Love Without a Voice

The scent of antiseptic and rain greeted Aria long before anyone else did.

She stood in the doorway of the Moonrise Medical Wing, the familiar corridor stretching out before her like a memory she couldn’t quite put away. The lighting hummed softly overhead, the polished grey stone underfoot too clean, too still, too much like the life she used to lead.

She had walked these halls a thousand times. Always with purpose. Always unnoticed.

Now?

Still unnoticed. But somehow, everything had changed.

No one here knew she had moved in with the Alpha.

Not the nurses who gave her passing nods. Not the younger healers who still parted like startled birds at her approach. Certainly not the girl at the front desk who had once laughed when Aria tripped over a supply cart and dropped a tray of vials.

Aria said nothing.

She just walked.

The rhythm returned easily, clipboard in hand, steps even, posture calm. It was easier to blend back into something familiar. Easier to listen to someone else’s heartbeat than her own. Easier to focus on healing what could be fixed instead of asking herself if she was broken.

“Aria?”

She turned.

Marla, the head nurse, stood a few paces away, arms folded tight, expression unreadable.

“You’re back?”

Aria nodded. “Just part-time. For now.”

Marla tilted her head. “You look… different.”

Aria offered the smallest smile. “Just tired.”

Marla didn’t push. Just jerked her chin toward the back. “Room 3. Burn on a young one. Parents are panicking. You know the drill.”

“Got it.” She was already moving.

Routine was a lifeline.

Even when the rest of her felt like it was quietly sinking.

The pup was maybe seven. Pale from crying, cheeks smeared with salt and dirt. His arm was badly wrapped with gauze that looked more like panic than medical care.

Aria crouched beside him, her voice soft as balm.

“Hi. I’m Aria. What’s your name?”

“D-Dale.”

“Well, Dale,” she murmured, “I’m going to take care of this so you can get back to doing wolf things. Chasing sticks. Eating too much. Howl practice.”

He sniffled. “You teach howling?”

“I’m an expert,” she said seriously, then gave him a conspiratorial wink. “But don’t tell the Elders. They’re jealous.”

A tiny smile twitched at his mouth.

She unwrapped the bandage with practiced ease, revealing the angry red burn beneath. Minor. Painful, but not deep.

“It’s going to sting a little,” she warned.

“I can take it,” he whispered, though his lip quivered.

She worked quickly, efficiently, her fingers sure. As she dabbed the balm, she began to hum. A melody buried in memory, her mother’s voice floating over scraped knees and heartbreaks.

By the time the bandage was replaced, Dale’s shoulders had dropped. His breathing slowed.

“There,” she said, pressing his good hand gently. “All better.”

He grinned. Genuinely.

And for the first time that day, so did she.

The hallway echoed with sound, shuffling feet, dropped books, and laughter that never seemed to reach her. Aria kept her head down, backpack too big for her frame, hoodie pulled up to hide her braid.

Someone brushed past her. “Watch it, ghost.”

She kept walking.

Invisibility wasn’t a curse back then.

It was armor.

The first time she saw Xander Stone, he was slamming a senior against a locker for mocking a younger boy with a stutter. His voice had been cold. Final. Authority before he’d ever worn a crown.

He hadn’t looked at her.

But she’d watched him every day after that.

From shadows.

From silence.

From where she’d always lived.

Lunch break came and went.

Aria sat alone in the corner of the staff lounge, her sandwich untouched, her water going warm. Around her, voices rose in idle gossip, laughter rising like smoke.

“Did you hear Xander has someone living with him?”

“Housekeeper, lover, who knows? She moved in the week of his coronation.”

“He’s always been distant. Maybe she thawed him out.”

Laughter again.

Sharp. Unkind.

Aria kept her eyes on her food.

Her hands curled into fists beneath the table.

She had known this would happen. That the silence between her and Xander would echo louder than any truth.

She couldn’t correct them. Wouldn’t.

What would she say?

I live with the Alpha, but we don’t speak. We don’t touch. We drift past each other like mist. We sleep in the same bed, but I feel lonelier now than I ever did alone.

No.

Let them talk.

It was safer that way.

Even if it scorched her from the inside.

She had been sixteen the first time she stepped into the healer’s wing as a trainee. Too small. Too quiet. Her hands trembled. Her voice cracked. But she learned. Memorized every herb, every technique, every name.

Still, they called her “the quiet girl.”

Never Aria.

Not until she saved the Beta’s son.

Even then, they didn’t know how to look at her.

By sunset, her limbs were leaden, her voice raw from a day of careful words and cautious smiles.

She changed alone in the locker room, scrubs folded with hands that shook more than they should have. Her skin still bore no scent of him. No touch. No claim.

Maybe there had never been one to begin with.

The trail to Xander’s house twisted upward like a scar carved into the cliff. The sky was bruised, the air sharp with cold.

At the fork, she paused.

Left led to the healer’s quarters.

Warm beds. Familiar silence.

Right led to him.

She went right.

The house greeted her with its usual hush.

No lights.

No footsteps.

No warmth.

His coat was gone from the hook. His boots were missing from their place.

Aria stood in the center of the room, heart a hollow drum.

The silence wrapped around her like a second skin.

She sat on the couch, knees to her chest. Waited.

When he returned, he didn’t explain. Just shrugged off his jacket, poured a drink, leaned against the counter.

“Hard day?” he asked.

She almost laughed.

She nodded instead.

He didn’t ask more.

She didn’t offer.

They shared a room the way strangers share train cars, too close to speak, too distant to matter.

He came to bed late.

Slid in without a word.

His shoulder brushed hers.

She didn’t flinch.

But she didn’t move closer either.

Sleep came like a tide that forgot how to rise. It dragged her down.

She was studying in the library the day their eyes met.

Her table was tucked in the back, as always, hidden under a pile of notes and worn books. Xander strolled in, alive with laughter, flanked by friends.

He passed her.

Dropped a pen.

Their eyes met as he bent to pick it up.

Just a second.

But it lit something in her she didn’t know how to name.

She carried that second for years.

Dawn arrived on quiet feet.

Sunlight filtered weakly through the curtain, casting slivers of gold across the counter. Aria stood at the window, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.

Below, the healer’s wing was stirring.

She watched shadows move like ghosts over the grass.

She thought of the boy who never saw her.

The man who asked her to stay.

And the silence that grew between them like a vine, choking whatever might have bloomed.

She whispered the truth aloud.

“I’m still invisible. Even here.”

And something in her voice cracked.

Like maybe, just maybe, she was finally tired of it.

Far below, on the training field, Xander stepped into view. Commanding. Fierce. Beautiful.

Warriors bowed.

But Aria’s gaze shifted.

Not to him.

To the girls by the gate, their whispers curling like smoke, eyes gleaming with quiet cruelty.

She knew that look.

She had lived inside it.

But this time, she didn’t flinch.

She straightened.

Lifted her chin.

And let them look.

The wind rose over the cliff again, no longer whispering.

It howled.

And for once, Aria Hartfield didn’t look away.