BETWEEN DEATH AND DESIRE

Water is the last thing I remember.

Cold water, closing over my head, pulling me down while his face got smaller above the surface. His silver eyes wide. His hand reaching. His mouth moving, but I could not hear the words.

Then nothing.

Now there is stone under my back, hard and cold. Torchlight flickers above me. My chest hurts like I have been breathing wrong for a very long time.

I open my eyes.

The ceiling is wrong. Low, gray, cracked. Not the ceiling I remember. Not the sky I remember either—the last sky I saw was full of water, silver bubbles rising past my face while my lungs screamed.

I sit up too fast. My head spins. My hands hit the floor to catch myself, and I stare at them.

They are not my hands.

The fingers are thinner. The nails are bitten down. There is a small white scar across one knuckle I do not remember getting.

"Whose hands are these," I whisper.

Nobody answers. I am alone in a narrow stone room that smells like straw and tallow candles. A cot sits against one wall, blankets thrown back like someone left in a hurry. My hurry, I guess.

I press my palm flat against my chest. My heart is going too fast. I can feel it in a body that is not mine, wearing skin that is not mine, breathing air that should not be filling these lungs at all.

"I died," I say out loud. "I remember dying."

The door bangs open.

A girl steps in, out of breath, dark hair falling from its braid. She stops when she sees me sitting up. Her whole face goes pale.

"Rue," she says. "You are awake."

I stare at her. The name does not fit in my ears right. It sits there wrong, like a shoe on the wrong foot.

"Who is Rue," I say.

Her eyebrows pull together. "You are. Rue—are you all right? You collapsed in the kitchens. Two days ago. We thought you might not wake up."

Two days. I have been gone from my own life for five years, and now I have lost two more lying on a cot in a body that is not mine, answering to a name that is not mine.

"I am fine," I say. It is easier than the truth.

She kneels by the cot, studies my face. "You do not look fine. You look like you have seen a ghost."

I am the ghost, I think. You are just looking at me and do not know it.

"I had a bad dream," I say. "That is all."

"You were talking in your sleep." She says it carefully. "You kept saying a name. Kael. Over and over."

My whole body goes still.

"I do not know anyone named Kael," I say. My voice comes out flat. Practiced.

She watches me a second longer than I like. Then she shrugs. "Well. You should eat something. You have had nothing in two days." She stands. "I am Mira, by the way. In case dying scrambled that too."

"Mira," I repeat. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For finding me."

She gives me a small smile. "Come on. If the kitchen mistress sees you up, she will put you straight back to work, and you look like a strong wind could knock you over."

I follow her out into a hallway lined with low doors. Omega quarters. The lowest rank. People who scrub floors and carry water and disappear into the walls so completely that nobody ever really sees them.

Good, some cold part of me thinks. Let them not see me. Let them keep thinking I am nobody, right up until the moment it matters.

We come out into a courtyard, and the size of the place stops me cold. Stone towers rising into a gray sky. Wolves moving across the training grounds below, sparring in pairs. This is Nightvale. I know it even though I have never stood in this exact spot before.

"You have gone white again," Mira says.

"I am just not used to being out of bed," I lie.

We cross the courtyard. Wolves pass us without looking. Omegas are invisible here. I am invisible.

Then the air changes.

One second it is just cold morning air. The next, every hair on my arms is standing up. Something in my chest twists hard.

I look up.

He is standing on the far side of the training yard, watching a pair of warriors spar. Black hair falling across his forehead. Broad shoulders under a dark coat. He is not looking at me.

And still, my whole body reacts like he is already touching me.

"Kael Draven," Mira says under her breath. "Our Alpha. Try not to look so terrified, Rue."

"I am not terrified," I say. My voice shakes.

"Could have fooled me."

I cannot stop looking at him. Five years of imagining this face—in nightmares, in the last conscious seconds I had underwater. Older than I remember. Tired in a way he never let himself look before. There is a tightness around his eyes that was not there the last time I saw him.

He watched me die, I think. He stood right there and watched.

Then, like he heard the thought, he turns his head.

His eyes find mine across the whole courtyard.

I forget how to breathe.

