Page 2

Lexa

I screamed until my throat went raw.

The witch didn’t flinch. Her hands, steady as stone, moved with the slow, precise rhythm of a ritual practised a thousand times. Her blade—a thin sliver of iron etched with runes older than our gods—bit into my back, again and again, dragging fire through my flesh.

“Keep still,” she muttered, her voice like gravel soaked in honey. “You want this done or not?”

I couldn’t answer. My mouth was open, soundless now, my fingers twisted into the fraying edge of the table beneath me. The wood was stained black from years of blood and magic. The scent of both filled the air, thick and metallic, laced with the sharp burn of herbs I couldn’t name.

The witch’s hut was half-sunken into the marsh, its roof swallowed by creeping moss and the bones of birds strung from every beam.

A hundred glass jars lined her shelves, some filled with liquid and shadow, others with things that blinked or twitched when I looked too closely.

Candles burned low, their flames guttering blue.

She was a tall woman, lean as a blade, with golden hair streaked in gray and cold, ocean-blue eyes that saw too much. Her name wasn’t one she gave lightly. I never asked it. She preferred it that way.

“You didn’t bring full payment,” she reminded me, voice flat, impassive. “So I do half the work. Enough to hold until next moon, if you’re careful.”

The blade bit into my back, sharp and merciless. I bit down on a sob, grinding my teeth so hard my jaw ached. The pain wasn’t new, but it never dulled. Not really. She traced the old scars with practised precision, cutting along familiar paths as if refreshing a map drawn in blood.

I’d been coming to her for years. Since the first winter after I arrived on the coast. Word of her had passed in whispers through the human markets— the witch who worked with wolves, if the price was high and the secrets dark .

I found her in the marshlands, beyond the last bend of the river, where the fog never lifted and the trees leaned too close.

Each time I came, she jacked up the price.

A few coins more. A trade for herbs I had to risk stealing.

A lock of hair. Blood. One year, she took my only coat and left me walking home in sleet with just rags and a fever.

She always reminded me, like it was a curse etched into the air between us— dark magic has its cost.

My blood was dark on the stone floor, thick and sluggish, soaking into the circle of rune-salt she’d poured beneath me. It hissed where it touched, steam rising, the magic greedy as ever.

“You’re lucky I like you, wolf girl,” she said casually, rinsing the blade in something that steamed and stank of metal and rot. “Otherwise I’d let the beast take you. Let it rip out of you. Just to see what’s left.”

I wasn’t lucky. I was desperate. And desperation, like pain, was something I knew far too well. It lived in my bones, in the hollow space behind my ribs where others kept faith and fire. I didn’t believe in salvation. I believed in survival.

The blade withdrew.

The pain didn’t. It lingered, hot and raw, like embers pressed into open flesh.

My limbs shook. Sweat clung to my face, pooling at my jaw.

My breath came fast and shallow. I didn’t cry.

Not now. The sob had already been swallowed.

I lay there, panting, muscles twitching from the effort of holding still.

I couldn’t move yet. I didn’t even try. She leaned against her cluttered table and watched me, arms crossed, eyes gleaming in the candlelight.

“You know without the full set, an alpha could scent you if they got close.”

I forced my head to the side, meeting her gaze with a grimace. “I know how to stay away from alphas. I’ve done it my whole life.”

The witch tilted her head. “But why? Why go against your nature so hard? Why bleed for it, month after month, year after year?”

I didn’t answer at first. The words came slow, cracked around the edges.

“Because I saw what it means to be what I am. I saw what they did to my sisters. How they were groomed, caged, broken down into pretty little things meant to please the monsters who claimed them. I won’t live on my knees.”

She studied me a long moment, then shrugged and turned back to her workbench.

“You keep telling yourself that.”

But she didn’t say I was wrong. She handed me a small vial. The liquid inside shimmered, opalescent and cold.

“Drink this. For the pain. It won’t take all of it, but enough to walk.”

I drank. It tasted like copper and nettles.

“You know the cost of this magic,” she added softly, almost to herself. “It takes. Always takes. From the blood, from the bone. It’ll catch up to you one day.”

I nodded. I knew. I just didn’t care. The pain dulled slightly, enough for me to sit up, to pull on my cloak and limp to the door. Each step on the road back to the village was agony, like walking with fire stitched into my spine. But I kept moving. I had to.

I stopped at Jena’s house, a squat little home near the town centre. Baskets and wicker hampers lined her porch in neat stacks. She sold them in the market for just enough to feed her three children.

