The sun was a lie.
Selene had forgotten how golden it could be—how warm, how welcoming, how utterly deceptive. The same sun that had shone on her wedding day with Kael. The same sun that had watched her limp through the Crescent Pack's corridors, head bowed, never complaining. The same sun that had done nothing when she was thrown into the mist.
Now it painted the Shadow Fang territory in shades of amber and rose, making the ancient pines look like they were carved from fire. Birds sang. A creek burbled somewhere in the distance. Everything was beautiful.
Everything was a trap.
"Welcome to my home," Darius said.
He stood beside her at the edge of the Scourge's border, his golden eyes scanning the tree line. The witch's stone had gone dark in his pocket—used up, spent, gone. There was no going back now.
Selene adjusted Nyra in the sling across her chest. Her daughter was awake, watching the forest with those unsettling green eyes, her tiny fists clutching the fabric of Selene's veil.
"It's loud," Nyra said.
It was her second word. Her first had been "Momma," three months ago. Her second, apparently, was an observation about the natural world.
Selene looked at Darius. "She means the birds."
"I know what she means." Darius's jaw tightened. "The Scourge is silent. The outside world isn't. She'll adjust."
"Will she?" Selene's voice was flat. "She's never been outside the mist. She's never felt wind on her face that wasn't poisoned. She's never heard a bird that wasn't a bone-hawk circling a corpse."
Darius turned to face her.
"Then it's time she learned," he said. "The world isn't kind, Selene. You know that better than anyone. But it's not all cruelty. There's beauty here too. You just have to look for it."
Selene wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that beauty was a luxury she couldn't afford, that hope was a wound that hadn't healed, that the only thing the outside world had ever given her was pain.
But Nyra giggled at a butterfly, and Selene's heart cracked—just a little.
"Fine," she said. "Show me your pack. But if anyone threatens my daughter—"
"I know." Darius's hand moved to his sword. "You'll rot them from the inside out. Slowly. Over weeks."
"You remembered."
"I remember everything you say." He held out his hand. "Shall we?"
Selene looked at his palm. Calloused. Scarred. Warm.
She didn't take it.
"Lead the way," she said. "I'll follow."
Darius's golden eyes flickered—disappointment, maybe, or patience—but he nodded and started walking.
Selene followed, Nyra warm against her chest, the Scourge mist still clinging to her hair like a goodbye kiss.
---
The Shadow Fang pack house was not what Selene expected.
She had grown up in the Crescent Pack's fortress—black stone walls, iron gates, towers that scraped the sky like accusing fingers. Everything about the Crescent Pack had been designed to intimidate, to dominate, to remind visitors that they were small and the Bloodmoon family was vast.
The Shadow Fang pack house was different.
It was built into the mountain, not on top of it. Walls of rough-hewn stone rose from the earth like they had grown there, covered in moss and climbing ivy and the occasional splash of wildflowers. Smoke curled from chimneys tucked into unexpected places. Children's laughter echoed from somewhere unseen.
It looked like a home.
It looked like everything Selene had never had.
"This way," Darius said, leading her through a gate that had no guards—just two elderly wolves playing cards at a rickety table.
They didn't look up.
"Darius," one of them said, not glancing from his cards. "You brought company."
"The healer," the other added. "About time."
Darius nodded at them—respectful, almost warm—and kept walking.
Selene hurried to catch up. "They didn't even look at me."
"They didn't need to. They could smell the Scourge on you from fifty paces." Darius's voice was matter-of-fact. "Everyone in the pack knows I was hunting you. Everyone knows what you are."
"And they're not afraid?"
"They're dying." Darius stopped at a heavy oak door. "The plague has taken two hundred wolves in five years. Children. Elders. Warriors. Everyone. Fear of the Scourge is nothing compared to fear of watching your own child waste away."
He pushed open the door.
The pack's great hall was cavernous—not as large as the Crescent Pack's judgment hall, but warmer. Torches burned in iron sconces. A massive fireplace crackled at the far end. Tapestries depicting wolf gods and ancient battles hung from the walls.
And everywhere—everywhere—there were wolves.
Hundreds of them.
They turned as one when Selene entered.
She felt their eyes on her like physical weight. Felt their fear, their curiosity, their desperation. Some of them clutched children to their chests. Others leaned on canes, their bodies ravaged by the plague that Darius had described.
And some of them—the ones in the back, the ones with hard eyes and harder mouths—looked at her like they wanted her dead.
"She's Scourge-touched," a voice hissed from the crowd. "Look at her eyes. Look at her hands."
