The silence that followed was the most honest thing any of them had said all night.
Because they all knew the answer.
A feral wolf during a full moon didn’t negotiate.
Didn’t hold back.
Didn’t rember agreents or contracts or paynt schedules.
It took what it wanted and marked what it claid and there was no reasoning with it.
And for four days, all three of their wolves had been completely, devastatingly focused on exactly one thing.
"We send her away," Nicholas said.
Both brothers looked at him.
"During the full moon," he continued. "We send her to the east wing. Lock it down. Guards on every entrance. She doesn’t co near us and we don’t go near her until it passes."
"And if our wolves lose control completely without her nearby?" Lucian asked.
"Then we deal with it ourselves." Nicholas’s jaw was tight. "Like we always have."
"It’s getting worse, Lucian said."
"I know. Sebastian responded"
"We need to be careful," Nicholas said. "She’s here for a reason. A month. Paynt for a debt. That’s what she is to us."
"Is it?" Lucian looked at him.
"That’s what she has to be."
"You keep saying that," Sebastian said quietly. "And every ti you say it, it sounds less true."
Nicholas looked at his brother for a long mont.
Then he picked up his whiskey. Drank it in one motion and set the glass down.
"We need to find that witch," Lucian said quietly. "The one from the record. Or at least find out which coven helped our ancestor and why. Because eleven years of stability didn’t co from good luck and iron discipline."
"Agreed," Nicholas said. "After the full moon. We dig deeper."
"And in the anti?"
Nicholas looked toward the window. Toward the dark grounds beyond.
"In the anti," he said quietly, "we have seven days to figure out how to be in the sa estate as her without losing everything we’re trying to hold together and fucking her to death"
***
Seven days.
She counted them again, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, just to make sure she hadn’t lost track.
Seven days since the car pulled away from oga housing with her inside it.
Seven days since she’d co through those iron gates.
Seven days of hands and mouths and commands and the particular exhaustion that ca from having your body treated like it belonged to soone else.
She looked at herself in the mirror and tried to recognize the girl looking back.
It was getting harder.
Her face was the sa. Sa dark eyes, sa sharp jaw, sa mouth that had learned to stay pressed shut when it wanted to say things that would only make everything worse.
But the rest of her told a different story.
The bruises had shifted color, the deep purples fading to greens and yellows at the edges, new ones layered over the healing ones like paint on canvas. Her hips bore the clearest evidence. Handprints, both sides, fingerprint-shaped bruises that mapped exactly how each of them held her when they wanted her still.
Bite marks on her shoulder. Her collarbone. The curve of her neck.
Inner thighs.
She looked at those the longest.
Seven days of this.
Twenty-three more to go.
She turned away from the mirror before the thought could finish forming into sothing she couldn’t push back down.
***
The bedroom was quiet.
Morning light ca through the curtains in thin lines, striping the floor gold. The bed was made....she’d started doing that every morning, the small act of order keeping sothing in her from unraveling completely.
Her eyes moved to the wall beside the window.
She’d been thinking about it for three days.
Decided this morning.
She crossed to the small writing desk in the corner, opened the drawer, found what she was looking for, a small tal letter opener, narrow enough, hard enough.
She carried it to the wall.
Pressed the tip against the plaster.
Drew the first line.
Thin. Straight. Deliberate.
Then the second.
Third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Sixth.
She paused before the seventh.
Because seven felt heavier than the others. Seven days of surviving sothing she’d been certain would break her.
She drew the seventh line.
Stepped back and looked at them.
Seven marks on a wall in a room that wasn’t hers, in an estate that wasn’t hers, surrounded by a pack that wasn’t hers.
Twenty-three more.
She counted the empty wall space where those marks would eventually go.
Then she set down the letter opener and sat on the edge of the bed.
***
The estate had a particular kind of silence in the late afternoon.
Not peaceful. Just empty. The kind of quiet that made the walls feel closer and the days feel longer and the marks on the wall feel like they were multiplying instead of shrinking.
Lilith was still staring at them when the knock ca.
Mrs. Hallowell entered without waiting for an answer. She carried a small wooden box and a bowl of warm water. She didn’t explain herself. Just set everything on the dresser and turned to look at Lilith with those sharp eyes.
"I should have co sooner," she said. "Sit still child."
It wasn’t a question.
Lilith turned to face her.
Mrs. Hallowell opened the wooden box. Inside were small glass jars, folded cloth strips, things that slled dicinal and herbal and faintly of sothing Lilith couldn’t na.
"Give your hands first," the older woman said.
Lilith held them out.
The old woman examined them with the efficiency of soone who’d done this many tis. Turned them over. Checked the wrists where grip marks had blood purple and were only now fading to green.
She dipped cloth into the warm water and began cleaning the skin with careful strokes.
Lilith said nothing.
The silence was surprisingly comfortable.
"You’ve been counting," Mrs. Hallowell said after a while. Her eyes moved briefly to the wall. To the seven marks.
"Yes."
"How many left?"
"Twenty-three."
The older woman nodded. Opened one of the small jars, sothing pale and thick that slled like arnica and sothing else underneath. Applied it to the worst of the bruising on Lilith’s wrists with gentle fingers.
"Does it help?" Lilith asked. "The salve."
"It speeds the healing. Reduces the deeper bruising, You’ll still mark easily for a while. That’s just how it is when the healing can’t keep up with the damage."
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