The Poison Bride

Chapter 2 The Silent Vessel

I drifted across the warm room until I stood beside Kaelen. The green antidote shone in the polished buckles on his boots. Alpha and mate were only words. Neither had done me much good.

He never acknowledged our bond, in public or in private. He was ashamed of an unawakened mate. He still found plenty of use for my hands.

A month ago, Kaelen had returned from a border skirmish with rogue blood dried across his leather armor. He passed me without a glance and threw his torn battle cloak over a chair.

The tear ran almost the full length of the back.

He did not ask me to mend it. He left it where I would find it after everyone went to bed.

That night, after the pack went to sleep, I stitched the thick hide by candlelight until my fingers cramped. The needle slipped twice and left blood on the lining, so I cleaned that too.

It was hardly the first thing of his I had repaired in secret.

After hunts, I brewed bitter-leaf tea for his throat and left it outside his study before dawn. Every ceremonial sash he wore came back to him cleaned and pressed.

Kaelen never thanked me; he only noticed when something was late or missing.

Each time, I told myself I was tending the bond. Kaelen found the tea, the clean sashes, and the mended leather exactly where they belonged. So did I.

The winter I turned seventeen, a fever left me shaking hard enough to make my teeth chatter. Lyra put a damp cloth on my forehead, set one cup of water beside the bed, and left me in my drafty room.

“You’re tough,” she said from the doorway. “You’ll endure.” The cloth was warm by the time I had the strength to move it.

Two days later, Selene, wrapped in the finest furs by the hearth, let out a single, delicate cough.

The room came alive around her.

Marcus crossed the room before Selene finished coughing and pressed his palm to her forehead. Lyra hurried away to brew honey and herbs.

Kaelen pulled on his thickest cloak without a word and walked into a blizzard to find rare frost-petal flowers, which were said to soothe any illness of the lungs.

Snow still covered his shoulders when he returned.

One cough sent Kaelen into a blizzard. My fever had earned me a wet cloth.

I tried to summon the old anger. Nothing came. I looked down through the floor toward my body instead.

Three days ago, Elder Galton had examined the curse marks winding up Selene's arm. He looked from her to me before explaining that the curse needed a living host in which to burn itself out.

My bloodline had not awakened, but Galton believed it might contain the curse.

He called the transfer dangerous. Marcus asked whether Selene would survive, never whether I would.

Selene had risen halfway from her chair, her fingers twisted in the fabric of her dress. “No,” she whispered, looking from me to our parents. “There has to be another way.”

“Sit down,” Lyra snapped.

Selene sat. She lowered her head and did not speak for me again.

“It’s the only way,” my father had declared, his eyes fixed on Selene. “Elara can take it. She’s strong.”

*Strong. Endure. Tough.* Those words always cost them less than helping me.

The fire had burned low while I remembered.

The heavy oak doors struck the walls hard enough to shake the tapestries and rattle the cups on the table.

Cold pre-dawn air rushed inside and flattened the hearth flames.

Elder Galton stood in the pale doorway, both hands locked around his wooden staff.