Ny's Writing Blog ✍️

Aric the Butcher King had hunted shapeshifters since the age of ten.

He remembered their claws slicing through his village, the way their bodies melted and reformed like boiling wax. He remembered their teeth—too many, too sharp—closing around his brother’s throat.

So he devoted his life to destroying them.

He learned to track the scent of shifting flesh.
He learned to listen for bones rearranging under skin.
And he learned that every shapeshifter had one weakness:
For a split second, between skins, their true form was exposed.

He became the deadliest hunter alive.

So when the rumors began—whispers of a female shapeshifter who wore human skin like silk, who killed soldiers without leaving footprints—Aric knew who he wanted next.

He wanted her head on his wall.

🩸 The First Encounter

He found her in a ruined forest, mid-shift, her half-formed body flickering between a wolf’s snarl and a woman’s silhouette.

She hissed when she saw him.

“You,” Aric said, leveling his blade, “are the last of your kind.”

She tilted her head, her bones cracking into place as she stabilized into a woman.
Not beautiful—dangerous.
Eyes too bright.
Movements too fluid.
A predator first, everything else second.

“My name,” she said, “is Elara. And I am the one hunting you.”

Her speed was monstrous.
She tore into him with claws one moment, bare hands the next, shifting so rapidly his eyes could barely track her.
He answered with steel and fury, nicking her between transformations, drawing slashing red lines across the skin she wore.

And then—
right when he pinned her to the ground—
she laughed.

Not with fear.
With recognition.

“You smell like me.”

Aric froze.

Her blood—dripping onto his hands—
glowed the same eerie crimson as his own.

🖤 Feral Attraction

Their war became an obsession.

Aric hunted her.
Elara stalked him.
Every battle ended with more blood, more bruises, more tension.

Twice he stabbed her through the side.
She only leaned into the blade, whispering, “Do it like you mean it.”

Once she pinned him to a tree, teeth at his throat.
He grabbed her hair and pulled her closer instead of pushing her away.

They weren’t just enemies.
They were matched predators.

They kissed after a fight that left both of them half-shifted—her with a wolf’s fangs, him with glowing red eyes he didn’t understand.
It was messy, violent, hungry.
More claiming than affection.

Aric had never wanted anything like he wanted her.

🩸 The Twist No One Saw Coming

One night, while she slept in his arms—still warm from shifting—he touched the strange mark glowing on her spine.

It was identical to the birthmark on his chest.

He froze.

Elara woke instantly.
“Don’t,” she growled, grabbing his wrist.
“It’s a curse.”

“Explain,” he demanded.

She swallowed, eyes hard.
“Shapeshifters aren’t born. We’re made. One parent must be human…”
She touched his birthmark with trembling fingers.
“…and one must be shifter.”

The world tilted.

“Aric,” she whispered, “the creature that killed your family—it wasn’t an attack.”

His throat tightened. “Don’t lie to me.”

“It was a birth ritual. The shifter who came to your village was trying to reclaim its offspring.”
She looked at him with something like sorrow.
“You weren’t a survivor of the massacre.
You were the reason for it.”

His pulse hammered.

“You,” Elara said, voice breaking, “are one of us.”

Aric backed away.
“No.”

“You’ve been hunting shifters,” she whispered, “because your instincts were waking up. You were killing your own people.”

His skin began to crack.
Shift.
Glow.

“No… no…”

Elara stepped forward, cupping his face even as bone rippled under his skin.

“Our kind has a bond,” she said softly.
“A mate bond. And I’ve known from the moment I smelled your blood.”
She pressed her forehead to his.
“You’re mine, Aric. You always have been.”

His vision blurred red.

His spine snapped.
Fangs pushed through his gums.
His true form—long dormant—exploded awake.

Elara held him through every grotesque second.

And when he finally looked at her with his monstrous new eyes—

She smiled.

“Welcome home.”