Chapter 8: The Witch's Answer
The silence after her words was heavier than the fur-covered bed, deeper than the shadows in the corner of the chamber. Cregan froze, his hand an inch from her skin, the heat of his palm a brand through the air. The blue of his eyes flickered, something human wrestling with the wolf’s instinct to take, to claim, to solidify possession.
He said nothing. His chest rose and fell under her splayed fingers.
Lysaria didn’t move. The chill of the room kissed her bare shoulders, her spine. She held his gaze, the black and grey of her own eyes refusing to look away from the storm in his. Say it, she willed silently. Break the curse of your own title.
“Lysaria.” Her name was a rough scrape of sound. Not an Alpha’s command. Something fractured.
“That’s a start,” she whispered, the defiance softening at the edges.
He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers, a gesture of startling vulnerability. His eyes closed. The fight she saw in him wasn’t against her, but against a lifetime of brutal calculus where need was a liability and want was a distraction. “I have led for seventy-four years,” he murmured, the words breathed into the space between their lips. “Every word is weighed. Every action is for the pack. What is left… feels like it belongs to someone else. A ghost.”
“I’m not asking the ghost.” Her thumb moved, a small arc over the fierce beat of his heart. “I’m asking the man whose chair I splintered. The one who watches me grind yarrow with a focus usually reserved for battle maps.”
A low, pained sound escaped him. He pulled back just enough to look at her—really look—his gaze tracing the lines of her face as if memorizing a new terrain. “It’s a weakness. This. You. The wanting.” He said it like a confession of a crime. “Torin saw it. Anyone with half a scent can see it now. It’s a flaw in my armor they will aim for every time.”
“Then let it be your strength, too,” she said. “Something they can’t understand. A reason to fight that isn’t just territory or pride.” She dared to slide her hand up, over the corded muscle of his neck, into the thick blond hair at his nape. “Say it.”
He shuddered under her touch. The control he wore like a second skin was crumbling. “I want you.” The words were torn from him, raw and unadorned. “Not as a healer for my pack. Not as a symbol. You. Your mind that never stops working. Your temper that matches mine. The way you smell of thunder and green, growing things.” His hands came up to frame her face, his touch unbearably gentle. “I have walked this world feeling like a set of responsibilities wearing a man’s shape. You make me feel real again. That’s the truth. It’s terrifying.”
It was enough. More than enough.
Lysaria closed the last inch between them, her mouth finding his. It was not a gentle kiss. It was a convergence, a release of coiled tension, an answer to a challenge met. His arms locked around her, pulling her against the solid, unyielding wall of his body, and the world narrowed to the taste of him—wilderness and woodsmoke—and the stunning heat of his skin under her hands.
The furs on the bed were soft and deep. He laid her down as if she were something precious, but the hunger in his touch was unmistakable, a desperate thing finally unleashed. There was no more politics in this room, no packs, no enemies. Only the scrape of calloused hands on sensitive skin, the gasp of her name he muffled against her throat, the shocking, perfect rightness of his weight settling over her.
Later, when the fire had crumbled to embers and the cold began to creep back in, they lay tangled in the dark. His breath stirred her hair, his arm a heavy, possessive band across her waist. The silence was comfortable now, filled with the language of slowed heartbeats and warm skin.
“Jace is going to be insufferable in the morning,” Cregan muttered into the crown of her head, his voice drowsy and thick.
Lysaria laughed, a soft, breathy sound she barely recognized as her own. “Why?”
“Because he’s been taking bets on this for weeks. He’ll know. He always knows.”
“What were the odds?”
“Appalling.” He nuzzled the curve of her shoulder. “He bet on me making a mess of it. Elara bet on you throwing a knife at me.”
“Elara knows me too well,” Lysaria smiled, tracing idle patterns on his arm. The casual intimacy of it all felt surreal, a dream she feared waking from. “The training. In the yard. Tomorrow. You were serious.”
“Deadly.” He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at her. In the gloom, his eyes were dark pools. “It’s not a suggestion. If someone gets past me, past the guards, you need to be able to get away. To run. To make it hurt enough to give you time.”
“I know how to make things hurt.”
“Not like this.” His expression was grim, all traces of softness gone. “This isn’t potions and pinches. This is dirty. Efficient. Elara’s the best we have at close-quarters scrapping. You’ll listen to her.”
“And the merchant? The public trade?”
“Is happening. Two days. We’ll be ready.” He sank back down, pulling her closer. “Sleep. While we can.”
