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Autor: Felix Dan
Marta carefully extracted the fragments from my wound with a pair of silver tongs.

I bit down on a cloth and didn't make a sound.

But the wolf inside me was trembling.

Marta pressed a hand to my chest, over my wolf's heart, and held it there for a long time.

"The silver poison has reached her heart.

"You've been absorbing silver poison from others for years, and it's been building up inside her. This last spike pushed her past her limit."

She looked at the shelf by the wall.

On it sat a small clay jar holding 36 silver beads.

She didn't go on.

"Only a moonflower can draw the silver out."

I closed my eyes for a moment.

"Vera is wearing the moonflower in her hair."

Marta sent Quinn, her apprentice, to the Alpha's house.

Quinn came back red-faced.

"He said the flower's for the bonding. Eileen will see it in three days."

Quinn hesitated, then went on even more quietly.

"And Vera said, 'Her wolf's dying? She had plenty of strength a minute ago when she was throwing things at people.'"

Marta threw the silver tongs into the copper basin.

"I'll go see him myself."

She was gone for two hours.

I lay in bed and felt myself growing colder, little by little.

When Marta came back, all she had in her hand was a single petal.

"The Alpha's helping Vera try on her gown. He wouldn't see me.

"Vera tossed this out through the door."

Her voice was shaking.

"She said, 'Have a petal on me. Think that's enough to save a wolf?'"

A moonflower only worked if it was used whole.

A single petal was useless.

The room fell silent.

I thought back to ten years ago, when hunters burned my family's pack to the ground.

Cassian had carried me out of the ruins on his back.

He was only 15, his face smeared with ash.

"Don't be scared. From now on, I'll protect you."

Later, on the anniversary of my mother's death, Vera said she'd had a nightmare.

He said he'd just go sit with her for a little while.

But by the time the sun came up, he still hadn't come back.

"Marta."

My voice came out hoarse.

"Write down every detail of my injuries.

"And certify it with your seal."

Marta looked at me for a long time, then turned to fetch a sheet of parchment.

At nightfall, the crow came again.

"We bond in three days.

"Miss the ceremony, and you can kiss your chance of becoming Luna goodbye."

Marta looked at me.

"Are you going to say yes?"

I thought about the last ten years.

Whenever he ditched me for Vera, he'd come back, tell me to stop making a fuss, and I'd act like nothing had happened.

So he never worried.

He knew I'd always wait for him, swallow my hurt, and eventually come around.

I borrowed Marta's pen and wrote just one word.

"Fine."

The crow flew away.

I knew what kind of answer he wanted.

On the bonding night, when the moon rose, the Alpha's wolf would howl.

The bride's wolf was supposed to answer him.

In three days, he would get my answer.

After midnight, my wolf started convulsing.

Silver poison seeped from her heart, slowly turning my fingertips black.

Marta ground the petal up and fed it to me. It did nothing.

She tried three more medicines. None of them worked.

I curled up in pain, but I never once cried out.

I was afraid that if I made a sound, she'd be even more scared.

Just before dawn, my wolf slowly stirred within my chest.

She licked me, very gently.

It was the way my mother used to soothe me to sleep when I was little.

By the time the moon slipped below the horizon, she had gone still.

I pressed a hand to my chest. Something inside me was gone.

From that moment on, there was only me inside my body.

Wings fluttered outside the window.

The crow was back on the windowsill with his reply.

"Good girl."
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  • After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back   10

    Over the following months, Cassian came often.He never set foot in the ruins. He would only stop outside the stone wall for a while.Sometimes he left a bundle of firewood. Sometimes a packet of medicine Marta had prepared.He only had one good hand now, and the firewood was always tied crookedly.He would set it down, stand there a while, and go.I never went out.On the night of the first snowfall, the wind was strong.I could hear someone standing outside the stone wall for a long time.I didn't open the door.The next morning, there was a bundle of firewood in the snow, with his cloak draped over it.Two deep footprints marked the snow outside the wall. He must have stood in the same place all night.The last time he visited before spring, he came inside.He had lost a lot of weight. His left arm hung at his side, completely useless.He stood by the fire for a long time, then pulled something from inside his cloak.It was a piece of wood.The broken leg of the carved wolf had been

