Day two of “I survived wolfsbane poisoning and now everything’s complicated” is going about as well as you’d expect.
Which is to say, I feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train made of liquid fire and bad life choices.
I’m sitting on this bed like some kind of gargoyle, jaw locked tight because talking requires energy I don’t have. The poison’s still coursing through my system—black veins pulsing under skin that should be corpse-cold by now. But I’m Dire blood, and apparently we’re too stubborn to die properly.
She’s pacing around the room like a caged animal, and my eyes track her automatically. Can’t help it. Everything in me is wired to watch her move, cataloging every step, every gesture, every breath.
“So,” she says, because silence makes her twitchy. “How’s the whole ‘not being dead’ thing working out for you?”
I don’t answer. Can’t find words that don’t taste like poison and regret.
“Cool. Love a good conversation.”
She retreats to her corner—the spot she’s claimed for “watching the probably-still-dying Alpha and wondering if she should make a run for it.” Smart girl. But she’s not angry, which is somehow worse than if she were screaming at me. Anger I could handle. This quiet, calculating intensity? This is uncharted territory.
My breathing’s still fucked—shallow, controlled, like I’m trying to keep something caged. Which I am. The wolf in my chest is clawing at my ribs, wanting out, wanting her, wanting things I can’t give it.
“Are you planning to stare at me all day?” she asks. “Because it’s getting a little—”
I move before she can finish the sentence.
One second I’m across the room, the next she’s pinned against the wall with my arms caging her in. Heat rolls off me in waves, and I can smell the poison still working through my system—metallic, bitter, wrong mixing with her scent.
“You taste like the death of me,” I whisper, voice rough as gravel.
Her eyes widen. Not what she expected me to say, apparently.
“Yeah? What’s death taste like?” she asks, because her mouth has the same death wish mine does.
“Like copper and lies.” My eyes burn silver, close enough that she can see every fleck of darker grey. “Like everything I shouldn’t want.”
“But you still want it.” Not a question.
“But I still want more.”
The admission hits the air between us like a physical blow. Because fuck me, she wants it too. I can smell it on her, taste it in the way her breath catches.
“Then take it,” she says, because subtlety was never her strong suit anyway.
I kiss her like I’m trying to devour her whole. Nothing gentle about it—just teeth and tongue and the kind of desperation that comes from almost dying and deciding to live instead. My claws shred the back of her dress like tissue paper.
“Jesus,” she gasps against my mouth. “Warn a girl before you start renovating her wardrobe.”
The sound that comes out of me is half growl, half laugh, vibrating through both our chests. She drags her nails down my skin, leaving red trails across scars that tell stories she doesn’t know yet. I groan, and the sound is feral and broken and alive.
We’re all violence and want, pretending we don’t need anything soft.
I can feel the poison still working through me—tremor in my hands, breath catching sometimes. But I kiss her like she’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the world, which might actually be true.
Her hands find my shoulders, my neck, my collarbone. Every inch of skin she can reach. She touches the parts of me no one else dares to see, and that feels like power and privilege and something I don’t have words for.
Then the door explodes open.
“Get off her!”
Valen’s voice cracks through the air like a whip. I don’t even flinch. Just turn slowly, putting myself between her and the door like a shield. My arm stays curved behind me, fingertips brushing her waist.
“She’s not yours!” Valen’s boots hit the floor hard enough to rattle the windows.
“She was never yours either,” I say, voice level as a blade.
Valen’s eyes find hers, and the hurt there is almost worse than his anger. “You let him? After everything we planned—”
“We planned nothing,” she snaps, finding her voice. “You ordered. I obeyed. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” He steps forward, but I make this sound low in my throat that makes the windows vibrate. “You think this means she’s yours?”
My mouth curves into something sharp and dangerous. “I know it.”
She stands there, trapped between us, torn dress and racing heart and absolutely zero regrets. I can smell the satisfaction rolling off her as she watches Valen’s face crumble.
“You want to know what I think?” she says, stepping out from behind me. “I think you’re both fucking idiots if you think I belong to anyone but myself.”
Valen goes white. “Lucy—”
“But if I had to choose,” she continues, “I’d pick the guy who drank poison and didn’t try to make me pay for it after.”
My hand finds the small of her back, warm and steady. She’s choosing me. This impossible girl is choosing the monster over the Alpha.
Valen looks like she just gutted him. Good. Maybe now he knows how it feels.
“Get out,” I say, and my voice holds the kind of authority that makes even Alphas think twice.
For a second, I think he might actually challenge me. Might be stupid enough to try.
Instead, he turns and walks away, slamming the door behind him hard enough to shake dust from the stones.
“Well,” she says into the silence. “That was dramatic.”
My thumb traces along her spine. “Regrets?”
She looks up at me—this woman who should run screaming, who’s seen me poison-sick and trembling but still chose to stay.
“Only that I didn’t do it sooner,” she says.
My smile is sharp as a blade and twice as dangerous. “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet.”