To heal a Rogue

EDELINA

He was quiet a long moment, the witch’s jaw working with tension that clearly didn’t belong to her natural expressions.

”My mother is directly involved in all of this,” he said finally, low and rough. ”She preaches endlessly about free will, about rules she insists she cannot break even as a goddess herself, and still finds new ways to torment me at every possible turn. You couldn’t possibly understand what that feels like, Edie. I want this curse broken too. But it is harder for me.”

”Oh please. My bones ache constantly right now,” I said, my own voice hardening. ”I will die soon. Genuinely die, permanently, unlike whatever fate you’re currently enduring. And you don’t hear me complaining endlessly about the unfairness of any of it.” I let that land fully before continuing. ”I worry, honestly, that you’ve lost all perspective, having infinite time stretched out in front of you. You are immortal, Lycaon. Yes, the full moon brings you agony when you’re forced into that mindless form. But pain, for you, remains simply an inconvenience. You will survive it regardless, every single time. The rest of us were never granted that particular luxury.”

His breath left him slow and heavy, something almost wounded threading through it now.

”I’m currently sitting in a tank filled with liquid silver and wolfsbane,” he said. ”Electrocuted repeatedly, like some laboratory specimen. I remain in constant pain as well, Edie. Every single hour.”

”But you’re still alive,” I said. ”Anyone else would already be dead a dozen times over, given exactly what’s been done to you. That’s the difference between us, and it always has been.”

He sighed, and something in his borrowed shoulders finally eased, whatever fight had been building there draining slowly away.

”I suppose you’re right,” he said quietly. ”What exactly is your plan, then?”

”There’s a rogue,” I said. ”One whose services I personally arranged. They currently hold him in custody. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks completely and starts talking. The High Beta is already investigating both myself and my son as well and that rogue will nail the coffin in. It does not help that the boy currently sitting as regent, the one who stole my son’s rightful seat right out from under him, is a vile, cruel little bastard who didn’t even flinch before putting a blade to his own father’s neck and ending his life.” My jaw tightened at the memory of Lysander’s calm, unbothered face across that infirmary. ”They’ll find a way to make that rogue confess eventually. I have no doubt of that.”

”Then I’ll handle him,” Lycaon said. ”With proper magic behind it, silencing a single rogue should prove simple enough and ensuring it cannot be tracked back.”

Something in my chest loosened at that, warmth spreading through me despite everything wrong about this entire conversation, despite every reasonable instinct telling me not to trust a single word coming out of a stolen mouth.

”I missed you,” I said, quieter now, my guard slipping despite my every effort to hold it in place. ”There were so many nights I convinced myself you’d simply been cruel. Abandoning me on that seat while you went looking for something. Some feeling, I suppose. Something to make you feel less like the immortal thing you actually are.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, gentle, achingly familiar despite everything wrong about the body delivering it, and something in me unraveled that I’d kept carefully sealed shut for longer than I wanted to admit even to myself.

”For many nights,” he said, ”I reached for you. I believed there’d eventually come a moment when the universe allowed our dreams to properly cross paths again. It never happened. Not once, in all those years.”

”Why?” I questioned, my voice breaking slightly on the single word.

”Because I could feel you were close,” he said. ”So I dreamed of you instead, Edie. Every single night, whether or not you ever knew it.”

Tears blurred my vision before I could stop them from falling.

”But why did you leave in the first place,” I said. ”What different life were you even chasing, that was worth leaving me behind for?”

”Does it matter now?”

”I wish we’d had a fated bond,” I said, the confession spilling out of me raw and unguarded. ”Then you would never have been able to keep secrets from me. Not a single one.”

”I don’t have any secrets that actually matter,” he said.

”I don’t believe that for a moment,” I said. ”The son of a goddess is bound to carry plenty of secrets, whether he admits to them or not. And you remain as shielded as anyone I’ve ever known, in any lifetime.”

He smiled then, and for one suspended, impossible second I could see him clearly, truly see him, the man I’d first known centuries ago before any of this wreckage began. White hair. White lashes. White brows catching light like frost settling over glass.

”There’s a healer here,” I said slowly, something cold sliding back into my chest as the memory returned in full. ”Like the ones from the age of legend. Her features, Lycaon. They’re just like yours.”

”Is that so?” he said, something careful entering his tone now, a wariness I hadn’t heard from him yet tonight.

I nodded. ”For one moment, I even thought—” I stopped myself.

”What?”

”That she was connected to you somehow,” I admitted. ”But then I remembered. Selene sealed the womb of every woman who’d known your touch, specifically to ensure another like you could never taint this world a second time.”

”My mother is remarkably talented when it comes to cruelty,” he said. ”But I’ve fought fate before, Edie, and I’ll fight it again if the need ever arises. I don’t know this healer, and I have no particular interest in learning more about her right now. What matters to me currently is earning your trust back properly, and finally breaking this curse for our people. I won’t fail you a second time. I swear it.”

The witch snapped her fingers, and the shimmering bubble surrounding us popped with a soft, almost gentle sound, the pressure in the room releasing all at once. The door behind me clicked open.

”Find a way to keep me here,” he said. ”In this body, close enough to you so I can act the moment we need to move.”

I nodded, still trembling slightly.

”I’ll find the rogue,” he added, already turning toward the door, the witch’s stride carrying something unmistakably his despite everything wrong about the shape of it. ”And I’ll end him myself, quietly, before he ever gets the chance to talk.”

I watched Lycaon walk out wearing another woman’s face entirely, and once the door shut fully behind him, I turned back toward the mirror above the sink.

The tears I’d been holding back for longer than I could properly measure finally broke loose completely, and I stood there alone, gripping the porcelain edge with both hands, sobbing quietly into an empty bathroom.