Steam scalded my face, and soapy foam stung the abrasions on my fingers. I scrubbed the heavy sheet until my knuckles turned white. The crash of a fallen wash-tub made me jump.
"Faster, Alina. If Garrett sees you sleepwalking, he'll lash you right here."
I didn't turn around. Liam's voice sounded too close to my ear, drowning out the splashing water. His hand, hard and cold, rested on my wrist, stopping the senseless movement.
"He's on another floor, Liam. Checking reports."
"Madame Isabelle is waiting. Now."
I jerked away, trying to free my hand. Dirty water splashed onto the hem of my gray dress.
"Are you mad? Cael... he senses when I'm gone. If he returns from patrol and doesn't find his 'toy' in the castle..."
"The western post is empty. The guards are celebrating someone's name day; they have no time for maidservants."
"And Garrett? He counts every sheet."
Liam narrowed his eyes, glancing at the laundry room door. His nostrils flared as if catching a scent inaccessible to me.
"Garrett is busy with a keg of ale I 'forgot' in the hallway. Let's go."
He pulled me toward a narrow niche behind the drying racks. A stone slab gave way with a low scrape, revealing the maw of a back passage smelling of dampness and rat droppings.
"Too dangerous," I whispered, staring into the darkness. "If he catches the scent..."
"Stop trembling. Do you want that filth on your neck to rot?"
I involuntarily touched the dirty linen bandage. The skin beneath it throbbed, sending a dull ache into the back of my head. Cael's mark burned like a brand seared into my very soul.
"Follow me. Step for step."
Liam slipped into the passage. I followed him, holding up my heavy skirt. The walls pressed against my shoulders. We descended lower and lower until the smell of the castle—old stone, grease, and sweat—was replaced by the sharp aroma of the night forest and thick fog.
We emerged at the very foot of the cliff. The fog here was so dense I could barely see my own fingers. But Liam… he didn't even slow down. He moved fluidly, bypassing gnarled roots and stones with a grace that was frightening. His shoulders shifted beneath his cloak; his movements were devoid of human clumsiness.
"Can you see the path?" I tripped over a root, but he caught me by the elbow before I could cry out.
"Watch your feet, not me."
"You walk as if... as if the forest obeys you."
He remained silent, only tightening his grip on my hand. After a quarter of an hour, a faint light glimmered ahead. A lonely hut, huddled against the edge of a ravine, seemed part of the earth itself. Gray-blue smoke curled from the chimney, smelling of bitter wormwood and burnt peat.
Liam stopped at the threshold.
"Go in. I'll keep watch."
"You're not coming with me?"
He bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile, and in the flickering moonlight, his teeth seemed too sharp.
"The old woman doesn't like witnesses. Don't keep her waiting."
I pushed open the heavy door. It was stifling inside. Dozens of bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling, brushing against my hair. Embers glowed in the hearth, casting long, distorted shadows on the walls.
"Sit," Isabelle's voice cut through the silence.
She sat in the shadows, right by the fire. Her heavy woolen clothes made her look like a shapeless mound.
"Closer, girl. On the bench."
I lowered myself onto the low seat. My legs throbbed with fatigue, and my heart hammered in my throat.
"Untie it."
"It's... it's just a wound, madame. It won't heal."
Isabelle leaned forward. Her face, etched with wrinkles like the bark of an old oak, entered the circle of light. Her eyes, keen and cold, bored into my neck.
"Untie it, I said. Or go back to your master and wait for the fever to devour your brain."
With trembling fingers, I unraveled the knot. The coarse fabric had stuck to the skin, and I involuntarily hissed as it tore away, exposing the mark. Dark, inflamed skin, deep teeth marks that refused to turn into scars.
Isabelle didn't move. She stared at the wound for long minutes without touching it.
"Cael knows no moderation," she rasped. "Stupid pup. Thinks he's just marking territory."
"He said it would pass. That I'm just... weak."
"Weak?"
The healer reached for a bowl sitting on the embers. She scooped up a thick gray ointment with her fingers, smelling of old leather and pine resin.
"You think pain is a sign of weakness? You are wrong. Pain is an awakening."
She touched my neck.
I expected cold or a sting. But the moment her fingers touched the inflamed flesh, it was as if a volcano erupted inside me. Heat flared in my veins, rushing from my neck to my very heart. It wasn't a superficial sensation—my bones felt as if they were white-hot in a forge.
"Aaah!" I tried to pull away, but Isabelle gripped my shoulder with a deathly hold.
"Stay!"
Her eyes widened. She jerked her hand back, staring at her fingers where the ointment had begun to shimmer strangely, soaking in far too quickly.
"What is this... what did you do?" I breathed heavily, feeling sparks race down my spine.
"Not me," Isabelle crossed herself with a gesture I had seen only among the elders in the remotest villages. "It is her."
"Who—her?"
"The blood. Ancient blood. It sleeps within you like a beast in a winter den. And it snarled at a stranger's touch."
I pressed my palm to my chest. The heat was slowly receding, leaving behind a strange, frightening clarity of the senses. I could hear a twig snap under Liam's foot outside. I could hear a mouse scratching under the floorboards.
