Painted Scars Novels & Stories

My eyes fly open in shock, skirting away to look anywhere but at Maverick’s now exposed body. His glorious, sculpted body with a stellar pack of abs and scars. I sneak another peek when I registers I saw scars. Werewolves rarely scar, especially with the help of herbs and our expedited healing. But I was right. Maverick’s torso is covered in a variety of scars in all shapes and sizes. He has a huge bite mark on his side, a thin pink line from right above his left nipple down to his navel. He looks like he fell into a wood chipper and was pieced back together.

Silver burn scars crisscrossed the skin there—evidence of my attempts to end my suffering in the containment facility. "Did you suffer there?" he asked softly, his fingers lightly tracing the scars. The unexpected tenderness in his touch made my legs give out. I sank to the floor, my wolf whimpering as I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. "Suffering is relative," I whispered. "Inside or outside those walls... it's all different levels of the same hell." James crouched beside me, his wolf's dominance carefully controlled. "These scars," he said, gesturing to my wrists. "They can be removed with specialized pack healing treatments."

He was pissed that Neil had taken off without guards and still had yet to return, and he was taking it out on me. I groaned and picked the knife up again. By midday, my skin was covered in nicks, bruises, and shallow cuts. My arms ached from the strain, my injured hand trembling every time I tried to grip the knife. Back home, marks like these would’ve been unacceptable—models weren’t supposed to have scars, or any imperfections, really, except for the exciting ones like vitiligo or heterochromia. The thought of permanent scarring twisted my stomach. With my wolf so weak, I was still healing too slowly. And healing slowly meant that the skin was more likely to develop marks.

I never liked people getting too close to me. It might have been my survival instincts and trust issues, but I'm used to people being cruel. With both my parents gone, years of surviving as a lone wolf taught me to expect only the worst in humans. Kindness isn't something I see every day. Scar watches me as I wrap up the cuts around my hand with a white cloth. As his name says, he has quite a glaring scar that runs from his left eye to the side of his jaw. His bare chest shows numerous tattoos and battle marks. A leather belt hangs on his waist, securing a pair of cargo pants.

Not the patient counting ceiling cracks while pride rotted inside her ribs. “Don’t look so excited,” Mara muttered from the chair near the window, watching me like she could already see the trouble forming behind my eyes. “Healing doesn’t mean you’re invincible. Again.” I smirked. “Relax. I almost died once this month. That should count as character development.” Maya snorted under her breath, but she wasn’t smiling. Her gaze lingered on the thin silver lines scattered across my skin, scars that magic could not fully erase because they had been carved too deep. Some were old. Some were fresh and all of them were mine.

The moon had long since set, but Aria could not sleep. She sat curled on the edge of her bed, knees pressed tight to her chest, the shadows of the room pressing in on her like a cage. Her gaze never left the seared mark on her wrist. It pulsed faintly under the torchlight, its glow soft but unyielding, mocking her with every heartbeat. Her nails had scratched the skin raw. She had tried again and again to scrape it away, to draw blood until nothing remained but torn flesh. Yet no matter how much she clawed, the mark endured bright, damning, cruel.

She wanted to strip me of the masks I used, to try to rattle me. "You do not need to pretend to be scared when you have already shattered my world," I said, the bitterness at the back of my throat tasting like iron. The words came out softer than I felt, but they carried weight. Grace looked away at that and the movement said more than any confession. Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, a ruined attempt at dignity. "I was pressured. I needed recognition. It was supposed to help me, not... this. It backfired." Her voice cracked on the last word.

"You feel like you're floating, watching your body shake and cry on the floor... until they cut out half of your stomach." I looked at his suddenly pale face and asked in a soft voice, "How do you think I know all this so well?"

After I get dressed, she leaves so I can rest. I look at myself in the full mirror on the back of the door. Most of the cuts and abrasions have healed. Broken bones are set. My ribs, while still sore, have almost completely healed. Bruises at varying degrees of healing cover my face and body like an abstract painting. I lift my pink pajama shirt with the red strawberry pattern across it and look at my back. Each cut from the silver blade has left three-to-six-inch scars where I was slashed. They look like I’ve been branded. Right in the center of it all, the stab wound still looks open.

It’s not possible. It was just an attraction. Temporary. She’s a beautiful and kind girl, and I’m just attracted to her personality—that’s all. I tried convincing myself. I stared at my reflection for a while. The scars on the right side of my face looked the same as always—ugly and disgusting. But the right… it still had traces of the man I used to be. I lifted my hand to cover the scarred half. The other side… wasn’t so bad. Just then, an idea struck my mind.