Page 30 of Mate Night Snack (Hollow Oak Mates #2)

KATNISS

C onsciousness returned like swimming up from the bottom of a dark lake, each breath a struggle against water that tried to drag her back down. Katniss surfaced into a world that felt both too bright and strangely muffled.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. Salt and sage, mixed with something metallic that made her nose wrinkle. The second was the warmth pressed against her right side, solid and familiar and radiating the kind of steady presence that could only belong to one person.

"Emmett?" Her voice came out as barely a whisper, throat raw like she'd been screaming.

"Right here." His fingers found hers immediately, warm and callused and trembling just slightly. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got hit by a truck full of angry ghosts." She tried to sit up and immediately thought better of it as the room spun lazily around her. "What happened? The last thing I remember was..."

The memories crashed back all at once. Ashwin's predatory smile. The poisonous words about Emmett's past. The bone knife slicing through her arm with surgical precision. The shadow magic spreading through her veins like liquid darkness.

"The knife," she breathed, lifting her left arm to examine the wound.

Her forearm was wrapped in clean white bandages that smelled faintly of herbs and moonlight, but beneath the cotton she could feel something else. Not pain, exactly, but a strange tingling sensation, like her skin was trying to remember how to be normal again.

"Twyla and Miriam worked on you for three hours," Emmett said quietly. "Cleansing ritual. Salt, silver, some kind of purification rite that involved more candles than I thought one room could hold."

Katniss looked around, finally taking in her surroundings.

She was in Miriam's bedroom, lying on a quilt.

The room still carried traces of the ritual: melted candle wax on the nightstand, circles of salt swept into the corners, and the lingering scent of burned sage that clung to everything like incense.

"Did it work?" she asked.

"The physical healing, yes. The shadow magic is gone.

" Emmett's voice was carefully neutral, but she could feel the tension radiating from him through their bond.

"But there was... damage. To your magical pathways.

Miriam says it'll heal with time, but your seer abilities might be unpredictable for a while. "

Miriam suddenly appeared in the doorway carrying a tea tray that clinked softly with each step.

"You're awake," she said with obvious relief, setting the tray on the dresser. "How's the pain?"

"Manageable." Katniss accepted the cup Miriam offered, inhaling steam that carried hints of chamomile and something earthier. "Thank you. For whatever you and Twyla did."

"Don't thank us yet, sweetheart. You're not out of the woods." Miriam settled into the chair beside the bed, her movements careful and deliberate. "Shadow magic leaves scars, even when it's cleansed. Physical ones heal clean, but the magical damage... that's trickier."

"What kind of damage?"

"Think of your seer abilities like a river," Miriam explained gently. "Smooth flow, predictable channels, everything moving in harmony. The shadow magic was like throwing boulders into that river. We cleared out the poison, but the currents are still disturbed."

Katniss sipped the tea, feeling warmth spread through her chest. "Meaning?"

"Meaning your visions might be stronger or weaker than before. They might come without warning, or not come when you need them. And there's a chance they might show you things that aren't entirely true."

Her seer abilities were already her least reliable asset, the one thing she couldn't fully control or understand. The idea of them becoming even more chaotic was terrifying.

"For how long?"

"We don't know," Miriam admitted. "Shadow magic works differently on everyone. Could be days, could be months. But Katniss, there's something else you need to understand."

"What?"

Miriam's expression grew even more serious. "The knife wasn't just cursed with shadow magic. It was specifically designed to target seers. The symbols carved into the bone, the particular blend of dark energies... this wasn't a weapon of opportunity."

A chill ran down Katniss's spine that had nothing to do with her injuries. "He's done this before."

"We think so. The missing girls, the ones whose souls he's trapped... this might be how he broke them. Corrupted their abilities, made them easier to control."

The room fell silent except for the soft tick of the mantle clock and the distant sound of morning birds beyond the window. Katniss stared down at her bandaged arm, trying to process the implications of what Miriam was telling her.

She'd been specifically targeted. Hunted. Marked for corruption by a monster who'd spent decades perfecting his methods.

And she'd walked right into his trap.

"I need to talk to Emmett," she said quietly. "Alone."

Miriam nodded and rose from her chair, pausing only to squeeze Katniss's uninjured hand. "Call if you need anything. And try to rest. Your body needs time to heal, even if your mind won't let it."

When they were alone, the silence stretched between them like a chasm. Emmett sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch but carefully not presuming, his storm-gray eyes watching her with the kind of intensity that made her want to look away.

"Say it," he said finally.

"Say what?"

"Whatever Ashwin told you. Whatever poison he poured in your ear that's making you look at me like I'm a stranger."

Katniss closed her eyes, but that only made the memories sharper. Ashwin's voice, smooth as aged whiskey and twice as toxic. The things he'd said about Emmett's past, about the consequences of mercy, about the violence that lurked beneath his careful control.

"He told me about the pack members who died," she whispered. "Because of your choice to spare that girl."

Emmett went very still. "What exactly did he say?"

"That three wolves died in an ambush because you'd compromised your position. That they trusted your leadership right up until enemy claws tore out their throats." She opened her eyes to look at him. "Is it true?"

The silence that followed felt like an eternity.

"Yes," he said finally.

The simple honesty of it was somehow worse than any elaborate explanation would have been. No justification, no attempt to soften the blow. Just the truth, stark and unforgiving.

"Were you going to tell me?"

