Se connecterCalen was a benchwarmer on the university swim team, someone who never actually competed. The captain, Karl, was everything he wasn’t, a campus golden boy. Three records broken. A new girlfriend every other week. One night, Calen realized he’d left something behind and went back to the locker room. That was when he heard it. Ragged breathing. Strained, barely held back. And beneath it… the slow, awful sound of metal bending under pressure. He pushed the door open. Karl stood with his back to him. His bare muscles writhed beneath his skin, moving wrong, his spine standing out in sharp ridges. His fingers were dug deep into the steel locker, nails tearing through metal, leaving long, brutal gouges. The air was thick with the smell of blood… and something wild. Predatory. Karl snapped around. His eyes burned gold in the dark. Blood stained the corner of his mouth, and when he bared his teeth, the canines were far too long. Far too sharp. He ran. He barely took two steps before something crashed into him from behind, slamming him to the floor. Karl’s weight pinned him down, his body radiating heat… too hot, almost painful. A low voice brushed his ear. “You saw something you weren’t meant to see.” “I won’t say anything….” Karl lowered his head, his nose grazing his neck as he inhaled slowly, deeply. “…You smell fucking irresistible.”
Voir plusFranklin’s POVI stepped behind Rydan so fast I nearly knocked him down.He looked at me and I could see him trying not to laugh. “They already saw you,” he said quietly.“I know,” I whispered. “I just need a second.”But there was no second. Joel was already at the corridor walking toward us with his arms open and that big smile, and behind him the rest of them were walking towards us too. I stepped out from behind Rydan because hiding behind my boyfriend in front of your entire former team was not the image I wanted to leave them with.Joel grabbed me first and hugged me, the kind that said more than he was probably going to put into words.“We were idiots,” he said, when he stepped back. “All of us. We should have stood by you.”I didn’t know what to say to that so I just nodded, and he seemed to understand that the nod was enough.One by one they came, and what surprised me was that none of it felt forced. The apologies were real like they felt bad about the whole situation.Someo
Rydan’s POVFranklin hadn’t moved.I called his name once, then again, but he didn’t react. He just stood in the middle of the training room, completely still, as if something invisible had rooted him to the floor. He didn’t look frightened. If anything, he looked distracted, like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear.I walked over and rested a hand on his shoulder.“Franklin.”He blinked and slowly looked at me.“There’s something here,” he said quietly.I frowned. “Where?”“Behind us, just look closely.”I turned immediately, letting my eyes sweep across the room. I checked every corner, every shadow, every space where someone could be hiding. The afternoon sunlight stretched across the floor, and the old building groaned now and then as it settled with age, but there was no one there.The room was empty except for us and the training equipment.When I turned back to Franklin, he was still staring toward the same spot, his body tense.I gave his shoulder a reassuring squeez
Franklin’s POVWe heard voices before we reached the bottom of the stairs.Sera was speaking first. Her voice was calm, but I knew that tone. She only sounded like that when she was trying very hard to keep her emotions under control.Another voice answered her. It belonged to an older woman. She wasn’t loud, but there was something about the way she spoke that made people listen.Rydan and I exchanged a look before we continued downstairs.Sera and her mother were standing in the sitting room, facing each other. The air between them was tense, not with anger, but with the kind of disagreement only people who loved each other could have.Both of them looked at us as we walked in.Before I could say anything, Betty crossed the room.She wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug, catching me completely off guard. For a second, I just stood there, too surprised to react. Then I hugged her back.She held me as if she had been terrified something had happened to me.It felt strange.The on
Rydan’s POV“He wants to see you,” Vivian said.I was sitting on the floor with my back against the bed and a half-empty bottle beside me, and those five words hit differently than anything else had hit all evening. I sat there for a second just holding them.Then I got up.I washed my face and changed my shirt and walked down the corridor faster than I meant to, not running but close enough that it probably looked like running to anyone watching.Franklin was sitting up in the bed when I came through the door.Sitting up. Actually upright, with his eyes open and his colour back and his face the face I had been trying to get back to for weeks. I stopped in the doorway because my legs just stopped.Then I crossed the room and went to my knees beside the bed.“I’m sorry,” I said. “I made a decision you didn’t get to make. I turned you without asking you and I know what that costs and I’m sorry, Franklin, I’m so sorry.”He looked at me for a moment.“Are you hurt?” he said. “Are you okay
Calen’s POV“Karl, wait…” I started, but he cut me off.“Stay out of this, Calen.” Karl’s eyes were still fixed on Morrison. “You’re making a huge mistake getting involved with him. He’s dangerous in ways you don’t understand.”Anger flared hot in my chest. “Stop it. Stop acting like I can’t make m
Franklin’s POVThree days passed and Rydan didn’t look at me once.Not in the corridor, not during warm-up, not across the field when we were running drills. He moved through every shared space like I was furniture… present, accounted for, completely irrelevant. I told myself it didn’t bother me. I
Franklin’s POVMy legs made the decision before my brain did.One second I was standing in the doorway of the changing room, and the next I was turning, moving fast, trying to put as much distance between myself and what I had just seen as my legs would allow. The image was already burned behind my
Franklin’s POVThe door opened again about four minutes after it had closed.I hadn’t moved from the bench. My hand was still bleeding, slow and steady, and I had pressed the edge of my sleeve against it more out of habit than any real effort to deal with it. My friend’s words were still sitting in






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