Selene didn't hide.
She let them see the silver lines branching across her skin, the pale green glow of her irises, the way the Scourge mist still curled around her hair like a living crown.
"I am Selene Nightshade," she said. Her voice carried to every corner of the hall. "I am the daughter of the Scourge. I am a healer. And I am here to save your pack."
Silence.
Then an old woman stepped forward.
She was ancient—older than anyone Selene had ever seen, her face a map of wrinkles, her eyes milky with cataracts. But her voice was sharp as a blade.
"You're the one who killed my son."
Selene went very still.
"The poison," the woman continued. "The one you sold to the rogue. My son was guarding Alpha Kael when the poison struck. He died trying to save his Alpha. Your poison killed him."
Darius moved to intervene, but Selene held up her hand.
"Your son's name?" she asked.
"Theron."
Selene closed her eyes.
She remembered the story. The rogue Garret, trembling as he handed over the silver. "My mate was stolen," he had said. "My child was killed. The Alpha who did it laughed while his pack burned."
Selene had believed him.
She had sold him the poison without asking for the Alpha's name, without verifying the story, without caring. She had been so full of rage, so hungry for revenge, that she had handed death to a stranger and thought nothing of it.
Now that death had a name.
Theron.
Theron, husband of Mira. Theron, father of the child she had saved in the cavern.
Theron, who had held Selene down while Kael cut her mark.
Selene opened her eyes.
"I didn't know your son," she said to the old woman. "I didn't know the poison would be used on Alpha Kael. I didn't know Theron would die."
"You didn't care," the woman spat.
"No." Selene's voice was quiet. "I didn't. I was angry. I was broken. I wanted the world to hurt the way I hurt. And your son paid the price for my rage."
The hall was silent.
"I can't bring him back," Selene continued. "I can't undo what I did. But I can save the wolves who are still alive. I can heal the plague that's eating your pack from the inside. I can try to be better than I was."
She looked at the old woman.
"That's not forgiveness," she said. "That's not justice. That's just... what I can offer. Take it or leave it."
The old woman stared at her for a long, terrible moment.
Then she stepped aside.
"Heal my granddaughter," she said. "She's seven years old. She has the plague. If you save her—" The woman's voice cracked. "If you save her, I'll consider your debt paid."
Selene nodded.
"Take me to her."
---
The child's name was Lilia.
She lay in a small bed in a small room, surrounded by herbs and charms and the desperate prayers of a family that had already lost too much. Her skin was gray. Her lips were blue. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, irregular gasps.
The plague was visible to Selene's eyes—a writhing mass of black threads wrapped around the child's heart, her lungs, her spine. It was worse than anything she had seen in the cavern. More aggressive. More hungry.
This is what killed two hundred wolves, the Scourge whispered inside her. This is what Darius has been fighting.
Can I heal it?
You can try. But the plague is intelligent. It will fight back.
Selene knelt beside the bed.
Lilia's mother—a young woman with hollow eyes and trembling hands—grabbed Selene's arm.
"Please," she whispered. "She's all I have left. Her father died last winter. Her brother died in the spring. If I lose her—"
"You won't," Selene said.
She didn't know if it was true. But she said it anyway.
She placed her palms on Lilia's chest.
And she pulled.
The plague screamed.
It was louder than anything Selene had ever absorbed—louder than the wyrm venom, louder than Kael's poison, louder than the accumulated rot of a hundred wolves. The black threads twisted and thrashed, trying to burrow deeper into the child's flesh, trying to escape Selene's touch.
But Selene was the daughter of the Scourge.
She had been empty. She had been filled. She had turned death into flowers and curses into trees.
This plague was nothing.
She pulled harder.
The black threads flowed up through her fingers, into her wrists, her arms, her chest. They joined the other infections inside her—the wyrm venom, the poisons, the accumulated rot of a year of healing—and they settled.
Not peacefully. The plague was angry. It wanted to consume her the way it had consumed two hundred wolves.
But Selene had been consumed before.
She had survived.
The last of the black threads left Lilia's body.
The child gasped.
Her eyes flew open—brown, healthy, alive. Color flooded back into her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell in deep, steady breaths.
"Momma?" Lilia said.
The mother collapsed against the bed, sobbing.
Selene stood up.
The plague was inside her now, pressing against her organs, demanding to be released. She needed to find a dead tree, a pile of bones, something to absorb the rot before it turned on her.
But before she could move—
"She's a monster," someone said from the doorway.
Selene turned.
