LOGINEzekiel's hands clenched. The bleeding knuckles cracked wider. "Doesn't matter." "It absolutely fucking matters." Jax moved closer, and he was one of maybe three people in the pack who could do that safely. Who could stand in Ezekiel's space without triggering the violent instincts the curse had sharpened into weapons. "You told her she could leave because you expected her to choose to stay. And when she didn't, you took it as rejection instead of considering that maybe she had no idea what you actually wanted. Because you never told her." the words hit like blows. Ezekiel wanted to destroy something else (the table, the wall, Jax's face for being right). But the curse dampened even that rage, turning it cold and distant. Everything was cold and distant. Had been for seventeen years. Except when Winter was here. When she'd looked at him with those pale eyes like she was trying to figure him out. When she'd touched his hand in the garden and said she'd stay and he'd believed her lik
the chair shattered under Ezekiel's fist.Oak. Solid. Old. Had sat in the council chamber for three generations of Crescent kings. Now it was splinters and dust scattered across stone floor.Jax didn't flinch. Just looked at the remains of the chair, then at Ezekiel, then sighed the way he'd been sighing for the past week. Like he was tired. Worried. Both"That's the fourth one," Jax said. His voice stayed level. Careful. The way people talked around explosives. "We're running out of furniture."Ezekiel didn't answer. His knuckles bled sluggishly, skin split over bone. Didn't hurt. Nothing hurt anymore. That was the point of the curse (or maybe the mercy of it). Stone didn't feel pain.Except it did. Now. This ache that sat in his chest like rot, spreading slow and inevitable. Getting worse each day since-:Since she left.(She didn't leave. She was taken. But the outcome was the same. Gone. The citadel empty of her ridiculous soft presence and frightened breathing and that smell tha
"I'll come back tomorrow," Winter said eventually. "Check the wound. Bring more food if I can steal it without getting caught." She paused, studying Vex's intelligent eyes. "Levi said you were bonded to my grandmother. Morwenna." Vex's ears pricked forward at the name. "I never met her. she died before I was born. During the massacre." Winter's throat felt tight. "Everyone here talks about her like she was a hero. But she also cursed someone who was barely older than a child, and that curse destroyed him. Made him into something cold and cruel. So I don't know what to think about her." Vex made a sound that might have been agreement or disagreement or just acknowledgment. Hard to tell with a beast. "You probably think I'm a traitor," Winter continued, the words spilling out before she could stop them. "For being mated to a Crescent. For not hating him the way everyone else does. My mother definitely thinks I'm under some kind of magical influence, that the bond is controlling me.
When the wound was as clean as she could get it, Winter opened the first vial from Levi's pouch. The infection salve was thick and dark green, smelling sharp and medicinal. She scooped some onto her fingers and looked at Vex. "This is the part that's really going to hurt." Vex's ears flattened against his skull. He knew what was coming. Winter spread the salve across the wound's edges, working it into the infected tissue. Vex's entire body locked up, a sound escaping his throat that was half whine and. half roar. His jaws snapped at the air near Winter's head in an involuntary spasm of pain. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Winter chanted, working as quickly as she could. The salve sizzled slightly where it touched infection, bubbling and hissing. Vex thrashed once, nearly knocking Winter aside, but she held her position and kept applying the medicine until the whole wound was covered. Then she grabbed the second vial. Wound sealant. The magic superglue that supposedly burned like hell.
Winter stared at him. "How did you-" "Told her I needed supplies for practice drills. We're expecting to run defense exercises soon, makes sense to prep the medical kits." His expression turned serious. "Which beast?" "I don't know. Big. Dark fur. Gold-green eyes." Winter hesitated. "It's alone. In a chamber past the spring. " Levi's face did something complicated. "That's Vex's chamber. He's....." Another pause, longer this time. "He's one of the oldest beasts. Bonded to your grandmother, actually. After she died, he sort of... withdrew. We thought he'd left the caves entirely." Your grandmother. The words sat heavy in Winter's stomach. The witch who'd cursed Ezekiel was the same witch who'd bonded with the creature Winter had helped last night. Life was just layers of impossible connections, apparently. "He's hurt badly," Winter said quietly. "The wound is infected. Days old, maybe longer." "Vex doesn't usually let anyone near him. Most of us have tried. He just.." Levi shook
TThe bread was stale but Winter pocketed it anyway, along with two strips of dried meat that had been left unattended near the food stores. Stealing felt wrong (Griselda's voice in her head, 'thief, ungrateful wretch'), but the beast needed food and Winter wasn't about to announce to everyone that she'd spent last night nursing a creature that could probably kill half the witches here if it wanted to.She added a waterskin to her haul, filling it from the underground spring when no one was looking. The healing supplies were trickier. There was a designated area where the witches kept their medical stores (herbs, salves, bandages made from soft moss and spider silk), but it was always supervised. An older witch named Maren seemed to live there, grinding powders and mixing tinctures with the focused intensity of someone who'd forgotten what sleep was.Winter watched from a distance, trying to figure out how to get what she needed without being noticed. The wound had looked less angr
She found him in the northern forge, just as Jax had described. It wasn’t a weapons smithy, but a smaller, private place. The air was hot and thick with the smell of metal and coal smoke. The forge fire burned low, casting the room in a hellish red orange light. He was standing by a quenching barr
As he led her away, Winter chanced one last look at the tower. Ezekiel was gone. But the echo of his terrified fury still resonated in the bond, a strange and powerful comfort.Jax led her back through a different section of the Citadel, a wide, covered causeway connecting the main keep to the armo
the tunic was a shroud and a shield. It smelled of him...of pine, cold night air, and the ghost of a lightning storm, and the scent was a constant, dizzying reminder. Winter spent the first day after the slaughter in a state of muted shock, wrapped in his scent, her mind a placid lake of exhaust
“It’s just a cake, Snow,” Jax sighed. “It’s not going to bite.”As if summoned by the tension, the bond’s hum intensified slightly. Winter’s gaze flickered to the main door. The shadows in the small gap beneath it seemed to shift. He was out there. Listening.She stared at the cake, her stomach twi