Jena answered the door with flour on her hands and a baby on her hip.

“Back already? Feeling better?”

I nodded, offering a tight smile. “Much. Just a stomach ache.”

Jena nodded in sympathy. “That woman’s got hands like magic. Scary eyes though.”

“Don’t I know it.”

She handed Dain over with a fond pat to his curls. “He was good. Helped me sort the reeds. Ate half the bread, too.”

“He’s growing,” I said, and Dain threw his arms around my waist with a laugh.

Jena and I spoke a bit more, casual and light, as if I wasn’t bleeding beneath my cloak. Then I took Dean’s hand and we headed home, one slow, painful step at a time.

The door creaked shut behind us, muffling the sounds of the village. The wind clawed at the wood, but inside, it was still—dim and familiar. Home.

I hung my cloak on the bent nail by the door and sank slowly onto the stool by the hearth, every movement sending a fresh ripple of fire down my back.

Dain dropped to the floor and started rummaging through the basket of river stones and driftwood I kept for him, humming under his breath.

My ribs ached just watching him bounce and move so easily.

He looked up suddenly, serious. “Did the lady make you better?”

I nodded, forcing a small smile. “She helped.”

“She has scary eyes,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Like owls.”

I chuckled, low and tired. “Yes. But she sees things others don’t. That’s her gift.”

He brought over a rock, oddly smooth and round, and pressed it into my palm. “This one’s lucky. I kept it for you.”

The stone was warm from his small hands, and I curled my fingers around it. “Thank you, cub.”

Dain clambered into my lap carefully, trying not to touch my back, and rested his head against my shoulder. “When I get big, I’ll protect you. You won’t have to go to her anymore.”

The breath hitched in my throat. I held him tighter, my hand still wrapped around the lucky stone.

“Maybe by then I won’t need her.”

He looked up at me with that pure, unfiltered devotion only children have. “You’re the strongest person in the world.”

No, I wanted to tell him. I was just the one who never stopped running.

But I didn’t say it. I just leaned my cheek against his and closed my eyes, letting the moment wrap around us like the last warmth before the storm.

Dain stirred against my chest, then looked up, rubbing his eyes. “Lexi, I’m hungry.”

Of course he was. It was well past sundown, and I hadn’t made anything yet. I pressed a kiss to his curls and whispered, “Alright, let’s see what we have.”

Every step to the shelf hurt. My limbs felt like soaked wood, heavy and splintered. Still, I moved. For him, I always would. I found the last heel of bread, a bit of smoked fish, and a wrinkled apple. Not much, but enough for a child.

He sat at the table, swinging his legs, and smiled wide when I set the food down. “A feast!”

I ruffled his hair and sat across from him, hands wrapped around an empty cup. I didn’t reach for a bite.

He paused mid-chew, frowning. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“I’m not hungry,” I said with a soft smile.

He stared at me, lips pressed together, but didn’t push. I was grateful for that. The truth was, there wasn’t enough for both of us, and he needed it more than I did.

Later, after he yawned three times in a row and blinked slow, sleepy blinks, I carried him to the bed. He curled into the blanket like a pup into fur.

“Lexi,” he mumbled. “Can you tell me a story?”

“Which one?”

“The one with the white fox.”

I smiled and pulled the blanket up under his chin.

“Once, in the heart of a silver forest, there lived a white fox. Her fur was so bright, she glowed under moonlight. She was clever and silent, and she never let herself be seen by humans. Until one winter, a hunter came to the forest. He didn’t hunt for food or sport, but because he was lonely.

Every day he walked the woods, talking to the trees and humming songs he didn’t know he remembered.

The fox watched him from the shadows. She listened to his songs.

And little by little, she began to follow him. ”

Dain’s breathing slowed, soft and deep.

“She fell in love with the hunter,” I whispered, brushing hair from his forehead, “but she knew if she showed him her true self, he might fear her, or worse, try to claim her. So she stayed hidden, content just to be near. One day, the hunter stopped walking. He sat on a fallen log and whispered into the woods, ‘ I know you’re there. I don’t want to catch you. I just want to talk.’ ”

My voice caught, but I swallowed and went on.

“The fox stepped out of the shadows. And instead of running, the hunter smiled. He sat and talked with her, and though she never spoke back, she stayed until dawn. Every night after that, they met under the moon. No lies. No traps. Just silence and company.”

Dain was asleep, a hand curled beneath his cheek.

I watched him for a long moment, then leaned in and whispered, “Even wild things deserve love.”