BEAST OF THE NORTH

CHAPTER 6: NEEDLE AND INK

The room smelled like herbs and blood.

Damien set me on the edge of a stone table. Didn’t ask. Didn’t wait for me to say yes. He just pulled his coat off my shoulders and stared at the tear Kyle left on my shoulder.

Deep. Ragged. Still bleeding.

“Sit still,” he said. Voice low. He grabbed a needle from a tray. Black thread. Same color as his mark.

My hands shook. “You’re gonna stitch me? Like I’m a torn shirt?”

Damien didn’t answer. He threaded the needle with one hand. Steady. The man who killed Alphas had gentle fingers.

First stitch. Pain shot through me and I hissed. Bit my lip to stop from screaming.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Didn’t sound sorry. Sounded focused.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked between gritted teeth. “You could’ve let one of your healers—”

“Because they’d flinch,” he cut me off. Thread pulled tight. “They’d see the mark and remember you’re the girl Kyle rejected. I see you. That’s all.”

Needle in. Thread out. Again.

Each stitch felt like he was sewing me back together. Not just skin. Pride. Pieces of me Kyle tore off eighteen years ago.

The room was quiet except for my breathing and the sound of thread. Damien’s face was close. Scars along his jaw. Eyes black, but not cold right now. Tired.

“You didn’t have to fight me,” he said quietly. “You could’ve let me kill him.”

I shook my head. “Then I’d be his victim forever. Dead girls don’t get to choose.”

Damien paused. The needle hovered over my skin. For a second I thought he’d say something soft. He didn’t. He just tied off the last stitch and cut the thread with his teeth.

“Done,” he said. He dabbed herb paste on it. Burned, but clean. “You’ll scar. Wear it. Means you survived.”

He wrapped a clean bandage around my shoulder. His knuckles brushed my neck, over his black crown mark. It pulsed once, warm.

Before I could say anything, the door opened.

Rook walked in. Torn ear, blood on his knuckles. He tossed a folded parchment on the table. Silver Fang wax seal. A wolf with broken chains.

“Raven dropped this at the gate,” Rook said. “Right after Kyle limped home. From your sister.”

Damien picked it up. Didn’t open it. He put it in my hand instead.

“Your call,” he said.

My fingers trembled. Bella. The only person who ever shared bread with me in secret. Also the girl who held Kyle’s arm when he rejected me.

I broke the seal.

Three lines. Her handwriting. Messy, rushed:

_Selena,

Father says you’re a danger now. Mated to Damien = threat to Silver Fang. He’s calling a hunt for you at next full moon.

Meet me at the old oak by the river. Midnight. I’ll help you disappear. Come alone.

The parchment crumpled in my fist.

Damien watched me. No questions. No pity. Just waiting.

“My father wants me dead,” I whispered. “And Bella wants to save me. If I run.”

The wolf inside me growled. _Run? We bled for this mark. We don’t run._

Damien took the letter from me and threw it in the fire. It burned fast. Black ash.

“You’re not running,” he said. Simple. Final.

I looked down at the fresh stitches on my shoulder. Black thread. His work. His mark on my neck.

“Okay,” I said. My voice didn’t shake. “Then we don’t run.”

Damien stood and pulled a heavy cloak around me. Then he grabbed two daggers from the wall. He pressed one into my hand. The handle was warm from his palm.

“We end this,” he said. Black eyes locked on mine. “Midnight. Old oak. But we will go together.”

Outside, the wind picked up. Snow started falling again.

Midnight was hours away. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared of what waited in the dark.

I was done hiding.