Harper
The silence Marcus leaves behind is heavier than his presence. It presses in on me, thick with the scent of pine and his own infuriatingly calm power. I remain by the bed, my body trembling with a rage that has nowhere to go. My fists are clenched so tight my knuckles are white, my short nails digging into my palms.
Every lesson my father beat into me screams that I am compromised. I am behind enemy lines, unarmed, and fundamentally changed. The enemy has touched me, spoken my name, and remade me in his own image.
I should be planning my escape. I should be looking for weaknesses in this cabin, a loose floorboard, a brittle lock. Instead, I am a prisoner in my own skin, this new body a chaotic storm of sensation I cannot control. The beat of my own heart is a frantic drum against my ribs. The low hum of the embers in the hearth grates on my ears. The air itself is a suffocating blanket of smells I cannot filter.
Footsteps approach the cabin. Soft, measured steps. Not the heavy, ground-shaking tread of the Alpha. This is someone smaller. Lighter.
My head snaps toward the door, every muscle in my body coiling tight. I scan the room again for a weapon. The poker by the fire. It is my only chance.
The door creaks open. I brace myself.
It is a woman. Her hair is a cascade of silver and gray, woven into a long, thick braid that hangs over her shoulder. Her face is a map of fine lines, but her eyes are a clear, gentle brown, the color of rich forest soil. She carries a small wooden bowl that steams, releasing a scent that hits me like a physical blow.
It is too much. Lavender. Chamomile. Something earthy and sharp, like ginger. The smells are so distinct, so powerful, they make my head spin. I take a stumbling step back, my hand flying to my nose.
“Easy, child,” she says. Her voice is like soft moss, a stark contrast to Marcus’s deep rumble. “The world is very loud for you right now, isn’t it?”
I stare at her, suspicious. She is one of them. A werewolf. Her scent is different from Marcus’s, cleaner, like herbs and rain. But she is a wolf nonetheless. “Stay away from me.”
She stops just inside the doorway, her expression full of a pity that infuriates me. “My name is Seraphina. I am the pack’s healer. I’ve brought you something to help with the pain.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I snarl. “Or your Alpha.”
“It is not from him. It is from me,” she says patiently, as if speaking to a frightened animal. Which, I suppose, is what I am. “Your body has been through a war. Your bones have broken and reformed. Your senses are new. It is a lot to bear.”
She takes another slow step into the room, setting the bowl down on a small wooden table. The aroma intensifies. My stomach clenches, half in nausea, half in a hunger so deep it is painful.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice tight.
“A simple broth. And a salve for the aches.” She gestures to a smaller clay pot beside the bowl. “Nothing more.”
“Poison?” The word is out before I can stop it.
A soft smile touches her lips, but it holds no mockery. “If we wanted you dead, child, Marcus would have left you in the forest.”
She is right. The logic is infuriatingly sound. A new wave of dizziness washes over me as a bird chirps outside. It is not just a chirp. I can hear the flutter of its wings, the tiny scrape of its claws on bark. It is all too much.
I press my palms to my ears, a low groan escaping my throat. “Make it stop.”
“I cannot make it stop,” Seraphina says, her voice still impossibly gentle. “But I can teach you how to stand in the storm.”
She moves closer, her steps deliberate. I am too overwhelmed to retreat. She stops in front of me and holds out her hand. In her palm is a smooth, dark stone, worn by water.
“Take it,” she urges.
Hesitantly, my eyes darting from the stone to her face, I take it. The stone is cool and solid in my trembling hand. A small point of focus in the sensory chaos.
“Close your eyes,” she says. I want to refuse, to defy her, but the noise is a physical weight, crushing me. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Breathe. Just breathe. Now, put everything else away. The sounds, the smells. Put them in a box and close the lid. Focus only on the stone in your hand.”
Her voice is a lifeline. I grip the stone.
“Feel its weight,” she murmurs. “Feel the cool, smooth surface against your skin. The slight texture on the edge. Trace it with your thumb. That is all that exists right now. Just you, and the stone.”