"What are you talking about? I am a shoemaker's daughter. A mistake Cael dragged into the castle out of pity."
Isabelle made a dry sound, like a laugh.
"A shoemaker? Your father might have cobbled boots, girl, but it wasn't water flowing in his veins. The blood of the Wolf-Kings doesn't just vanish. It waits. It waits for pain, it waits for rage."
"The Wolf-Kings are dead. They were wiped out hundreds of years ago."
"So say those who took their thrones. But you... you react to an alpha's mark not like an omega. You fight it. Your body rejects his brand."
She grabbed me by the chin, forcing me to look into her eyes.
"Listen to me carefully. Cael will sense it soon. Your scent is changing. Right now, you smell like a frightened rabbit, but soon steel will emerge in that aroma. He won't understand what it is, but his instincts will go wild."
"What should I do?" my voice cracked. "He'll kill me if he decides I'm a... threat."
Isabelle thrust a small leather pouch tightly packed with herbs into my hands.
"Wear this on your chest. Always. The herbs will muffle your true scent. They will create the illusion of sickness, of weakness. Until you are ready."
"Ready for what?"
"Leave. Liam will take you back."
She turned back to the fire as if I no longer existed.
"Madame Isabelle, wait! What do you mean—Wolf-Kings? My mother..."
"Your mother knew what she was running from. Go! Before the moon hides."
I bolted out of the hut, nearly knocking Liam over. He stood by the entrance, tense as a drawn bowstring. His gaze immediately locked onto my face.
"What did she say?"
"Nonsense," I said, clutching the pouch to my chest. "She said I smell like a rabbit."
Liam didn't budge. He took a step toward me, closing the distance so that I felt the heat of his body.
"Alina. Do you remember your parents?"
The question felt like a blow to the gut. I froze, trying to pull something—anything—from my memory other than gray blurs and the smell of cheap tobacco.
"My father... he worked all the time. My mother... she sang something."
"What were their names?" Liam narrowed his eyes.
"I..." I opened my mouth, but the words were stuck. "I don't remember. It was a long time ago. A fever in the village, everything is a blur."
"Suspiciously much 'blur' for one life, don't you think?"
He turned abruptly and strode back toward the castle. I almost had to run to keep up.
"Why are you asking? Do you know something?"
"I know that omegas from simple villages don't glow from within when a healer smears them with tar."
"I wasn't glowing!"
"Your eyes, Alina. For a moment, gold flared in them. The same as that bastard on the throne. Only purer."
I stumbled, nearly tumbling into the ravine. Liam caught me by the shoulders, shaking me.
"Listen to me. The castle is a cage. But soon the walls will become too cramped. You need to remember. Everything. Before Cael decides his 'mistake' has become too dangerous."
"Why do you care, Liam? Why are you helping me?"
He looked at me, and something flickered in his eyes that I hadn't seen before. Not pity, not a servant's loyalty. Kinship.
"Because I, too, am tired of being a shadow."
We slipped back into the narrow passage. The cold of the walls now seemed like a blessing after the heat of the hut. When we climbed back into the laundry room, it still smelled of soap and steam. The wash-tub was back in its place.
"Go back to work," Liam muttered, vanishing into the shadows of the corridor. "And don't you dare take off that pouch."
I lowered my hands into the already cooled water. My fingers no longer hurt. The mark on my neck was no longer throbbing. It had gone quiet, as if lurking before a pounce.
From above came the heavy thud of iron-shod boots. Cael was back. I sensed his approach long before the door swung open. Before, this scent—cold metal and pine forest—had made me cower.
Now, I simply gripped the sheet tighter.
"Alina!" Garrett's voice thundered through the room. "Where the devil have you been? The Master demands a report on the linens!"
I turned slowly, wiping my wet hands on my hem. It wasn't just Garrett at the door. Towering behind his shoulder was a massive figure in a black cloak.
Cael.
He wasn't looking at Garrett. His gaze was fixed on my neck, hidden by a new, clean bandage. He flared his nostrils, drawing in the air. His eyebrows knitted at the bridge of his nose.
"Why do you smell of rot, girl?" His voice vibrated with hidden threat.
"Fever, my lord," I lowered my head, trying to breathe steadily. "Madame Isabelle gave me herbs."
He took a step toward me, and the air in the laundry room seemed to thicken. He came close, tilting my chin up with the tip of his riding crop.
"You smell of weakness. More than usual."
"I am weakness itself. Is that not what you said?"
Cael narrowed his eyes. The flame of the lamps reflected in them. He stood so close I could see every fiber of his cloak. But inside me, where there had once been only a void, an ember left by Isabelle's touch now smoldered.
"Do not forget your place," he hissed, shoving me away. "Or I will find a way to remind you of it without using teeth."
He turned and walked out without looking back. Garrett shouted something after him, but I didn't hear it. I looked at my hands. On my right palm, where I had clutched the herbal pouch, the skin shimmered faintly with gold.
Isabelle was right. The beast had awakened. And now I had to learn how to hide it.