"Eventually." His hands clenched into fists in his lap. "When I figured out how to explain that the man you love is responsible for the deaths of people who trusted him."

"And the nightmares? The guilt you carry?"

"Those too."

Katniss felt something crack inside her chest. The foundation of trust she'd built everything else on.

"What else haven't you told me?" she asked.

"Nothing that matters."

"Everything matters now. I've been walking around thinking I knew you, thinking I understood what I was getting into, but I was wrong, wasn't I? I fell in love with a carefully constructed version of the truth."

Emmett flinched like she'd slapped him. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it? You let me believe your exile was about choosing mercy over cruelty. You never mentioned that your mercy got people killed."

"Because it's not that simple."

"Then explain it to me." She struggled to sit up straighter, ignoring the way the movement made her arm throb. "Help me understand how the man I love is responsible for three deaths and I'm just now hearing about it."

His gaze fixed on something beyond the window. When he spoke, his voice was carefully controlled.

"I’ve told you what I chose and what Ashwin did because of that choice."

Katniss nodded but waited, sensing there was more.

"The ambush wasn't random. It was punishment. Ashwin sent us into enemy territory on what he claimed was a rescue mission, but it was really an execution. He wanted to teach me what happened to wolves who valued mercy over pack loyalty."

"But you survived."

"I survived because I was fast enough to run when the trap closed. The others..." He closed his eyes. "They trusted my leadership. When I said the mission was legitimate, they believed me. They died because I wasn't smart enough to see through Ashwin's game."

The pain in his voice was raw, real, the kind of agony that came from carrying guilt for years without reprieve. But underneath it, Katniss could hear something else. The same protective instinct that had driven him to spare that terrified girl in the first place.

"You were trying to save her," she said softly.

"And I got three good wolves killed in the process and she died anyway." He opened his eyes to look at her. "I made a choice. People died because of that choice. And that rests with only me."

Katniss stared at him, seeing not the monster Ashwin had tried to paint but the man who'd been carrying impossible guilt for years. Who'd chosen exile over excuses, who'd spent a decade trying to atone for a moment of compassion that had been exploited by someone truly evil.

But the doubts Ashwin had planted were still there, whispering poison in the quiet spaces of her mind.

"I need you to break the bond," she said suddenly.

Emmett's face went white. "What?"

"The mate bond. I need you to sever it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm dangerous." The words tumbled out in a rush.

"Look what happened today. Ashwin got past every defense we had because of me.

He used my own abilities against me, corrupted them, nearly turned me into one of his weapons.

I'm the one who walked into his trap. I'm the one who let his words get under my skin.

I'm the one who ran straight into danger instead of thinking clearly.

" She could feel tears building behind her eyes.

"And now my abilities are compromised. I can't trust my visions, can't rely on the one thing that made me useful to this community. "

"You don't have to be useful. You just have to be you."

"That's not enough anymore." The tears came then, hot and bitter.

"Don't you see? Everything I touch turns to chaos.

The missing girls, the rogue pack, the threat to this town.

.. it all comes back to me. If you break the bond, if you let me go, maybe Ashwin will follow me away from here.

Maybe Hollow Oak can finally have peace. "

"Absolutely not."

The finality in his voice stopped her mid-sob. She looked up to find his eyes blazing with something fierce and uncompromising.

"I'm not breaking our bond," he said. "Not today, not ever. And I'm sure as hell not letting you sacrifice yourself because some twisted monster filled your head with lies."

"They weren't all lies."

"The parts that matter were." He reached for her then, gentle but inexorable, pulling her into his arms despite her half-hearted attempts to resist. "You want to know the truth about those three wolves?

They knew the risks. They chose to follow me because they believed in something better than Ashwin's version of strength.

And they'd make the same choice again if it meant saving an innocent life. "

"You don't know that."

"I do know it. Because I knew them. Fought beside them.

Mourned them." His arms tightened around her.

"And you know what else I know? They'd hate the idea that their sacrifice was being used to break apart something beautiful.

They'd hate that Ashwin was using their memory as a weapon against love. "

Katniss cried then, really cried, letting out all the fear and pain and confusion that had been building since the moment Ashwin spoke her name in the garden. Emmett held her through it all, his presence steady and warm and utterly unshakeable.

"I'm scared," she whispered against his chest.

"I know."

"I don't know if I can trust myself anymore. My judgment, my abilities, any of it."

"Then trust me." His voice was quiet but certain. "Trust us."

"What if I can't? What if the shadow magic changed something fundamental about who I am?"

"Then we'll figure it out. All of it. The compromised visions, the trust issues, whatever comes next." He pulled back just enough to look at her face.

Through the bond, she could feel his love wrapping around her like armor, steady and sure and completely unconditional. It didn't erase the doubts or heal the damage, but it gave her something to hold onto in the darkness.

Maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was everything.

"Okay." She leaned into his warmth, letting herself believe, just for this moment, that love might be stronger than fear. "But I might need reminding from time to time."

"I can do that," he said, pressing a kiss on her forehead. "For as long as you need."

Outside, storm clouds were gathering on the horizon, and Katniss knew their troubles were far from over. But here in Miriam's room, wrapped in Emmett's arms and surrounded by the lingering traces of protective magic, she felt something she'd thought was lost forever.

Hope.

It was fragile, uncertain, still shadowed by doubt and fear.

But it was real.