I do as she says. I trace the shape. I feel its weight. The roaring in my ears begins to subside. The cacophony of smells recedes. The frantic beat of my heart slows, matching the calm rhythm of my own breathing.
It is working.
After a long moment, I open my eyes. The world is still bright, the scents are still sharp, but they are no longer an assault. They are manageable.
Seraphina is watching me, that same gentle look in her eyes. “Better?”
I cannot bring myself to thank her. I just nod, my throat tight. I look down at the stone in my hand, this simple, impossible thing.
“Keep it,” she says. “When the world becomes too loud, it will help you find your anchor.”
She turns and ladles some of the broth into a smaller cup. “You need to eat. Your body is building itself anew. It needs fuel.”
She holds the cup out to me. I stare at it, my pride warring with the gnawing emptiness in my stomach. She does not push. She just waits, patient as a mountain.
Finally, I take the cup. The warmth seeps into my cold fingers. I bring it to my lips and take a tentative sip. It is rich and savory, and a wave of heat spreads through my chest. I drain the cup in three long swallows, the first real nourishment I have had in days.
“Thank you,” I whisper, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. A hunter does not thank a wolf.
She simply nods. “Marcus will be glad to know you are recovering.”
My spine stiffens at his name. “I doubt that.”
“He has not slept since he brought you here,” she says, her voice matter of fact as she tidies the small table. “He has stood guard outside that door every night.”
I scoff. “Protecting his new pet.”
“Protecting a new member of his pack,” she corrects gently. “He did not do this to control you, Harper. He did it because he saw the spirit of a warrior save an innocent, and he could not let that spirit die.”
Her words are a direct contradiction to everything I feel. Violated. Abducted. Cursed. Could he possibly see it so differently?
Seraphina walks to the door, pausing with her hand on the latch. She seems to sense my inner turmoil. She gestures with her head to the cabin’s single window, which looks out over a small clearing.
“The guild taught you we are monsters,” she says softly. “Mindless beasts who live for the hunt and the kill. Is that not so?”
I do not answer, but my silence is its own confirmation.
“Look out that window later,” she says. “See the truth for yourself.”
Then she is gone, leaving me alone with the stone in my hand and a head full of poison and doubt. The broth sits warm in my belly. Her kindness feels more dangerous than Marcus’s power. A blade can be blocked. A fist can be dodged. But kindness… kindness slips through your defenses and takes root in the cracks.
After an hour, maybe more, I find the strength to stand. My legs are unsteady, but they hold me. Driven by a hunter’s need to know my surroundings, I limp to the window she indicated. My heart pounds with a mixture of fear and defiance.
The cabin is on the edge of a large, natural clearing. What I see there makes me stop. It makes me forget to breathe.
It is not a war camp. It is a village.
There are other cabins, nestled among the ancient trees. Smoke curls from their chimneys. A group of children, maybe five or six of them, are chasing each other near a stream, their laughter echoing in the quiet air. In their half shifted forms, they have small, fuzzy ears and little tails that wag with excitement. Pups.
An elderly male sits on a porch, mending a fishing net, his movements slow and deliberate. A woman hums a soft tune as she hangs herbs to dry on a line. She looks up as one of the pups tumbles, and she calls out to him in a soft, chiding voice.
This is not a pack of mindless beasts.
This is a community. A family.
Everything I have ever been taught, every piece of guild propaganda, every lecture from my father about the soulless nature of the beast, it all unravels in the face of this simple, peaceful scene.
They told us werewolves were abominations that preyed on the weak. But I see them caring for their young. I see them respecting their elders. I see a life here, a culture, that the guild has spent centuries trying to erase with silver and fire.
The seeds of doubt, planted by Marcus’s strange mercy and watered by Seraphina’s kindness, begin to sprout in the barren ground of my certainty.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window, my gaze fixed on the laughing children. I am a hunter. I am their enemy. And I am one of them.
The conflict is a physical ache in my chest, sharper than any wound. For the first time in my life, I do not know who the monsters are anymore.
