To heal a Rogue

EDELINA

I stared at her, at him, or at least the borrowed shape of him standing in a body that wasn’t his own, wearing another woman’s face like a coat stolen off someone else’s back.

”Why did you disappear?” I demanded. ”Why are you in this body?”

He let out a breath, and even filtered through unfamiliar lungs it carried something of the old weariness I remembered, that particular exhaustion only immortality seemed to produce.

”You know how it went,” he said. ”I grew disillusioned. Going through the same motions, century after century, watching everyone I ever cared for grow old and die while I stayed exactly the same. I tried living differently for a while. I guess I wanted a quieter life. But that bored me too, eventually, the way everything eventually does when you’ve had enough centuries to exhaust every version of yourself.” He shrugged, an oddly casual gesture in a body built for someone else’s shoulders. ”So I attempted to take the werewolf throne. By force, since nothing subtler had ever worked.”

”I didn’t expect the humiliation that followed,” he added, something bitter curling at the edge of his voice. ”Or the imprisonment. My own mother’s had her hand in it too, I am sure. There was no way they could have taken me down that easily. She always did prefer punishment dressed up as protection.”

Something in my chest went cold and still, my mind already racing ahead of my mouth.

”We have you,” I said.

His eyes sharpened, narrowing on my face with an intensity that made the witch’s pretty features look suddenly, briefly monstrous.

”We?” he said. ”You’re not one of them, Edie. Unless you’ve defected on the Lycans while I wasn’t watching. I am half curious even. Why are you with the werewolves now?”

”When you abandoned us,” I said, my voice climbing before I could rein it back in, years of buried resentment finding a crack to pour through, ”... When you abandoned all of us, your own people, without so much as a word of explanation, I had to pick myself back up. Alone. I had to give our people something worth living for. Something worth fighting toward, some reason to keep breathing through this endless slow rot of a curse you left us to continue to deal with.” My chin lifted despite the tremor working its way up through my ribs. ”So I infiltrated the royal werewolf house. It was bold, audacious and reckless, probably, by any sane person’s measure. But I did it. I became their Queen, Lycaon. I gave the Alpha King a son even.”

I paused, letting that settle between us.

”Once he takes that seat properly,” I said, ”the curse finally breaks. Everything I’ve sacrificed will have meant something.”

”You really have outdone yourself, Edie.”

It felt strange, hearing my own pet name delivered through a stranger’s mouth, the cadence of it unmistakably his even wrapped in a voice that had never once belonged to him. Something in my stomach twisted at the wrongness of it, familiar and foreign at once.

”How did you get into this body?” I asked, needing something concrete to hold onto, something to interrogate rather than feel. ”I heard there was an attack tonight. The girl whose body you are now apparently in lost her magic entirely. Was that you?”

”Yes,” he said, simply, with no apology in it at all. ”She went digging for something, looking for whatever she believed she’d find, and left her own body open wide enough for the taking. Easy enough, given how much weakness already ran through her bloodline before I ever touched her.” Something flickered across the borrowed face, irritation, maybe, or old resentment surfacing without permission. ”My mother did try to fight back. She attempted to put me into stasis. Messing with me the way she always does whenever I get too close to actually escaping her rules and beating her at her own game. She is always interfering, and yet she will have to audacity to claim free will and how she is not allowed to violate certain laws even if she is a goddess.”

His mouth curved, something almost fond crossing it now.

”Though I suppose I owe that new little healer some thanks,” he said. ”Her connection to the goddess is so pure and when she reached for that source, she somehow burned the seal clean off me and let me out of what would have been my second prison.”

He stepped closer, and the witch’s slender fingers rose to touch my face. It was gentle and careful, in a way I hadn’t felt from anyone in longer than I wanted to admit.

I let him.

”I’d call this fate if I believed in it,” he said, ”Because meeting again like this, my beloved can only be the will a greater power. And you’ve been so strong, carrying all of this alone for so long. But that ends now. Let me help you now. It’s finally my turn.” His eyes searched mine, steady and certain. ”Your son. I assume he is part werewolf, part royal blood through his father’s line.”

I nodded.

That made him smile. ”He’s the perfect vessel to finally end this curse properly. I’ll see him through it. I swear that to you.”

I let out a long, shaking breath.

”The issue,” I said, ”is that my curse worsened faster than I anticipated. I’m dying, Lycaon. That’s precisely how I was discovered. My husband, my other husband, may his soul rest wherever souls like his are sent, never revealed what I truly am to anyone even before be passed. But he still made certain, before he died, that my son would never sit on that throne regardless.” My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. ”So now Johann has been cast aside entirely, and some distant relative sits exactly where my son should be sitting. Everything I built, decades of careful, patient work, is on the verge of collapsing into ash.”

”That’s unfortunate,” he said, entirely too lightly for the weight of what I’d just confessed.

”But I’m here now,” he continued. ”I can help.”

”Lycaon—”

”Drop it. Your son is royal blood, isn’t he?”

”Of course he is.”

”Then we take that seat back,” he said, something eager entering his tone now. It sounded likethe old restless hunger I remembered from how long I knew him and now it was flickering hot behind the witch’s borrowed eyes. ”All I need is to be properly released. My prison sits inside the Alpha King’s study. It only unlocks through royal blood.” His eyes held mine, steady, insistent. ”If your son—”

I scoffed, cutting him off before he could finish the thought.

”You abandoned me,” I said. ”For years, Lycaon. Without a word. And now you walk back into my life wearing someone else’s face, without so much as an apology, and the very first thing you ask of me is help freeing you from a cage you put yourself in. Is that why you sought me out?”

”I don’t want to fight with you, Edie.” His voice softened, and something in that softness nearly undid me faster than his earlier bravado had.

”I acknowledge everything you’ve sacrificed,” he continued. ”Your womb, given to a werewolf, in hopes of breaking a curse that was never truly yours to carry alone. A son raised in enemy territory, alone, while I was gone, imprisoned afterchasing whatever it is I was chasing.” He shook his head slowly. ”But this isn’t the moment for old grievances. We have a real chance now, a genuine one, and they won’t see it coming. So help me.”

”No,” I said.

Something dangerous flickered across his borrowed face.

”If we truly want them blindsided,” I said, forcing steadiness into my voice, ”you’re far safer remaining exactly where you are. In that state. In that body. This witch, and her entire house, have served the royal family faithfully for generations now. This is a face they trust completely. No one will suspect a Shelter witch of anything.” I straightened my spine. ”Once my son properly sits on that throne, once this curse finally breaks for good, I will personally see you released.”

”You cannot be serious.”

”I am.”

”If you’re so unhappy with that arrangement,” I added, watching his expression carefully, ”you remain free to walk away entirely, exactly as you always have historically done whenever something failed to suit you or bored you.”

Something dark passed behind his stolen eyes. ”You always do precisely what you want, don’t you, Edie?”

”That would be you. After all, with all the power you supposedly possess,” I said, my voice trembling now despite every effort to steady it, ”you haven’t managed to break this damned curse for any of us in centuries. I refuse to let your temper undo decades of careful work I’ve built brick by brick with my own hands. Help me from exactly where you stand now, and you receive everything, in full, at the very end. That is the arrangement I’m offering.”