A man stood there—tall, broad-shouldered, with the same golden eyes as Darius. His face was twisted with fear and rage and something that looked like jealousy.
"She's Scourge-touched," the man continued. "She just absorbed a plague that's been killing us for five years. She took it into her body. That's not healing. That's possession."
"She saved Lilia," the mother protested.
"At what cost?" The man stepped into the room. "Look at her. Look at her eyes. She's not a wolf anymore. She's not even human. She's a vessel for the Scourge, and the Scourge is hungry."
Darius appeared behind the man. "Roran. Step back."
"No." Roran's voice was shaking. "You brought this thing into our home. You brought the Scourge to our doorstep. And now you expect us to trust her?"
"Lilia is alive," Darius said quietly. "The plague is gone from her body. That's more than any of our healers could do."
"Because our healers aren't monsters!"
The word hung in the air.
Monster.
Selene had been called many things. Omega. Broken. Weak. Liar.
But monster was new.
She looked at Roran—really looked at him. Saw the fear in his golden eyes. Saw the desperation. Saw the grief of a man who had lost too much and was looking for someone to blame.
"You're afraid," Selene said. "That's fine. Fear is reasonable. I'm afraid too."
Roran blinked. "What?"
"I'm afraid every day. I'm afraid of hurting people. I'm afraid of losing control. I'm afraid that the Scourge inside me will wake up one day and decide it doesn't want to be a healer anymore—it wants to be a destroyer."
She stepped closer to him.
"But I'm also afraid of something else. I'm afraid of watching children die. I'm afraid of standing by while a plague eats a pack from the inside. I'm afraid of being the woman I was a year ago—the woman who sold poison to a stranger and didn't ask questions."
She stopped in front of him.
"I'm not a monster, Roran. I'm a woman who was broken and rebuilt. I'm a mother who would burn the world for her daughter. I'm a healer who takes rot into herself so others don't have to suffer."
She held out her hands—the silver lines glowing, the Scourge mist curling around her fingers.
"If that makes me a monster," she said, "then so be it. But I'm the only monster who can save your pack."
Roran stared at her hands.
Then at her face.
Then at Darius, who was watching with an expression Selene couldn't read.
"She's right," Darius said finally. "She's our only hope. The plague has killed two hundred wolves. It will kill two hundred more if we don't stop it. Selene is the only one who can see the plague—who can touch it without dying."
He walked to Selene's side.
"I know you're afraid. I'm afraid too. But fear doesn't get to make this decision. I make this decision. And I say she stays."
Roran's jaw tightened. For a moment, Selene thought he would fight.
Then his shoulders sagged.
"Fine," he said. "But if she hurts anyone—if the Scourge takes over—"
"Then I'll kill her myself," Darius said.
His voice was calm. Certain. Honest.
Selene believed him.
And somehow, that made her trust him more.
---
Roran left.
The mother took Lilia to another room, crying and thanking Selene in equal measure. The crowd outside the door dispersed, whispering among themselves.
Selene stood alone in the small room, the plague burning inside her chest, her hands shaking with the effort of keeping it contained.
"You need to release it," Darius said.
"There's no dead tree here. No pile of bones. Nothing to absorb the rot."
Darius looked around the room. His eyes landed on a wooden post in the corner—old, cracked, probably load-bearing.
"Will that work?"
Selene walked to the post. Placed her palm against the wood.
And pushed.
The plague flowed out of her in a torrent of black smoke, screaming as it left her body. It sank into the wood, making the post pulse with dark light. Cracks spread across the surface. The wood groaned.
Then—
Flowers.
Black flowers, edged with silver, bloomed from every crack. Their petals unfurled slowly, gracefully, beautifully. They smelled like night-blooming jasmine and old blood and the memory of rain.
Darius stared at the flowers.
"Does that happen every time?"
"Every time," Selene said.
She was exhausted. The healing had taken more out of her than she wanted to admit. Her legs were shaking. Her vision was blurring at the edges.
Not now, she told herself. Not in front of him.
But her body didn't listen.
She swayed.
Darius caught her.
His arms were warm and steady and safe in a way that made no sense. He held her against his chest, one hand on her back, the other cradling the back of her head.
"You overdid it," he said.
"I had to." Selene's voice was muffled against his shirt. "The child was dying."
"You saved her. Now let me save you."
He carried her out of the room.
Selene wanted to protest—wanted to tell him she could walk, that she didn't need his help, that she wasn't some weak Omega who collapsed after every healing.
But she was tired.
So tired.
And Darius's arms were so warm.