She did, lulled by the steady rhythm of his heart against her back.
Dawn was a grey sneer through the high, narrow window. Cregan was already gone, the space beside her cold. Lysaria dressed quickly, the memory of his hands on her skin a persistent echo. She braided her red hair with deliberate care, a small armor against the day.
The main hall was a roar of morning activity. Pups tumbled underfoot, warriors headed out for patrol with steaming bowls of porridge in hand, the air rich with the smell of woodfire, meat, and wet wool. The conversation dipped for a fraction of a second as she entered, then surged back, louder. Curious glances, assessing looks, a few quick, genuine smiles from those she’d healed. Ronyn, the young warrior from the night before, gave her a sharp, respectful nod.
Elara was waiting by the great door, arms crossed, two worn wooden daggers in her hand. “Took your time,” she said, but there was no real bite in it. Her dark eyes scanned Lysaria with a tactical appraisal. “You’ll want to tie that braid tighter. And lose the cloak. It’s a handle.”
Lysaria folded her cloak over a bench, feeling exposed in just her dress and tunic. “Where do we start?”
“With you not being dead.” Elara tossed her one of the practice blades. “Most people, when attacked, freeze. They stare. Their brain tries to understand. That’s when they die. Your first lesson is: move. Always move. Even if it’s wrong, move.”
The training yard was a packed-earth circle behind the hall, scarred by generations of paws and boots. A light drizzle began to fall, making the ground slick. A small audience gathered—off-duty warriors, a few curious she-wolves, the inevitable pups peeking from behind barrels.
Elara began simply, demonstrating a stagger-back step, a sideways pivot. “You’re smaller. Lighter. You will never win a contest of strength. So you don’t play that game. You unbalance. You use their momentum.” She moved with a liquid grace that was mesmerizing. “Now you.”
Lysaria was clumsy. Her mind understood the angles, but her body was used to the patient, precise movements of grinding herbs and weaving poultices, not explosive evasion. She stepped when she should have pivoted, turned into Elara’s guiding shove instead of away from it. She hit the damp ground more than once, the impact jarring her teeth.
“Again,” Elara said, implacable, offering a hand to haul her up each time.
By the tenth fall, frustration was a hot coal in Lysaria’s chest. Mud streaked her dress, her braid was coming loose, and her palms stung. The watching pack members were mostly silent, but she felt their eyes.
“You’re thinking like a witch,” Elara said quietly, stepping close as Lysaria regained her feet. “You’re looking for the ingredient, the perfect step. This isn’t perfect. This is survival. It’s ugly. Stop thinking. Just move.”
The next time Elara lunged, a blur of practiced motion, Lysaria didn’t analyze. She dropped. Not a graceful crouch, but a messy, desperate collapse that left her crouched in the mud. Elara’s practice blade swished through the air where her neck had been.
“Better!” Elara’s approval was quick and bright. “Now, from there, you don’t look up and apologize. You drive this,” she tapped the wooden dagger in Lysaria’s hand, “up into the soft thing above you. Then you scramble away like your life depends on it. Because it does.”
They drilled the motion, over and over. Crouch, thrust, scramble. The movements became less foreign, more reflexive. The rain picked up, plastering hair to faces and turning the yard to a churned brown soup.
A familiar, broad-shouldered silhouette appeared at the edge of the yard. Cregan leaned against the hall wall, watching. He said nothing, made no signal, but his presence was a tangible force. The attention of the onlookers subtly shifted between the Alpha and the witch in the mud.
During a water break, Jace sidled up to Lysaria, handing her a dented cup. “Not bad for your first day as a pincushion,” he grinned. “Elara’s taking it easy on you. I saw her make a fully-grown warrior cry once.”
“I believe it,” Lysaria gasped, drinking deeply.
“So,” Jace’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, his eyes darting to Cregan. “Heard you two finally stopped talking last night.”
Lysaria choked on her water. “I have no idea what you’re implying.”
“Of course you don’t.” His grin widened. “The whole pack knows. The walls know. He’s got this… glow. It’s disgusting, really. I’m very happy for you both. My winnings are even happier.”
She swatted at him with her practice dagger. He danced back, laughing.
“Jace.” Cregan’s voice cut across the yard, deceptively calm. “The cooks need help. Someone needs to carry the new batch. Now.”
