admits.I cross the room, footsteps silent, closing the gap until the heat of my presence settles like a weight between us.“Morning,” I murmur, voice low and rough around the edges.He startles but doesn’t mo

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