LOGINEzekiel turned away from the fountain. His foot caught the edge of a decorative stone border and he kicked it. The stone cracked. Then shattered. Pieces skittering across the garden like shrapnel Better. He kicked another one. Then another. Methodically destroying the careful landscaping Winter had admired Each impact sent small explosions of rock and dust into the air. His boots took damage (leather splitting, probably broken toes, didn't matter). But the destructive rhythm helped. channeled the thing sitting in his chest that felt too much like grief. "That's therapeutic," Jax's voice came from the garden entrance. Dry. Exhausted. "Really working through those emotions in a healthy way." Ezekiel ignored him. Kicked another stone border to pieces. "The servants are scared," Jax continued, coming closer. "The pack elders are asking questions. Rasmus is spreading rumors that you've gone feral. And you're out here destroying decorative landscaping like it personally offended you."
Ezekiel'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
The caves weren't crude or primitive. They were......magnificent. Ancient. The walls in some places were smooth as glass, carved by millennia of water flow, and they reflected the firelight in dancing patterns. In other places, crystalline formations jutted from ceiling and floor, glittering like
"She told me you were dead," Winter said flatly. "She told me I killed you. That I was cursed. Unwanted." "No." Sophia gripped Winter's hands almost painfully. "No, Winter. You were wanted. So wanted. You were loved before you were born, and I never. not for a single day , stopped loving you. Even
Winter couldn't stop shaking.Sophia had released her from that suffocating embrace minutes ago or maybe hours, time felt strange and syrupy here. and now her mother sat across from her, still too close, still staring with those green eyes that were mirrors of Winter's own. Watching.. Like she exp
[Crescent Citadel, West Wing Garden, Late Autumn Afternoon, Three Days After the Storm]Winter had been walking the library garden for nearly an hour, her fingers trailing over the rough bark of the gnarled trees, her breath misting faintly in the cooling air. Gareth stood his usual post by the ir







