Page 25

DELILAH

T he forest was quieter than usual.

Not peaceful—just still. Like it was watching.

Delilah knelt beside a patch of starbloom near the roots of a crooked ash tree, her fingers moving carefully over each blossom.

These hadn’t been touched by Garrick’s corruption yet—thank the stars—and she needed every clean petal she could find.

Wren’s fever had returned in the night, and the moonroot poultices weren’t holding like they used to.

She brushed dirt off her hands and tied the small bundle into linen, pressing it to her chest. The air smelled like pine and damp moss—but there was something else beneath it. Metallic. Tense.

Her mind wandered, as it always did lately.

To him.

To Rollo.

And the mess they'd left in the clearing after she turned her back on him.

She’d told herself he deserved it. That he’d lied. That he’d put Wren at risk. That he saw her as something delicate, breakable, in need of protection instead of partnership.

But the longer the silence stretched between them, the more the edge of that fury dulled—and gave way to something far more complicated.

Maybe he was just scared, she thought.

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 was angry.

“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. It clung.

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, from earth.

“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 the shadows 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.

His skin was a little warmer now. The color no longer so deathly. But he still didn’t stir.

“Stay with me,” she whispered, eyes stinging. “Don’t you leave me like this. Not when I finally?—”

She didn’t say it. But her magic did.

It surged, stronger than before—drawn from a place deeper than blood or bone.

Love.

Power bloomed from her palms like spring through frost. The air snapped and crackled, the leaves overhead trembling in a gust that didn’t belong to weather.

Rollo’s breathing steadied—fragile, but real.

Then the magic snapped back, hard.

Delilah cried out, nearly collapsing over him. Her arms shook with exhaustion, her forehead pressing against his shoulder.

“You idiot,” she whispered, voice wrecked. “You could’ve died.”

Again she heard the whisper, “Time is short. You have exhausted your efforts.”

“Our efforts.” the three voices sang together.

“I understand,” she pleaded. “But I had to save him. He’s mine. He can’t die.”

“So be it. You’ve been warned. But you are ours and we will need balance restored.”

A steady thrum of breath came from Rollo’s massive chest. It wasn’t enough. He was alive—but he needed shelter. Healing. And she couldn’t carry him alone.

She pulled herself upright, lifted her chin to the canopy, and called out—not with words, but with will.

Forest, she begged. Please. Help me get him home.

The silence that followed was absolute. Then the roots beneath Rollo shifted. Vines coiled under his back—gentle, like cradling arms.

The ground itself seemed to breathe , and slowly—inch by sacred inch—it began to carry him down the slope.

Delilah walked beside him, one hand resting on his chest, the other still glowing weakly.

She didn’t know what would come next.

But he was alive.

And this time, she wasn’t letting go.