Jace’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes sharpened. He gave a lazy, two-fingered salute. “Alpha.” He turned, clapping Lysaria once on her muddy shoulder. “Don’t let her break you, Red. We need you in one piece.” He ambled toward the kitchen doors, his whistle cutting through the drizzle.
He passed close by Cregan, a casual brush of shoulders. His voice dropped to a thread, a vibration meant for wolf-ears alone. “She’s not a territory to be marked and patrolled. Claim your mate the right way. Don’t just sleep with her.” He didn’t break stride, disappearing into the steamy warmth of the hall.
Cregan didn’t react. His expression remained carved from stone, fixed on Lysaria as she pushed a sodden strand of hair from her face. But the muscle in his jaw jumped once. Jace’s words, a brother’s challenge, landed in a place already raw from the night’s confession.
Across the yard, Elara called a halt. “Enough. You’ll be vomiting if we push more today. The point is to learn, not die of exhaustion.” She offered a hand, pulling Lysaria upright. “Tomorrow, we work on using what’s in your pockets. Dirt. A buckle. Anything.”
Lysaria’s legs trembled. Every muscle screamed in languages she didn’t know she possessed. The mud on her skin had grown cold, a gritty second layer. She nodded, breathless, a strange kind of exhilaration battling the ache. She had moved. She had not frozen.
“Go clean up,” Elara said, her gaze flicking past Lysaria to Cregan. “You’ve given the show they wanted to see.” There was no judgment in her tone. It was a tactical assessment.
The small crowd began to disperse, conversations restarting about patrol routes and meal shifts. Lysaria became a part of the background again, just a muddy woman limping toward the side entrance that led to the bathhouse. The ordinary rhythm of the pack absorbed the morning’s spectacle.
Cregan pushed off from the wall and fell into step beside her. He didn’t touch her. The space between them crackled with unspoken words.
“You watched,” she said finally, her voice hoarse.
“I did.”
“And?”
“You got up. Every time.” He said it like it was the only metric that mattered. “Elara’s right. They saw it. That’s what sticks.”
They reached the low, stone annex where water from a hot spring was piped into a deep, cedar-lined pool. Steam rolled out the open doorway, smelling of minerals and pine. It was empty at this hour.
Lysaria stopped at the threshold, the warmth beckoning her sore body. She looked up at him. The rain had dampened his blond hair, darkening it at the temples. The blue of his eyes was almost grey in the flat light. “Jace said something to you.”
Cregan’s gaze was unflinching. “He’s got opinions. He always has.”
“About last night?”
“About what comes after it.” He stepped closer, invading the space, his voice dropping. The sounds of the pack faded. “He thinks I’ll treat you like a conquest. A checked box. That the Alpha in me will file you away under ‘secured asset’ and move on to the next threat.”
Her breath hitched. “Will you?”
His hand came up, but he didn’t touch her face. He hooked a finger under a thick strand of mud-caked hair lying against her collarbone. He rubbed the clay-like filth between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes on the motion. “When I killed my father, I felt nothing. When I took his place, I felt the weight. It’s all I’ve felt for decades.” He looked up, meeting her eyes. “Last night, I didn’t feel the weight. I just felt you. That’s… it’s not something I know how to file.”
The raw honesty of it undid her more than any passionate declaration could have. It was an admission of helplessness from a man who was never allowed to be helpless.
It was an admission of helplessness from a man who was never allowed to be helpless.
He let his eyes wander from the mud on his fingers to the curve of her neck, to the determined set of her jaw beneath the grime. The steam from the bathhouse wrapped around them, a warm veil. Jace’s words, a brother’s well-aimed knife, twisted in his gut. Don’t just sleep with her. The memory of last night—the heat, the shattered control, the profound rightness—collided with a colder, older knowledge.
What came next for his kind wasn’t just more nights. It was a claiming bite, deep and permanent, threading her human soul into the pack’s bond. It was a violence of spirit, not just body. He saw the staged body by the border, the witch’s knot. He saw Torin’s lingering gaze. His wolf surged at the thought of marking her as utterly, irrevocably his. The man hesitated, afraid of the translation. What if she saw it as just another cage, different sigils but the same lock?
“You’re thinking again,” Lysaria said, her voice cutting through his silence. She wiped a smear of mud from her cheekbone, leaving a cleaner streak. “I can hear it. That’s your ‘border dispute’ face.”
“It’s not a dispute.” The words were rough. “It’s a fact. There’s a… progression. For us. It’s biological. Instinctual.” He struggled, searching for human terms for something that was pure wolf. “What happened last night… my wolf considers that a beginning. A promise. The conclusion is… more.”
