~LYRA'S POV~
The infirmary smelled like herbs and something sharp, unpleasant. I was lying on a cot that was softer than anything I'd slept on in years, which should've felt like a relief but mostly just felt wrong.
Elder Mira moved around me like she had all the time in the world. She was older, maybe late sixties, with silver hair pulled tight and eyes that missed absolutely nothing. She hadn't said a single warm thing to me since Ryland carried me in here. Not a "you'll be fine" or even a basic "breathe, girl." Just silence and those sharp, watching eyes.
She pressed two fingers against my collarbone, then the side of my neck, then the base of my spine. Her brow dipped lower with each touch.
"Does this hurt?" she asked, pressing a specific spot between my shoulder blades.
"A little," I said. "Like pressure."
"And here?"
"Burning."
She straightened and looked at Ryland, who was standing near the door with his arms crossed, his jaw so tight I could see the muscle working in his cheek.
"Her wolf isn't absent," Elder Mira said flatly. "It's locked."
Ryland went very still. "Locked."
"Whatever locked it wasn't natural either. Someone did this deliberately." She said it the same way you'd say the weather was bad. Calm. Certain. Like it wasn't the most devastating thing I'd ever heard.
I sat up slowly. "What does that mean? Someone locked it on purpose?"
"That's what I said." Elder Mira didn't soften it. She folded her instruments into a cloth wrap and set them aside. "Someone suppressed your shift, probably when you were very young. Old magic, the kind that takes intent." She looked at me then, really looked at me, and something in her face shifted just slightly. Not warmth exactly. More like reluctant acknowledgment.
"You're lucky you're still breathing after whatever triggered it tonight."
She left after that, pulling the door shut behind her.
Ryland didn't move for a moment. Then he walked over and pulled a chair close to my cot and sat down. He didn't say anything right away, just looked at me. His silver eyes were steady as always, but underneath that steadiness was something I hadn't seen from him before. Quiet, controlled fury.
"Someone suppressed your shift," he said. The way he repeated it made it sound like he was still deciding what to do with the information.
"I heard her," I said softly.
"Do you understand what that means? This wasn't the Goddess rejecting you. It wasn't your blood. Someone reached into you and made sure you couldn't shift. Deliberately. While you were just a child, most likely."
I looked down at my hands. "I spent eighteen years thinking I was broken."
"You were never broken." The anger in his voice wasn't directed at me, but it hit me anyway. "Someone made you believe you were. That's different." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"I'm going to find out who did this."
"How?"
"Elder Mira knows more than she said tonight. I'll get it out of her." He paused. "And Lyra... I know tonight was a lot. I know this is all a lot. But you're safe here. I need you to believe that, even if you can't believe anything else right now."
I didn't answer. I wasn't sure I knew how to believe in safe places anymore.
He seemed to understand that, because he didn't push it. He just nodded once and stood. "I'll have someone bring you food. Real food. And there are clothes in the chest at the foot of the bed." He hesitated at the door. "Sleep. You need it."
Then he was gone.
I sat there for a minute after the door clicked shut. Then I swung my legs off the cot and stood up, just to look at the room properly. There was a window. An actual window, with moonlight coming through it in a pale strip across the stone floor. A real bed with actual linen. A chest of drawers. A small table.
It was a proper room. Given to me. Not earned, not bargained for. Just given.
I sat back on the edge of the mattress and the tears came before I could stop them. Not the ugly, desperate kind from back in Shadowfang. These were quieter. More confused. I was crying because the mattress was soft, which was possibly the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to me, but I couldn't stop. I didn't know what to do with kindness when it showed up. It sat in my chest like something foreign, something I didn't have the right words for yet.
A soft knock at the door made me wipe my face fast. A young girl, maybe fifteen, came in carrying a tray. Bread, soup, a cup of warm tea. She set it on the table without a word, but when she turned to leave, she paused.
"Luna Lyra," she said quietly, almost like she was testing the title. Then she dipped her head and left.
I stared at the tray for a long moment. Then I sat down and ate every single bite, slowly, like I was learning how to again.
After, I wiped my face with the back of my hand, took a slow breath, and looked out the window at the moon.
"Whatever you did," I said quietly, to the Goddess or the dark or no one in particular,
"I'm still here."
—
~RYLAND'S POV~
I had about four steps between the infirmary and the main corridor before my Beta Corren fell into step beside me.
"They're still here," he said, keeping his voice low.
"Which ones?"
"Both."
I stopped walking. "You're telling me neither Kael nor Eren left."
"Tried to send them to the guest wing. Kael told my men, and I'm quoting directly here, that he 'doesn't take direction from betas.' Eren hasn't said anything. He's just... sitting in the hall. Watching the fire."
I breathed in slowly through my nose. "Where's Kael now?"
"Main corridor. Headed this way, actually."
As if on cue, Kael came around the corner. He moved the way he always did, like the space around him was obligated to clear. His red eyes landed on me and he stopped, arms crossing over his chest.
"How is she?" he asked.
"Why do you care?" I said. I wasn't trying to be aggressive. It was a genuine question.
Something moved in his jaw. "Just answer it."
"She's stable." I kept walking, because standing still with him felt like a trap. "She's not going anywhere tonight, and neither conversation nor claims from either of you are happening tonight. We're done."
"I need to talk to you about the triple bond." He fell into step beside me, uninvited. "You know what this means for pack politics. For territory alignment. For…"
"I know exactly what it means, I also know what you did. You rejected her. You handed her to Ari like she was furniture. So whatever you think gives you standing here, understand that it is significantly less than you imagine."
Kael's jaw tightened. "I'm not here to argue about what I did."
"Good. Because I'm not interested in that argument tonight."
We turned into the main hall. Eren was exactly where Corren said he'd be, seated near the far end of the long table with a cup of something in front of him, watching us walk in with the expression of someone who found all of this mildly entertaining.
"Resolved?" he asked.
"Nothing's resolved," I said. "You're both staying in the east guest wing tonight. Tomorrow, the three of us will sit down and talk about the bond in a way that doesn't involve anyone drawing weapons in front of my pack." I looked at Kael specifically when I said that. "Agreed?"
Kael looked like he wanted to argue on principle. But he nodded once, short and stiff.
Eren just smiled, unhelpfully. "Fine by me."
I turned back to Corren. "Double the watch on the infirmary wing. Nobody goes near her room."
"Yes, Alpha."
I walked out before either of them could say anything else. Behind me, I heard Kael mutter something under his breath. I didn't catch the words, but I heard Eren's quiet, low laugh in response.
The pack whispers were going to be unbearable by morning. Three Alphas under one roof over one girl with a locked wolf and a bond none of them had answers for yet.
And somewhere in the infirmary, Lyra was sitting with all of it, alone.
I told myself she was fine. That she just needed sleep. That I hadn't left too soon.
I wasn't entirely sure I believed it. But hovering over her wouldn't help. Lyra wasn't someone who needed to be watched over. She needed space to breathe, and time to realize that this place wouldn't snatch that space back the moment she relaxed.
And That was going to take longer than one night.