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Maybe he thought protecting me was the only way to protect himself.

She stood slowly, brushing leaves from her skirt, the linen pouch of herbs crinkling softly against her chest.

She’d meant to go straight back to the apothecary. But her feet turned, almost on their own. Toward the north ridge. Toward the old clan site.

It wasn’t even a conscious thought. Just... a pull. Like the forest itself had nudged her shoulder and whispered,Go.

He had taken her there once, a long time ago—when the world was still soft between them and every moment felt like a promise. They’d danced under the blood moon, kissed behind the stone totems, whispered secrets into each other’s hands.

Maybe that place still held something they’d both forgotten.

Maybe it would help her decide what came next.

The climb was steeper than she remembered, or maybe the tension in her chest made it feel that way. Her shoes snapped dry twigs. A crow cried overhead.

When she crested the ridge, the wind hit her first. Then the scent.

Blood.

Her stomach flipped. And that’s when she saw him.

Rollo lay half-shifted near the edge of the old fire pit, one hand clawed, the other human. His chest rose shallow and uneven. Blood matted the fur on his side, staining the ground in dark, thick streaks. The earth beneath him was scorched, and something in the air pulsed—like the forest wasangry.

“Rollo—” she dropped beside him, knees hitting earth hard, hands already glowing with green-gold light.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

His chest barely lifted beneath the shredded bloodied shirt, and the slow, shallow rhythm of his breath made her stomach twist. His face—usually so solid, so steady—was slack and too pale beneath the cuts and bruises blooming across his skin.

“No, no, no—don’t you dare.” Her voice cracked as she pressed her hands to the worst of the wounds, ignoring the searing sting of corrupted magic laced through his blood. “You don’t get to go quiet on me now.”

Her magic surged, wild and desperate, seeping into him like roots reaching for water. She felt resistance—deep, angry. This had to have been Garrick. Rollo should have healed by now. Garrick’s spellwork wasn’t just poison. Itclung.

She gritted her teeth, leaned over him, and poured more of herself into the spell.

“You stubborn, thick-skulled idiot,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “Why would you come here alone?”

The blood beneath her hands hissed as the magic began to purify it, burning off the black shimmer threaded through his wounds.

“Garrick,” she whispered, fury trembling through her ribs. “Always has to be dramatic.”

The forest around her stirred. The trees groaned. The very roots beneath her seemed to shudder. And then, from the shadows, the whisper came—not from lips, but from bark, from leaf, fromearth.

“Time is short.”

Delilah froze, one hand still glowing against Rollo’s ribs.

Another voice joined, deeper, solemn. “She has bound him. For now.”

A third—older, lighter—followed: “But the wound is deeper than it seems.”

Delilah’s throat tightened. She looked up. The trees were still. But theshadows moved.

“You can’t take him,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Not yet.”

A final voice, like a breeze over still water, echoed gently, “He is hers. And she is ours. But balance must be restored.”

Delilah’s hands trembled as she reached to cup Rollo’s face.