She went very still. The only sound was the drip of water from the eaves and the distant shout of a warrior in the yard. “What does ‘more’ mean, Cregan?” Her tone was careful, a healer assessing a unknown toxin.
He couldn’t say it. The image of his teeth breaking her skin, the ritual of it, felt suddenly brutal in the clean morning light. She’d spent a lifetime being called a monster for her blood and her eyes. How could he explain that to truly be his, she’d have to wear a different kind of mark, one that would pulse in time with his heart and pull at her from the inside? He feared the revulsion in her heterochromatic eyes. He feared her backing away, the connection between them thinning to a political arrangement.
He deflected, grasping for the immediate threat. “The merchant arrives tomorrow. We need you sharp, not just sore. Get clean.” He turned to leave, the motion too abrupt. The Alpha reasserting command, building distance with duty.
“Stop.” Her hand shot out, fingers closing around his wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong, hardened by mortar and pestle, now reinforced by a morning of combat drills. She didn’t pull him back, just anchored him. “You don’t get to dump ‘progression’ and ‘conclusion’ on me and walk away to go manage a border. Not after last night. Not after ‘I just felt you.’” Her mimicry of his earlier voice was painfully accurate. “Explain.”
He looked at her hand on his arm, then back at her face. The rain had washed some of the mud away, revealing the fierce, fine bones underneath. She wasn’t pleading. She was demanding. As an equal.
“A real mate bond,” he said, the words finally cracking out of him, “is sealed. It’s not just sharing a bed. It’s sharing… everything. A pulse. An awareness. A thought. It’s a bite that doesn’t heal. A mark that ties your life force to the pack’s, to mine.” He watched her eyes, seeing the clinical curiosity in them, but no horror yet. “It’s how we bind. Forever. For a wolf, it’s the deepest honor. For a human who didn’t ask for it…” He trailed off, the fear choking him again. “It could feel like a branding. A violation for the mate would not only have to sleep with the human side, but with the wolfside,too. The human would have to let the wolf mount them like a bitch. Humans that started to trash were killed unintentionally with a bite to keep them still, but human skin is fragile.”
Lysaria can see all his fear in those words.
Lysaria could see all his fear in those words. It wasn’t in his eyes, which had gone hard and distant, but in the tight line of his shoulders, the slight tremble in the wrist she still held. He’d shown her the monstrous part of the fairytale and expected her to run. He’d catalogued himself as a risk.
She didn’t let go. Instead, she stepped forward, closing the last of the distance in the steamy doorway. The mud on her dress smeared against his clean tunic. “Listen to me.” Her voice was low, factual. “Your wolf has been in the same room as me for months. It’s watched me sew up your warriors. It’s let pups crawl over me. It has never, not once, hurt me. Even when you thought you would die in the snow years ago, and I dragged you to my hut, your wolf was too weak to fight. It just… watched.”
Cregan’s breath caught. He hadn’t spoken of that time in years, the memory a blurred agony of cold and despair.
“You think this is some new, shocking path?” She gave a soft, incredulous laugh. “Cregan, in every village tale used to scare children, the witch in the woods isn’t just a hermit. She’s the one who consorts with wild beasts. They whisper that we couple with them. That we birth monsters. They’ve already written that story for me. My whole life.” She lifted her other hand, placing it flat over his heart. “So if I choose to be with you, all of you, I’m just living up to the legend. And I’m choosing. The wolf part of you doesn’t scare me. It would not be the first time for a witch to be associated with sleeping with the wild beasts. I’d prefer mine to be willing, and to bring me breakfast afterwards.”
The crude, practical phrasing shattered the tension. A sound escaped him—part groan, part disbelieving laugh. He leaned his forehead against hers again, his shoulders slumping. “Breakfast. I can do breakfast.”
“See? Already a better offer than the stories promise.” She felt the shift in him, the fear receding under a wave of something else—awe, perhaps, or a weary gratitude. “The bite, the bond… we’ll figure it out. When we’re both ready. Not because some instinct says ‘now’, but because we say so. You and me. Not the Alpha and his asset.”
He nodded, a slow, deep movement. His hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs tracing the high arch of her cheekbones, smearing the last of the mud. “You are…” He stopped, the words failing again, but his eyes said everything.
The moment stretched, warm and quiet in the drifting steam.
