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“I am not yours,” he managed, the word thick and thorny. “I am HERS!”

His grip tightened. The Titan’s arms broke underneath his hands, its flimsy mortal bones splintering.

“ Good ,” the Titan said. “Let it consume you. Become what you were always meant to be.”

“Let me show you,” Wick demanded. “Let me show you what I am, what I truly am. You will see.”

With every piece of will he had left, he pressed his forehead to the Titan’s.

The Titan paused. “ Very well.”

Its glow was so bright it made his eyes water, even when he closed them. Still, he stayed, Briar’s voice finally fading as the Titan did as he asked.

The world fell away. He could feel the Titan groping through his head, watching his memories with detached curiosity:

The first time he attempted to make a friend, a frog he dubbed Froggy, who met an untimely end on Wick’s claws.

The first time that he was chased out of a village.

His first nest, covered in as much softness as he could find.

Waking up time after time from a blood frenzy, the anguish fading to quiet disappointment after so many centuries.

Then, finally: Briar. The shock in her gorgeous eyes as he instructed her to hurt him.

The delicious stretch of her hole, the contentment of curling up around her in sleep.

Her wary gaze, filled with disbelief and lust and finally trust. The bliss of tasting her, of feeling her tighten around him.

Her tearful eyes as he told her to hurt him once again in the ravine.

Her careful hands rubbing cream into his burns, feeding him rabbit, and tending to him with a care no one had ever shown him.

He wanted to keep her safe. But mostly, he wanted to keep her. And the Titan saw all of it, every small second.

At the end of his memories, the Titan sighed in disappointment.

You really should have eaten her, it said inside his head.

Then it withdrew. Wick stumbled, the forest flooding back into place around him as he righted himself.

Briar grabbed his side, as if her small stature could help. “Wick! Are you alright? What happened? Your eyes were glowing!”

“I am fine,” he assured her.

He blinked hard. The red haze was dimming, but the frenzy was still there. He could feel it at the edges of his mind, waiting.

“Please,” Wick rasped. “You can do it. I know you can.”

The Titan drifted from his grasp. Its skin was broken, light showing between the gaps. It looked down at him, its glowing eyes fixed on its creation.

At first, Wick thought it would forsake him. He could feel its contempt, in the end. But its next words were not a condemnation; it was a command.

“Break the amulet,” it said.

Wick looked down at Briar, who clutched the amulet protectively.

“You are not worthy to be one of my children,” the Titan continued. “None of you are. You will not hear from me again.”

The light bled from its eyes and mouth and into its skin. It pulsed, light cracking through its skin until the being that was once Marigold dissolved into a flurry of light.

Wick covered his and Briar’s eyes with his wing. By the time the light faded, Marigold was nothing but motes of light fading into the trees.

Briar reached up to touch a dying speck of light. As soon as it touched her finger, it vanished.

Briar rubbed her fingers together. The scent of grief clung to her, thick and heady.

“Briar,” Wick tried. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry.”

Briar moved like she was going to shrug him off. Instead, she reached up and snapped the amulet off its chain.

“Do we trust it?” she asked. “The Titan?”

“I do not think we have a choice,” Wick admitted.

They stared at the amulet sitting in Briar’s hand. It was so close to splitting in two. The barest hint of pressure would do it.

“Well,” Briar said. “Here goes nothing.”

Wick held out his hand. Briar placed her hand inside his. They closed their fingers, Wick’s pressing against Briar’s until he felt the amulet split in two.

Light burst out of the shattered amulet, flooding straight into Wick.

Wick gasped, the breath punched out of him. He fell to his knees as it rolled through him, cold and cleansing. Ice flooded through his skull, all the way to the ends of his claw tips and back to circle his heart.

Then it clenched .

When Wick came to, he was lying on his back in the grass. Briar was kneeling over him, stroking his face.

“Hi,” she croaked, her eyes wet. “How are we feeling? Still wanting to rip the flesh from my bones?”

Wick shook his head. He felt… clear. There were no embers left in him. The ice had frozen the burning frenzy out of him for good.

“It is gone,” he said, hardly daring to believe it.

Briar broke into a grin. She was half-crying, haloed by morning light, and the most beautiful thing Wick had ever seen.

He touched her cheek. “You gave up your coin.”

Briar frowned, like she did not know what he meant. Then her expression cleared. She laughed, disbelievingly, and dropped her forehead against his.

“You broke your nature for me,” she said. “It was the least I could do for my gentleman monster.”

With that, she wiped the blood away from his mouth and kissed him. She tasted like every morning for the rest of Wick’s long life.