146

146
Rowen's pov

After that horrid day 4 weeks ago everything seemed off.
The days blurred by, Sleep came in fitful cycles. Dreaming of Maeve dying. Of us dying and all coming back.

I trained until the bags split and sand bled across the floor and nobody yelled because nobody had the energy to.
Axel paced my bones. He wanted to run, to tear, to find the edge of the woods and keep going until the sky changed color. He wanted to crawl onto the bed and tuck himself around the small, trembling thing Selene had put back in our hands. He wanted to bite the moon until it bled.
I wanted to do all those things too.

Instead I rebuilt walls. Bricks. Smashed glass. The parts of me that can’t sit still without getting mean. If I stopped moving I saw it all again—the light, the way her body got lost inside it, the wrong quiet that came after. I saw her in that bed, waking with her eyes too dim. I saw her mouth shape our names like it weighed more than she could lift.

She started running again after the first week. I followed at a distance so she wouldn’t feel trapped. She flinched when anybody reached too fast. She dodged sunlight like it had claws. She was shorter, and it messes with your head more than you think, to look down into a face you’re used to meeting almost straight on. Brinley handled it best, soft voice and steady hands. Kieran tried to be careful and tried to make sure that he was there for her without being over bearing.

Me? I failed quietly and often.

The bond that used to hum between the four of us was a high, thin wire now, and she wasn’t on it. The three of us tugged at each other like a rope that’s lost its anchor and keeps slipping through palms. Sometimes it felt like we were holding each other up. Sometimes it felt like we were all drowning and too polite to say it.

We tried not to talk about marks. About fate. About the words other people put on us. We tried not to talk about Selene, but silence always has a seam. Last week we had all been sitting at our lunch table and Maeve had ran off looking paler than a ghost she ran as fast as she could out. Kieran flinched at the abruptness of it. Like she’d hit him. I pretended I didn’t notice that the air around Maeve had a new thread in it—something warm and wrong and ordinary and holy. She smelt like him.

I noticed other things first. How food turned her stomach constatnly.
How she pressed the heel of her hand into her ribs after a run and stared at the trees like they had 4 trunks
How her wolf Stormi kept close to us on runs, until she'd shift back gagging and throwing up.

“She’s healing,” people said.

“Maybe,” I said, and Axel bared his teeth at the wall. WE both knew something else was going on. But I couldnt say anthing,

You can only pace for so long before the floor remembers you. One night I went down to the training yard and found Kieran already there, shirt stuck to his shoulders, breath ragged. He didn’t look at me when he said, “I can smell myself on her. Even now.”

I didn’t say what I wanted to say, which was that I could smell him on her and not Brinley. Because despite us all being mated, none of us have had sex since the battle. Since everything changed.

Instead of saying what I wanted too, I said, “If she does maybe it’s not a curse.” And even then I hated the way my voice sounded around the word if.

He glanced over. He didn’t smile. “You don’t think Selene would be that cruel?”

“I think gods don’t have to be cruel,” I said. “They’re just… not human.”

He went still at that. Like he was listening to the bones of the building. “She made us a promise,” he said finally. “About Maeve remembering.”

“She kept it,” I said. “That doesn’t mean she kept anything else.”

We didn’t say more. He hit the bags until his hands bled. I taped his knuckles with the gentleness I only know how to use in one direction.

The next morning Maeve stumbled on the path behind the dorms and caught herself with her hands. Brinley and I both moved and then both froze because Maeve had learned to spook at our motion. She sat there for a second with her head down like she was listening to a thing only she could hear. When she finally looked up, Brinley’s face was already wet.

“Let me help you.” Brinley said, and reached for her..

Im not even sure why she fliches so much.. Despite everything we had never hurt her.. Not physically at least. Mentally? yeah we really fucked her with that one. For months.

That night Maeve knocked on Brin’s door with tea and a smile that shook. I was down the hall watching.. trying to make sure I'd be the first body between Maeve and anything that wanted to hurt her. I was a silent body guard that I dont think she even noticed.

The door closed. Lights hummed. I stared at the sky and told myself I didn’t need to be in that room to know if the ground was about to drop.

When it opened again, Brinley’s eyes found me like they were hungry. She didn’t speak out loud. 

I nodded and headed to the training feild because I had a bad feeling about what that conversation meant.
After about 10 minutes of throwing an Axe around to distract myself Kieran had come rushing out of the school. I ran to him without hesitation.
"Pregnant" YUP SHIT. I knew this wasnt good..

People think I am the steady one. I let them think that.. because
Truth is, if you peel me down to bone, I’m a storm with legs. I only learned how to stand still because two people taught me how to want to. Tonight the storm won. By the time we shouldered through the infirmary doors my hands were shaking so hard I had to flatten them against my thighs to stop them.
Brinley was pacing the tile raw. When she saw us, something eased in her shoulders and I wanted to pull her into my chest and keep her there where the world can’t touch her unless it goes through me first.

“She’s with the healer,” Brin said. “She wanted you both here.”