A shrill, young voice cut through it from the hallway behind Cregan. “Alpha! Jace says the trader’s cart was spotted at the fork! He’s early!”
Cregan’s head lifted. The softness vanished, replaced by a razor-sharp focus. The Alpha was back, but he didn’t step away from her. He kept one hand on her waist. “How early?”
“By a whole day, he says!” The pup, a boy of maybe ten, skidded to a stop, eyes wide at seeing them pressed together in the doorway. He didn’t flinch from Lysaria, though. He just grinned, missing a tooth. “Jace says it’s ‘gods-damned suspicious’ and you should get your— um, get yourself to the hall.”
“Tell Jace I heard him.” Cregan’s mouth quirked. The pup scampered away.
He looked down at Lysaria. The plan was in tatters. A day early meant preparation was now reaction. “He’s nervous. Or he’s been told to catch us off guard.”
Lysaria’s mind was already racing, the healer and the strategist aligning. “The glamour on the body used marsh-elder and copper. The merchant carries both. If he’s early, he doesn’t have time to hide his stock from a casual look.”
A fierce, proud light ignited in Cregan’s eyes. “Clean up. Fast. Meet me in the hall. Don’t dress up. Look exactly like you do now—like you’ve been working.”
She glanced down at her filthy, damp dress. “That won’t be difficult.”
He pressed a hard, quick kiss to her mouth. It was all promise and no farewell. Then he was striding down the corridor, his voice already rising, calling orders for the gate and the greeting party.
Lysaria slipped into the bathhouse. She didn’t linger. She scrubbed the mud from her skin and hair with brutal efficiency, the hot water turning brown around her. She didn’t reach for the scented oils or the soft towel. She used a rough linen sheet to dry herself, leaving her skin pink and slightly abraded.
She pulled on the same dress, now clean but still damp in patches from her hurried washing. She replaited her blood-red hair tightly against her scalp, her fingers steady. She left the cloak where it was. Elara was right—it was a handle.
When she walked back into the Great Hall five minutes later, the atmosphere had transformed. It was busy, but a controlled, purposeful busy. Warriors lounged near the walls, sharpening blades or mending gear with studied casualness. Others brought in extra firewood, stoking the eerie blue fire higher.
Cregan sat on his antler throne. Jace stood at his right shoulder, Elara at his left. They looked like a tribunal.
And in the center of the open floor, looking profoundly out of place, stood Malkan the cart merchant. He was a thin man, perpetually stooped from his travels, with clever eyes that darted around the hall, missing nothing. His heavy coat was beaded with rain. Behind him, two nervous-looking assistants hovered near a small cart laden with covered bundles.
“—an unexpected honor, Alpha,” Malkan was saying, his voice a practised oil. “The river path was clearer than I thought, so I made haste. I’ve brought the salt you requested, and some exceptional blackroot from the southern marshes.”
“You’re early,” Cregan said, the words flat. Not a greeting. An observation.
Malkan spread his hands, a gesture of helpless benevolence. “The weather favors the prepared! I hoped it might be taken as a sign of my dedication to our trade.”
Cregan’s gaze drifted past him, landing on Lysaria as she entered. He gave no sign of recognition, but his attention shifted fully. “Lysaria. This merchant carries blackroot. You were complaining about the quality of your last batch. Inspect it.”
It was a direct, public order. A test within a test.
Lysaria approached, feeling every eye in the hall. She kept her steps measured, her face neutral. Malkan’s smile at her was too wide, too ready. “Ah! The healer. Of course. I have heard of your skills.” The way he said ‘heard’ made her skin prickle.
He gestured to an open sack on the cart. The root inside was dark, fibrous. She leaned in, scooping a handful. She brought it to her nose, inhaling the deep, earthy scent. It was good quality. But that wasn’t what she was checking for.
“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the other bundles.
“Please, please!” Malkan said, too eagerly. “All my wares are open for your assessment.”
She moved slowly down the cart, her senses stretching beyond sight. She let her fingers brush the burlap of other sacks, her witch’s instinct seeking a resonance, a trace of the same malignant signature from the glamour. She smelled cinnamon, dried lumaberries, bundles of common sage.
Then her hand hovered over a smaller, tightly-lidded clay pot. “And this?”
Malkan’s heartbeat, which had been a steady, nervous flutter, skipped. “That? Oh, just some rare mineral pigments for dyes. Very expensive. Not of use to a healer, I’d think.”
“I use many things.” She popped the lid.
