CHAPTER 5: The Garden of Thorn.

POV: Freya

Staring at the ceiling was getting old because every time I tried to shift an inch to the left, my side flared up like someone was holding a match to my skin. The stitches pulled tightly against my skin.

The door clicked open. I expected Hester, but it was someone else. A girl. She had this massive cloud of curly red hair and kept her eyes glued to the floorboards like they held the secrets to the universe.

“I'm Nerissa,” she said. It was so quiet I barely caught it.

She moved around the bed, her hands surprisingly gentle as she started unwinding the bandages as I braced for the sting, but she didn't bumble through it. Still, the silence was loud and she wouldn't look at me, not even a glance.

“Why are you here?” I asked. My voice sounded scratchy, even to me. “Where's Hester?”

Nerissa froze for a second, her fingers hovering over the clean linen. She bit her lip, looking anywhere but my face. “They changed the rotation.”

“Right. And you pulled the short straw?”

She hesitated, a soft flush creeping up her neck. “The others didn't really want the shift.”

“Oh, come on. Don't leave me hanging. Am I that bad of a patient?” I tried to laugh, but it turned into a grimace as she adjusted the cloth. My humor was about all I had left in this bed.

“They think you're cursed,” she mumbled, her voice dropping even lower. “Or a spy for Shadowbrook. Or both.”

Fantastic. Great to know my reputation was thriving while I was busy trying not to bleed out in a strange bed. It was that same old weight dropping right into my stomach.

The feeling of being the thing nobody wanted around, the person everyone predefined before I even opened my mouth. A spy. I could barely sit up to pee, but sure, I was a master of espionage.

“And you?” I looked at her, watching the way her red curls fell over her face. “Do you think I'm going to curse you if you look me in the eye?”

Nerissa slowly lifted her head. She didn't look terrified, just small. She shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “You don't feel like an omega to me.”

She finished up quickly after that, gathering the old linens and slipping out of the room before I could even process what she meant.

The door shut and I lay there, staring back up at the ceiling, her words bouncing around the empty space in my head. I almost wanted to laugh, but the burning in my side reminded me not to.

The door creaked open again that evening. It was Zevren.

I didn't expect him, and I definitely didn't expect what he was holding. 

A Moonbloom.

The pale petals practically glowed in the dim light of the room. My throat went completely dry. It was the exact same stuff I used to spend hours tending back in the herb gardens at Shadowbrook. I could practically hear Kaelen's voice in my head, laughing at me, telling me I had dirt on my nose again.

A stupid memory, but it hit me like a punch.

How did Zevren know about those flowers? Did he just stumble on them? Did someone tell him? I kept my mouth shut. Honestly, I didn't want to know the answer. Some things are better left unsaid, or else my head would start spinning even worse than it already was.

He sat down in the chair right next to my bed, settling in like he had all the time in the world. He didn't ask how my side was feeling. Instead, he looked at me and asked about my dreams.

I didn't want to tell him. It felt too raw, too weird. But his eyes were just waiting, so I let it out, bit by piece. I told him about the forests. Not the trees around here, but paths I've never seen in my life. I told him what it felt like to run on four legs, legs that actually felt strong, not like these useless human ones sticking out of my blankets. And the silver light. Every time I blinked in the dark, that light was just sitting there behind my eyelids.

Zevren leaned in. He was listening so hard it was almost creepy, like he was starving and I was handing him a meal.

“Guardian bloodlines,” he said, his voice dropping into this serious, low tone. “It's old wolf magic. It stays in certain families, just waiting. You can wake it up if you train, if you have the will. I can help you figure out if you have it.”

I couldn't help it. A laugh snorted out of me, but it tasted like iron and bitterness. Me? Magic?

“Right,” I said, shaking my head. “Because I've been such a powerhouse my whole life. I can barely even shift without losing my breath and needing a nap. If I had some ancient, great power hiding out inside me, don't you think I would've noticed it by now? I'm just Freya.”

Zevren didn't laugh. His eyes locked onto mine, completely steady and serious.

“Maybe you were never weak,” he said, the words falling heavy between us.

*****

My mind started doing laps the second the door shut behind him.

The tonics. All those stupid, bitter tonics from the healing center back at Shadowbrook. I remembered how my bones used to ache, how the fatigue would completely crush me right after certain full moons, leaving me useless for days.

And my parents…their deaths were just this neat little tragedy everyone wrapped up and stopped talking about.

I connected the dots in my head, but I kept my lips locked tight. I wasn't about to dump all my messy suspicions into Zevren's lap. I didn't know him. I didn't know anyone here, and trusting people usually ended up with me bleeding out in a bed anyway.

When I finally drifted off, the dark didn't bring any actual rest.

I dreamed of my mother. It had been years since she showed up in my head like that. She was running, tearing through this endless field of silver grass, her face pale and twisted with absolute terror as she kept looking back.

And right behind her, moving through the dark, were these shapes. Shadows with glowing green eyes that just stared, never blinking, just watching her run.

I snapped awake, my chest heaving.

The fabric of my pillow was soaked with sweat and tears. I didn't realize I'd been crying. Inside my chest, my wolf was clawing at the walls of my mind, pacing restlessly. She felt different, she felt hungrier than she had ever been in my entire life.