Chapter 5: When Mercy Demands Blood

Maeve.

The silence in the cottage wasn’t silence at all—it was suffocation. Heavy. Cold. Like death itself had walked in and made itself at home.

Carson stood over the healer like a wolf circling prey, his shadow stretching across her frail body. The firelight flickered against the hard planes of his face, throwing him in and out of darkness. His eyes never blinked.

“You know the law,” he said at last, his voice low but sharp enough to cut through the room. “You broke it. Willingly.”

The healer’s shawl quivered where it wrapped around her thin shoulders, but she didn’t cower. Her chin lifted, steady, almost stubborn.

My chest squeezed so tight I thought my ribs might snap. My heartbeat was wild, loud, as if the whole room could hear it. This was my fault—my presence, my lies. She saved me, and now she would die for it.

The healer’s voice cracked when she answered. “She was dying, Alpha. What kind of healer turns away from death?”

Carson’s jaw flexed. “The kind who values her pack’s survival over misplaced compassion.”

His words felt like blows. I flinched even though they weren’t aimed at me.

The healer didn’t drop her gaze. “Compassion is never misplaced.”

That stubborn defiance only made the dread twist deeper in my stomach. I couldn’t let this go on. If I stayed quiet, she was finished. If I spoke up, I’d only make it worse.

And still—I opened my mouth.

The words were out before I could think, sharp and reckless.

“Kill me instead.”

The cottage froze. Even the flames in the hearth seemed to hesitate.

Carson’s head snapped toward me, his eyes narrowing as if I’d just grown a second head. Raymond, the pale-haired enforcer who’d read the law earlier, actually took a step back.

“What did you say?” Carson’s voice was soft, but it cut through the air like steel.

I lifted my chin, though my knees trembled beneath me. “Kill me, but let her live. She saved me. I owe her that much.”

“Maeve, no,” the healer whispered, her voice breaking.

I ignored her. My pulse thundered in my ears, but the words kept spilling out, desperate and wild. “You want an example? Make it of me. I’m the outsider here, the problem. She only showed kindness when anyone else would’ve let me die.”

Carson studied me with that piercing stare that stripped flesh from bone. Something shifted in his expression—not pity, not yet mercy, but curiosity, like I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite fit together.

“You’d die for someone you barely know?” he asked.

I forced myself not to look away. “I’d die for someone who saved me when she didn’t have to.”

Raymond’s scoff broke the moment. “How noble. But the law is clear. Two crimes, two punishments.”

My blood boiled, and I turned on him, the words flying hot and raw. “What crimes? Being an outsider? Showing mercy? When did those become death sentences?”

Carson’s gaze slid back to me, harder now, like he wanted to see how far I’d push.

“When outsiders bring war to our doorstep,” he said. “When mercy gets innocents killed.”

“I haven’t killed anyone!” My voice cracked under the weight of my fury.

His answer came like a blade sliding between ribs. “Haven’t you? For all we know, you’re a spy. An assassin. You could slit our throats the moment we turn away.”

I laughed, sharp and bitter. “Look at me. Really look. Do I look like an assassin to you?”

Carson’s eyes traveled over me—my torn clothes, my bruises, the mess of my tangled hair. His lip curled, almost imperceptibly. “Looks can deceive.”

Before I could spit another word, the healer’s voice cut through the room.

“So can laws,” she said, steady now, as if some deeper current carried her.

Carson’s eyes snapped to her, ice and warning. “Watch yourself.”

“Alpha, may I speak?” Her tone wasn’t a question. It was a demand wrapped in the frailty of age.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. Then, with a single curt nod, he allowed it.

The healer braced against the wall and pulled herself upright, every movement trembling but stubborn. “This child came to me more dead than alive. Wounds that should’ve carried her straight to the goddess. Blood loss no wolf could survive. But she lived.”

My stomach sank. My hands went cold. Where was she going with this?

The healer’s eyes didn’t leave Carson’s. “Not only lived—healed faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. Stronger than she has any right to be. And in the days she’s been under my roof, she harmed no one. She worked beside me. She asked for nothing more than rest and bread.”