Nyra, still in the sling, reached up and patted Darius's face.
"Safe," Nyra said.
Her third word.
Selene closed her eyes.
---
She woke in a bed that wasn't hers.
The sheets were soft—real linen, not the rough moss of the cavern. The pillows smelled like cedar and something else, something male.
Darius's room.
Selene sat up too fast, her head spinning. She was alone—no Darius, no Nyra, no guards. Just her and the dying fire in the hearth and the black flowers climbing up the wooden bedpost.
He brought me to his room, she thought. His personal room.
The Scourge mist inside her stirred.
Interesting, it whispered.
Shut up.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her body ached—the plague she had absorbed had left residue behind, a toxic sludge that would take days to fully process. But she could walk. Could fight. Could survive.
She always could.
The door opened.
Darius walked in, carrying Nyra.
His daughter—her daughter—was eating a piece of bread with fierce concentration, her silver hair sticking up in every direction, her green eyes bright and alert.
"Momma," Nyra said, reaching for Selene.
Selene took her. Held her close. Breathed in the scent of her—Scourge mist and baby powder and something that was just Nyra.
"She ate well," Darius said. "Finn packed enough dried meat for a week. The kitchen staff warmed some milk for her. She's been asking for you."
Selene looked at him.
He had changed his clothes—no more travel-stained leather. He wore a simple linen shirt and dark trousers, his scarred arms bare, his golden eyes softer than she had ever seen them.
"Why did you bring me here?" she asked. "Your room. Not a guest room. Not the healing wing. Your room."
Darius was quiet for a moment.
"Because the pack is afraid of you," he said finally. "And if they see you in my room—in my bed—they'll think twice before moving against you."
"You're using me."
"I'm protecting you." He stepped closer. "There's a difference."
Selene's jaw tightened. "I don't need protection."
"You just collapsed. After healing one child. There are two hundred more wolves with the plague. You can't save them if you're dead."
"I won't die."
"You almost did." Darius's voice was hard. "I saw you, Selene. I saw the plague fighting back. I saw it try to consume you. If you hadn't released it into that post—"
"Then I would have found another way."
"Would you?" He was standing close now. Close enough that she could smell him—smoke and leather and something underneath, something that made the Scourge mist inside her hum.
"You're not invincible," he said. "You're not a goddess. You're a woman who was broken and rebuilt, yes. But rebuilt things can break again."
Selene stared at him.
No one had ever spoken to her like this. Not Kael—Kael had either worshiped her or despised her, with nothing in between. Not Finn—Finn was too grateful, too loyal, too young. Not the wolves she healed—they saw her as a miracle, a savior, a thing.
Darius saw her as a person.
Flawed. Breakable. Real.
"Why do you care?" she asked. "I'm not your mate. I'm not your healer. I'm just a woman you dragged out of the Scourge because your pack is dying."
Darius's golden eyes held hers.
"Maybe I'm tired of watching things die," he said. "Maybe I'm tired of being the Alpha who couldn't save anyone. Maybe I look at you and see someone who's been through hell and came out fighting—and I want to fight beside her."
Selene's heart—her cold, strange, Scourge-touched heart—beat once. Hard.
"That's dangerous," she said.
"I know."
"You barely know me."
"I know enough."
He reached out. Slowly. Giving her time to pull away.
She didn't.
His fingers brushed her cheek—the unscarred side, the side that still looked almost human. His touch was light. Gentle. Reverent.
"You saved Lilia," he said. "You walked into a room full of wolves who hate you, and you saved a child's life. That's not the act of a monster. That's the act of a healer."
Selene's eyes burned.
She hadn't cried in months. Hadn't let herself. Crying was weakness, and weakness was death, and death was the Scourge's domain.
But Darius's touch—Darius's words—they cracked something inside her.
"I'm not a hero," she whispered.
"No," he agreed. "You're something better. You're someone who keeps going even when there's no reason to. Someone who gets back up even after the world kicks her down."
He pulled his hand away.
"Rest," he said. "Tonight, we plan. Tomorrow, we heal. One wolf at a time."
He walked to the door.
"Darius," Selene said.
He turned.
"Thank you. For not leaving me in the hall."
Darius smiled—a small, tired smile that made him look younger.
"I'll never leave you, Selene. Not if you give me a reason to stay."
He left.
Selene sat on the bed, holding Nyra, staring at the door.
The Scourge mist inside her was warm.
Dangerous, she thought again.
But for the first time in a long time, dangerous didn't feel like a warning.
It felt like a promise.