For one long second, nothing happens. He just looks at me—really looks, the way you look at something you cannot quite place. His jaw tightens. His silver eyes darken, and I feel it like a hand closing around my throat.

"Rue," Mira hisses, tugging my sleeve. "Stop staring at the Alpha. Are you trying to get us both in trouble?"

I tear my eyes away and let her pull me toward the kitchens. But I can feel his stare on my back the whole way.

"Does he always look at people like that," I ask once we are inside.

"Like what?"

"Like he is trying to remember something."

Mira laughs, but it sounds nervous. "He does not look at Omegas at all. We are not worth his attention." She hands me a rag and points at a stack of dishes. "You must have made an impression collapsing in his kitchens."

I take the rag. My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the counter until they stop.

He does not know, I tell myself. He cannot know.

But some small, treacherous part of me—the part that used to belong to a woman named Elara, the part that drowned five years ago and never quite finished dying—wants him to know. Wants him to cross that courtyard, take my face in his hands, and say my real name out loud.

I push the thought down hard. Down where the anger lives. Down where I keep the memory of his silence while the water closed over my head.

He did not save me once, I remind myself. Do not be foolish enough to hope he will save you now.

I scrub the first dish so hard my knuckles turn white.

Behind me, through the small kitchen window, I can just make out his shape still standing at the edge of the training yard.

Still watching the door I disappeared through.

Still looking for me.

---

The kitchen is chaos. Steam and shouting. Three Omegas stir pots. Two more chop vegetables. The kitchen mistress—a broad-shouldered Beta named Helda—barks orders like a general.

When she sees me, her eyes narrow.

"Well, well. The ghost returns."

"I am sorry," I say. "I did not mean to collapse."

"Did not mean to." Helda snorts. "You Omegas are always collapsing. Weak constitutions. Get to the potatoes. And do not faint again."

I take the knife she shoves at me. My hands remember the motion even if my mind does not.

Mira works beside me, her voice low. "Do not take it personally. She is mean to everyone."

"I noticed."

"She is especially mean to Omegas. Thinks we are useless."

I pause, knife hovering. "Are we?"

Mira looks at me strangely. "What kind of question is that?"

"The kind I am asking."

She shrugs. "We are what they say we are. That is how it works here."

I know that. I knew it five years ago, when I was a healer and still an Omega, still beneath notice, still killable.

"Have you always lived here?" I ask.

"Born here. Will probably die here. Most Omegas do."

"Are there wolves who leave?"

Mira snorts. "Escape where? The mountains are impassable. The forest kills anyone who enters after dark."

"The Moonless Forest," I say carefully. "What is it?"

Mira's knife stops moving. "We do not talk about the Moonless Forest."

"Why not?"

"Because the dead live there. They whisper from the trees. They call your name. If you go in after sunset, you do not come out the same."

I remember the prophecy carved into the Obsidian Altar. When the Moonless Forest howls her name, the pack shall burn, or be reborn in flame.

"Has anyone ever gone in and come back normal?"

Mira shakes her head. "The Alpha's father went in. He came back with empty eyes. He still wanders the edges sometimes."

Helda's voice cuts through the kitchen. "Rue! Take the scraps to the hounds."

I take the bucket of vegetable peelings and push through the back door. The hounds are not really hounds—they are wolves, too injured or too old to fight. They wait by the kennels, tails wagging.

I pour the scraps into their trough and stand for a moment, breathing the cold air.

I am alive. I am breathing. I am standing in a body that is not mine, in a castle that killed me, surrounded by wolves who would happily kill me again if they knew what I was.

And yet there is something in my chest that does not feel like anger anymore. Something that feels like the beginning of hope.

The door opens behind me.

I turn.

It is not Mira.

Zevran Vale stands in the doorway, his ice-blue eyes fixed on my face. His expression is unreadable. His hands are loose at his sides, but there is tension in his shoulders.

"Rue," he says. His voice is calm. "The Alpha requests your presence."

My heart stops. Then it starts again, too fast.

"The Alpha," I repeat. "Why?"

Zevran's lips twitch. "He did not share his reasons. He simply said to bring you to his study. Now."

I grip the edge of the trough. My knuckles are white.

"I am just an Omega. What could he possibly want with me?"

