Between Death and Desire

me to breakfast

bread even though she has her own, always finds some small thing to say about the wea

empty space feels louder tha

, who is picking at her por

eet mine. "Healing rooms. I heard

d for

around the kitchen like the walls might repeat her words to

alfway to my mou

hivers, and it is not from the cold. "They say he was

se my hands have started to shake

r works two doors down from the healing rooms, close enough that nobody ques

e two dark punctures sitting side by side just under the jaw, the skin around them gone gray

ach tur

this

t body, in a different life. A wolf brought to my healing r

e its size. I remember her face going gray and her mouth going shut, the w

attack," I say, bef

oes not look surprised, only tired, the kind of tired

s. "Quickly. Befor

ide and sh

she says, but she does n

d at the throat. "I have se

he

ime. "I do not remember,

elieves my dreams are only dreams. "This is the s

ed through the throat and left with no other mark on

ures without touching the skin itsel

that," I say. "A rogue tea

es, quietly. "T

between us,

keep my

s what these wo

remember old things." She hesitat

by yesterday, before you did. Wanted to know

s. "What did

I had not. Unti

s son. Someone's little brother, maybe, who woke up yest

I say slowly. "At court. She said hi

still. "You think this

on instead of her blood, and called it poison instead of mur

. "I think Seraphine knows exactly what did

us thing to say ab

your throat opened like a spigot," I say, and Nyra

opens b

ing - and stop, because it is Riven filling the doorway, green eyes moving from me to the table a

ook who is not mend

iv

sounds louder than it should. "I want to know how an Omega who arrived three w

d not

them again makes my throat go tight. "Mira mentioned the body at breakfast. I checked. You were three

There is noth

Nyra. "Does she

t-" Nyra

Nyra. Not about thi

knows. I only know she is not what she says she is. And I think-" She looks at me, and there is some

s trying to he

for a long moment, weighing someth

, but wrong. Too narrow. Too deep at the toe, like whatever made them stand on its hind legs longe

do know. I knew it the momen

it comes out as

d drinks a wolf dry through the throat and leaves nothing else behind. And I think that is the

the edge of the table

ld coax an animal out of a trap. "Whatever it is you are carryi

n my

nd a guard's voice cuts through the room, breathle

has attacked the Alpha. He is bl

ot twenty minutes ago, alive, whole, and now he is not whole, and the last thing I said to Riven is not, and the last thing I want to say

," I m

ard. Near th

lks past. The one he tak

made him

me somewhere behind me, and all I can think, over and over, faster tha