Inside was a coarse, blue-grey powder. She dipped a fingernail in, brought a grain to her tongue. The acrid, metallic tang of powdered copper ore filled her mouth, followed by the faint, sickly-sweet under-note of properly cured marsh-elder petals, ground to dust.
Her eyes snapped to his. She didn’t speak. She just stared, her heterochromatic gaze holding him, the truth a cold stone in her belly.
Malkan’s smile faltered. His throat worked. “A… a versatile substance, of course. For… for green hues.”
“For glamours,” Lysaria said, her voice clear and carrying. She sealed the pot and placed it back on the cart with deliberate care. “A specific kind. The kind that masks true scent with false ones. Useful for hunters. Or for those who need to handle things they don’t want traced back to them.”
The hall was utterly silent. The blue fire crackled.
Cregan leaned forward on his throne. “Malkan. Who purchased marsh-elder and copper dust from you on your last circuit? Before you came here.”
The merchant’s face drained of color. “Alpha, I… my customers, their privacy is—”
“Your privacy is forfeit on my land, when your goods are used to stage a corpse on my border to frame my healer.” Cregan’s voice was conversational, which made it worse. “You can tell me who. Or you can tell me why you felt the need to arrive a day early, perhaps to ensure any remaining evidence in your cart was gone before we thought to look.”
Jace cracked his knuckles. The sound was like breaking twigs in the quiet.
Malkan looked from Cregan’s impassive face to Lysaria’s accusing one, to the ring of silent, watching wolves. His shoulders crumpled. “It… it was a man. Not from any pack I knew. He met me on the road, west of the Stormfang holdings. He paid in silver. He only wanted those two things, ground fine. I didn’t ask!”
“Description,” Elara barked.
“Tall. Dark hood. A scar here,” Malkan drew a line from the corner of his mouth to his jaw. “He smelled of… of iron and wet stone.”
Stormfang territory scent. The confirmation landed, but it was a servant, not Torin himself. A cut-out.
Cregan sat back. “You’ll leave the salt. And the blackroot. And the pigment. As a fee for the trouble your ‘versatile substances’ have caused. Then you will leave my territory and not return.”
It was not a request. It was confiscation and banishment.
Malkan opened his mouth to protest, saw the finality in Cregan’s eyes, and thought better of it. He nodded, deflated, and motioned frantically to his assistants to unload the specified goods.
Cregan stood. He walked down from the dais, past the trembling merchant, and stopped before Lysaria. He spoke to her, but for the whole pack to hear. “You have your supplies. The quality is adequate?”
“The blackroot is excellent,” she said, matching his formal tone, though her heart hammered against her ribs. “The pigment is… revealing.”
“Good.” He finally looked at Malkan. “You have until the sun touches the tallest pine to be gone from my sight. If I, or any of mine, catch you on our lands again, you will become a message. Do you understand the language I’m using?”
Malkan understood. He fled, his assistants scrambling after him with the half-empty cart.
The great door thudded shut. The tension in the hall eased, replaced by a low, angry murmur.
Cregan turned to his pack. “They think we’re stupid. They think we wouldn’t check. They send a merchant to do a coward’s work.” He put a hand on Lysaria’s shoulder, a public, solid claim. “We check everything. We trust nothing from outside. And we remember who stood in the mud today learning to fight, and who stood in the hall and saw the truth in a pot of powder.”
The growl of agreement was universal this time, no hesitant pockets of silence.
Jace sidled over, his voice a low murmur for Cregan and Lysaria alone. “Well, that was fun. He’ll run straight to whoever paid him, you know. Confess his failure.”
“Let him,” Cregan said, his eyes on the door. “Let them know we’re not playing. The next move is theirs.” He looked down at Lysaria, the alpha intensity melting into something private, weary. “You’re sure about the blackroot?”
“It’s perfect,” she said.
“Then use it. Make something strong. We’re going to need it.” He squeezed her shoulder and walked away, calling for Jace and Elara to review the perimeter maps.
Lysaria stood amidst the unloaded sacks, the clay pot of damning pigment at her feet. The threat had a source now, a scent, a supply line. It was more real, and more dangerous. But the pack had seen her see it. They had seen Cregan stand with her.
She picked up the sack of excellent blackroot, hoisting it over her shoulder. It was heavy. Solid. A tangible thing to work with. She carried it toward the infirmary, her muscles aching from the morning’s training, her mind already sifting through recipes for remedies that could heal, or perhaps, if needed, do something else entirely.