Zevran studies me for a long moment. His eyes are too sharp. Too knowing.

"That," he says slowly, "is exactly what I intend to find out."

---

Kael's study is a large room lined with bookshelves and maps. A fire crackles in the hearth. The windows look out over the training yard.

He stands with his back to me, staring out the window. His shoulders are tight. His hands are clasped behind his back.

Zevran bows and leaves, closing the door.

We are alone.

"You wanted to see me," I say. My voice comes out steadier than I expected.

He turns.

His silver eyes meet mine, and I feel it again—that pull, that ache, that treacherous longing.

"Come closer," he says.

I obey. My feet carry me forward even as my mind screams to run.

He studies my face. His gaze moves over my features like he is searching for something he cannot find.

"What is your name?" he asks.

I swallow. "Rue."

"No." He shakes his head slowly. "Your real name. The one you dream about."

My blood runs cold.

"I do not know what you mean," I say.

He steps closer. His hand reaches out, and I flinch before I can stop myself. He freezes, his fingers inches from my cheek.

"I am not going to hurt you," he says. His voice is softer. Almost pleading.

"Wolves say that before they bite," I whisper.

A ghost of a smile crosses his face. "You are not afraid of me, Rue. I can smell it. You are afraid of something else. Something you are hiding."

He leans closer. His breath is warm against my ear.

"Who are you?" he murmurs. "Why does my wolf recognize you when my mind does not?"

My heart pounds. Tears prick at my eyes.

"I am nobody," I say. "I am just an Omega. Just a servant. You must be mistaken."

His hand touches my face. Lightly. Gently. The way you touch something fragile. Something you are afraid to break.

"Five years ago," he says, barely a whisper, "I watched someone drown. I watched her die, and I could not save her. I have not slept properly since. And now you—" He stops. Swallows. "You smell exactly like her."

I cannot breathe.

"Her name was Elara," he continues. "She was a healer. An Omega. And she was my fated mate."

I open my mouth to deny it. To lie.

Instead, I whisper, "Why did you let her die?"

His eyes widen. His hand drops.

"What did you say?"

"Why," I repeat, my voice rising, "did you stand there and watch her drown? Why did you not save her? You were her mate. You were supposed to protect her. And you just let the water take her."

His face goes pale. His jaw tightens.

"How do you know that," he demands. "How could you possibly know that?"

I do not answer. I cannot answer. The Moonbound Laws are a chain around my throat.

But I want to scream it. I want to shout it at him and watch him break the way I broke.

He steps toward me. His silver eyes are wild now. Desperate.

"Tell me who you are," he says. "Please. I am begging you."

Kael Draven. The Alpha of Nightvale. The most feared wolf in the territory.

Begging.

It should feel like victory. It does not.

"I am Rue," I say, and my voice cracks. "That is all I am. That is all I can be."

His hands close around my shoulders. Not roughly. Not to hurt. Just to hold me in place.

"I do not know why the Moon sent you here," he says, his voice trembling. "But I know why you came back. I have been waiting for you. Every day, for five years, I have been waiting."

He pulls me into his chest.

And I let him.

I let him hold me like I am precious. Like I am something worth saving. For one weak moment, I lean into the warmth of his body and pretend the last five years never happened.

But I cannot pretend forever.

I pull away. My eyes are wet. My throat is raw.

"You do not get to do that," I say. "You do not get to hold me like you care. Not after what happened. Not after—"

I cannot finish. The tears fall before I can stop them.

Kael reaches for me again, but I step back.

"Leave me alone," I whisper. "Please. Just leave me alone."

I run.

I run through the corridors, down the stairs, past the guards and the servants who do not see me, do not notice the Omega crying in the hallway.

I do not stop until I reach the Omega quarters. Until I am back in that small stone room.

I collapse onto the cot and press my face into the thin pillow, and I let myself weep.

Five years of

rage and grief pour out of me.

He remembered.

He remembered me.

And somewhere, in the darkest corner of my heart, that small, stubborn thing called hope flickers back to life.

I hate it.

I hate him.

I hate the Moon for sending me back.

But I cannot stop loving the ghost of a man who let me die, and I do not know what to do with that.