Her gaze shifted to me, and something in it made my throat tighten. “Child, there’s more to you than you know. Something I should have told you sooner.”

“What?” The word scraped from my throat.

But Carson cut her off, his voice a growl. “Enough. Whatever she is—or isn’t—doesn’t matter. She broke the law. You broke the law. That doesn’t change.”

Raymond seized the opening like a vulture. “Then let us follow tradition. Execute them publicly. Make it a spectacle. Let the pack see what defiance earns.” His tone was almost clinical, as if he were describing butchering livestock.

“No!” The word ripped from me before I realized it, raw and burning. I lunged forward, only for the guards to seize my arms, iron fingers digging into my skin. “She doesn’t deserve this! I’m the outsider—you want justice, take it from me!”

The cottage swelled with chaos—guards restraining me, the healer coughing against the wall, Raymond insisting on blood.

And through it all, Carson watched. Silent. Calculating. His eyes narrowed on me like I was a riddle he couldn’t yet solve.

“Enough.” Carson’s voice sliced through the noise, silencing the room. His gaze pinned me, sharp as claws. “You keep offering to die for her. Why?”

Tears burned the backs of my eyes, but I refused to look away. “Because she’s the first person in my life who saw me and didn’t turn away. When I was broken and bleeding, she didn’t ask who I was—she just saved me. She’s good. And good people shouldn’t die for being good.”

The cottage went utterly still. Even the guards shifted uneasily, their grips loosening on my arms.

Carson stepped closer, voice low. “What happened to you before you came here?”

I shook my head, my throat tight. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

Something in his tone made me look up. His eyes weren’t cold now. They were searching. Curious. Dangerous.

“I was nobody,” I whispered. “Less than nobody. A mistake everyone wanted gone. And when I finally was gone—dying, alone—she found me. She brought me back.”

“From where?”

My lips trembled. I couldn’t speak of Johan. Of the Blue Moon pack. Of the hell I’d barely escaped. “From hell.”

His gaze locked on mine—and that’s when it happened.

The fire inside me, the anger I’d been swallowing all this time, surged. Hot, fierce, unstoppable. My hands shook, my breath came ragged, and then—light. Silver, flickering at the edges of my vision like sparks catching flame.

Carson froze. His nostrils flared, his entire body going rigid. For a heartbeat, the room held its breath.

“What are you?” His voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it, but it carried weight, heavy and dangerous.

I blinked. The silver dimmed, then vanished. My voice cracked. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His eyes stayed locked on me, sharp and unsettled. “Your eyes… they just—” He cut himself off, jaw snapping tight. His wolf was stirring beneath his skin—I could feel it in the air, restless, agitated, clawing for the surface.

The guards tensed, waiting for his order.

Carson’s eyes stayed locked on mine, but something in him had shifted. His wolf was too close to the surface—I could feel it, restless, straining, as if it wanted out.

Then his voice snapped like a whip. “Guards. Take them both to the dungeons.”

The healer gasped. Raymond looked startled. “Alpha? You mean to—”

“Now,” Carson barked, no room for argument.

The guards seized us, rough hands dragging me toward the door. My heels scraped the floor, but I couldn’t look away from him. Carson stood rigid in the center of the cottage, fists clenched at his sides, his face pale and drawn tight.

For the first time since I’d met him, he didn’t look in control. He looked… hunted.

Our eyes met one last time. And in that instant, I felt it—the ripple beneath his skin, the violent stir of his wolf.

A growl tore through the silence, low and guttural, but it hadn’t come from his throat. It was inside him, leaking out.

One word. One undeniable truth.

Mate.

Carson flinched as if struck. His fists slammed shut, jaw clamping down like he could cage the word before it escaped.

But I’d seen the fear in his eyes. The fury. The war raging under his skin.

The guards dragged me into the night, into the waiting dark of the dungeons. My pulse thundered, my mind spinning. I didn’t know what I was, or what he thought he’d seen in me.

All I knew was that something inside the ruthless Alpha of this pack had just shattered.

And whatever it was—it had everything to do with me.