  • After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back   9

    Everyone in the room froze and stared at me.I looked at Cassian in the bed.His lips had already turned purple, and veins bulged in the hand gripping Marta's sleeve.Ten years.This was the first time that, with his life on the line, he had chosen me over Vera and the Greyrock pack.But it was too late."You don't need to decide for me," I said. "I was never going to draw it anyway."Ten years ago, he had been lying just like this.A hunter's silver crossbow bolt had struck him, leaving him feverish for three days and nights. I knelt beside his bed, drawing out the silver and vomiting all night.Before dawn, I left through the back door.The one keeping watch at his bedside was Vera.That night, my wolf took on the first silver bead for him.After that, she took on 35 more for this pack.She carried them to the very end, until she died over my heart."My wolf has already died for all of you once."I took a step back.Rowan was still on his knees. He didn't get up.Marta didn't look at

  • After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back   8

    I didn't go after midnight.I waited until dawn.When the sun came up over the mountains, I walked onto Greyrock pack territory.The square outside Cassian's mansion was packed with pack members on their knees.Word that Cassian was hanging on by a thread had spread through the whole pack, and everyone was waiting for the silver healer to work another miracle.When the crowd saw me, they froze, then parted on their own to let me through."What's the jinx doing back here?""She left the pack, and she still has the nerve to set foot on our land?"Several elders stood on the steps. Rowan, the head elder, was at the front, his face livid."Get out! Vera's using every ounce of her divine power to save the Alpha, and you dare show your face here? You'll bring nothing but bad luck!"I didn't stop.I walked straight through that door.The room was dark, and it reeked of silver poison.Cassian lay in bed, his left arm wrapped in cloth. The black had already crept up his neck.Vera knelt beside

  • After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back   7

    Vera came the next night.Silas, her follower, kept watch outside the ruins while she walked in alone.I pulled my hands back into my sleeves.She wasn't wearing the white gown from the altar. Her skirt was spattered with mud, and her eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep."Cassian's dying."A hunter's silver trap tore into his left arm. The poison's already spread past his shoulder."She stared at me."He crawled around in the gorge all day and night. When the patrol carried him back, half his body was covered in blood."He kept calling your name right up until he passed out."She said it through clenched teeth.I watched the dancing flames calmly."You're the silver healer blessed by the Moon Goddess. The whole Greyrock pack worships you. Go save him."Vera gave a little laugh."We're in the middle of nowhere. Stop pretending, Eileen."She crouched down, eye to eye with me across the fire."It's been ten years, Eileen. You sneak in at night, I show up in the morning. You save lives

  • After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back   6

    Eileen's POV:The night I crossed the boundary stone, the wind poured down my collar, and the cold went straight to my bones.Back when my she-wolf curled over my heart, that spot stayed warm even on the coldest winter nights.Now I could no longer smell the forest or hear the distant water.My fingertips were still black.The silver had seeped out of her heart the night she died and stayed in me.I walked all night, holding the carved wolf with its broken leg.At dawn, I stepped into the ruins, where weeds reached my knees.In the ten years since the fire, knee-high grass had covered the scorched earth.Half of a fire-blackened stone wall still stood in the wind.Ten years ago, when the house collapsed, a teenage Cassian had dug through the burning beams beneath this wall and carried me out on his back.I pulled the weeds away from the foot of the wall and set the wooden wolf there.Missing a leg, it leaned crookedly against the wall."We're home."I stroked its rough wooden head and

  • After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back   5

    Cassian's POV:When the echo stone shattered on the altar, my wolf still had his head raised.The third howl caught in his throat. He could neither force it out nor choke it back.Torches were still burning all over the mountain.No one said a word.Vera was the first to laugh."She recorded that ahead of time, right?"We tricked her into thinking the Alpha was dead, so she's tricking us into thinking her wolf is dead. She's copying us."Someone below the altar agreed."Right. The jinx is the best at playing the victim."I wanted to believe that too.But Marta stepped out of the crowd and laid a sheet of parchment on the altar.It bore her seal."Eileen's she-wolf died three days ago, when the moon set."She looked up at the withered flower behind Vera's ear."The moonflower that could have saved her is in your hair."Vera went white and reached up to cover it without thinking.The dead petals crumbled to the ground.I searched inside myself for the thread.Before, no matter how far ap

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